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After many months of dancing with MacTCP again (first round was decades ago of course) I decided to do it Right and get to the latest most patchiest version to see if it would help with some issues I’m having. What issues do I have with MacTCP in 2024? And why am I using it? Well to run some classic Macintosh software- both classic in the timeframe they were authored and classic in the timeframe of the System Software they require to run. You see people are writing software today for classic Macintosh systems- and by classic I mean System 6 (And 7). Macs that use 68000 cpus and need MacTCP for their TCP/IP stacks. MacTCP also turns out to be great for limited RAM and as a result of that it takes less system resources on an older Mac than OpenTransport.
To be honest most of the software I’m interested in is written by one man- JCS over at jcs.org. Joshua writes amazingly useful software for Macintoshes that still run System 6. He has a nice website that documents all his work and is well worth a visit. I cheat and use System 7, but I have a good reason. JCS’ most interesting software to date is called Subtext, and it’s a full BBS server for your classic Macintosh. I’ve run Subtext on a variety of Macs, using both System 6.0.8 and System 7.1, all with MacTCP (Subtext works with MacTCP and not OpenTransport).
I’m running Subtext on a System 7.1.1 system for one reason- I’m also running an AppleTalk Router with IP Gateway. That software requires System 7.1. The Router with IP Gateway allows my collection of classic Macs an onramp into GlobalTalk so they can participate in this fun experiment. I have a variety of 68k Macs that I keep around for fun. They are all connected now to this global network of AppleTalk resources!
The system (a Quadra 800 – IMHO the absolute best and fastest 68k you can get) has enough RAM and CPU to run both the Globaltalk routing software and the Subtext BBS. This keeps all my dedicated services on one single Macintosh — one that I wasn’t even really using before this. I like knowing that this is running on real Apple period hardware without any mods or emulation. Its one modern conceit is a BlueSCSI to handle the disk- because I’m not that crazy to want to use actual spinning disks for this.
MacTCP is a finicky beast, and I’m going to focus on just one thing here- getting the absolute latest version on the Internet for your Mac. Most of this is possible due to the work of Glenn Anderson who has a solid, simple website with some interesting Macintosh networking drivers and various apps. He also has a dedicated Macintosh TCP/IP page with his patch. There he has posted the patch he created for the last released version of MacTCP, 2.0.6. With his patch and a clean (i.e. copy that has not been loaded or run on a system) MacTCP control panel file you can patch up to version 2.1. His page with the updater is here. His page lists all the improvements to MacTCP he has provided. You can get this patch and a clean 2.0.6 at Macintosh Garden.I have also put all the files into a .SIT archive in my PiServer Appleshare (Marchintosh) on GlobalTalk in the dillerZone. Once you gather all the files you can patch and install the new Control Panel on your Macintosh.
Local Downloads
I also have the files (there are just two- the clean 2.0.6 and the Patch) here in a zip to download. Unzip on a modern machine and move the files onto a share that you can mount on your classic Mac. Drop the files in StuffitExpander and they will decompress into the Control Panel and the patch file.
There is also a Disk Image with the files – created with DiskCopy. It’s also a zip – that is so that your browser and my wordpress don’t go overboard trying to stop you from downloading and image file! Please unzip this on your modern Mac…
Patching
Run The Patch and navigate to the clean 2.0.6 file:
It will patch cleanly. If not move the files to a location you have permissions to write.
Replace the existing MacTCP CP with the new patched one, keep a copy of both in case of issues.
Double click to set up. It should retain the settings you had from the old version.
The Detail Page (More…) is now much, much simpler:
The Old Detail (clicking on More…) page before patching:
A note on the DNS:
It is confusing but the Domain field should have your local domain that you use for unqualified hosts.
All other Domain fields should have a period ‘.’ in them.
You should have your primary DNS with both your local domain (and default) and also with a ‘.’
Secondary DNS servers should have a ‘.’There is a super detailed explanation of this you should read at Tidbits.com.
You must reboot.
Finishing
After rebooting you will have MacTCP 2.1 operational and the knowledge that whatever else may be going wrong with your classic Mac’s networking, it’s not going to be MacTCP making a mess of it. Check your firewall…
You can telnet to the Subtext bbs anytime: port 23 / bbs.diller.org
