Apple II Networking
By David Empson
Copyright (c) 1996 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
Ever since the education market embraced large numbers of Apple IIs, Apple Computer has delivered networking solutions for all of its computers. The Apple IIe sitting in your closet could be given a new lease of life by networking it with your Apple IIgs and Macintosh. The Apple IIs can use any printer connected to the network and with a Macintosh as a server, the Apple IIs can use any hard disk connected to the Mac as its own.
So how does one go about connecting them up? Well, the Apple IIgs has AppleTalk built in and requires just a standard printer cable. The Apple IIe requires a network card.
David Empson (dempson@actrix.gen.nz), from the Wellington Apple Users Group, explains how to connect an Apple IIe to an Appletalk network.
Apple shipped the Apple II Workstation Card (part number 820-0204-A, ROM 341-0358-A) to allow enhanced Apple IIe with at least 128K of RAM to be connected to an Appletalk network.
In addition to the card itself, you need the following items:
1. The connectors which mount on the back panel. This consists of a small plastic box which provides two Mini-Din-8 connectors. It has a pair of 10-way ribbon cables which plug into the card.
2. The manual which comes with the card may be useful. It has some information about installation, using an AppleShare file server, and documentation for the software provided with the card (Printer Namer, Chooser II, Access Privileges, File Server Log On, File Server Log Off).
3. The disk that is supplied with the card. This is called the "Apple II Workstation Software". It is included on every Apple Developer Support CD that includes the Apple II software (up to early 1993, possibly), and is on the IIgs System 6.0 Golden Master CD-ROM. It might be available from other sources, e.g. the Golden Orchard CD-ROM.
4. Appropriate network connectors (LocalTalk drop boxes, or PhoneNet or equivalent). If you are only connecting two devices, you can do it with a simple serial cable.
The card is also able to connect to normal serial devices. The Chooser program allows you to select the second port for a local ImageWriter II, for example, without having to unplug the AppleTalk cable.
To access the network, you need to boot from a ProDOS disk which includes the AppleTalk INIT file "ATINIT" in the root directory, and is running ProDOS-8 1.5 or later (1.4 works, but not very well). You need the right version of this - there are different ones for the IIgs and IIe (the A2WS disk includes the IIe version).
If you want to access the Mac as a file server, you can log on using a text interface which is similar to the AppleShare control panel on the IIgs or Mac. The Mac must have System 7 with File Sharing turned on, or be running the full AppleShare server software. If you want to boot the IIe over the network, the Mac must be running AppleShare version 2.x (requires Mac System 6.x and takes over the whole computer) or 3.x (requires Mac System 7.x and can run at the same time as other applications). Version 4.0 or later doesn't support network booting for an Apple II.
In order to print to a LaserWriter on the network from an Apple IIe you would use the Chooser to select the LaserWriter, download the ImageWriter II emulator (unless it is already present), then just tell your software to print to an ImageWriter II in the slot containing the workstation card.

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