Date   : Fri, 12 Jun 1998 23:25:45 +0100
From   : bbc-list@... (Theo Markettos)
Subject: Re: BBC Micro Modem & Internet use?

On Fri, 12 Jun 1998 14:57:28 +0200, rsc@... said:

> Mike Chapman wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Robert,
> > 
> > I have been looking over your great BBC Lives! pages trying to find an
> > answer to a question for my neighbour.
> > 
> > Basically, he was wondering that if he can track down an original BBC
> > modem is there any software available to allow him to use email and the
> > internet (a browser)?
>
> Getting or building an adapter so that he can use any old RS-232 modem
> in the BBC's RS-432 should not be a problem.  He'll probably be
> restricted to using BBS'es though, but reading Internet mail and news
> should not be a problem.

I've sucessfully used a Beeb for reading mail and news, when a dodgy dealer
ran off with my Risc PC (but that's another story...).  I did it via Arcade
BBS using a 60 byte 6502 machine code program I knocked up - it worked quite
well, although didn't have all the frills like ANSI colour or up/downloads. 
I also had a go with Silicon Village, who have a viewdata system and various
internet connection features - free email is one, I think Web page by email
is another.  It was also quite useable, although it has a monthly fee IIRC.

> Browsing the web, however, requires support
> for the HTTP protocol, which requires something like a TCP/IP stack,
> which to my knowledge does not exist for the BBC.  One person (was it
> Mark Usher?) wrote to the BBC micro mailing list that he was toying with
> the idea of implementing one, but it sounds like a heavy task.

Phil Blundell (IIRC) has written a telnet client for Beebs over Econet - if
you had a suitable server, you could do things like 'telnet www.xyz.com 80'
and read the raw HTML - an increasing difficult task given the verbiage M$
FrontPage spits out, but it might be useful.  For details about this, have a
look at the comp.sys.acorn.networking FAQ.

There is a free 6502 TCP/IP stack available, which runs on a free
multithreaded OS primarily designed to run on C64 hardware (have a look at
http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~fachat/csa/gecko/index.html).  Any Beeb hackers
fancy porting it? ;-)

-- 
Theo Markettos          Home:   theomarkettos@...          
Liphook                 Work:   marketto@...                     
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UK                      Web site, including Acorn backup software
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