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1.70 Mhz 8-Bit Ataris Get 10 Mbit Ethernet
point writes "Thanks to Chris Martin, 8-bit Atari power users can now enjoy 10 Mbit Ethernet, something that the Commodore 64 crowd have been able to do for over a year now... Time to pick up that age-old flamewar? An Ethernet-enabled Atari port of the Contiki operating system has already been completed, and brings the Atari users telnet, e-mail, a web server and a web browser. Pictures and schematics for the Ethernet card, as well as screenshots of the system in action on an Atari 800 are available from the project's webpage."
I hope somebody figures out a way to connect networking hardware to the Nintendo Entertainment System so that yet another old 8-bit platform's port of Contiki can get net support.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's the kind of thing we do. We aren't trying to get use out of it, we do it for the humor, and possibly to get on slashdot.
1.70? I think you mean 1.79 Mhz. Geez-us. :-P
that their website is not hosted on one of those. It would be a pity for all that hard work to go up in flames. (literally)
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
"If you have to ask why, you are not in the target audience"
Huh? There was a hard drive for 8-bit Atari machines too. Logically enough, it connected to the joystick port.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Now you can have multi-player pong LAN parties.
Three words: Internet Star Raiders.
Wonder what will be next...
A) Atari: 1024 ST.
B) Tandy: Color Computer { 1,2 or 3 }. Use OS9 or MS Basic as OS.
C) SWTP SS50 bus computer.
D) Smoke Signal Broadcasting: Chiftan.
E) Coleco: Gamesystem.
F) Coleco: Adam { If you can keep it running ).
Actualy its not the final results but the knowledge to get it going at all. Be fun to try!
Current Status:
# Compiling: Contiki, UIP, CS8900A driver, Telnet, Email, Web Browser.
# The Telnet only version works under SpartaDOS.
# Pings work, but many packets dropped.
# Telnet works, but looses connection.
So there is still a way to go. They have a work in progress but are not fully up.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
dust off my old Atari 800.
Retro cool here I come.
siggy played guitar
To each his own...
-PizaZ
10Mbit ethernet on an Atari 800.. A single ping would almost DoS it..
We'll see a CERT alert on this for sure!
-- Jim.
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
There is no way that you can tell me everything you do for fun is USEFULL to the world.
Have you tried Linux yet?
Does this mean a networked version of M*U*L*E would finally become possible? Sweet!
It just occurred to me, with the "10 mbit Ethernet" reference in the title, that it would be harder than hell (impossible?) to push that much data on one of those 8 bit computers.
:-)
:-)
Assuming you're using only the processor, on an 8-bit machine the data speed ought to be very close to the clock speed; a 1Mhz machine probably could copy no more than 1 megabit, and that's assuming that it was doing NOTHING else, like interacting with the user.
Now, the Ataris have early versions of the some of the custom chips that were in the Amiga, so it's likely that at least some of the load might be able to be offset, but I'd be pretty amazwd if the machines could exceed 2 megabits.
Honestly, everything past a modem is probably overkill on these old machines; it's like putting tires and shocks to do 200mph on a Model T. No matter how hard you push down the pedal, it's just not going to go much faster.
It really puts things in perspective, though; I'm sitting here typing on my Web browser, downloading a TV episode off Usenet at about 3 megabits, and streaming Doll Revolution off the Mac via iTunes, playing it on a (kinda crummy) 5.1 surround sound system. And with all that going on, probably 95% of my processor time is going to Folding@Home.
Goddamn, what a difference a few decades make.
This kind of stuff is what would have happened if Microsoft and IBM had not destroyed "choice" back in the day.
Wouldn't it be cool if Commodore and Atari and Texas Instruments made some kinda comeback. The internet was a web of completly different platforms all talking via internet standards. Amigas, Macs and OS2 machines. No Linux/Unix vrs Microsoft.
I hope this kinda stuff continues. Even if it is just for fun.
--ken
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
One day you guys will be all excited to see that someone has built a subspace carrier-frequency card for the PCI bus and ported a neural-interface OS to the PC.
A lot of people like to ask "WHY?" when it comes to technology. But these little gizmos, which still work amazingly, answer a different question, "Why not?" Why not play with the old stuff?
Have a look at and/or try Contiki. It lacks SO much functionality that a modern OS has. Any comparisons aren't worth much.
Damn, we have ethernet for the C-64, Atari and even lightbulbs, but I still cant get my old A500 or A2000 on the 'net. Oh sure, I could dig up a really old, crappy Ariadne II board off of eBay for $500, but what's the point in that? I want something like this for the Amiga.
:)
Come on, it's got enought power to do something like this and you wouldn't have to build the GUI or OS - just the hardware.
Oh well, I guess a man can dream.
KangarooBox - We make IT simple!
If you need to use an Atari to do your work in security, you're in trouble.
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
Do you know Amiga 1200 with 12MHZ CPU - from user's feel side of view - felt WAY faster than 486/80MHZ with twice as much RAM?
Why? Better architecture. Not only CPU but whole computer. I can imagine employing the gfx chipset for such a work. It can move data between ports and memory at amazing (comparing to the CPU) speeds, fill large areas of memory with specific values, move memory areas etc. Without taking CPU time and without even the CPU waiting (so CPU may do its own stuff while GFX chipset does its own.
Let's make a very rough count...
10Mbps with traffic overhead of Ethernet etc (all that is stripped on hardware) is about 1 Mbyte/s. With 64K of RAM, it's about 0.064s to fill whole RAM. Assume screen frequency of 50HZ, gives 0.02s/frame. Transfer of 20K/frame required. For the CPU - way too much. For ANTIC (the gfx chip) - acceptable amounts I think...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Well, not really, the LANceGS has been available for over three years. It works with an Enhanced ][e or IIgs, although there are no apps for the ][e that use the interface. FWIW, Apple had created an ethernet card for the IIgs to be released with System 6 (GS/OS) but killed it at the last minute so as to not have the IIgs compete with the Macintosh LC.
-- Charles A. Plater
Yeah, but apart from the sucky color, slow floppy drives, nasty printer, slow CPU, crippled 6502 assembly language, limited embedded BASIC, slow tape drives, and the occasional explosion, the C64 was a great machine.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
The more stories I see like this the more I realize hacking into the alien technology with the little laptop in the movie Independence Day really wasn't so silly after all... :)
Chances are, if you can cram contiki onto an Atari or C64, you can get a TCP/IP stack into an embedded controller of some sort.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!