Re: "Co-Processor" Apple ?

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

Robert C. replied:

>"Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote in message
>
>> All these issues caused me to prefer using an annunciator output
>> and a pushbutton input for NadaNet--it is both simpler and more
>> capable.
>
>The more I read about NadaNet, the more I think it is "the next best thing"
>to true Ethernet.

I'm glad you like what you've read.  ;-)

The practical bandwidth is about 8 kilobytes/sec, which is a lot
lower than the peak bandwidth of Ethernet, but the latency is
very low and Apple II's don't need screaming bandwidth.

NadaNet delivers data at about the same rate as a 5.25" disk,
which is quite practical for many purposes.

And you can't beat the price...  ;-)

I've just written a Applesoft program "prun" which will do a
"parallel run" of any Applesoft program on all networked
machines running the service loop.  The slaves complete
their computation and return to the service loop by doing
any input operation.

I've been pretty busy reorganizing my lab area for the last
few weeks, and expect that to go on for another few weeks,
but my next NadaNet project is assembling the code to
run at the top of RAM (at $B800 for AppleCrate slaves),
so that HIMEM: can easily protect it, and all of low memory
will be contiguous for program(s).

I'll give some thought to self-relocation in the process...

-michael

Check out parallel computing for 8-bit Apples on my
Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/