[TUHS] System III - TCP/IP

[lehmann@ans-netz.de (Oliver Lehmann)]

Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> 0.) adding pty's is pretty easy.  Just grab the BSD code and start
> hacking.  Grab the original version of Steven's book - he will talk to you
> through it in detail.   It's a two drivers, the control (ptyX) and the
> slave (ttypX) .   Having them in your system is handy anyway for a number
> of things besides networking (like the expect(1) program).

Yeah.. having pty would be good anyway but the C compiler is so limited
that it would be just some sort of rewrite instead of "porting"...

It is basically a pcc as of 1981 with whatever Zilog hacked into it
additionally. I once tried to get a current pcc onto the system but...
yeah... I guess I lack skill ;)
- the new PCC would need to create Z8001 ASM code.... something I lack skill.
- an optimizer... haha...  no way I could  even optimize Z8001 ASM code by
   hand ;)
- if a new linker is needed - how to create Zilogs s.out format...
- I guess I would need to recompile the whole kernel with this new compiler
   to have every object work "together" - but I still lack some sources (most
of them I "retranslated" from disassembled object files to C code - but 2 or
3 are just are too hard to retranslate)
I also had a look at the C-Compiler which comes with Plexis SYSIII (which
is available as source somewhere in the WWW) but this is a compiler capable
of non-segmented executables (one 64K segment adressable) only but I need a
Compiler creating segmented executables (128 64k segments accessable = 8MB
address space)

So I'm stuck with this '81ish C compiler - ok - but who said that it would
be an easy task ;)


> 4.) It strikes me that it would be easiest of all to just take something
> like a $20-$30 "Wiznet" 5100 board from Sparkfun and interface it to the
> system either via serial or better if you have a parallel port.   Then run
> the IP/TCP stack externally.   This is what we do for Arduino's and other
> small micro controllers - the board is well documents and easy to talk
> too.  They have both RJ45 style and wireless too.   I have a hand full of
> them here and am pretty happy with them for what they provide.

I was thinking about the same. I have connectors on the board where I have
access to the System complete bus. They where used for things like a RTC,
system memory, Tape controller and so on. So I could build up a board using
Wiznet and thats it. So no need of a PIO or SIO which would things kinda slow
anyway... Wiznet would be of course faster as the Z8001 would do in any way.

But what comes to my mind with that solution... I would need a kernel part
which interacts with the wiznet chip (driver). I can not directly access
the wiznet from userland which would be non privileged code which is not
allowed to execute privileged instructions (raises a trap).
On the userland side...
I probably have to "rewrite" all the stuff which comes with BSD and uses
libnet. Pr is there something like a compatibility layer which provides
a library looking like a libnet API but internally "redirects" everything
to the wiznet (via the to-be-written-kernel-driver) so I wouldn't need to
reinvent all the userland tools as well?

Oliver