Version 2.0 of NadaNet

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

I've completed testing of a new version of NadaNet--version 2.0,
now available on my website.

During June, a collaborator in Australia, Stephen Thomas, worked
with me to resolve a "bus fight" issue, and, in the process, he
found a very clever way to run the lowest-level network routines,
SENDPKT and RCVPKT 11% faster.  His new routines require only 8
cycles per bit compared to the previous 9 cycles per bit!

A few other changes:

1) A short-duration bus fight in RCVPKT has been found and fixed. This 
never caused amy problems on my //e systems, but it should definitely be 
avoided!

2) A collaborator in Australia, Steven Thomas, has written replacement 
SENDPKT and RCVPKT routines which are faster and more tolerant of long 
networks than the original routines--and they avoid the bus fights of 
the original RCVPKT! The new data transfer rates are over 10KB per second.

3) The AppleCrate boot ROM has been changed to permit the machines to 
obtain logical IDs in an order determined by a physical wiring between 
machines. This allows machine IDs to be deterministic from run to run
while still keeping all ROMs identical.

The layering of NadaNet is such that there are no functional changes
in any of the higher levels, or in the hardware adapters, for that
matter--it is a pure software upgrade that improves speed by 11%.

I've also added documentation and object and source downloads for
CrateSynth, for those who are interested.  ;-)

-michael

8-voice music synthesizer using NadaNet networking!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/