TITLE
    Open Transport 1.0.8: System Requirements Q & A
Article ID:
Created:
Modified: 		17966
6/15/95
7/7/99
TOPIC

    This article is a series of questions and answers on system requirements for Apple Open Transport 1.0.8.

    Open Transport 1.1 is now available, and Apple recommends upgrading to it. Also refer to Open Transport 1.1 Reference Questions and Answers Tech Info Library articles for the most recent information.

DISCUSSION

    Question: Which Mac OS systems will be able to take advantage of Open Transport?

    Answer: Open Transport is designed to work on any Apple Macintosh or Mac OS compatible computer with a Motorola 68030 or 68040 family microprocessor, or a PowerPC 601, 603, or 604 microprocessor. Systems supporting Open Transport must be running System 7.5.x. For 680x0 Macs, 8 MB of total memory is recommended. For Power Macintosh computers, 12 MB of total memory is recommended.

    Open Transport is compatible with the use of Virtual Memory, and takes full advantage of the Power Macintosh Code Fragment Manager to offer a much lower system RAM footprint when VM is turned on.


    Question: Is Open Transport available for all these systems now?

    Answer: Open Transport v1.0 was initially released to support only the Power Macintosh 9500. Beginning with v1.0.6, Open Transport is designed to support all PCI-bus Power Macintosh models, including the Power Macintosh 7200, 7500, 8500, and 9500 systems.

    Support for 680x0 and NuBus-based Power Macintosh systems is planned for release later in 1995.


    Question: Will Open Transport v1.0.x run on other Macintosh systems?

    Answer: The installer for Open Transport v1.0.x is designed for use specifically on the PCI-bus Power Macintosh systems. While it would be possible to move such an installation of Open Transport to another Macintosh system (for example, on an external hard drive), it is not supported by Apple and is not recommended.


    Question: Why was Open Transport made available on PCI-bus Power Macintosh CPUs first?

    Answer: Starting with the introduction of the Power Mac 9500, Apple moved to adopt industry standards for both network driver software -- Open Transport DLPI -- and network hardware -- PCI bus. This strengthened the business case for new and existing third party developers who could, as a result, include Power Macintosh in their plans for cross-platform network connectivity products. The Power Macintosh 9500 was the first system to incorporate both of these standards, and has since been followed by additional systems and configurations.

    In particular, Apple made the business decision to move to standards for networking on the hardware and software fronts in tandem, i.e., PCI and DLPI. This created a dependency that required customers deploy Open Transport with their PCI-based Power Macintosh systems. It also minimized the work by third parties needed to create drivers for new PCI-bus networking cards. As a result, customers are able to find a broad selection of third party networking options for Macintosh with PCI bus.


    Question: Can PCI-bus Power Macintosh systems run "classic" AppleTalk or MacTCP instead of Open Transport?

    Answer: Open Transport is required to support PCI-bus networking. Beginning with the Power Macintosh 9500, classic networking applications are supported through Open Transport backward compatibility.

Document Information
Product Area: Communications-Networking
Category: Open Transport
Sub Category: General Topics

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