Transferring information from very old to latest Macs.

Question

We still have several old Mac Quadras/Centrus. My wife has been using one of them for our family finances, bridge schedules, etc. since back in 1991-2. We just now bought her an iMac to do these functions. How can we connect between our newer Macs (A MacBook Pro, a G-4 and a new iMac and the old Quadras in order to transfer the data from the old Quadra to her new iMac?? Long ago we used the AppleTalk network to do such things.
Also, we still have an old LaserWriter II that prints great from the Quadras but we don't know how to use it with our newer Macs. The old printer cost between $3,000 and $4,000 when we bought it back in 91 or 92 - and still prints B&W better than any of the new printers that we have. Is there a way to still use it with our new Macs??
I think that is says something big for Apple that all of these old machines still work as well as they ever did.
Thanks
Gran & Gramp

Answer 1

It comes down to two main cases:
Case 1) Old Mac has RJ45 "regular" Ethernet port or AAUI (about 14-pin) Ethernet port:
In this case, all can be done with Ethernet. Buy a used Transceiver \[AAUI to RJ45 Ethernet] for about US$10 and cable the old Mac directly to your Router. Any Mac running 10.3.9 or older can share files using AppleTalk-over-Ethernet. Enable it on both ends in the Sharing or File Sharing Control Panel and the System Preferences > Sharing panel. Illustrated instructions in this article:
http://homepage.mac.com/car1son/os9xnet_nfilesharing.html
If your old Mac OS is 7.5.3 or later, it will work pretty much as described in the article. If your oldest new Mac OS is also 10.4 or later, you will need to start at the older Mac and use the IP Address of the newer Mac to make the connection.
Case 2) Old Mac has no RJ45 Ethernet or AAUI Ethernet, only round Printer port \[AppleTalk/Localtalk port]:
In this case, you will want to get a used converter -- the same one that will allow the LaserWriter to work with the newer Macs. The "trick" is that these converters have always supported up to 8 devices -- both Macs and Printers -- for Printer Sharing and for File Sharing. The converter can be any one of:
• Farallon EtherMac iPrint LT (NOT LS)
• Asante AsantTalk
• an older Mac that has both Ethernet and round printer port for AppleTalk/Localtalk and Apple's free but unsupported Ethernet Bridge software.
Connect the Ethernet side of the Converter/Bridge to your Router. Connect the AppleTalk/Localtalk side to up to eight of the AppleTalk/LocalTalk computers and printers using PhoneNet boxes and telephone cords. Remember to terminate the last open PhoneNet jack.