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)