Needed: A kernel driver for the FujiNet Network device.

[drac030]

On 6/19/2023 at 9:12 PM, tschak909 said:

We place all of this publicly, so that people can help, and again.. Just asking for help.

I understand this. Just from my point of view, I do not have enough time to be fully involved in every software project related to SDX. I wrote the documentation, I offered assistance, if anything is not clear enough. But I do not have enough time to do more.

 

On 6/20/2023 at 5:46 PM, Faicuai said:

PBI was never really developed and properly implemented by Atari.

Oh no. What you can say for sure is that PBI was never really properly *documented* by Atari, but it is pretty well developed, as far as I know. There are several devices which use it successfully, so...

 

On 6/20/2023 at 5:46 PM, Faicuai said:

XL and XE implementation of PBI physical interface is DIFFERENT (!)

Yes, and the XE solution is better just by providing more signals. This also means that XE is not just a repacked XL, there was some value added between these two series, although I agree that it was not much.

 

On 6/20/2023 at 5:46 PM, Faicuai said:

host-provided DC power-delivery over the bus

As far as I know, that is nothing good. It is better when external devices are powered independently.

 

On 6/20/2023 at 5:46 PM, Faicuai said:

we still lack a common framework on how to handle modern, PBI-based upgrades

This is true, but the reasons are clear: a PBI expansion box is needed (1090-like), but it must come with extension boards, documentation etc. so that people could develop own extension boards. This means costs, effort, time etc.

 

Do different devices connected to the SIO bus simultaneously really cooperate better than e.g. two IDE+ units connected to the computer at the same time? Especially SIO devices with different transmission speeds...?

 

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Unfortunately I just discovered (as I was about to start fleshing out the disapatcher in the kernel driver) that the N: API is completely lacking the necessary functions to support an SDX kernel driver (GetFirst/Next, acccess to directory and file metadata, etc)

I have completely no idea what the FujiNet N: device does, but I guess that at least some of these functions may be emulated. Besides, it certainly opens files (via sockets?), so at least this part should not be hard.

 

On PCL: there is no access to file metadata either, it is emulated by the server.

[flashjazzcat]

2 hours ago, drac030 said:

On PCL: there is no access to file metadata either, it is emulated by the server.

This appears to be the basic requirement that's missing, but I referred the developers to SIO2BSD. The protocol should be similar. Currently the server is geared towards DOS 2.x compatibles, and I can't intuit much from a string comprising the filename and a sector count.

[drac030]

33 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Currently the server is geared towards DOS 2.x compatibles, and I can't intuit much from a string comprising the filename and a sector count.

I see. That is bad indeed.

[tschak909]

ok, so I see some things I need to dig into... we'll get over this hump.

-Thom

 

[flashjazzcat]

Fourth post of this thread is an excellent starting point.