Can I use LocalTalk Bridge to get my LocalTalk Macs on the Internet?
Yes and no. First of all, LocalTalk Bridge will not route TCP/IP in any way, shape, or form. You need to get a product like IPNetRouter or Vicomsoft Internet Gateway to do that, or a hardware MacIP router like a Cayman GatorBox or Farallon StarRouter. However, if you have several Macs that aren’t Ethernet-capable (or don’t have an Ethernet card) and you want to put them on the Internet (and you don’t have a hardware MacIP router), you will need LocalTalk Bridge. Set up your Ethernet network first, get your router or router software up and running, and then hook your LocalTalk devices up – through LocalTalk Bridge, running on an Ethernet-capable Mac – to the router. Now for a very brief explanation of this. LocalTalk Bridge will only route AppleTalk packets, not TCP/IP or anything else. Your router software (and some hardware routers) encapsulates the TCP/IP packets inside AppleTalk packets, which allows LocalTalk Bridge to properly pass the TCP/IP traffic to and from the Internet. The