Hi Tom,

Below is a note documenting my home networking set-up. I wrote it for the 
benefit of my father who is trying to get his Personal LaserWriter 300 
work with his LC475 and his B&W Power Mac (300, I think). I think it would 
apply to him, except that he might need a iPrint SL instead of an iPrint LT. I 
pass it on to you for your empathy and amusement.

Next on my agenda is to install the Iomega UltraSCSI PCI card. By the way, I 
have a Vimage 240/G3 card in my L2 cache slot, thanks to your reports and 
how-to's. I bought it last December, but it took quite a while for me to 
gather the courage to open the back of my Mac and muddle with it. But I did, 
it works great, and I am a happy Mac'er. Thanks for all of your help and 
inspiration. On with the story (I have not taken into account your expertise
 and edited it down; it is just as I sent it.)...

Well, I got my home network working. It wasn't as easy as I had expected, 
but it was partly my ignorance to blame. At any rate, here is a description 
of my set-up and some lessons I learned:

I replaced my Performa 6400's internal 33.6 modem with an external 56K 
modem (Diamond SupraExpress 56e), which I plugged into the modem port. 
On the Performa, the modem port has a plug covering the outlet since the 
outlet is not functional with the internal modem in place. Upon removal of 
the internal modem, I uncovered the outlet, installed the modem scripts 
into the Modem Script folder in my System folder. (Note: The CD-ROM which 
came with the modem had extensive on-line help. From my search through it 
trying to find installation instructions, I found that it was mostly geared 
towards Windows problems.)

I then installed a Farallon FastEther TX-10/100 CommSlot II card where 
the modem had been. Note: One of the reasons I installed the Ethernet card 
in this location was to have both PCI slots available, one for a fast SCSI 
card which I have but have not yet installed, and one for a graphics 
accelerator card (so that I can move up to a bigger monitor (the VRAM in my
 current machine limits me to a 17" monitor) or otherwise improve graphic 
performance (numbers of colors, redraw speed, etc.). I installed the 
Ethernet card's driver software and moved on to the next step. By the way, 
the FastEther CommSlot II card is compatible with both 10 Mbps and 100 
Mbps versions of Ethernet, and it can automatically switch between these 
speeds.

I had bought a Farallon Fast Starlet Ethernet hub (compatible with 100 Mbps
 version of Ethernet). It is a simple box with a power plug and (in this case) 
8 RJ-45 ports. It has LEDs for power, link and activity for each one of the 
ports. I set this on my desk and plugged it in. More on this later...

To connect my Personal LaserWriter 320, I had bought a Farallon iPrint LT 
adapter. I removed the printer cable from both the printer and the Performa 
 and connected the iPrint LT adapter to my printer via a Farallon PhoneNet 
adapter (mini-8 plug on one end and RJ-11 outlet on the other. I plugged a 
phone cord between this PhoneNet adapter and the iPrint LT. There is a 
power plug for this piece of equipment, which I plugged in. I connected a 
Category 5 straight-through unshielded twisted pair cable (with 
terminations in RJ-45 connectors on both ends) between the iPrint and the 
Starlet hub. I then connected another unshielded twisted pair cable (with 
terminations in RJ-45 connectors on both ends) between the Starlet hub and
 the FastEther TX-10/100 CommSlot II card in my Performa. (Note: The 
iPrint adapter comes with two interconnect cables. One is a 
straight-through cable and one is a cross-over cable. They look identical to 
one another except for a small identifier label taped !
to one end of the cross-over cable. Had I read the instructions on the back 
of the box in which the iPrint came, I might have caught this. But I didn't 
till later (didn't even think to look there for instructions), after I was into 
the trouble-shooting stage.)

