The Interware RefRouter/TCP. Last week this oddity showed up on Mercari.

Posted 2026-09-26 | Back to blog index

Interware are known for their NuBus graphics cards and Mac CPU upgrades… but networking equipment?

Got ZERO web search results for this thing. Google Groups found three Usenet posts of off-hand mentions in 1999. Wayback Machine? Interware's old homepage didn't mention it. Only found a 1994 magazine scan with a price listing for the related RefLaser and RefBridge products.

The price on the listing was too much for me to spend right now, but it was gratefully gifted to me as a belated birthday present by @mroach (who was also curious) 🙇‍♂️

The listing said the seller would burn the utility to a CD-R and include that. No idea how the seller has the utility but not the original floppy disk, but at least now I have archived it on the IA/macgarden.

Hacking open the utility with ResEdit, we also find DLOGs for devices named RefBridge, RefBridge/TCP, RefLaser, RefLaser II

Before turning it on, let's open it up to see if we can learn anything more. We have a 1993 copyright on the PCB, 1994 copyright on the 1.0.0 ROM. It's powered by a Motorola 68k core, and uses the same Zilog SCC serial chip for LocalTalk as the Mac did.

Does it work? Yes, it does! And the utility sees it!

Let's start out by configuring a typical 1994 Mac office network 🏢🔌, an example of what this would be used for.

The main window lets you see some basic info and has buttons to open the different configuration dialogs.

We've created one zone on EtherTalk, and one on LocalTalk. "Seed" means this router is responsible for the network.

On EtherTalk we're seeding a “RefRouter EtherTalk" zone on Network 2942. You can seed multiple zones if you wish (for multiple departments/floors/buildings in your office), similarly to Apple Internet Router.

And on LocalTalk seeding a “RefRouter LocalTalk” on 2941.

And sure enough, it works!

The utility gives you the RefRouter's view of the network (adjacent networks from other routers also show here)

I disconnected this segment from GlobalTalk to avoid confusion, and we can see our zones in the utility list

In the Chooser, it's all working as it should! Machines on the LocalTalk side can see machines on the EtherTalk side, and visa-versa.

Maybe I'm imaging things (I didn't measure) but it feels like file transfers are faster than with the AsanteTalk?

By the way, if you think that configuration UI looks familiar, it's basically a 1-1 copy of the Apple Internet Router interface!

Now let's explore that "DDP-IP Gateway" button. DDP-IP is better known as "MacIP", and encapsulates IP (Internet Protocol) packets in AppleTalk, allowing machines on LocalTalk to use TCP/IP and access the Internet

I'm not sure what "IP Address of File Server" is for. Netbooting? Anyone have idea what "Address Gleaning" or “NBP Proxy ARP" do?

5 and 2 also seem like low limits for the number of clients, but I guess LocalTalk is too slow for many more devices…

Our MacIP setup works perfectly as well with no drama, with my IIcx picking up the MacIP Gateway on the RefRouter LocalTalk Zone.

We can ping, and even load websites!

I'm not sure where it picked the IP address from though, as that did not come from my router (there is no DHCP support anywhere here). First I thought the prefix came from that “Dynamic IP Clients” option but that really *was* a limit, seems it maxes out at 20 combined.

No idea where you configure the “Static" clients?

Now we've used this guy to set up everything your small Mac office would need. You got your Ethernet machines and your LocalTalk machines and printers all talking to each other, and even got the LocalTalk machines onto the Internet!

But now it's time to figure out how to put this to REAL use on my own network, which has the complication of already having a router putting it on GlobalTalk 🌏

Right now I'm using an AsanteTalk to bridge Ethernet to LocalTalk, would love to replace that with this…

1️⃣st attempt, using a separate Zone name for LocalTalk.

Starting with the previous config, I change EtherTalk to “Nonseed” so it just becomes a client on my main network ("BaroNet”) that's already beeing seeded by Apple Internet Router. The config window still shows the "RefRouter EtherTalk" name but that whole section is actually disabled.

For LocalTalk, I'm now seeding a separate Zone with the name "BaroNet LocalTalk”

And now the RefRouter now sees all of GlobalTalk on the nonseed port!

This isn't working though, and the results are strange.

My Mac on LocalTalk finds itself on the new “BaroNet LocalTalk” zone, but it doesn't even see the BaroNet zone or any shares on it.

My Mac on EtherTalk sees the LocalTalk devices… on BaroNet! Meanwhile it doesn't see the new zone name… but somehow sees the devices anyway, just in the wrong zone!

And if we go back to that network list from the RefRouter and look for BaroNet, it's clearly confused!

2️⃣nd attempt, sharing a Zone name.

Taking the previous configuration, and just changing the LocalTalk zone to match the EtherTalk zone.

First of all now the network list looks sane.

And on my machines, all looks good now! LocalTalk machines see EtherTalk machines, and visa versa.

And this is what it looks like in Trawl, you can see the LocalTalk machines on network 2941

But, are the LocalTalk machines visible on GlobalTalk now or is the double-routing going to cause issues, like double-NAT?

I asked on GlobalTalk Chat and… oh that's weird. Not visible on BaroNet but there's a vestigial “RefRouter LocalTalk” hanging around, with all my LocalTalk stuff in it. That was my original sample network!

Indeed, even my EtherTalk machines are seeing the ghost zone, but no machines on it!

Looking at my AIR machine (which is seeding EtherTalk and connects to GlobalTalk), sure enough, it picked up on the old name, and must be propagating it!

I could probably solve this by restarting AIR, but that would kick everyone else off of Chat so I'll just try changing network numbers so it queries for a new zone name.

And it worked! No more ghost zone, and asking on chat it seems my LocalTalk stuff is also visible on GlobalTalk now.

I bet that this is also why the first attempt with a separate “LocalTalk” zone name failed - it was probably still using the stuck zone name and I never scrolled down enough to see it there…

Very glad to have this seemingly ultra-rare device put back into work doing what it was built for on my network!

If anyone else has better research skills than me I'd love to find out more about it and its brethren the RefBridge and RefLaser.

Or if someone recognizes the guts of it/software if it was a rebadge of something else?

Appendix:

The 5V power supply is this module screwed to the lid. I really like this solution of basically mounting the wall-wart INSIDE the device. Wish more hardware did this!

Aside: When looking through old Japanese Mac Magazines on the Internet Archive searching for any kind of review, mention, catalog price listing, anything, I came across this absolutely wild magazine ad

edit: the shop is still around. their current advertising presence is far more sober http://www.ohnishi.ne.jp

Update: I found a reference to the Interware "RefEther” ethernet card for Classic II on an old japanese blog.

https://tanu.yokochou.com/MR/MacintoshRepair.html ClassicIIでEthernetを

I think the serial number E-630059 means this is the 59th one ever made.

Looking at other Interware product photos people have taken online (their graphics cards and CPU upgrades were quite popular), the first letter means category (V video, M mac cpu, P picpom), and the next two digits are the product code (e.g. I found photos of 2 picpom cards serials S-102327 and S-105036, and two VDR-2A cards with V-200648 and V-200203)

So the serial number within the product code for my box is 0059.

Oooh, ooh, new mail?!?!

Yes @fergycool , you are!

Heck, with how rare these are, and how unpopular PowerTalk was, possibly ever?

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