+slx Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 3 hours ago, JGroth said: Are there any updates on this project, like availability of boards, software etc? Regards, JGroth I should think that FujiNet will make this more or less obsolete. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 fujinet will be sio speed, dacary's and dragons are at pbi speeds... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 3 hours ago, slx said: I should think that FujiNet will make this more or less obsolete. I also think this Dragon-project is not for real (or, said in other words, not advancing at the pace of a REAL project...) However, I maybe wrong, though... In any case, this "PBI" board requires (at least) the option of an IDC 50-pin connector so it can be interfaced with Incognito-provided PBI bus on the 800. Also the idea of a RAM-like form-factor pluggable in slot 2 or 3, and interface via PBI back to Incognito is also welcome (would make it, by far, the most elegant and stealth implementation of all currently available...) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 As long as it's not a cart that hogs the port. Some of us like to use things like BXE, etc. Can this be made as cheaply as FujiNet? Will it be compatible? FujiNet has set the standard now. 800 card form factor would be great, but software compatibility? If the Dragon team and @tschak909 would work together on the drivers, then I can see it happening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 The drivers in my case are literally the operating system itself. All #FujiNet communication happens entirely over the SIO routines in the OS. The CIO handler will be a very thin wrapper around this, as I'm developing the API to explicitly conform to I/O the Atari is comfortable with. I am utilizing the vast processing capabilities of the ESP to abstract virtually all network processing and providing an I/O interface that makes sense to the Atari, using its facilities. Because of this, we can (and have) even handle encrypted traffic. -Thom 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 This can also be done with a PBI device as long as the PBI DRIVERS (N:), etc. are made compatible. I believe FujiNet has set the standard, so this device needs to be compatible with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 2 hours ago, Faicuai said: I also think this Dragon-project is not for real (or, said in other words, not advancing at the pace of a REAL project...) However, I maybe wrong, though... In any case, this "PBI" board requires (at least) the option of an IDC 50-pin connector so it can be interfaced with Incognito-provided PBI bus on the 800. Also the idea of a RAM-like form-factor pluggable in slot 2 or 3, and interface via PBI back to Incognito is also welcome (would make it, by far, the most elegant and stealth implementation of all currently available...) We do need 'something' in those slots, now that the RAM isn't there. I mean the heft of that 800 was already less than my other one because the RAM/ROM boards didn't have their covers. I mean if I am walking home from a friend's house after a day of gaming, I want to be able to hit someone over the head with the 800, if they try to mug me. (This was a joke back in the 80s, as our 13 year old selves would often hang out with our Ataris and play games, and I always said the 800 and 810 were tanks, that could be used as weapons.) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 (edited) The 800 was one of the one machines that might still function (with proper precaution) after an EMP event and was used for certain applications, yes, due to it's weight portable enough to be used as a weapon... lmfao Edited April 13, 2020 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a2retro Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 My apologies to the Atari community who have shown interest in the card. I dropped the ball on this project. It's not dead, just taking a snooze like smaug. When I have something to share, I will post it here for those that are still interested. Glenn 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ok1rp Posted October 12, 2020 Share Posted October 12, 2020 Any news regarding the Dragon Cart II? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ol.sc Posted October 12, 2020 Author Share Posted October 12, 2020 I'm on the software side of things. The only thing I can say is that the (obviously 100% untested) drivers are available since May 2019: https://github.com/oliverschmidt/contiki/commit/c2a71ee62b3349141a94e72da685d6b839574259 https://github.com/cc65/ip65/commit/d970d4ae11bfa7618594ef47f1f6cbba640dad1e 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ol.sc Posted May 13, 2022 Author Share Posted May 13, 2022 Hi, Glenn (@a2retro) confirmed to me the other day that he's not coming back to the Dracarys project for good ? I understand very well, that because of the FujiNet and because of the lack of WiFi and because of the lack of firmware and because <you name it> the general perception is that there's no demand for the Dracarys (anymore)! If however, for any reason whatsoever, there should be somebody willing to bring the Dracarys (or any simliar W5100-based project) to life nevertheless, he can get the Eagle/Fusion files from Glenn. Additionally I'd like to mention that https://github.com/cc65/ip65/wiki/Date65 https://github.com/cc65/ip65/wiki/Telnet65 https://github.com/cc65/ip65/wiki/Tweet65 https://github.com/cc65/ip65/wiki/Wget65 https://github.com/oliverschmidt/contiki/wiki/ATARI do work / will work with a W5100-based PBI device. The assumptions made by that software as-is regarding the interface to a W5100-based PBI device can be seen at https://github.com/oliverschmidt/contiki/blob/main/cpu/6502/net/w5100.S#L162-L204 Again, from my POV, there's no need whatsoever for a discussion why there's no need/demand/use for such a project (anymore). But it's of course not up to me to keep someone from saying what he likes. Regards, Oliver 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 Trust me, if a PBI device that did what fujinet sort of does came out and at PBI speeds, it would be the killer device for the Atari with all the flourishes and compatibility PBI affords... