Well, maybe you would be able to do that, because the Disk ][ port has both a data input and a data output. But I think there are easier ways to do that. The most obvious is a serial card or (even better) and Ethernet card. You could also use a parallel card (a Centronics port has 8 output lines and 5 input lines, so you would be able to transfer a nibble every cycle) or the game port's digital inputs and outputs.
I think the problem is the software more than the hardware. If I have undertood well, you're talking about taking a task, dividing it automatically into subtasks, and delivering them to different processors. You'll need to build a paralel compiler to do that, and it's no trivial task. And even if you build the compiler, you'd also need a software layer to communicate data and results set to other computers and synchronize them, and probably a multitasking kernel too, to achieve all those tasks. That is a project big enough for a Doctorate Thesis in Computer Science. But it may be fun to develop it using 20 year old machines ;-) . About the limit of tiers: I'd desing it using only a "master" computer (coordinating the whole system and interfacing with the user), and a single tier of "slave" computers (making the calculations). But, given each computer has all the needed hardware to communicate with three computers, the number of tiers wouldn't be limited by the hardware alone. But take into account that the more the tiers, the slower the data will move through the entire system. You may arrive at a point where adding more computers don't increase the power of the system because of the time lost propagating data. Greetings, Antonio Rodr�guez (Grijan) <ftp://grijan.cjb.net:21000/> Jennifer Worgan ha escrito: > I guess I'm asking if the data transmission that leaves an Apple IIE > diskdrive card output when commanded to transmit data to diskdrive be > received and "read" by the input of the diskdrive card of another Apple IIE > commanded to receive a data transmission from a disk drive? -- Apple2list is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... / Buy books, CDs, videos, and more from Amazon.com \ / <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect-home/lowendmac> \ Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Apple2list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/apple2.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/apple2list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
