Date   : Thu, 30 Mar 2006 23:43:06 +0100
From   : Fragula <fragula@...>
Subject: Re: Announcing 65Link 2.10

Hi Wookie!

wookie wrote:
>> My Linux box and beebs are currently far apart, too far for serial but I
> Just how big is your house ? 
Doh.. That's should have read parallel (if i spelled that right!) <:*)

.. But you knew that, right?

> If you keep the speed down you should get a
> couple of thousand feet :-) even a couple hundred feet at 9600 baud.
Somewhere<TM> I have an RS423 card (and some RS422 ones!) for my PC.
Could do a couple of kilometres then. :-b'

 > Have you followed the discussion re: LPDFS ?
Missed the beginning.. Just got you and ?JGH? bickering over language,
it was getting amusing, but then died out. :-/

> If I get the server part sorted then it will do what you want.
So what's the story with LPDFS? It rings a bell, but I can't quite place
it... Seem to remember seeing a screen cap of it someplace fairly
recently, on a beeb-related site.

Who Dun It? if you don't tell me, i'm not kidding, i'll google for it!

Had a nice bath this evening, and, due to haveing replied to an off-list
mail about this earlier, was thinking about that.

Me thinking in the bath isn't always a good thing.. its a bit like
eating too much cheese before bed, and the little felt teddybear badge
on your pyjamas digging into you, just a little.

(start of true story)

Once Upon A Time, Long Ago, there was a chap, who shall remain nameless,
unless he wishes to out himself, who decided it would be cool to write a
kinda minimal SLIPpy IP "stack" (though its not quite that really, but
please forgive me, for I didst DOS too much during that era.) for the beeb.

A wholesome and good idea, but one that I fear may have fallen by the
wayside. (or maybe I missed that thread too.)

Now an IP stack (ok! ok!) isn't much use, without an application that
uses it. i.e. a Telnet client.

It went something like this. The IP "proggie" (ohhh..) used the serial
port (maybe directly, but maybe not, but anyway it probably shouldn't
have) and (maybe) trapped the calls to read/write the serial port, and
redirected them to the "telnet tunnel" (oh i wish i could write better).

This meant that legally-written (is that an Acorn phrase?) terminal
software could, at least notionally, do a telnet session, which, whilst
as it stood, wasn't very practical, was cooler than a brush painted matt
black Lamborghini Countach, with fake air force logos, being driven by a
pair of scantily clad vietnamese lap dancers who need directions, to my
house.

..at least to the kind of beeb anorak who lives in my house.

Well..Almost. :-/

[end of true story]

Now that's potentially the start of something beautiful in itself.

Admittedly there is room for, should it get developed, confusion at the
server end.. (you called /what/ nfsd?) that's all surmountable.

A serial link is a "transport", a means of getting stuff from one place
to another.

An IP link (whether running over a RS-nnn link, a parallel link,
encapsulated in Econet, or on little bits of paper being carried by
trained weevils is a (bit of a) (re)routable transport.

And if its TCP/IP, its probably smart enough to know when you
accidentally pulled out the plug, eventually. (and UDP can get messy
fast anyway, though it doesn't usually on short links)

And its bloody flexible! You could send all sorts of things over it,
even things like econet packets, or, heaven forbid, the packetoidal
stuff of SCSI/SASI/ATAPI/Etc. Or even Yet Another Incompatible Protocol.

So, apart from software being best as a bunch of interoperable modules,
what does this teach us? What does it teach you?

Interoperable Modules? TCP/IP, Anything going over anything? Nothing? Or
simply not to read what i've been writing when my skin is all pickled up
from soaking in the bath for too long. :-)

Cheers!

M.

P.S. I haven't been drinking, honest.