Re: project BIG AppleCrate

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

aiiadict@gmail.com wrote:
> I'd like to make a huge applecrate.  See the website below for
> more details.
>
> I have 16 IIe motherboards so far.  I want to start with a 32 IIe
> network...
>
> http://rich12345.tripod.com/hugeapplecrate/index.html

Wow.

I should warn you that currently AppleCrate only supports
unenhanced //e boards.

It is possible that enhanced IIe boards could be supported
without "unenhancing" them, but that is a not-yet-solved problem.

Apple ]['s and ][+'s are not easily supported, because in
their Applesoft (][+) configurations, they don't have room
for NadaNet boot code in ROM.

Of course, any Apple II (with a 16-pin game port) will host
NadaNet just fine if it can be pre-booted/loaded with NadaNet
software (a little over 2KB), but that usually requires some
I/O.

It might be interesting to consider a method of "booting"
boards over their cassette interfaces, but even that requires
ROM changes.

I much prefer a broadcast boot over the network for bringing
up 8, 16, 32, or whatever AppleCrate boards.

I've actually been planning a 16-board version, but don't have
enough unenhanced //e boards yet.

You mention that you'd like to "make it available" over the
Internet using Contiki, but, frankly, I don't see exactly how
that would be done.  I didn't think that Contiki presented a
remote user with a "command line prompt" into a ProDOS machine,
for example, which would be essential to making an AppleCrate
available over the network.

BTW, a little off the subject, but closely related:  does anyone
have any information about Vintage Computing's plan to build a
64-processor C=64 "AppleCrate"?  It seems not to have happened,
but I'm curious about the status and origin of the project...

http://www.vintage.org/projects.php

-michael

NadaPong: Network game demo for Apple II computers!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."