#How do I build a LAN?
27 messages in this thread
Feeling a desperate need for speed, I plan to buy a Pentium to complement my 2
Amigas. Here's the question: HOW DO I NETWORK THESE COMPUTERS? I know I need
an Ethernet card in each machine. The bit I'm not clear on is can I keep all
my SCSI devices on one of the Amigas and still access them from a PC machine?
Does client/server allow the server (the PC) to read and write to the client
drives? Or do file requests have to be initiated from the client machines? I
don't want to shift all my drive space to a PC server for a few reasons,
primarily that I have about 2 years and 100 Gbytes of work stored on Amiga tape
drives (via AmiBack), secondarily that all my animation work will still go thru
a FC24 on an Amiga for output, so I can use a local hard drive for single frame
recording. HELP! I've seen discussions of a couple different Amiga networking
options, but my questions remain. Any ideas? Thanks much for any light
shed… — Jeff Brown, Fire Mist Media (ready to answer your video questions!)
Jeff,
Unless things have changed since I last checked on doing this, the only option
available is the connection of your Amiga to a Novell network. The Amiga will
be strictly a client, and cannot function as a server, thus the PC's will not
be able to access the Amiga's drives. The company that makes the software to
connect the Amiga is called Oxxi, and it's overpriced, IMHO, at around $250 to
connect a single Amiga, if memory serves me correctly. In addition, the Amiga
requires special Ethernet or Arcnet cards that cost about 6X what their PC
brethren go for. If you elect to do this, I'll make you a great deal on a
Novell 3.11 5 user package that I no longer use…
Jerry
Jerry-Jeff,
An Australian company is now offering an EtherNet Network for the Amiga
(s) called Quicknet "a peer to peer" network (quote from their ad in the
Amiga Downunder magazine April'94 issue).
They are at the following address/phone/Fax
Resourse Management Force P/L
4 Lapis Cresent, Arncliffe,
NSW 2205
Australia
Tel (02) 556-1316
Fax (02) 556-1524
This may possibly help…….
Laurie Carroll AKL NZ
Longdistance Autopilot
1. Does the add say anything about connecting Amigas and PCs as Peers ?
2. I have cousins in NSW. They are interested in getting a computer and we have
talked about getting them a CIS account so we could correspond more readily.
What are the costs to do this in NSW these days ? Is CIS available there as CIS
or under some other name ?
Thanks
Russ
Russ,
CIS is available in Australia, they can be contacted at 008-023-158 which
is their toll free number. CIS-Pacific is run by the Austarlian branch of
Fujitsu in Sydney.
The rates are alot better than what I was paying in the past through
PACNET here in New Zealand, there are now 9600 Baud access nodes (phone)
in Australia/New Zealand but I am not sure if 14400 is available in
Australia yet (Not in NZ-14400)
I would suggest that your friends contact CIS-Pacific at the above number
for further info/costs etc….
The nearest agent for Quicknet here in NZ is a toll call away so I would
suggest that either yourself or your friends in NSW contact "RMF" which is
in NSW for more info.
Rgds
Laurie Carroll AKL NZ
Longdistance Autopilot
Russ,
Did you get my reply a couple of days ago??
My new modem/A2000 set-up is not adjusted yet and I am not sure if the
reply was sent.
Laurie Carroll AKL NZ
Longdistance Autopilot
Laurie –
Do you know prices ("An Australian company is now offering an EtherNet
Network for the Amiga called Quicknet")?
. . . . JimDoc, on AutoPilot
Jim,
Unfortunately I do not know how much $$ they want for their product, but
you could contact them at
Phone: (02) 556-1316
Fax: (02) 556-1524
I havent seen any retail prices for it here in NZ yet so cant gage it from
here.
I hope to see them at the WOC show in Sydney later this year….
Rgds
Laurie Carroll AKL NZ
Longdistance Autopilot
Jim,
Did you get my reply a couple of days ago??
My new modem/A2000 set-up is not set-up correctly yet and I am not sure if
the reply was sent.
Laurie Carroll AKL NZ
Longdistance Autopilot
Yes, I got your reply. Just didn't have any re-reply to make <g>.
. . . . JimDoc, on AutoPilot
There's always TCP/IP. It doesn't give device-level or volume-level sharing,
but it does let youtransfer files, and it's free on the PC side, and free or
cheap on the Amiga side. And if you run WinNT, I can even point you to a free
NFS server that lets you mount the PC's drives on the Amiga, but not the other
way 'around.
thanks for the info… I'm getting closer to what I want, I guess.
