AppleTalk is a protocol that was used on classic/vintage Macs (think: early/late 1980s, 1990s) to create local networks. The wikipedia page [0] has a good historical overview, including the parallel rise of ethernet / tcp/ip (which won).
Using TailTalk on my modern Mac, I can expose a file share accessible to my Macintosh Plus, which has a simulated SCSI Ethernet adapter bridged to a Pi Pico 2W's wireless connection via a BlueSCSI.
If this comparison helps: before deprecation, the last practical use for AppleTalk was file sharing, e.g. legacy Time Machine. Apple dropped it, and encourages SMB and WebDAV.
In light of https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Drops-AppleTalk , I'm a big fan of replacing the functionality in userspace:) (I've similarly thought that it would be helpful to port as many of Linux's filesystems to FUSE so when they get dropped users can just switch to that)
Fwiw, if performance isn't paramount, you can have a lot of fun with LKL (linux kernel library) and UML (user mode Linux).
UML is full Linux running as a userspace process. Tools like guestfish use it to modify disk images. UML can only run on Linux though.
LKL lets you use the linux kernel as a library. However, only single threaded. But this allows you to use linux's tcp stack from userspace, or its filesystems, etc. LKL also works on non Linux platforms.
These are definitely a different shape than what you're looking for, but they could help you keep the real linux implementations alive from userspace far into the future.
Oh hey cool, didn't expect to see my project make Hacker News! I also develop little hardware devices to go with this stack if anyone is interested in embedded AppleTalk too. One is to connect your modern machine directly to LocalTalk networks, and the other is to emulate the now hard to find Apple network adapters for their 80s/90s printer line.
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 3.7 ms ] threadWut? Can you explain for dumb people?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleTalk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Filing_Protocol
UML is full Linux running as a userspace process. Tools like guestfish use it to modify disk images. UML can only run on Linux though.
LKL lets you use the linux kernel as a library. However, only single threaded. But this allows you to use linux's tcp stack from userspace, or its filesystems, etc. LKL also works on non Linux platforms.
These are definitely a different shape than what you're looking for, but they could help you keep the real linux implementations alive from userspace far into the future.
I have a long discussion thread here which chronicles the development of this stack, and the two little hardware projects that go with it: https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/tashtalk-usb-tailtalk-and-inkt....