Philip wrote:
>
> Isn't it possible to connect the MSX to the PC in a way you can access the
> harddisk of the pc ?
>
> It would be nice to run some kind of file server on your pc and connect the
> msx via serial port,or even better
> a network adapter with BNC or RJ-45 connectors.
>
> Even cooler: perhaps it is possible to run TCP/IP on MSX and access the
> internet through the pc.
>
> This would make a pc a usefull thing after all.
>
> Philip
Yes, I'm currently working on something like this.
I came up with the idea of making a bi-directional interface for
the MSX. It had to be 8-bits. And since the parallel port of
the pc is also bi-directional and 8-bits we planned to develop
a bi-directional printerport for the msx.
Erik the Boer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) made a layout of a printed circuit
board for me but all is stil in it's early development stages.
The board has to modes. One of them generates an interrupt on #38
whenever a byte is sent. The other one is withoput the interrupt.
Both modes are latched so you don't have to poll anything which saves
cpu-time.
Now the plans have changed somewhat. Because I thought it would also be
fun if you could also link all your msx-es together. But that would mean
that one MSX had tot have two printerport cartridges. And since most
MSX-es only have two external cartridge slots this doesn't leave any
room for extra harware like an scc cartridge or slotexpander.
Another problem was that both cartridges couldn't use the same I/O
adresses. They had to have a dipswitch in order to select another range
of I/O adresses for one of them.
So i'm redesigning the stuff.
The new plan is to create one cartridge with two parrallel printerlike
ports on it. This saves one slot but the cartridge does become bigger.
You can use it to either link your MSX to the parrallel port
of your PC, or link your MSX to another MSX, or both;)
I was writing a driver for the PC which makes the PC the slave
so you could access the harrdisk directly with some kind of
file transfer protocol. I don'y know how to make the MSX see your PC as
another drive though.
But I'm still some months away of finishing this project because
I also have a night job and have to go to university in the daytime.
So here's what you can do on short term;
- Connect the serial port of the pc to an rs232 msx cart.
But then your problem would be the software for msx. There isn't any
exept for bbs's and thephilips rs232 doesn't have an built in rs232 rom.
So you can't use those system calls either.
- Connect an MSX joystick port to the parrallel port of your pc.
You can do 4-bit biderectional parrallel transfers this way.
You'll have to write the software yourself. But both the msx joystick
port and the pc parralllel port are well documented.
Good luck!
Gerald
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