ClassicStack-Web

AppleTalk / AFP stack over WebSerial → TashTalk → LocalTalk in your browser.

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Checkout ClassicStack - a full-featured Apple File Server, IPX/NetBeui SMB and Netware Server and Client for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Features

• Connect a TashTalk USB serial adaptor (1 Mbaud, RTS/CTS) from Chrome/Edge
• Act as an AFP server sharing one IndexedDB-backed volume (Browser Share) to classic Macs
• NBP discovery of remote AFPServer hosts
• Act as an AFP client to browse/upload/download/rename/delete on remote shares
• Netboot (AppleTalk Boot Protocol + ChainBoot EBP): bundled ChainLoader.bin, downloadable BootstrapFloppy.dsk, user-selected System HFS; advertise as BootServer
• Bundled welcome pack (public/welcome/) auto-imported into Browser Share; restore via sidebar Add Welcome Pack Items
• AppleSingle / AppleDouble import; zip downloads default to AppleDouble ._ pairs (Advanced → Mac OS X zip uses a __MACOSX folder instead)
• Finder-style UI: icon / list / column views, properties (type/creator)
• Advanced → Extension editor… maps filename suffixes to Macintosh creator/type plus a comment (saved in localStorage; used on import when there is no AppleDouble metadata)
• Dropped BinHex (.hqx), MacBinary (.bin), StuffIt (.sit), and ZIP (.zip) are decoded into the inner Macintosh files (name, forks, type/creator); ZIP merges ._ and __MACOSX AppleDouble. Toggle via Advanced → Auto-expand files
• Resource-fork icons (BNDL / ICN# / icl8) with ./icons system fallbacks and a clearable local type-icon cache
• Windows .ico plus icons embedded in PE/NE .exe / .scr (and .dll / .cpl)
• Advanced → Resource Fork… (or Get Info / context menu Resources…) lists every Macintosh resource type, id, and BNDL mapping — hidden when the volume has no resource forks. Get Info type/creator editors hide when the volume has no Finder info
• View → Windows Resources… (or Get Info / context Windows Resources… on .exe / .dll / .ico) lists PE/NE RT_* types with icon, bitmap, version, string, and hex previews

Requirements

• Chromium browser with Web Serial API
• TashTalk hardware on LocalTalk
• Node 20+ for development
• For Netboot: a classic Mac (use Advanced → Netboot… → Download for BootstrapFloppy.dsk to enable XPRAM); provide an HFS System volume to stream

Develop

npm install
npm run dev

Open the printed localhost URL, click Connect TashTalk, pick the TashTalk port.

npm test
npm run build

Architecture

See the plan: TashTalk → LLAP/DDP → NBP → ATP → ASP → AFP, with a VirtualFS + Desktop DB for the local share. Netboot rides DDP type 10 on sockets 10/11 beside AFP.

Protocol codecs mirror ClassicStack.

Finder UI (src/ui/finder-window.ts) must stay independent of archive and resource-fork codecs. StuffIt, BinHex, MacBinary, ZIP, Apple compressed resources (dcmp), icon/BNDL decoders, Windows ICO/PE/NE icon extractors, and any future rez decompiler live under src/fs/ and register through src/fs/codecs.ts (classicstack-web/fs/codecs). When this repo splits into packages, those modules become their own packages (@classicstack/finder-ui, @classicstack/expand, @classicstack/stuffit, @classicstack/resource-fork, @classicstack/winicon, …) so a third party can ship a replacement SIT expander or rez decoder without forking the PWA.

The Finder sidebar layout is owned by the host: set RemoteEndpoint.group / badge and implement FinderHost.sidebarGroups(). ClassicStack groups local shares vs AppleTalk / SMB / NetWare / EtherDFS clients; the TashTalk PWA keeps a single LocalTalk list.

The extension→type/creator editor is shared (ExtensionEditorDialog). Persistence is a pluggable ExtensionMapStore: the PWA uses browser localStorage; ClassicStack’s SPA uses the Go /extmap API (Netatalk extmap.conf).

Register with registerArchiveCodec, registerResourceDecompressor, registerResourceTypeDecoder, or registerRezCodec. Re-registering the bundled ids (sit, binhex, macbinary, zip, applesingle, dcmp) replaces the default implementation.

Credits

ClassicStack is indebted to the following source code and authors:

• Tashtari for TashTalk (host framing also follows TashRouter; GPLv3)
• Elliot Nunn for NetBoot (ChainLoader / AppleTalk Boot Protocol; MIT)
• XADMaster / The Unarchiver — Dag Ågren, Dirk Stöcker, and the xadmaster library — StuffIt archive formats (also via stuffit-rs)
• Matthias Wiesmann for QuickDrawViewer (PICT / QuickDraw opcode layout and PackBits; Apache 2.0)
• Harald Kuhr for TwelveMonkeysimageio-pict (PICT bitmap packing; BSD-3-Clause)
• Icons by Icons8

Notes

• Guest login (No User Authent) plus Cleartxt Passwrd and Randnum UAMs when connecting as a client
• Resource-fork icon decoder (ICN# / icl8 / BNDL) plus Windows ICO/PE/NE .exe/.scr icons; system glyphs from ./icons; type icons cached locally (View → Clear icon cache)
• Resource Fork explorer (View → Resource Fork…) dumps types, ids, BNDL/FREF mappings, and decoded icon previews — omitted when the volume has no resource forks
• Windows resource explorer (View → Windows Resources…) dumps PE/NE RT_* types from the data fork (icons, bitmaps, version info, string tables, manifests) with a hex dump, modeled on the Macintosh viewer
• Desktop DB Add/GetIcon is implemented on the server
• AFP Write uses a simplified path; full WriteContinue parity may need tuning against specific Mac OS versions
• Netboot ChainBoot keeps the selected HFS image in browser memory for the session (writes are not persisted back to the file)
• Default Browser Share files live in public/welcome/ (see that folder’s README); new pack files are imported on next load, archives are expanded (wrappers are not kept), existing names are never overwritten