Date   : Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:59:06 +1030
From   : station240@... (paul aslin)
Subject: Beeb Networking

> From: samwise@...
> Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:07:03 +0000
> To: bbc-micro@...
> Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Beeb Networking - Was: No wonder CompSci graduates
are unemployed
> 
> > Now that's an interesting concept!
> 
> Thanks.  :)
> 
> >   1. User interface. Too many programs could be troublesome to navigate,
> >      especially if your favourite program is in the middle of a long
> >      list!
> >
> >   2. Where would user data (documents, settings, user scores, etc) be
> >      written?
> 
> Well, my theoretical idea is that this would work just like a
> traditional econet - so that real beebs could mix with emulated ones
> so to that extent, I'd expect the answers to these sorts of questions
> would be driven by how an original econet would work - and there are
> clearly ppl who understand such things better than I.
> 
> However, from memory:
> 
> 1) Yes, this would be a big menu.  I would expect to subdivide it into
> categories of software, and then have menus perhaps sorted
> alphabetically or by company (maybe even have a variety of options).
> Obviously a challenge to put that together, but not impossible.  I
> still have the menu system we used to use at school which was setup
> like this - a BASIC menu program which included an internal editor.  I
> think it was called SXMENU.  Similar menus are in use I think to allow
> you to launch all the images available on a flash disk with the
> various modern filing systems, I think.



I've been thinking of something even more complicated, a menu system with
search functionality.
I guess one way to implement it would be a tree like folder structure (software
maintained of course)
eg:
Elite would be:
*EXEC E.L.I.T.E.!boot

!boot
*BASIC
*I AM ELITE

Would have to put a list of children at each folder level, to save doing
a tree scan each time someone searches for something.

I would make a different set of results for program name, publisher, release
year etc.

> 2) I wasn't actually considering giving everyone a user account, I was
> kinda hoping that it would be possible to use a guest account to
> access the read-only fileserver.  Unless someone really wanted to go
> crazy and start trying to get some econet games working that needed it
> ... CAVE maybe?

I've actually got cave working here, would it even work over these psudo
network bridges being discussed ?

Its more a question of security, only let people we know have the password
for the cave account, and keep backups.


I've go an A420/1 here which I plan to get working sometime, its got both 
econet and ethernet cards. Could we start by making the software to run 
on this so it can be used as a gateway ? Might as well start with the option
that doesn't require a soldering iron. We can add sprow's econet card to
that list, though it will be tricky to have it an econet in the same machine.