Date   : Wed, 11 Jan 2006 21:24:19 +0000
From   : "Ian Wolstenholme" <BBCMailingList@...>
Subject: Re: Econet hardware / software differences

I am not sure when 16-bit station addressing was introduced but it
was certainly in place by the time the Beeb came out, where station
numbers are addressed as <net number>.<station number> and <net
number> is anything from 0 to 127, with 0 being your "local" network
number, and <station number> being anything from 1 to 254.

Level 1 Econet is very primitive, the BBC Model B version of the Level 1
file server is available for download in various places.  I don't know if 
a System or Atom version of the code was written.  The BBC B version
is written in BASIC and does not require a second processor.

Really Level 1 is a shared work disc in DFS format with each station
on the network being allocated a DFS directory letter.  You can set the number
of files per user when starting up the L1 server.

Remote viewing of user display (ie. *VIEW) is an Econet library utility rather 
than part of the Econet file server software and if I remember correctly,
*VIEW is on the L1 master disc.

One of the biggest problems with L1 Econet is that it has difficulty recognising
Master 128 commands because the ANFS sends them to the server in some
cases in the minimum abbreviation and in lower case.  For instance, if you press
SHIFT-BREAK on the Master, it sends to the file server the command "*i . boot"
which the L1 server doesn't understand!

Best wishes,


Ian

----- Original Message -----
From: Jules Richardson
To:   bbc-micro@...
Sent: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 15:31:24 +0000
Subject: [BBC-Micro] Econet hardware / software differences


Has anyone documented the differences over time in the Econet hardware and 
software protocols?

I'm just looking at some documentation for someone relating to the System and 
Atom fileserver code (labelled as "Econet version 1") and one of the things it 
mentions is that eventually the protocol would be extended to allow for 
gateways by having a 16 bit station address - I believe that this is what 
indeed happened?

The v1 fileserver is rather primitive too, allowing only 2 private files per 
station and seemingly no concept of log on/off.

By the time we get to a document branded as "Econet version 2", log on is 
there as is support for directories - but remote viewing of a user's display 
isn't mentioned (did this get dropped or does it just not happen to be in the 
doc?)

A separate doc by B Robertson dated 15/2/1982 mentions that the v2 fileserver 
code had some changes made to the control byte handling, non packet 
acknowledgement, and various tweaks to allow it to run at 2MHz. (There's also 
mention in the same doc of a possible future Econet project to combine the 
data and clock line...)

So, has anyone looked into the differences and what changed when? I get the 
impression it was fairly standardised by mid 1982, but prior to that Econet 
was still subject to various tweaks and changes.

cheers

Jules