OK, all connected. I powered up the Performa, and opened the AppleTalk 
control panel to change the network from the Printer Port (where the 
printer cable had been plugged in) to the Ethernet. The AppleTalk gave a 
message about looking for zone information and locked up. Another 
indicator of trouble was the fact that the link LEDs on the iPrint and the 
hub were not lit up. To make a long story short, I was stumped. I tried this, 
I tried that. One of the things I tried involved setting up file sharing. I had not
 loaded this capability on my Performa the last time when I upgraded to 
OS 8.1, because I had no place with which to share files. I went to my OS 
8.5 CD-ROM and tried installing just the network & connectivity portions of
 OS 8.5. This didn't work, so I just went ahead and installed all of OS 8.5 
Still nothing.

I pondered this situation for a week. I drew a diagram of my network and 
some of the attributes associated with it, looking for potential pitfalls. 
That is when the light bulb went off. In the big scheme of things, what I 
wanted to achieve with my network was to communicate at 100 Mbps 
between the Performa and a yet-to-be-acquired iMac; I also wanted both of 
these computers to be able to use the Personal LaserWriter. Since older 
printers can't handle the throughput of 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, the iPrint is 
a 10 Mbps device. I had assumed that the Fast Starlet hub would be able to 
handle both 100 Mbps and 10Mbps. I looked through my small manual which 
came with the Fast Starlet hub. I saw no mentions of 10 Mbps.

On Tuesday, Aug. 17th, I went to the Farallon web site, looking for more 
info. There web site offers a wealth of information. Lo and behold, they had 
a new product for sale: a hub which could handle both Ethernet speeds. It 
looked like it offered the functionality I wanted. Unfortunately, it costs 
$289 direct from Farallon. At this point, I abandoned my plan for a dual 
speed system. I bought a 10 Mbps Ethernet hub from MacConnection and 
figured I had solved all of my problems. I noted, however, that Farallon had 
something else new: a new version of the FastEther TX-10/100 CommSlot II 
card driver software. I noted the address, printed out the info and waited 
for my new hub to show up in the mail.

On Wednesday, I removed the Fast Starlet Ethernet hub from the system and 
replaced it with the 10Mbps Starlet hub. I plugged in the line from the 
iPrint and got indication from the LED on the hub that it was connected. I 
plugged in the line from the FastEther TX-10/100 CommSlot II card and 
went to the AppleTalk control panel to try to get that working (I had a 
logical reason for trying this step, but I will skip that long-winded story). 
The AppleTalk control panel froze up just like all of the times before. So, I 
downloaded the updated FastEther TX-10/100 CommSlot II card driver 
software, installed it, restarted and tried the AppleTalk control panel 
again. This time it didn't freeze up. I thought I was going to have heart 
palpitations, I was so excited! I went to the Chooser, selected LaserWriter. 
Lo and behold, there it was! I ran the set-up routine in the Chooser, and 
exited it. I noticed that the LED for the port into which the cable from the 
FastEther TX-10/100 CommSlot II!
 card was installed was lit! I tried printing a document. It worked!!!

I am going to keep the 100 Mbps Fast Starlet hub for the times when I want 
to transfer lots of files between the Performa and the iMac. I will leave the 
10 Mbs Starlet hub in place for day-to-day operations.

To summarize, my new network consists of:
- Apple Performa 6400 with Farallon FastEther TX-10/100 CommSlot II 
card
- Category 5 straight-through unshielded twisted pair cable (with 
terminations in RJ-45 connectors on both ends) 
- Farallon Starlet 8 Ethernet hub
- Category 5 straight-through unshielded twisted pair cable (with 
terminations in RJ-45 connectors on both ends) 
- Farallon iPrint LT adapter
- Phone cable (with terminations in RJ-11 connectors on both ends)
- Farallon PhoneNet adapter
- Apple Personal LaserWriter 320

 <<Network Diagram.jpg>> 

I am now ready to integrate an iMac into this network. But I have heard 
rumors of an improved version of the iMac coming out in mid-Fall, so I am 
going to hold off until then.....

Brian

Thank you and best regards

Brian also sent this link to another web site that has a lot of good info on home networking. Thanks Brian.

http://threemacs.com/network/