Hi!
Philip wrote:
>Isn't it possible to connect the MSX to the PC in a way you can access the
>harddisk of the pc ?
You can do that using the JoyNet cable. Simply build one for the MSX and
one for the PC parallel port.
I am making some software, called JoyDsk, which emulates a floppy through a
DSK image located on the PC's hard drive.
Two disadvantages:
- the speed is not that good (on turbo R almost as fast as a floppy)
- the JoyDsk ROM needs an extra piece of memory, which is not located in
the primary mapper. Such memory could be for example an extra mapper, an
ESE-SCC or the Brazilian MegaRAM.
Gerald wrote:
>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.
Cool!
Did you talk with Greg? He made something like that for a SVI computer.
>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.
There is another possible solution to this: make the parallel connection
function like a bus. If you do that, there is no need for every computer in
the network to forward all messages not intended for that computer.
>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.
I solved that problem for DOS1 (JoyDsk ROM).
Solving it for DOS2 may be more trouble. But examining how Tsujikawa did it
might help. He made a RAMdisk for ESE-SCC and also made the MegaSCSI BIOS.
By the way, JoyDsk communicates with a "sector server", not a file server.
Will the cartridge contain SRAM or FlashROM or something like that?
>- Connect an MSX joystick port to the parrallel port of your pc.
>You can do 4-bit biderectional parrallel transfers this way.
The MSX joystickport only has 3 write signals. And you probably lose a bit
on synchronization. I can tell you that 2-bit transfer on MSX without
additional hardware is not that fast. I tried, I couldn't get beyond floppy
speed even on turbo R.
>You'll have to write the software yourself. But both the msx joystick
>port and the pc parralllel port are well documented.
PC parallel port programming in DOS or Win95 is very easy. It might be more
difficult in Linux or WinNT, because those operating systems care more
about security and don't like programs to mess around with I/O ports.
Philip wrote:
>I don't think there are many people (except mr. Witkop) who have more than
>two msx computers.
I have four and I know quite a lot of other people who have more than one.
Bye,
Maarten
****
MSX Mailinglist. To unsubscribe, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put
in the body (not subject) "unsubscribe msx [EMAIL PROTECTED]" (without the
quotes :-) Problems? contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] (www.stack.nl/~wiebe/mailinglist/)
****
