FastPath

The Kinetics FastPath was a LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge (now referred to as a router) created in 1985 to allow Apple Macintosh computers (which at the time only had LocalTalk network connections) to communicate with other computers on Ethernet networks.

The product had five significant revisions (known as KFPS-1 through KFPS-5) during its lifetime and was ultimately sold to Shiva Networks late in its existence.

The original FastPath was developed to extend AppleTalk on Ethernet for Apple Computer, but from the beginning it was also modeled after an implementation of the Stanford Ethernet–AppleTalk Gateway (SEAGATE) created at Stanford University Medical Center by Bill Croft in 1984 and 1985.

This is because KIP was an open source interface to the Kinetics hardware and local modifications and adaptations could be made.

By 1987, Apple had begun shipping Macintosh computers that were capable of having Ethernet connections directly, but the LocalTalk networking products prospered into the early 1990s, due to the popularity of Apple's plug-and-play networking and the continued existence of popular LocalTalk devices such as the LaserWriter.