Date   : Sat, 20 Nov 2010 01:20:54 +0100
From   : rick@... (Rick Murray)
Subject: Rockin' out with awServer :-)

On 19/11/2010 03:27, J.G.Harston wrote:

> There's a 1280-byte buffer hardwired into something somewhere.

That was the question. I figured it would be a finite buffer, but what 
where?


> Plus, the larger packets you throw at the network, the longer you
> are hogging it and preventing somebody else interleaving between
> your packets and getting something done.

Given the fact that I would imagine the majority of Econet setups now 
are essentially single-user (i.e. "my office" or "my bedroom"), it 
mightn't be a bad idea to look to ways of maximising throughput. The 
first, and obvious, is to run *two* Econets if there are Beeb/Arc 
machines, with a bridge between. I *think* (but this is a 10 year old 
memory) that Arcs can work on short networks at 2?s (0.5?s mark); while 
the BBC kit doesn't like to run less at something like 4?s (1?s mark). 
Of course, what you do with the 8 bit kit may tell whether or not you're 
willing to sacrifice the bridge lag.

But, what about optimisation by extending the actual data transfer? I 
feel pretty certain 6*1024 would be a Bad Thing on a BBC; however what 
about RISC OS? Could the Econet subsystem cope? If so, it might be an 
interesting idea to modify awServer to identify the client and adjust 
its buffer size accordingly (i.e. 6K for RISC OS, 1280 bytes for 
everything else).


Best wishes,

Rick.

-- 
Rick Murray, eeePC901 & ADSL WiFI'd into it, all ETLAs!
BBC B: DNFS, 2 x 5.25" floppies, EPROM prog, Acorn TTX
E01S FileStore, A3000/A5000/RiscPC/various PCs/blahblah...