Appletalk
Appletalk is a suite of protocols developed by Apple Computer for computer networking.
The implementation fairly rigorously followed the OSI model.
In its implementation based on serial transmission mechanisms Localtalk it was one of the first protocols to allow a number of computers to be networked together with other devices such as printers.
A later implementation Ethertalk operated over Ethernet.
It is now considered clunky and often called 'verbose'. It does not work well in a Wide area network environment (but it does work). Modern Apple computers use TCP-IP by default for networking over a WAN.
Under Mac OS X versions after v10.2, Rendezvous provides many of the features Appletalk once did.
| OSI Model | Corresponding AppleTalk layers |
|---|---|
| Application | AppleTalk filtering protocol |
| Presentation | --- |
| Session | Zone information protocol Printer access protocol |
| Transport | Routing table maintenance protocol Name binding protocol |
| Network | Datagram delivery protocol AppleTalk resolution protocol AppleTalk upgrade routing protocol |
| Data link | Ethertalk LocalTalk Tokentalk FDDItalk |
| Physical | IEEE 802.3 IEEE 802.5 FDDI |