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted May 13, 2022 Share Posted May 13, 2022 Hello guys Having a device that would connect the Atari 8 bit computer to the internet without the need for Wifi would be very nice. Wifi is nice for devices you move around constantly, with static devices I prefer to use wired LAN as it's usually more stable and faster at meetings. Sincerely Mathy 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFSL Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 I'd be interested in this. --- Again... if it did not hog the PCI port. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 What we need is hardware. Drivers will appear. A PBI solution would be optimal, a good network chip, some buffers, maybe Wifi on the card. Fuji is awesome but SIO is kind of a bottleneck for some applications. Since Fuji has a good CIO layer it's a perfect model, rebuild the guts to use the new device and Fuji apps should still work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 9 minutes ago, danwinslow said: What we need is hardware. Drivers will appear. A PBI solution would be optimal, a good network chip, some buffers, maybe Wifi on the card. Fuji is awesome but SIO is kind of a bottleneck for some applications. Since Fuji has a good CIO layer it's a perfect model, rebuild the guts to use the new device and Fuji apps should still work. Indeed, there are a few parallel projects happening in our discord to connect to parallel busses on other targets, if somebody wants to spearhead a PBI FujiNet, let's go. https://discord.gg/7MfFTvD -Thom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E474 Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 The UnoCart MCU project would be a good starting point, but I think you'd want a higher spec ARM chip, or maybe a multicore ARM. https://github.com/robinhedwards/UnoCart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 Not familiar with the MCU project, but I would prefer just an ethernet chip and some supporting buffers and control lines, I don't think we need a processor. Otherwise we are just hooking up an SBC like a raspberry PI or whatever to PBI. It's not really an 'Atari' networking solution at that point. Just my 2 cents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ol.sc Posted May 14, 2022 Author Share Posted May 14, 2022 1 hour ago, danwinslow said: Not familiar with the MCU project, but I would prefer just an ethernet chip and some supporting buffers and control lines, I don't think we need a processor. Otherwise we are just hooking up an SBC like a raspberry PI or whatever to PBI. It's not really an 'Atari' networking solution at that point. Just my 2 cents. Full ACK! That's exactly the very reason why I personally consider the W5100 as the right thing. It can be used as Ethernet controller just like the CS8900A of the Dragon Cart. Therefore all my Dragon Cart software will work with the W5100. Optionally, its TCP/IP stack can be used. This allows for stuff shown in the two YouTube videos below. But still, it's an Atari network solution, not an ESP32 (or other MCU) network solution with an Atari attached to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 (edited) AXstream might be a name for continuation onto the Atari platform. Glad to see you are still playing with this stuff Ol. Edited May 14, 2022 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFSL Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 15 minutes ago, ol.sc said: But still, it's an Atari network solution, not an ESP32 (or other MCU) network solution with an Atari attached to it. Interesting take and I understand where it comes from. --- The Fujinet project has a CP/M component where (from what I understand I haven't tried it) fully runs this emulation on the ESP32 and the Atari just acts like a terminal. In this case I wouldn't consider this running CP/M on the Atari (thought I would consider it a really cool project.) As far as the networking bits got though, I don't know.... I think I feel differently. Whether its accomplished in hardware or software or a a combination doesn't matter too much to me. For me it still seems like the Fujinet (with the clever SIO translations, growing list of Atari applications, CIO device, etc)... is a modern day hardware peripheral for the Atari and not just a terminal. Of course we all might feel differently. I remember reading that the Commadore disk drives had their own 6502... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 8 minutes ago, MrFSL said: The Fujinet project has a CP/M component where (from what I understand I haven't tried it) fully runs this emulation on the ESP32 and the Atari just acts like a terminal. In this case I wouldn't consider this running CP/M on the Atari But that's no different than how we did it back in the 80s with an Indus GT drive - the Z80 in the Indus ran CP/M and the Atari was just a terminal. Same with the ATR8000. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrFSL Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 5 minutes ago, Stephen said: But that's no different than how we did it back in the 80s with an Indus GT drive - the Z80 in the Indus ran CP/M and the Atari was just a terminal. Same with the ATR8000 ....and that is a very valid point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tschak909 Posted May 14, 2022 Share Posted May 14, 2022 If you don't put a processor in, there's no way you'll be able to do crypto, or more complex data processing that is now required by many of today's endpoints. Please, I implore those of you that are still hanging onto this idea of "let's run it all on the host!" to let go of that. It's a dead end! -Thom 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.