I'm really confused. Is Ethernet built into iMac now, but not AppleTalk?
There seems to be some confusion on this, even among veterans :-).
Ethernet and LocalTalk are physical layer specifications. Examples of other physical interconnects are ADB, USB, Firewire. LocalTalk works at 230 kbits/sec and today's Ethernet works interchanably at 10 Mbits/sec or 100 Mbits/sec.
(The "original" Ethernet that Metcalf and Boggs invented at Xerox PARC was 3 Mbits/sec. Until 10 Mb/sec Ethernet specs came out, in softbound with blue covers, thus called "Bluebook specs," places like Xerox, SRI, Stanford, CMU and MIT were running the 3 Mbit/sec Ethernet, today called "research Ethernet." The Bluebook was written by DEC, Intel and Xerox, and was also sometimes called DIXie specs.)
EtherTalk and AppleTalk are network protocols. I.e., they describe the contents of the data packets that ride on the physical network. EtherTalk is the ethernet version of AppleTalk. Other protocols that can live on an Ethernet are, for example, TCP/IP and variants of Novell.
The iMac has built-in Ethernet (10 and 100 Mbit/sec), but not LocalTalk. And yes, you can run the AppleTalk/EtherTalk protocol on the iMac's ethernet.
Cheers,
Kok Chen |
