[thelist] network MAC and PC in home office

[Ken Schaefer]

Ethernet is a specification for communicating over a certain types of
cable (fibre and copper).

What you want is something a little higher up the OSI network model.

If both machines are connected to the router (whether using ethernet,
WLAN or token ring or whatever), and they are talking at least one
common higher level protocol, they should be able to communicate.

For example, if both are running TCP/IP then you should be able to run
FTP and HTTP servers on both, and transfer files that way.

Otherwise, newer versions of MacOS and Windows have compatible support
for SMB (Server Message Block). On machine you should be able to do
something like File -> Open -> \\IPAddress\share of the other machine.
On the Windows machine you install "File and Print Sharing", and on
the MacOS machine I'm not sure what you need to enable (SAMBA
perhaps?)

Cheers
Ken


On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 15:02:17 +1000, Justin Zachan
<justin at jazzmanagement.com.au> wrote:
> Hey there.
> 
> I have a MAC and a PC both connected to a router. The router is connected to
> a modem and both connect to the internet fine.
> 
> What I would like to do is have the MAC and PC link to each other i.e. open
> a file that resides on the MAC, on the PC or vice versa.
> 
> Can I use the router for this? Do I need to link the MAC and PC via
> Ethernet? Or do I need software or hardware etc? Even better if the
> computers could share printers also.
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.