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ZXNetUSB (NedoBus based Ethernet + USB)

Shockwav3Shockwav3
edited April 2013 in Hardware
Still in development (hardware is supposed to be working, but no software so far)
http://www.nedopc.com/zxnetusb/zxnetusb.php
Post edited by Shockwav3 on
Pentagon 48/128, ZS Scorpion 256 Turbo+, Compact 256 Turbo, Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K (DK'Tronic case, Fuller FDS case, Timex case variant), Timex Sinclair TC2048, Sprinter 2016S, Didaktik M, CoBra, TK90X, TK95, ATM Turbo 2+, Pentagon 1024SL 2.2

Comments

  • kgmcneilkgmcneil
    edited April 2013
    VERY nice!!!... Its a small thing of beauty!!!... Makes me wish I had a ZX clone - projects like these are the very reason why many like going back to using more retro hardware rather than merely emulating it with PC hardware...

    Id love to see the potential of this... all you need now is some killer software!!!!! :D
  • YerzmyeyYerzmyey
    edited April 2013
    Thx Shockwav3, You're watchful like Superman. ;)

    Yes, it looks beautifully. Although they really should stop using ht e"ZXBUS" name as it's wrong and confusing. ZX-bus is on ZX, and this interface is for Nemo-bus.
    Unless I can put it into any British/Portugal Spectrum and it would work - then I surrender. ;)

    Anyways. I wonder, what the card can in fact do, and also - what software is supporting it.
    ZX81/ZX Spectrum/Amiga/Atari music: http://yerzmyey.i-demo.pl/
  • Shockwav3Shockwav3
    edited April 2013
    If I'm not fully mistaken the ZXBus and NemoBus are quite similar except for the type of connector used. With a few manually soldered wires it should be possible to use NemoBus expansions on a Sinclair machine, as long as it doesn't use any clone/compatible exclusive features (NemoBus for example allows you to switch Turbo/TRDOS mode for example).

    Currently there's no software around yet, only the hardware part has been done, but they might be looking into adapting Spectranet Software, considering both cards use a similar network controller (Wiznet W5100 vs W5300). Having spoken with one of the devs (LVD) an IRC and DHCP client seem very possible, he also seemed to like the idea of "flash-loading" TRDOS images via Ethernet.

    I guess the USB part will be all about software (USB rocket launcher, anyone?)
    Pentagon 48/128, ZS Scorpion 256 Turbo+, Compact 256 Turbo, Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K (DK'Tronic case, Fuller FDS case, Timex case variant), Timex Sinclair TC2048, Sprinter 2016S, Didaktik M, CoBra, TK90X, TK95, ATM Turbo 2+, Pentagon 1024SL 2.2
  • WinstonWinston
    edited April 2013
    If you can make it expose the Spectranet API you'll get compatibility with all written Spectranet software (and any Z88DK stuff), and there's probably quite a bit of Spectranet code you can use if you're able to do this (although for certain things like modules which may depend on the paging model, you'd need to account for this but something could be done with the build system to accomodate this).

    The API basically consists of the page-in points at memory address 0x3ff8-0x3fff plus the indirection table from 0x3E00 to 0x3EFF.

    See http://spectrum.alioth.net/svn/filedetails.php?repname=Spectranet&path=%2Ftrunk%2Finclude%2Fspectranet.inc to get the basic idea.

    The Spectranet API also includes basic fcntl-like system calls for filesystem access, too. They are not specific to network file systems and they could be used to support local filesystems.

    Of course you'll need at least some memory somewhere to implement this (I can't tell from just the picture whether this is the case).
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