Re: GNO...

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Rob Greene <greener@charter.net> wrote:

> (Moving this from the com.sys.apple2.gno newsgroup... either nobody knows
> anything about GNO or not many people look there!)

I didn't see any postings in csa2.gno - my ISP's news server must have a
poor connection to yours, with someone in the middle not forwarding
every group. (I have several others which seem to be dead, so it is
likely to be near my end.)

> I've never tried GNO/ME, but since I had a CF card sitting around, I 
> thought it might be interesting.
> 
> So far, so good.  Actually, amazing given the hardware.  However, without
> dev tools (that is, ORCA), I'm still not certain I know what to use it
> for.  
> 
> I have some questions:
> 
> 1. Do the Merlin tools work from the command line?

I don't recall ever using Merlin-16+ from the command line. I think I
stuck to the ORCA tools with GNO.

> How?  I see how to get MD Basic working.  Is there any way to run a BASIC
> program from from GNO?

Applesoft BASIC under ProDOS-8? You would need something which can
implement an "extended quit", able to pass a startup file to
BASIC.SYSTEM. I have a vague recollection I managed to come up with some
way to do that from the ORCA/Shell command line, and it should work in
GNO as well. How I did it is now lost in the mists of time, but if I dug
my IIgs out and had a play I might be able to find it again.

I didn't use any 16-bit BASICs.

> 2. What are the real memory requirements?  I'm currently sitting at 
> 1.25MB and I think I'm at the edge.

That is on the light side. I never used with less than 4 MB of RAM, but
it might have managed on 2.

> 3. Are serial communications possible?  I've got a direct link to my 
> Linux server in the basement.  I see there was a TCP/IP stack being 
> developed at one point with SLIP/PPP, but with my prior (lack of) success
> with Marinetti, I don't think I need to go there... I was thinking simple
> terminal emulator (hopefully with Z-Modem capability).

Jawaid Bazyar also implemented a serial driver but it was not directly
connected to GNO. I don't recall being able to do things like Zmodem.

> 4. Can this actually accept logons over the aforementioned serial 
> line?  Just curious.  It's not often that you can run multiuser on an
> 8MHz machine!
> 
> 5. Anything interesting going on with GNO?  Or is it pretty much dead?

Pass.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz