Date   : Mon, 15 Nov 2010 18:48:51 +0000
From   : jgh@... (J.G.Harston)
Subject: Beeb Networking - Was: No wonder CompSci

Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:
> Something like one of the FTDI chips, say the vinculum on the datacentre

Hmm. I have a DataCentre, and a PC with USB ports. What lead would I
need to plug the two together?

> I believe that the Tandy CoCo folks have done something similar with the
> latest version of drivewire, which runs over the CoCo's bit-banger
> serial port.

Back in the '90s I put together scraps of code to send Econet packets
over the serial port. I'll have to dig them out and put them together.

Back in the '80s I wrote a serial port fileserver to let my Spectrum
access files on the Beeb, the Beeb even masqurading as a Spectrum to
MachinePeek calls. http://mdfs.net/Spectrum/Server

> Drivewire incedentally started out as a virtual disk server
> for CoCo machines and has expanded to include networking, perhaps it's
> protocol could be used as a starting point ?

As the intention is to extend the BBC's network onto other networks
the protocol to start with is the pre-existing Econet protocol.
(http://mdfs.net/Docs/Comp/Econet)

Alternatively, if the remote system is to just appear as a file
source, the pre-exisiting Tube protocol is where you'd start.
http://mdfs.net/Software/Tube/Serial is a single-port Tube
implementation.

(I've just been chatting about this over on WOS :)

-- 
J.G.Harston - jgh@...