AppleShare was a product from Apple Computer

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

 which implemented various network service

Network service

Network services are the foundation of a networked computing environment. Generally network services are installed on one or more servers to provide shared resources to client computers.- Network services in LAN :...

s. Its main purpose was acting as a file server

File server

In computing, a file server is a computer attached to a network that has the primary purpose of providing a location for shared disk access, i.e. shared storage of computer files that can be accessed by the workstations that are attached to the computer network...

, using the AFP

Apple Filing Protocol

The Apple Filing Protocol is a network protocol that offers file services for Mac OS X and original Mac OS. In Mac OS X, AFP is one of several file services supported including Server Message Block , Network File System , File Transfer Protocol , and WebDAV...

 protocol. Other network services implemented in later versions of AppleShare included a print server using the Printer Access Protocol (PAP), web server

Web server

Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....

, electronic mail server, and SMB

Server Message Block

In computer networking, Server Message Block , also known as Common Internet File System operates as an application-layer network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an...

 / CIFS server to support file sharing to Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 clients.

Earlier versions of AppleShare supported only the AppleTalk

AppleTalk

AppleTalk is a proprietary suite of protocols developed by Apple Inc. for networking computers. It was included in the original Macintosh released in 1984, but is now unsupported as of the release of Mac OS X v10.6 in 2009 in favor of TCP/IP networking...

 network transport protocol

OSI model

The Open Systems Interconnection model is a product of the Open Systems Interconnection effort at the International Organization for Standardization. It is a prescription of characterizing and standardizing the functions of a communications system in terms of abstraction layers. Similar...

 but later versions, sold under the name AppleShare IP, allowed use of the TCP/IP protocol stack, as used on most modern networks. AppleShare provided three different protocols for application-layer services: AppleShare File Server, AppleShare Print Server and AppleShare PC.

AppleShare would operate with any physical network medium. Early installations used mainly LocalTalk

LocalTalk

LocalTalk is a particular implementation of the physical layer of the AppleTalk networking system from Apple Computer. LocalTalk specifies a system of shielded twisted pair cabling, plugged into self-terminating transceivers, running at a rate of 230.4 kbit/s...

 and more recently Ethernet

Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....

 but any physical medium could be used which could be directly or indirectly connected to an AppleShare server system.

Equivalent third party server products include the open-source Netatalk

Netatalk

Netatalk is a free, open-source implementation of the AppleTalk suite of protocols. It allows Unix-like operating systems to serve as file, print and time servers for Macintosh computers....

 suite on Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

-like systems, and Services for Macintosh on Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 Windows NT

Windows NT

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...

 and 2000

Windows 2000

Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...

. Versions of Mac OS from System 7 onwards included Personal File Sharing, which is a more limited AFP implementation. The most obvious difference between Personal File Sharing and AppleShare is that the former supports only a small number of concurrent remote users.

All versions of Mac OS are capable of acting as a client to an AppleShare server (via AFP

Apple Filing Protocol

The Apple Filing Protocol is a network protocol that offers file services for Mac OS X and original Mac OS. In Mac OS X, AFP is one of several file services supported including Server Message Block , Network File System , File Transfer Protocol , and WebDAV...

 and later SMB

Server Message Block

In computer networking, Server Message Block , also known as Common Internet File System operates as an application-layer network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an...

) over AppleTalk and TCP/IP protocols, although more recent versions of Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 have gradually removed support for AppleTalk in favor of the standard TCP/IP. Third-party vendors created client software such as PC MACLAN (discontinued) and DAVE to implement client functionality on Windows systems. Other developers offered server software that provided similar functionality on Windows Servers such as Group Logic

Group Logic

, founded in 1988 and headquartered in Arlington, VA, USA, is an enterprise software company that develops, sells and supports software for moving and storing data including mobilEcho, , MassTransit and ExtremeZ-IP...

 ExtremeZ-IP

ExtremeZ-IP

ExtremeZ-IP, a Apple Filing Protocol server from Group Logic, Inc, , runs on Windows operating systems enabling Mac clients to access files via the Apple Filing protocol...

 and Cyan Software MacServerIP and NetATalk on Linux. Later versions of AppleShare also implemented the SMB

Server Message Block

In computer networking, Server Message Block , also known as Common Internet File System operates as an application-layer network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an...

 and CIFS protocols which are the native file sharing protocols on Windows machines.

Apple discontinued the AppleShare product line following the release of Mac OS X Server

Mac OS X Server

Mac OS X Server is a Unix server operating system from Apple Inc. The server edition of Mac OS X is architecturally identical to its desktop counterpart, except that it includes work group management and administration software tools...

 which provides equivalent functionality.

System requirements

AppleShare (IP) was famous for not supporting Macs with PowerPC 603(e) processors. The exception, introduced with AppleShare IP 5.0, was the Power Macintosh 6500.

External links

• AppleShare Developer Documentation - from developer.apple.com
• AppleShare airs at last - Network World, page 4, 1987