AppleTalk

Software theme

AppleTalk is a set of proprietary networking protocols developed 1984 by Apple for use with the Mac, OSX, ][c, & accessories. Discontinued 2009.

11
games
2
platforms
Generally the use of AppleTalk in a game is for two or more players to connect their systems together for a multiplayer game session. AppleTalk connections were intended to be made through the mac's RS-422 port. But since the protocols are data dependent and not hardware dependent, any cable or wireless medium can transmit AppleTalk.

PhoneNet used an adapter on the RS-422 port to connect it to a regular phone line. This was for local direct connections between devices and could actually be connected to a buildings existing phone system if they were not using the two extra wires in their system for a second phone line. A simular solution can be done with Ethernet cable, using its 4 extra lines and leaving the 4 other lines to do LAN networking (modern gigabit Ethernet uses all the lines in an Ethernet cable.) Token Ring hardware could also transmit AppleTalk. In time, ways were found to use Ethernet cable for AppleTalk, TCP/IP, DECnet, NetBEUI, and IPX simultaneously, allowing Apple hardware to speak to other apple hardware and PCs over the same cables. DOS and Windows version based on DOS require an expansion card in order to speak AppleTalk. Windows NT and later versions come with AppleTalk software and need no cards. NIX systems (Linux/BSD/Solaris) have software solutions to speak AppleTalk (commonly via ethernet). Ironically, Mac OS X v10.6 and newer versions do not include AppleTalk while everyone else continues to support it. Presumably null-modem serial and parallel cables, USB, firewire, dial up modems, wide area networks, wireless A/B/G/N, and IR ports could be used for AppleTalk just as they can use TCP/IP.

Popular tags

3.5disk 5.25disk 68k binarycolor cpu-68000 devsysapplelisa dialup macos6 macos8 osclassic ppc

Games by year

8485868788899091929394959697989900 41230

The first AppleTalk video game was released in 1984.

Delta Tao Software and PBI Software published most of these games.

Platforms

Mac OS Classic 9
Apple II E 2