I'm a bit confused about all this — how will this all work from a
technical point of view? I don't know what hardware ethernet
controllers tend to have... presumably the ethernet controller can
self assemble packets, then the z80 will run a TCP/IP stack and the
various HTTP protocol-related tasks? Are you planning to claim well-
defined pages and publish well-defined entry points/etc, or just offer
the TCP/IP and HTTP code for linking directly into programs that want
to use it?
Quite possibly I'm asking the wrong questions. If so, please don't
hesitate to say so!
Re: the SD/MMC card and reading it on full-size computers, I think
there isn't a solution yet for Trinity-format cards (?), presumably
for us people using an OS with a UNIX layer, this is just a case of
someone writing something to find the correct block device and read it
back in the expected formats, and could even be added to something
like FUSE (the filesystems in userspace one, not the Spectrum
emulator)? How hard would it be to add to Sim Coupé?
On 8 Jan 2009, at 22:27, Adrian Brown wrote:
Ill be glad when the HTTP stuff is sorted so i can add all the final
interfaces for it all - once its all done, i need to get my nice cross
platform compiler/debugger working using it - so i can rewrite it
all ;)
I forgot how hard it was to dev something of this size even in the
great
comet assembler (I cant remember which assembler i first started
with -
but it had line numbers ;). When a project starts getting above 4000
lines of code its a pain to follow. I guess im too use to multiple
files and headesr to keep everything simple these days :D
Adrian
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
On Behalf Of Colin Piggot
Sent: 08 January 2009 22:00
To: Adrian
Subject: Re: SAM Revival issue 22 out now!
Thomas wrote:
To my mind, this would add significantly to the value of the Trinity,
and if you were to develop such a thing (presumably it'd just be
however long it takes to modify the OS ROM, then existing Trinitys
could be reflashed?) then I would definitely go on the pre-order
list.
No need to reflash existing Trinitys. The EEPROM on the Trinity is
both
readable and writeable from software. It's on there to store settings
and
such like for programs (e.g. network configuration). It's allocated
with
a
simple system giving 120 x 1K chunks and a table which has a record of
what
is using each chunk. There's all the info on how it stores stuff as
well
as
all the source code needed to do everything included with the Trinity
(and
also printed in SAM Revival 20)
A simple program could be made to allocate a chunk (or chunks) for the
extra
boot code or the whole DOS, which the patched SAM ROM could then fetch
when
the SAM starts up.
In fact, I guess you'd just be able to offer the OS ROM as an upgrade
(?), so I guess I could order a Trinity right now and get myself in
order with whatever tiny number of discs I didn't long ago image
while
the drive is still working.
Yeap. When it's ready it would just need the modified SAM ROM to be
fitted
inside the SAM and then a program loaded on the SAM to dump the extra
chunk
of code in the Trinity's EEPROM and then it would be all set to go.
While the Atom and that ROM would clearly solve my solid-state needs,
it would be nice to throw some ethernet on in there while I'm
spending
the cash.
I'm itching to see stuff using the Ethernet up and running as you'll
have
seen from the latest magazine - I'll update information on my webby of
what
I've got in the works at the weekend when I've got some spare time.
From chatting with Adrian I know he's been making great progress with
the
TCP/IP code, running his DNS program and just seeing it pop the
results
up
shows it's well on the way! With all the ideas that he has been
kicking
about for the completed stack it is going to be fantastic - and easy
to
use
for all the programmers out there.
Colin.
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