The Kinetics FastPath was a
LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge A LocalTalk-to-Ethernet Bridge is a network bridge that joins the physical layer of the AppleTalk networking used by previous generations of Apple Computer products to an Ethernet network. This was an important class of products in the late 1980s an ...
(now referred to as a router) created in 1985 to allow
Apple Macintosh computers (which at the time only had
LocalTalk network connections) to communicate with other computers on
Ethernet networks. The product had five significant revisions (known as KFPS-1 through KFPS-5) during its lifetime and was ultimately sold to Shiva Networks late in its existence. The original FastPath was developed to extend AppleTalk on Ethernet for
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
, but from the beginning it was also modeled after an implementation of the Stanford Ethernet - AppleTalk Gateway (SEAGATE) created at
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
Medical Center by Bill Croft in 1984 and 1985.
Bill Croft declares in net.micro.mac that Kinetics are using a modified version of the SEAGATE code
/ref> SEAGATE was a combination of hardware and software that picked up IP packets from the Ethernet network and encapsulated them inside of DDP packets on the AppleTalk network and conversely picked up specially-encoded DDP packets on the AppleTalk network and placed them on the Ethernet network as IP packets.
Although a few sites used the original SEAGATE multibus hardware as defined, it served as a proof-of-concept and was eclipsed by the Kinetics FastPath and similar hardware gateways by other companies. However, many university and research FastPath owners continued to be able to run the Stanford gateway software (later called MacIP
MacIP refers to a standard for encapsulating Internet Protocol (IP) packets within the AppleTalk DDP protocol. This allows Macintosh computers with LocalTalk networking hardware to access the normally Ethernet-based connections for TCP/IP based n ...
) inside the Kinetics FastPath. This is because KIP was an open source interface to the Kinetics hardware and local modifications and adaptations could be made.
By 1987, Apple had begun shipping Macintosh computers that were capable of having Ethernet connections directly, but the LocalTalk networking products prospered into the early 1990s, due to the popularity of Apple's plug-and-play networking and the continued existence of popular LocalTalk devices such as the LaserWriter.
See also
* GatorBox
The GatorBox is a LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge, a router used on Macintosh-based networks to allow AppleTalk communications between clients on LocalTalk and Ethernet physical networks. The GatorSystem software also allowed TCP/IP and DECnet prot ...
* LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge A LocalTalk-to-Ethernet Bridge is a network bridge that joins the physical layer of the AppleTalk networking used by previous generations of Apple Computer products to an Ethernet network. This was an important class of products in the late 1980s an ...
* MacIP
MacIP refers to a standard for encapsulating Internet Protocol (IP) packets within the AppleTalk DDP protocol. This allows Macintosh computers with LocalTalk networking hardware to access the normally Ethernet-based connections for TCP/IP based n ...
References
External links
Information about the Shiva FastPath 5
Networking hardware
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