Hello John!
Glad you chimed in. Are you still selling any of the Dec or was it Xwindows
Client Stuff you were in to some time ago ?
No, Syndesis Corp. sold off the networking software in late 1992. We're just 3D
conversion tools now.
Where can I find out more about TCP/IP or any other method to Peer connect
Amigas and PCs ?
I've learned it on my own. I don't think I've ever seen an article about this
topic, although I pitched it to AmigaWorld recently.
Russ,
PMFJI. I recently picked-up the latest copy of a new magazine called
INTERNET WORLD. The May issue has a great article on the use of the Amiga
to access the internet. Complete with attractive screen shots, the
article discusses Amiga Mosaic, Gopher, and TCP/IP among other things. It
is a must read for information-superhighway-aspiring Amigans.
Randy
I saw that same article. Looks great. Mosaic looked very nice. I have no idea
how to proceed on it. Mosaic is on CIS for the Amiga, but all this TCP/IP stuff
for Internet is a bit weird for someone who's used to just average online info
services like CIS. Anyone out there successfully doing the Internet via Amiga
and Mosaic more info and sud\ggesttions would be appreciated (like what exactly
am I looking for for access?)…
I use ENLAN on the Amiga and Digital Pathworks on the PC side. This
gives you a DECNET connection over ethernet. It is very fast.
Steve Peters
I am curious John, have you any plans for the Power PC or NT ? That seems to be
the logical path of Progression for DTV and 3d tools. What do you think ?
Russ
Yes, I'm happily running WinNT on 486/66 these days. I almost always boot into
it. I'm a cautious sort, so that says a lot. I'm not going to buy a
first-generation PowerPC unless absolutely forced by market demand for a
version of InterChange on that platform. I like to buy second generation, or
better yet, trailing edge technology. I hate wasting three weeks or losing
files because I've discovered a bug in the hardware. Reports of the Alpha and
PowerPC machines are very good news for 3D, yes – the maker of one popular Mac
3D program told me that he thinks people will be surprised that the PowerPC
will be *faster* than the marketing hype. Or so he said because of the
preliminary versions of their (Electric Image) 3D renderer as ported to the
Apple PowerPC.
I'm pretty sure from your description that this is NOT what you want —
i.e., slow but cheap — but for completeness I wanted to be sure you knew
about it: In AmigaUser
[72117,241] Lib: 5
TNXA11.LZH/Bin Bytes: 57446, Count: 291, 05-Jan-92(12-Jan-92)
Last:13-Feb-94
Title : Twin Express 1.1a Serial File Transfer Program
Keywords: FILE TRANSFER SERIAL REMOTE BACKUP IBM
Twin Express 1.1a (Amiga) is a serial file transfer program.
Features transfer speed of about 22,000 bytes/second, compatibility
between Amiga and IBM version (with translation of text files),
DOS-like commands, support for wildcards & subdirectories, on-line
help, error detection & correction, etc. Corrects a bug in version 1.1.
Shareware from Omnicode.
There was some discussion a while ago of SCSI networking — PC SCSI board
and Amiga SCSI boards connected to the same drives. There are hazards, and
cable length may be critical. I just tried to find the saved messages
without success, but I think Mike Schiller was one who was doing it.
. . . . JimDoc, on AutoPilot
Thanks for info. I really need addressable remote drives; i.e., to be able to
render from two or more machines to one drive. I don't know if a transfer
util. will do it?
Jeff,I have been folowing the Amiga Networking market and all I have seen are 4
scenarios.
Scenarios Problems
1.) RS232 cable via a laplink like utility only a file transfer utility not
a real network
2.) Parnet no PC connection(that
I am aware of)
3.) Novell Amiga Clients (Oxxi?) Must dedicate PC to use as file
server*
4.) John Foust's Dec Net client dont know much about this one
see Syndesis in
Amigavendor
*Re: #3 If you use OS/2 on the Pentium you can run Novell 4.01 for OS/2.
This can be run in "non dedicated" mode as a task under OS/2 but requires
a dedicated disk partition and memory. I would not want to run this scenario
in any less than 20 meg of Ram, 32 would be more like it, 16 for OS/2 and
16 for Novell with at least Half a gig of drive for each. The OS/2 side can be
a client to the Novell side under this scenario. Only one NIC card for the
pentium would be required for external connections.
Does any one know more about this ? Are there Powerlan, lantastic, or
Appletalk(slow) clients available for Peer to Peer networkn=ing of Amigas and
PCs ?
Russ (in Ventura County CA)