[Coco] CoCoNet wireless milestone

[Roger Taylor]

At 08:10 PM 3/30/2009, you wrote:
>On Mar 30, 2009, at 7:55 PM, Roger Taylor wrote:
>>SAVER doesn't mount a virtual disk.  It copies a remote file onto a
>>mounted virtual disk.  The file can be anything that will fit on the
>>disk (a web page, .php script response, .txt file, .gif images,
>>*everything*).
>
>I guess that's okay, though it really does seem like it is a COPY
>operation.
>
>SAVE with no parameters is "whatever BASIC program is there, then
>SAVEM lets the user give a name, then specify START, END, EXEC (is
>that right?) to save from memory, so along those lines, SAVER I guess
>it kinda like that. So it needs the comma thing (binary, ASCII?) and
>file names. Hrm. Maybe it will grow on me.
>
>>DRIVE #,"URL" mounts a web disk that you can read and write to.
>>There's no ?WP errors.  The web copy won't be altered, but I am
>>working on that ability to write Directly To Web Disks, no doubt.
>
>Where do the writes go? Mounting a DSK image via net sounds much like
>mounting a disk image on the Mac, typically just read-only (though you
>can make read/write images, but that wouldn't truly work with a web
>httpget). Making HTTP mount a read-only image would be in line with CD
>images, etc. in the rest of the world.


>But, since there is a PC server taking care of all this, I guess it's
>fine for it to "mount" as a copy that is read/write. Interesting. But,
>it seems I'd either want to "grab and run" (read-only) or I'd want to
>issue commands to get a copy that I could then work with.

A temporary read/write copy of the web disk is mounted.  You can use 
the disk as usual and back it up to another virtual or real disk at 
any time it's still mounted.


>>DRIVE #,"URL" also has the side effect of allowing you to Mount any
>>file as a disk image so that DSKI$ can read the file in 256-byte
>>blocks into variables such as A$,B$ (128 bytes each).  This is
>>nothing new, but doing it from a web file definately adds
>>possibilities.
>
>Yes, I guess I keep thinking "why not just mount the images on a PC
>like normal in an emulator" but having a CoCo with a ROM pak able to
>load in some code and then run the latest version of some code from
>the internet without every touching the host computer (other than
>booting the server) is kinda slick.






>>** One of the most powerful but simple features is the automatic
>>ability to append variables to URLs, to run web scripts from the
>>CoCo and to get the results back as a file saved to a virtual disk. **
>
>Example?

The most simple examples ever:

SAVER "http://www.coco3.com/coconet.php?cmd=gettime","TIME.TXT",A

SAVER 
"http://www.coco3.com/coconet.php?cmd=getweather&zip=75601","WEATHER.TXT",A

SAVER 
"http://www.coco3.com/coconet.php?cmd=getnews&network=msnbc","MAJORNEWS.TXT",A

Those commands aren't possible yet but it would take every bit of 30 
minutes for me to write each function.



>I keep thinking of how this server-support would be cool for something
>like RGB-DOS but I guess rotating 4 drives in and out on a diskless
>CoCo does the trick, compared to a real CoCo that might be able to use
>all their software at any time (copy from disk to disk).
>
>Roger, have you ever had RGB-DOS?

Nope, unless using it in VCC just to boot into NitrOS-9.


-- 
Roger Taylor

http://www.wordofthedayonline.com