[Coco] Ethernet Port Cartridge for the Coco 3

[John Donaldson]

Back in my Gas Analyzer days, we used to use RS232 serial ports for both data 
and control. Then networking came along and customers out in the 
Oil/Gas/Electrical field wanted a way to access these systems thru the new IP 
network. Companies developed IP-to-Serial bricks to bridge the gap. These bricks 
implemented the Rs232, TCP/IP and UDP protocols in hardware. This allowed 
computer systems to send/receive data and control to these old RS232 devices via 
the Ethernet. Today single chip devices exist that have taken this even farther. 
They talk to the CPU either via a 8/16/32 bit port or via I2C port. The host CPU 
just sends/receives data based on an IRQ. Drivewire 2/3/4 uses this approach in 
transferring data to/from a PC/MAC Server. Unfortunately trying to surf the 
Internet or playing Internet Games is unpractical using a COCO. Boisy seems to 
have the best hardware approach, where as Drivewire is the best software 
approach.

John Donaldson





________________________________
From: Boisy G. Pitre <boisy at tee-boy.com>
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Tue, February 5, 2013 1:58:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] Ethernet Port Cartridge for the Coco 3

On Feb 5, 2013, at 11:44 AM, Steve Batson <steve at batsonphotography.com> wrote:

> I know I've seen several threads on this in the past with all sorts of opinions 
>on it. While I have a lot of hardware and software experience in the PC world, 
>I'm not  a circuit level person nor do I have experience writing drivers and 
>such to make this type of thing work. I do find it interesting and have some 
>genuine questions.
> 
> While some say that the CoCo is too slow to implement an ethernet interface 
>with software to implement the TCP/IP stack on it (and I totally understand 
>that), wouldn't it be possible to create a product that handled all of the 
>Ethernet hardware as well as the networking stack and just transfer requests and 
>responses to the coco when appropriate? For example, if software was doing a 
>file transfer, couldn't the coco just pass the request  off to the controller 
>and transfer the data at speeds that it can handle with the controller doing all 
>of the heavy lifting and buffering as needed?

Steve,

This is already being done right now with my ArduinoCoCo project. I have 
outbound connections working, and am working on the firmware to allow incoming 
connections (via inetd).  


The only thing is that this is very much prototype hardware (an amalgamation of 
a CoCoPort and an Arduino Mega 2560). But it works, and will be the basis for an 
all-in-one card for the CoCo.

The Arduino solution is using the Wiznet 5100 chip, which handles up to four 
simultaneous connections.  It's a bit limited in that respect.

BTW, I picked up an Arduino Mega 2560 "clone" called a Funduino off of eBay for 
$17 shipped from China, and it works identically to the Arduino Mega 2560. 
Fantastically cheap stuff.

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