Re: Bob Bishop's homepage

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

roughana wrote:
> On Aug 30, 11:12 am, aiiad...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > http://www.geocities.com/robertjamesbishop/
> >
> > great stuff, including a listing of apple II stuff he did
>
>
> Looks like Michael Mahon wasn't the first to create a simple
> network....
>
> GOBBLERS  1986  Interactive Arts
> A multi-player "Pac-Man" game that used the cassette ports to network
> four Apple-II computers

This is the first mention of a "multi-drop" network for Apple II's!
I wonder what kind of hardware setup they used?  Four amplifiers or
just one?  I'm guessing they used "token passing" to avoid arbitration,
but I'd like to see it.

I also recently heard about TelePong, an Apple cassette program in
Integer BASIC to demo the early serial card.  (Does anyone have
TelePong?)

Bob Bishop also wrote an article "Fun With the Cassette Ports" that
describes a simple interconnection of two machines, both at standard
cassette speeds and, with his Programming Pack, at higher speeds.  I've
asked him about that...  (Does anyone have his Programming Pack?)

All things considered, I'm glad I decided to use the annunciator and
pushbutton.  ;-)  And so far, the other implementations all seem to
be quite limited in their styles of communication, but it's interesting
to find out about them.

Frankly, when I started playing with what became NadaNet in 1993, I
was somewhat surprised that I hadn't heard about others doing similar
things with the game port.  I guess my orientation toward true peer-
to-peer networking and parallel programming steered me in a different
direction.

-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."