[Coco] TCP/IP Programming in Commodore BASIC

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday, November 06, 2010 11:31:20 am William Astle did opine:

> On 10-11-06 01:00 AM, Aaron Wolfe wrote:
> > The last time I mentioned such a thing it wasn't a popular idea.  It
> > was suggested that if we don't run the IP stack on the 6809, we
> > shouldn't do it.   I'd be happy with that approach if we had a stack
> > for the 6809, but as far as I know no one is working on one.
> 
> This is, of course, easier said than done, but anything worth doing is.
> 
> I looked into doing it at one point and quickly realized that if it's
> going to happen on the 6809, it will have to be over a serial link of
> some kind, perhaps using drivewire or equivalent to yank packets into
> the system. The remote end of the serial link would then have to buffer
> packets but if the coco advertised the correct bits and bobs within the
> IP protocol, it ought to work. After all, IP was designed in an era
> where many participants in the net were not all that much more powerful
> (if there were at all) than a coco3 and they didn't have "TCP/IP
> offload" to network cards.
> 
> I would think any stack on the coco would have to advertise an MTU much
> smaller than the 1500 byte norm that has emerged with ethernet ubiquity.
> 
> I think one would realistically want to have a proper UART in the system
> before attempting to use such an IP stack, though, so that the coco has
> cycles left over for actually processing packets it receives.
> 
> That raises a question: is anyone currently offering for sale a proper
> serial port (or two) that can be plugged into a coco? Something
> compatible with the rs232 pack? I can't seem to find anything at the
> moment. My google-fu must be weak.

No, its just fine I suspect.  The problem with the 16550 being back ported 
to the coco is the 16 wide I/O register mapping the majority of those chips 
need.  The imperfect I/O address decoding in the coco would have to be 
completely redone.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
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