Octave Software Group, Inc. -- Software consulting in Silicon Valley: real-time embedded systems, 802.11 wireless LAN systems, network drivers, network protocols, Windows drivers, Windows applications, Java applications, and serial communications.

AppleTalk Stack Networking Software

Our AppleTalk stack software has been engineered to fit within a very small memory footprint for low-cost embedded applications. It is designed for portability and has been ported to work with several RTOS products (MultiTask!, VxWorks, pSOS), compilers (Archimedes, Microsoft, HighC, GNU), and processors (Z80, x86, i960, ARM).

Clients who have used our AppleTalk stack in their products include: Apple, HP, Fargo Electronics, and Net Silicon.

Our AppleTalk stack software, written in ANSI C, meets a very high standard of quality and is modular and well-documented. Our AppleTalk stack SDK comes with complete documentation to help you interface your application to our stack (though we would also be happy to do this for you). Our SDK also includes an extensive regression test suite to help verify proper operation.

The software offers the following protocols and services:

DDP

DDP for a workstation or server node. DDP moves packets through the network to their destinations.

RTMP

RTMP stub for a non-bridge node. Bridges use RTMP to learn the topology of the network. Servers and workstations use it to find the nearest bridge.

AARP

AARP maps AppleTalk protocol addresses into Ethernet or Token Ring addresses.

ZIP

ZIP for a non-router node. ZIP supports the selection of a zone name by a node at startup.

AEP

AEP responder. AEP responds to Echo frames to help in diagnosing network problems.

ATP

ATP ensures that packets get to their destinations and that they get there in the right order and without duplications.

NBP

NBP allows workstations to find server addresses to use. It assigns names to servers and allows workstations to search for servers by name.

PAP

PAP allows a workstation to connect to a server and then passes a reliable data stream in each direction on the connection.

ADSP

ADSP allows any two network nodes to connect and exchange information.

If the list above does not fulfill your requirements, we will be happy to consider making additions for you.

We will also be happy to help you integrate our AppleTalk software into your application, including writing LocalTalk, Ethernet, or Token Ring drivers.

For Z80-based LocalTalk applications, our stack has already been interfaced to Zilog's Z80181/Z80185 LLAP driver (we wrote it for them). For LocalTalk applications based on other CPUs, you can use our LLAP Driver software.