Re: Apple // networking?

[win32mfc@yahoo.com (Chris Morse)]

On Fri, 15 Jun 2001 09:16:55 -0500, Paul & Sharyn Bramscher
<brams007@tc.umn.edu> wrote:

>I'm a programmer (primarily unix/PHP/Java/mySQL), but I don't mess around at
>the OS or hardware level.  I used an Apple //c for gaming in the mid- and
>late 1980's, especially the Ultima series.  Then ran a BBS for a couple years
>with it.  A port of the Citadel software, someone here in Minneapolis wrote a
>version called Pseudodel.  I made some changes to it, and had fun with it for
>awhile.
>
>Bought a 386 DX2 66 with DOS 5.0, and started to neglect the Apple //c after
>that.  I always wanted a //e, so ended up getting a couple, cheap, at rummage
>sales.  Haven't used any of them in a few years but I'm sure they're all in
>good order.
>
>But I've been thinking about networking them.  I think a workable solution
>would be a limited TCP/IP stack through a serial port.  If someone could hack
>a simple ftp daemon and telnet terminal, you could do a few things with it.
>I'm thinking mainly of transferring all of my old Apple // disks, remotely
>administering my Linux server, and simple historic preservation.
>
>Ideally, there would be an external //c serial port -> ethernet adapter, but
>that would involve some hardware hacking, and therefore probably wouldn't
>catch on for the average person.
>


Yeah.. There is someone working on an Ethernet adapter for the //e,
but since it won't help the //c, I figure that a small TCP/IP stack
and dialup support would be the best solution.

The only problem with the TCP/dialup approach is that it won't make it
very easy for the average person to hook the //e or //c up to a
in-home LAN..  It would require one of the PC machines (or MAC or
whatever) to provide an real ISP-like dialup connection.. Windows NT
server can do it pretty easily with RAS, but it's not trivial to set
up (for the average user.. and how many people have Windows NT
server??)

A dubious hack might be to construct, on a 95/98/NT/2K/XP machine, a
custom program that talks over an RS-232 direct connection and mimicks
an ISP's SLIP/PPP connection and acts like a proxy server or
something.  I've written a BBS program (essentially) for windows that
is multi-threaded (on NT, I have configured it to run on 8 or more
ports.)  So I do have a code base of my own to pull from for a project
like that.  Plus, I have done extensive network programming.. The only
thing I need to really get a handle on is the TCP/SLIP/PPP
implementations.

I'd like to hash out my ideas with other interested people to see what
an optimal solution might be.

Cheers!
// CHRIS