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Preannouncement: Dragon Cart II


ol.sc

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I don't think an adapter for the MPBI will be hard, I'm sure mytek will be along shortly to correct me if I'm wrong. I'd like to get this sitting above my XEL-CFIII with the case lid on, so it'll have to be a right angle bend as well.

 

Most likely some signals are missing in the XEL's MPBI spec that are probably required by this upgrade. Remember there are only 8 bits of addressing on the MPBI, and it relies on some signals from the 138 decoder to segment the address space in order to have this to work for the one and only MPBI device in existence (IDE/CF adapter).

 

Personally I would like to see it as a 130XE style Cart/ECI device which keeps it a bit more universal, especially if it could be plugged straight into the XEL or upcoming XLD. Of course it's height would have to stay low in order to have that work. Might even be able to incorporate a spot for a right angle cart port.

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Hi,

 

I think you can specify all the info that DHCP can supply, but having a DHCP client implementation is probably more user friendly, as you won't be pointing the end user off to their router setup webpage, etc. Not sure how difficult a dns resolver would be to implement.

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I think you can specify all the info that DHCP can supply, but having a DHCP client implementation is probably more user friendly, as you won't be pointing the end user off to their router setup webpage, etc. Not sure how difficult a dns resolver would be to implement.

 

The programs I provide all include DHCP and (where relevant) DNS. That's not the issue. I just wanted to comment on the common misconception of people reading the W5100 data sheet thinking they can create a network program by just hitting the W5100 registers. But at some point they usually notice that they didn't think about DHCP and DNS.

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Are you aware that this is exactly one of the two variants I announced here?

 

Yes I am. However looking at the standard PBI one that you showed in the earlier part of this thread, it looks a bit tall. Us XEL (and soon to be XLD) guys are really looking for something as mentioned that could fit inside a Realan Mini-ITX gaming case. It would also be beneficial to have a place for a cart connector to go (preferably towards the top), placing it at a right angle so as to fit inside that case. This way for people that still want a cart they have the option of using Dropcheck's buffered cart extender.

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Yes I am. However looking at the standard PBI one that you showed in the earlier part of this thread, it looks a bit tall. Us XEL (and soon to be XLD) guys are really looking for something as mentioned that could fit inside a Realan Mini-ITX gaming case. It would also be beneficial to have a place for a cart connector to go (preferably towards the top), placing it at a right angle so as to fit inside that case. This way for people that still want a cart they have the option of using Dropcheck's buffered cart extender.

 

Hi Michael, the current PBI card as shown is 6 cm tall not counting the edge connector towards the XL. I think the idea for the XE version card was to support PBI pass through as I have seen on other cards, so given that, I think that would preclude fitting in the Realan Mini-ITX gaming case.

 

Having said that, I would like to support the XEL/XED efforts if possible but it is a little early for me to make a commitment on that yet.

 

Glenn

Edited by a2retro
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Hi Michael, the current PBI card as shown is 6 cm tall not counting the edge connector towards the XL. I think the idea for the XE version card was to support PBI pass through as I have seen on other cards, so given that, I think that would preclude fitting in the Realan Mini-ITX gaming case.

 

Having said that, I would like to support the XEL/XED efforts if possible but it is a little early for me to make a commitment on that yet.

 

Glenn

 

Understood, and perfectly reasonable. Of course I'm rather handy with a hacksaw and could cut off the pass-thru ;) . But obviously it would be nice to see a version designed to fit.

 

When I get a chance I'll give you some clearance data for both Realan cases with the XEL board in place (the 60 mm and the 80 mm), and how much space there is above the XLD version in it's 1050 case.

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I think the PBI version should be called the "Dragon Bus (XL or XE)", and the cartridge version the "Dragon Cart".

 

- "Dragon Bus" doesn't seem nice to me as the device isn't the bus, it uses the bus.

- "Dragon Cart" (without any addition) doesn't seem a good idea for any W5100-based device as it's totally incompatible with the CS8900A-based 'Dragon Cart'.

 

Obviously I don't want to start a flame war over this issue.

 

Thanks.

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I initially thought a new name would be better too but don't feel all that strongly about it. If people are used to thinking 'ethernet' when they hear Dragoncart then just having the II after the name seems legit, it would be clear that this is a different device. Plus the logo is cool :)

For the PBI/ECI, yeah Dragon Bus just sounds kind of comical.

 

At any rate, I certainly would buy a couple of either one of these.

Edited by danwinslow
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Plus the logo is cool :)

 

Thanks :-) I asked Atari8bitCarts for the file of the original Dragon Cart. It turned out that the "full dragon" was the original design that then was replaced by the dragon head. So I simply cleanup up and transformed his original design...

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I am interested in both versions and can easily beta test both versions in whatever A8 you need it tested in (800/XL/XE/XEL/XLD).

 

I can also test it on a variety of machine configurations (modified/unmodified/looked at askance/etc).

 

Excellent news!

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Why not just call this one AtariNet PBI and the other one AtariNet Cart. For those that don't know about the Dragon name and it's history, this would certainly make a lot more sense, because Dragon wouldn't infer the true purpose without the back story attached.

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Why not just call this one AtariNet PBI and the other one AtariNet Cart. For those that don't know about the Dragon name and it's history, this would certainly make a lot more sense, because Dragon wouldn't infer the true purpose without the back story attached.

 

It is a nice and short name, but already reserved:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/243627-atarinet-binaries-available-for-download/

Edited by TheMontezuma
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Yeah unfortunately I saw that later after I posted my suggestion. But it was only really meant as a suggested direction for renaming anyways. Making the name more meaningful to what the product does.

 

Edit: maybe "EtherPBI" and "EtherCart"

 

Edit2: Well it appears that EtherPBI is also spoken for: https://github.com/dmlloyd/EtherPBI/blob/master/firmware/src/cio_tcp.asm

 

Edit3: perhaps... EtherXL (PBI version), EtherXE (Cart/ECI version), and of course EtherCart for the universal version.

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