Re: New version of NadaNet available

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Eric Smith wrote:

>Michael J. Mahon wrote:
>> A new version of NadaNet, a network for Apple II computers,
>> is available at my web site. [...] The only hurdle you have to overcome
>> (assuming that you have at least two Apple II's) is that you will have
>> to build two or more small adapters on 16-pin DIP sockets to plug
>> into the game ports of the networked machines.
>
>Pretty neat!  I first saw Apple II computers networked together at the
>1977 or 1978 "Computer Corral", a computer show in Denver, Colorado.
>Some of the members of the "6502 Group" had wired up three Apple IIs
>much as you describe, and had them running a Towers of Hanoi solver,
>with each computer responsible for and displaying one of the three
>towers.

Interesting!

Do you know how they connected them?  (Of course, a specialized
interaction for Towers of Hanoi would be pretty straightforward.)

I've actually been trying to think of a nice demo of parallel
computation that would not require too many monitors or
too much explanation...  Of course, it would be nice if it
were a little bit impressive.  ;-)

To date, the most graphically interesting demo I've done is a
"message chaser", in which seven Applecrate machines are
assigned input queues (in the Message server, which is the
eighth machine).  The queues are primed with five messages
each, then all the machines are turned loose to "process"
their messages, which means sending them on to one of
the other machines chosen at random.  Each message is
forwarded randomly for a total of 255 times, resulting in a
total of 8925  messages being sent and received.

It's fun to watch the Message Server display, showing the
lengths of the input queues bouncing up and down as the
messages thread their way through the system at a rate of
about 60 message exchanges per second!

-michael

New Applesoft BASIC interface for NadaNet networking!
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/