Re: What if we designed and built a "32bit" Apple II?

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Roy wrote:

>NadaNet is certainly an example of what you've talked about.
>
>Speaking of which... Can an AppleCrate machine do the following? One MB 
>control a video display, another run your sound software, and can the 
>two do so in combination?
>
>I was thinking about something else you had written in reference to 
>games....

Yes, each board of the 'crate can run a different program, and
coordinate with others through NadaNet.

If some of the programs need some I/O attached, then they
can run on more fully equipped Apple II's, also on NadaNet.

I designed it for up to 16 machines, and have tested it for
a 10-machine configuration.  The limit is not "hard", and
could be extended easily if there were some reason.

The part about coordination that has to be worked out in
each case is how the machines will rendezvous to exchange
data.  If one is willing to wait for the other, and can reliably
beat the other one to the wait point, then it's easy.

For example, if one task always completes a little sooner
than another, then it's machine can wait for the slower one
by calling the service loop to poll the network.

If the task completion times are unpredictable, and you don't
want to wait or don't know just which machine to wait for, then
the message server is handy, since it is a _de facto_ rendezvous
point for all other machines.  The message server is constantly
polling the network to process GETMSG and PUTMSG requests.

It might be fun to put together a coordinated, _simultaneous_
sound and graphics display, something that the Apple II always
needed help to do (which was provided on the IIgs).

It is also possible to coordinate multiple displays, for more
graphics "real estate".

-michael

Check out parallel computing for 8-bit Apples on my
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