Date : Wed, 23 Dec 1998 01:37:54 +0000
From : jgh@... (Jonathan Graham Harston)
Subject: Hard Drives+Networking
"Thomas Elliott" <teejay@...> wrote:
> I have the chance of getting hold of a 20mb drive for a BBC, and
> wondered if it would go on the Master or not. It already had ADFS, and
> from what I can gather, you just plug it into the 1mhz bus and go! Is
> this true? Do I need any other special software?
The hard drive plugs into a SCSI interface/host board, and /that/ plugs
into the 1MHz bus. Usually, the host board is inside the large box that
the hard drive was mounted inside for the 8-Bit machines. These boxes
tended to be the full width of a Master and about 3 inches tall.
The firmware to control a hard drive is built into ADFS. On startup it
prods where the controller should be, and if it finds one, allows you
access it.
> Also, the master and one of the beebs (actually a b+128) have econet
> interfaces. Is there any way in which these can be used, or is the
> cable/clocks/software to do so not available?
The cable is easy to get hold of. Clocks can be built or obtained
second-hand or from some suppliers. Software... well, what software do
you want? If you want shared file serving, you'll want a file server;
either a dedicated unit (I swear by SJ MDFS), or software running on a
BBC/Master (ties up a machine).
Having a network isn't just about fileserving. Clients (the stations on
the network) can communicate with each other. See Talker (Arcade Area 72)
for an example or pier-to-pier communication. All the communication
control software is contained in the NFS rom. The NFS contains Econet
hardware drivers, the NetFS filing system, and the NetPrint printer
channel, which work together in the folloing way:
NetFS NetPrint
(a filing system) (a printer channel)
| |
uses uses
| |
+--->Network Driver<---+
|
v
Econet Hardware Driver
(only driver supplied in BBC/Master NFS Rom)
The Archimedes can also use Ethernet network drivers and I have been
working on SerialNet network drivers that use the Serial port.
> Could someone give me a quick run down on how econet works, and what I
> would need to implement it.
Do you mean how econet works, how networking works, or how NetFS works?
They are all seperate, but connected subjects.
I'll trawl through some of my files and put something together relavant.
--
J.G.Harston (JGH BBC PD Library) 70 Camm Street, Walkley, SHEFFIELD S6 3TR
jgh@... --- BBC+Master / Z80+6502 / CoPro+Tubes / Econet+SJ
Devolution / Transport / Planning / Highways ---- Focus Editor for Walkley
Walkley Ward Website: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~amilton/walkley.htm
Death->By-Election->Lots of work->Arrgghh!!->Slow Email Replies->Sorry->:)
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