Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!DSUNX1.DSRD.ORNL.GOV!wnn
From: wnn@DSUNX1.DSRD.ORNL.GOV (W. N. Naegeli)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: Appletalk Phase ][
Message-ID: <8906192208.AA17824@dsunx1.DSRD.ORNL.GOV>
Date: 19 Jun 89 22:08:49 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 69


Rick Ewing writes:

>>>>>>>>
The original Appletalk (now called phase I) allowed up to 256 nodes on
a network, and did a fairly lousy job of RTMP packet forwarding.  The
new Appletalk allows up to 16 million nodes, up to 256 zones ...
<<<<<<<<

The original AppleTalk allowed 254 nodes. (A note address of 0 is not
allowed and treated as unknown, and an address of 255 is used for broad-
casting to all nodes, according to "Inside AppleTalk."

During the televised announcement, and in the literature we received from
Apple it was stated that you could have as many as 1024 interconnected
networks, each of which could have 256 zones and the users can pick which
zone they wish to be in.

Is that a new feature of the Chooser? What is meant by it? Already now you
can select printers, net modems, etc. in other zones.

Currently you can have 65535 networks and a zone can span multiple net-
works, but you can only have one zone per network.

It seems useful to allow multiple zones per network so that you do not have
to search through dozens of printers, for example, if you wish to access
on of the few in your workgroup and you are on a highspeed network with
many other devices.  However, it seems dangerous to allow the user to
select a zone at random.  Someone might inadvertently put himself or her-
self into another zone and would no longer receive mail.  If you inad-
vertently select the wrong output device, you will notice the error when
your output does not arrive at the expected place, but since you do not
know when other users want to contact you, a zone selection error might go
undetected for some while.

>>>>>>>
Standard networks
using just localtalk or equivelents are *not* immediately affected by
all this;  since localtalk can only support 32 nodes electrically anyway
(and phonenet roughly 100), it was not necessary to update all Macs to
reflect the new software.
<<<<<<<<

Which Macs did you need to update? We actually have one LocalTalk cable
with more than 60 connected devices.  We tried to install a Hayes Inter-
Brige once, when it was still quite a bit smaller, but we could not get
it to work; some nodes became invisible.  What are the rules for needing
to update old networks on an internet?  Some of our network numbers are
higher than 1024.

>>>>>>>
Users that have Kinetics Fastpaths, cayman gatorboxes,
Hayes Interbridges, or other devices that provide routing services need
to contact their respective manufacturers for upgrades.
<<<<<<<

When I called Kinetics they told me that the update will require software
only, no ROM swap, and that it is in Beta testing, but they did not give
me a date.

Nuvotech told me that the TurboBridge will require a ROM change, but that
they are thinking about swapping the bridges rather than have users update
them.  They said they are working on it, but no date yet.


Wolfgang N. Naegeli
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Internet: wnn@dsunx1.dsrd.ornl.gov (128.219.96.46)
Bitnet:   wnn@ornlstc     Phone: (615) 574-6143    Fax: (615) 574-3895