The GlobalTalk Network

In March 2024, a rabble of retrocomputing enthusiasts on Mastodon put together a network for old Macs across the internet. Self-organised via Google Sheets, they joined together their various local networks using the long-obsolete Apple Internet Router 3.0 software installed on both real vintage Macs and emulators. Somehow, it all worked! The network was dubbed GlobalTalk - a reference to the legacy AppleTalk suite of networking protocols being used. By mid-March, GlobalTalk had already connected roughly 50 separate networks across the globe. This talk will include: • An overview of old Macs and how their networking protocols evolved from the early days through to today • Some details about how AppleTalk, Apple Internet Router 3.0, and the modern internet still interoperate • A bit of software and network protocol "archaeology" • A live demonstration of connecting to the network, and some of the cool things GlobalTalk participants did with the network, such as the HyperCard-based "AppleWideWeb"

About the presenter

Josh's hobbies include the care and feeding of vintage Mac computers, recreational sysadmin, and ranked competitive computer touching^W programming. Josh is a Staff Software Engineer at Buildkite, where they work mostly on software written in Go. Previously, Josh was a Site Reliabilty Engineer at Google, in which they learned a lot about scaling enterprise networks and crawling the web. Josh is also a regular presenter at /dev/world and might give up the vintage Apple schtick one day...but not today!

Session Recording