Physical implementation AppleTalk

farallon phonenet adapter.

the initial default hardware implementation appletalk high-speed serial protocol known localtalk used macintosh s built-in rs-422 ports @ 230.4 kbit/s. localtalk used splitter box in rs-422 port provide upstream , downstream cable single port. topology bus: cables daisy-chained each connected machine next, maximum of 32 permitted on localtalk segment. system slow today s standards, @ time additional cost , complexity of networking on pc machines such common macs networked personal computers in office. other larger computers, such unix or vax workstations, commonly networked via ethernet.

other physical implementations available. 1 common replacement localtalk phonenet, 3rd party solution (from company called farallon, called netopia, acquired motorola in 2007) used rs-422 port , indistinguishable localtalk far apple s localtalk port drivers concerned, ran on 2 unused wires in standard four-wire phone cabling. phonenet considerably less expensive install , maintain. ethernet , token ring supported, known ethertalk , tokentalk respectively. ethertalk in particular gradually became dominant implementation method appletalk ethernet became popular in pc industry throughout 1990s. besides appletalk , tcp/ip, ethernet network simultaneously carry other protocols such decnet , ipx.