Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!merchant
From: merchant@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Peter Merchant)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Mac_DOS Connectivity
Message-ID: <9871@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 19 Aug 88 17:27:45 GMT
References: <1988Aug18.155534.1725@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: Peter.G.Merchant@dartmouth.edu (Peter Merchant)
Organization: U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY
Lines: 27
Keywords:

In article <1988Aug18.155534.1725@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> Todd Heatherton writes:
>Does anyone envision the day when you slip your
>3 1/2" diskette into either machine and it will read the information which
>is appropriate (i.e. standard formatting).  Is such a thing possible? Is
>such a thing desirable? 

According to the rumour mill, Apple does.  Apple is supposedly going to make
available machines with their new "SuperDrive" which will read and write
MS-DOS as well as ProDOS and Macintosh format disks.

Also, there are quite a few existing options currently available, including
MS-DOS drives that plug into your Macintosh SE or II.  Haven't seen one for
the Plus.  Also, besides TOPS, the two major network players in MS-DOS, Novell
and 3Com, have support for Macintoshes on their networks.  So if you have a
batch of PCs and a couple of Macintoshes, it's probably more worth your while
to go that way.  (At least, that's what I'm planning...)  Apple also has
MS-DOS connectivity with their AppleShare file server.

I used TOPS for a little while, but I didn't like it that much.  The versions
that I used ate close to 200K of RAM on the PC, making it difficult to do much
of anything useful.  I kept having to set up the driver, publish the
directory, pick up the directory on the Mac, copy the file over, and then
reset the PC if I (or someone else) wanted to do useful work on the PC.
---
"I'm gonna let myself get               Peter Merchant (merchant@eleazar.UUCP)
 Absolutely soaking wet."                     (merchant@eleazar.dartmouth.edu)
                                              (Peter.G.Merchant@dartmouth.edu)