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Re: The Internet-enabled Contiki Desktop OS



CHRIS MORSE wrote:
Hi Simon!

On Mon, 10 Mar 2003 12:03:15 GMT, Simon Williams
<*email*@*luddite.ca*> wrote:

<SNIP>

Wow, this looks very exciting... now if someone could cobble together
an ethernet card for the ][...


Only recently have I been getting back to my Apple II roots.  I'm a
software engineer by day and I do a lot of internet programming-
mainly using sockets.  I got interested in TCP/IP recently, especially
home-grown implementations.  When I saw uIP from Adam Dunkels, I was
really excited.  My target platform is the 8-bit Apple II line, not
the II GS, as that is already covered by Marinetti.

I knew about the LANceGS card, but I was under the impression it was
for the GS only.  After reading the link that Adam just provided, I
see that it works on an enhanced //e.  Unfortunately, I see that there
is no real software for the //e so it's not very useful.  Sounds like
an interesting challenge.


Any info on how the A2 port is coming?


Currently, I am working on the Apple II port.  I had talked with Adam
on the cc65 mailing list about uIP a while ago and Adam asked if I was
interested in working on the Apple II version.

At the moment, most of my hardware is packed away.  I am finally
moving out of "apartment life" and into a real house.. Due to the lack
of space in my apartment (and my wife's tolerance level for computer
equiptment all over the place) I won't have the Apple II setup until I
am in my new place.  Closing on the house is the 31st of this month,
but due to some other reasons I won't be living at the new house until
the end of May.

So at the moment, I am working strictly with an emulated //e.  I am
using AppleWin 1.10.4 and a registered copy of Apple ][ Oasis.

I am also lacking the technical documentation I used to have back in
the 80's.  I just ordered a copy of the Super Serial Card manual, but
I am still trying to track down a copy of the Apple //e Technical
Reference.  So progress is a bit slow at the moment.  Anyone
interested in working on it sooner is, of course, free and welcome to
do so.

As for testing, the uIP TCP/IP stack (and hence Contiki) supports
SLIP.  All my machines right now run Windows OS and can only serve PPP
connections.  No version of Windows will run just a SLIP server.  The
alternative is to setup and use Linux or FreeBSD (etc) and use that as
a server for internet access.  At least until uIP/Contiki supports
PPP.

Right now I am waiting for my a copy of the Apple II Super Serial Card
manual to arrive, which I ordered off eBay two days ago.  That should
give me the information I need to write the RS232 portion.  How long
it will take, ultimately, to get everything working, I can't say for
sure.  But I am excited to be working on it, and would love to hear
from anyone else willing to work on it.  I don't know many other
people that do Apple // 6502 programming...

Cheers!
// CHRIS




I believe the developer of the LanceGS card has said he would write the link layer for the device, if someone will develop the rest of the network stack. He has not released information on the card to allow someone to write the low level stuff. There is supposed to be a PRODOS packet driver, but that would not be very useful by itself.

I look forward to trying out your port to the Apple ][. I'm not a programmer but am willing to help in any way I can.

--
Rob

"Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"