At 05:51 PM 7/16/98 +0200, you wrote:
>Donno, but with a sync-signal it doesn't really matter. Don't expect very
>high bandwith, but we're not asking for that really (do we? As long as it
>works it would be nice :-)
Well, I _am_ asking for a high transfer rate. If it's slower than a disk
drive, I might as well copy all the files to floppy...
>And take in mind that we have 2 joystick-ports, so we can have 5 data bits
>+ 1 sync-signal. That'll be fast enough.
I don't understand your calculation.
1 joystick port contains 1 write signal and 6 read signals.
So if you use 1 read and 1 write signal for sync, you have 1 write signal
and 11 read signals left.
>>Is the MSX parallel port bidirectional? If so, it would be ideal for data
>>communication.
>
>No, it's not. It has only one input: printer on-line. We can use it's >output
>capabilities 8-bit + strobe but that's it. Timing will become too hard.
But if you combine it with the joystick ports, you can really speed up
uploads to the PC.
>MIDI not fast enough you think? MIDI is 31.5kb/s, so faster than a 28k8
>modem!
MIDI uses 10 bits per byte (including start and stop bit), so 31.5kbit/s
gives you only 3.15 kilobyte per second. Even a disk drive is a lot faster
than that.
>There is a tetris-clone which you can play with 32 players at once,
>using the MusicModule as "lan". Does somebody know's how this is achived? I
>guess using the MIDI-IN and MIDI-OUT and a piece of software that relays >the
>data for other computers. Using the interrupt-capabilities of the MusMod I
>guess it is possible to make a reliable network, in which you can hook up a
>PC quite easily.
I'll forward this message to Sander Kooijmans, the author.
>-Connecting PC's and MSX'es using the PCs LPT port and MSXs joystickport.
>There is some kind of standard (could somebody give me the URL to the
>scheme?) for connecting 2 MSX'es and I guess it's not too hard to use a
>compatible standard using the LPT port. So, with standard hardware we can
>hook up MSX'es and PC'es together in a LAN. We only need some wires, plugs
>and a soldering-iron and ofcourse the software.
There is a drawback: this eats up a number of ports on your MSX. For
example, if you like to play with a joystick, you must plug in the network
to download the game and then unplug it to put in a joystick. And you have
to be careful unplugging such cables when the MSX is turned on because I
heard that some MSX engines (which contain the PSG) can blow up if there
are significant differences in the ground signal.
>Drawback is that on MSX this can't be interrupt-driven so you need polling
>which is not very suited in a token ring LAN IMHO.
But if you use only 2 computers and one (MSX or PC) is a file server and
the other (MSX) is the client, the client only has to poll when it's
receiving data, which is not a problem.
How difficult would it be to make a device than connects a PC to an MSX
SCSI interface? I don't mean with a harddisk inbetween, but a direct
connection.
Bye,
Maarten
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