Re: Networking Apple II'ss with each other and for Internet?

["Al Todd" <toddaj@home.com>]

"Bernd" <boernd@hotmail.com> wrote in message
3bee2279_2@news.nwlink.com">news:3bee2279_2@news.nwlink.com...
> Hello,
>
> After having neglected the roots of my career I am finally getting back
into
> the fun tinkering with Apple II's. Now I am trying to figure out how to
put
> them better to use than just having them be isolated islands. There gotta
be
> a way with the serial card to connect to each other and ultimately through
a
> PC or a router out to the internet. Does anybody have good references or
> possibly own experiences with implementation of TCP/IP stacks through the
> serial port or even an Ethernet card for the Apple II series?
>
> Any hints are greatly appreciated,
> Bernd
>
>
> Helop Bernd:

One of my project ideas from many years ago was to use the Apple II 16 pin
game connector inside the Apple II (not the external 9 pin game connector)
to create a network capability for these computers. This game port has
output capability with the annuciator soft switches as well as input ability
with the game push buttons. With this I/O capability you can create a simple
serial interface that could be the basis of an Apple II network, without
additional hardware or the use of a slot.  In fact this feature is the only
really useful item detailed in the original Apple Red Book. It is mostly a
software solution so it becomes more of an intellectual progamming problem
rather than a hardware interfacing problem. Definition of protocols,
handshaking, collision detection and avoidance all have to be delt with. If
memory serves me I think Don Lancaster mentioned in one of his articles,
that this inbuilt serial capability is very fast, if  handled efficiently
with machine language code. Where this idea could go is anyones guess, but
it would require very little hardware, a couple of Apple II's and some time
to work through the details. If it were successful, it would show, again,
just how far ahead of the times the original Apple II was in 1977.

Cheers;
Al