[Coco] Using DriveWire to write network software

[Steve Strowbridge]

Sounds like a couple of topics happening at once, related to general
networking, protocols and drivewire, I'll leave that discussion to the
legitimately smart people, myself not included :)

Regarding on-line gaming, while I'm sure this is a very realistic
possibility to have some sort of passive, and in-line adapter that would
accept a remote user's CoCo Joystick input, that only solves the problem of
the controller, it doesn't address any of the client/server issues of both
people being in literally the "same game", so, if a hardware route was
devised, then something like a Skype screen share would be required, so the
other person could see the actual game they were participating with.  That
solution is pretty easy to implement with existing technologies, and the
only downside I see, is the lag/latency of the screen sharing, which may
not be optimal for rapid reflex type games.

So, a more grand, and elegant solution would be a revised emulator that
supports multiplayer, at that point the controller issue is already
virtualized, so it's really just figuring out how to have the "shared
experience" with two people in real-time or as close as possible.

So maybe re-inventing a wheel is a bigger challenge than a hardware device,
but something to think about.

If I may also be so bold as to suggest, that if the mega multi player
emulator was to become "a thing" it would be great if that product could be
as plug and play/user friendly as possible for non-techies, and, if even
possible, as cross platform as possible, maybe even extending to things
like Android/IOS and game consoles?

This solution opens the doors for new CoCo software development to a much
larger audience of non technophiles, and possible meaning even more "sales"?

Since I'm just responsible for creating the wish, I will use the philosophy
of "Go Big or Go Home" :)



Steve Strowbridge, aka
The Original Gamer Stevie Strow
http://ogsteviestrow.com
ogsteviestrow at gmail.com


On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 8:55 PM, Lee Patterson <lee at 8bitcoder.com> wrote:

> I don’t have any experience using the coco serial port, but I would tend
> to shy away from the chip implementation, in the short term at least. From
> my perspective, DriveWire seems stable and fast when used as a drive.
> Surprisingly fast actually. But more importantly, the dw protocol is
> available now, waiting to be used. I’d love to play around with it a
> little. I’d be happy to share any code I write as well, perhaps the
> protocol can be refined after some experimentation.
>
> Lee
>
>
>
>
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