They had no ethernet interface out of the box, but they had localtalk.
Using the Apple Internet Router (bridges localtalk and ethernet and gives you zones) running on an LC475 as a bridge machine on my Appletalk network, I have successfully connected via localtalk to an ASIP server serving files over ethernet, and mounted a 500gb share on a Macintosh Classic II, running 7.1. The CII could see the file directory and all, despite it being an HFS+ drive. So it can be done with a little period equipment, though I confess that I have not tried to mount the same shared drive on a machine running System 6.
You'd possibly be able to accomplish the same thing using one of those little Asante bridges, or possibly Localtalk Bridge, though I have not found these to be nearly as robust as the Apple Internet Router software.
Using the Apple Internet Router (bridges localtalk and ethernet and gives you zones) running on an LC475 as a bridge machine on my Appletalk network, I have successfully connected via localtalk to an ASIP server serving files over ethernet, and mounted a 500gb share on a Macintosh Classic II, running 7.1. The CII could see the file directory and all, despite it being an HFS+ drive. So it can be done with a little period equipment, though I confess that I have not tried to mount the same shared drive on a machine running System 6.
You'd possibly be able to accomplish the same thing using one of those little Asante bridges, or possibly Localtalk Bridge, though I have not found these to be nearly as robust as the Apple Internet Router software.