[Coco] multiplexed serial into ip

[William Schaub]

Aaron Wolfe wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have been experimenting with a simple way to allow multiple tcpip
> connections to a coco over a single serial connection on the bit
> banger port.
> This allows multi user applications running on the coco to be
> accessible via the internet.  I've written a very simple chat room
> type
> application in Basic as proof of concept.  it mostly works fine :)
>
> I would like to extend this idea to OS-9, to allow multiple terminals
> to be internet accessible.  I believe this would be possible, and by
> having multiple 'virtual' serial devices corresponding to the
> different IP connections perhaps one could run multiline BBS software
> originally intended to use modems.
> Having a coco bbs connected to the internet is fairly easy, but having
> a multi line/user BBS would be really interesting.  This could also be
> used to provide multiple regular os9 shell logins over an IP network.
>
> I'm a bit stuck on making progress with an os9 driver right now as I
> do not have any working disk drive hardware or RS232 pack.  Currently
> I load the software using the Drivewire cable via the bit banger, then
> remove that cable and connect the terminal server which does the
> IP->serial conversion.  So while the software is running, I have no
> drives.. or I can have drives to boot os9 but cannot use the serial
> port for my software.. catch 22 kind of thing.    Also, I'm using the
> remote2 serial driver from Rainbow mag, this is limiting me to 600
> baud which is not very quick when you multiplex several connections
> over it :)  I'd like to eventually do this via an rs232 pak if I can
> find one, and a multipak interface too i suppose.
>
> Is anyone else interested in this?  If it would be useful to people
> then I might go ahead and purchase the superide from cloud9 or
> something similar.  I am no expert in os9 either, so although the coco
> side of the multiplexed serial connection is very simple I could
> certainly use a hand implementing it.  basically just need to extend
> the serial driver to provide multiple os9 devices and decode/encode
> the serial data to associate with the correct device.   the concept is
> simple, not sure about the implementation.
>
> -Aaron
>
> --
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> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>   
I once had a similar Idea. this may be possible if an API to the 
drivewire routines could be exposed to developers on OS/9 you would have 
to extend the drivewire server software to handle some new custom 
opcodes and pass traffic back and forth. and you would have to do lots 
of polling but I think it could be done. but as far as I know I don't 
know if boisy ever added any way for a programmer to access the 
drivewire bit banger routines to extend the system. (I'm still using 
drivewire V2.0)