Re: The Internet-enabled Contiki Desktop OS

[chris@invalid.com (CHRIS MORSE)]

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