Date   : Fri, 29 Jul 2005 20:04:27 +0100
From   : Rob <robert@...>
Subject: Re: Econet-Ethernet bridge

At 19:39 29/07/2005, Jules Richardson wrote:

>On Fri, 2005-07-29 at 18:28 +0100, Rob wrote:
> >
> > I imagine it'd also be pretty common for an incoming packet to have to be
> > queued simply because the destination network was currently in use 
> (perhaps
> > by a 20K *view packet...) and it had to wait for the network to be free 
> again..
>
>I hadn't thought about the different network speeds (duh!) - but I
>wonder if the bridge bothers with the hassle of queing stuff up until
>the destination network's free. Depends on the higher protocols probably
>and whether the sending station will timeout eventually if it gets no
>ack from its transmissted packet...

Wouldn't it have to, because it can't rely on the sending station 
re-sending a packet very quickly, and target network might be busy, again, 
then?



> > Now ... can a 6502 drive that ISA based ethernet chip that was being 
> talked
> > about?
>
>I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking that. A 6502-based gateway would
>be rather cool :) I've certainly got spare 6502 CPUs, ROM and RAM chips
>lying around here doing nothing (and a programmer). Or, failing that,
>what about hacking the ethernet chip onto the 1MHz bus of a standard
>beeb and just fitting it with a custom ROM? Saves a lot of building
>work!

lol. well my first thought was, if a 6502 can drive two econet interfaces 
in with as simple a design as the acorn bridge appears to be, then why 
re-invent the wheel totally when it comes to designing a new box.

Of course an actual ethernet adapter for the Beeb would be equally 
interesting, and I've got several 'spare' 8-bit machines that could be used 
for this, but it's space I'm short off, and a small bridge box would be 
more attractive from that point of view.   a 1MHz bus version would be a 
good first step in prooving that a 6502 based box could do the job, mind..

Rob