In terms of software drivers, what would Ethernet require to connect
to other computers on a network? Would one driver be it (i.e. largely
device independen to use QL-speak) or would it need various drivers
depending on what it was hoping to connect to?
Preferably, it would be one driver, independent of what it was talking to... Of course, the problem would be if you are talking to a printer, you still need the printer driver!!
I should imagine the best bet would be to have an ETH_USE command to point to the deivce to talk to (IP address for ethernet) and this would then operate as a directory device.To open a printer you would use something akin to
ETH_CONNECT "1.0.0.127" (point to printer device)
ETH_USE "par"
Then just use our normal printer drivers, output to PAR (of course not many ethernet enabled printers will allow ESC/P2, but we do have Prowess)
ETH_USE "dos" could be used to open the directories if the ethernet was connected to a PC/MAC or QL.
(ok I stand to be corrected here, but this would be the most simple way of developing this from a users point of view)
What I'm getting at (not being familar with PC networks) is would you
need a driver to access Ethernet in general (or another QL on
ethernet), another driver to access a PC over a network, another
driver to talk to a printer hub, another to talk to a Mac etc etc. I
am still smarting a bit from other QL hardware like Aurora which for
all their promised merits (no blame fired at anyone here) were not
fully usable until the drivers eventually came along (thinking of
Aurora 256 colours which were not fully supported until Marcel took
the law into his own hands).
You can probably see what I'm hinting at, if drivers are an issue, and
we were asking Quanta to assist with development costs, need this only
apply to the hardware or do we need to think of the software costs
too.
Yes, of course, the drivers for any hardware need to be financed at the same time as the actual hardware otherwise it will not be of much use to anyone.
--
Rich Mellor
RWAP Services
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