creating computer-to-computer network at startup?

If you are using Macs and you have a hub, I would think that
"automatic" network detection would just put each computer online when
it woke up. The same thing works equally for wireless or wired
networks. There is plenty of documentation at Apple and probably right
on your computer (the the Help Viewer, accessing it from the Network
pane in the System Preferences).

If you are creating peer-to-peer netowrks without a hub the situation
is somewhat different, but also well-documented:

--- Help Viewer says:

To create an AirPort network other users can join:

Open Network preferences and choose AirPort from the Show pop-up menu.
Click AirPort and make sure the "Allow this computer to create
networks" checkbox is selected.

Open Internet Connect and click the AirPort icon in the toolbar.

Choose Create Network from the Network pop-up menu. Give the network a
name and click Options to give the network a password.

You can also use the AirPort status icon in the menu bar to create a
Computer-to-Computer network.

----

And again, once you have the network set up, everything should connect
when it wakes up. Further docs on Apples web site. If you want to
verify network status from each computer in MaxMSP, try using OSC and
checking status after attempting to send a message to a remote
machine.

For mixed networks of MacOS/Win/Unix boxes, one computer acts as the
server, and by convention has IP address 192.168.2.1, and the others
have IP addresses off 192.168. The actually set up depends on which
computer acts as server. Macs have been using 10.0.1.1 as the server
address by default, but you can changes this manually--the "1.1"
termination identifies the server, in any case.

HTH,

-- Paul

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