Date   : Sun, 03 May 2009 10:09:16 +0100
From   : robert@... (Rob)
Subject: Biggest Econet Fileserver Yet??

2009/5/3 Chris Johns <chris@...>:
>>
>> I'm left wondering what the spec was on Acorn's VAX-based Econet server (which
>> from what I've been told was a VAX with a beeb grafted onto the front-end via
>> a serial link to give it Econet ability)
>
> There was also a unix fileserver (for PCs with the ISA Econet card).

http://mdfs.net/Docs/Comp/Econet/RISCiX.txt gives a bit of information
about both - it implies that (at least at one point) the vax was
reachable from the econet via a gateway machine that had both
interfaces and translated IP-over-econet into IP over ethernet,
allowing a UNIX machine with just an econet interface to mount NFS
shares off the Vax..!

Alternatively, it would seem that you can run Level3 FS on a beeb with
almost any backend storage medium, if the recent CF card examples have
shown.  Just needs a modified ADFS..  So just write a patch that
refers device accesses across a serial link to the machine of your
choice...  I've no idea, of course, if that's what they did...


I've been doing a lot of reading on econet lately, in odd spare
moments, trying to get my head around AUN (econet-over-IP
specifically) do to the mods to BeebEm I've wanted to do for years ..
Its slowly starting to make some sense, thanks mainly to posts by JGH
back in 2007, the aforementioned acorn document, and a little peering
at the Linux af_econet sources!