Tip for running AppleTalk in Basilisk II on x64 PCs

[OldMac]

It can be really handy to have network access in Basilisk II, especially if you have a netatalk (v2 of course, so you have EtherTalk support) server running on Linux on your network where files (complete with resource forks) can be stored on your network and transferred back and forth between old Macs (such as those that can read 800k disks) and Basilisk. As you may know though the network tap driver for Basilisk II is not compiled (though you can compile from source) for x64 Windows builds. In addition, even if you compile it yourself installing it requires that you remove the prohibition on unsigned drivers in Windows 64-bit editions which is tricky and not suggested for security reasons.

So how can you get AppleTalk/EtherTalk working on a 64-bit PC? 1) You could install Linux and run Basilisk in Linux. There are no such problems getting the Basilisk network interface working in Linux. 2) If you don't want to dedicate a PC to this or setup dual-booting you can install Linux inside of a VM and run Basilisk on that copy of Linux. 3) You could install a 32-bit copy of Windows in a VM and then run Basilisk and the 32 bit network driver inside that VM, but really why bother when it runs just fine in a Linux VM. In both VM cases (2 & 3) though you'll want to make sure the virtual network adapter in your hypervisor software is set to bridged mode so the EtherTalk packets can be sent and received correctly.

I've tested this in a 64-bit Debian Jessie VM running inside Virtualbox successfully. I don't see any reason that it wouldn't work in other Virtualization software or with another distribution under Basilisk.

[louisw3]

I use Cockatrice III.

It easily supports pcap injection with a Quadra 800 ROM, and I use it to talk to my email server, and a NT server with Macintosh/Appletalk services to easily copy files back and forth.

[OldMac]

Interesting, thanks! I'm surprised that nothing turned up about that when I was searching for fixes to the problem a few weeks ago. It looks like it's still much less mature than Basilisk (it's unclear what 'ancient version' of Basilisk they started with) but it's promising to have a 68k emulator under active development again. I know that some of the emaculation group was working to try and get the OpenVPN TAP drivers working with Basilisk as well, but as far as I could tell that wasn't really working. In any event I'll have to try this out!

[lilysmith22]

I to use Cockatrice III