The LocalTalk implementation based on serial transmission mechanisms was one of the first protocols to allow a number of computers to be networked together with other devices such as printerss. A later implementation called EtherTalk operated over Ethernet.
AppleTalk is now considered clunky and often called 'verbose'. While AppleTalk does work in a Wide area network (WAN) environment, modern Apple computers use TCP-IP by default for networking over a WAN.
Under Mac OS X versions after v10.2, Rendezvous provides many of the features AppleTalk once did.
| OSI Model | Corresponding AppleTalk layers |
|---|---|
| Application | AppleTalk filtering protocol |
| Presentation | --- |
| Session | Zone information protocol Printer access protocol |
| Transport | Routing table maintenance protocol Name binding protocol |
| Network | Datagram delivery protocol AppleTalk resolution protocol AppleTalk upgrade routing protocol |
| Data link | EtherTalk LocalTalk TokenTalk FDDItalk |
| Physical | IEEE 802.3 IEEE 802.5 FDDI |