Jump to content
IGNORED

Atari 8-bit IRC client: FujiChat (0.3 released)


Urchlay

Recommended Posts

Guess it's time to open up the alpha-testing to the public...

 

FujiChat is a simple IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client for Atari 8-bit (400/800/XL/XE) computers, based on the uIP TCP/IP stack (by Adam Dunkels). It uses a SLIP connection to talk to the outside world, and supports a subset of the IRC commands available in full-featured clients. 48K of memory is required (and extended memory is not used, so it can coexist with RAMdisk drivers and such).

 

Download binary, source, and documentation: http://rogue3.homeip.net/~urchlay/fujichat.html

 

Be aware that this version is mostly just a proof-of-concept. It's pretty functional as a no-frills IRC client, but *slow*, and doesn't even support DNS yet (connect to server IP addresses only, there's a short list built into the program), and you can only join one channel at a time (private messages do work though). Also, it's got the Bob-Verter R: handler hard-wired into it right now (works with R-Verter or an SIO2PC only). The SLIP setup is fairly complex, and I've only written instructions for connecting to a Linux host (it should be possible to use SLIP on Windows with either "Direct Cable Connection" or SLIrP + Cygwin, but I've no experience with either). If anyone gets the SLIP stuff working on any other OS than Linux, I'd be very interested in adding to the documentation.

 

The 0.1 version is known not to work with the FreeNode IRC network, BTW. It works OK with NewNet, Undernet, and EFnet.

 

Anyway, all disclaimers and caveats aside... your Atari can now have an IP address! Stop by the #atari channel on NewNet (using any of the built-in server IPs) once you get everything set up, I'd love to hear from you!

 

update: 0.2 released, 2008-11-13

update: 0.3 released, 2008-11-16

Edited by Urchlay
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi atarians,

 

It works really nice already. Much more than a 'proof of concept', Urchlay!

 

 

I played around with it and in my opinion 40 chars per line is not so convincing.

I was happy to see that Fujichat is compatible with SDX's CON64 and CON80 (software 64 and 80 columns)

as well as with Atari XEP80.

 

post-8944-1226175242_thumb.jpg

64 characters per line

 

post-8944-1226175275_thumb.jpg

80 characters per line

 

post-8944-1226175316_thumb.jpg

80 characters per line, by XEP-80

 

 

Don't fear a bit of configuration work on a Linux Box - its worth it!

I also heard Urchlay is looking for a way to connect via SLIP to

PCs with Windows installed, too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It works really nice already. Much more than a 'proof of concept', Urchlay!

 

Thanks... but I won't consider it a "real" client until it's as easy to use as something like irssi or rhapsody. Still got a ways to go...

 

I played around with it and in my opinion 40 chars per line is not so convincing.

I was happy to see that Fujichat is compatible with SDX's CON64 and CON80 (software 64 and 80 columns)

as well as with Atari XEP80.

 

Now *that* is good news!

 

At some point FujiChat will have to include its own 80-column (or whatever) driver, but it's good to know it'll already work with something other than plain old GR.0.

 

Can I borrow your screenshots for the FujiChat web page, when I get ready to make a real page for it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Works fine with my ATR8000.

 

Nice.

 

Does the ATR8000 and your cable have all the hardware handshaking lines hooked up? If so, can you try it with the unpatched version of slattach and let me know if it works?

 

That's actually pretty important for e.g. Windows users: it's probably possible to get Windows to do SLIP, but not possible to grab the source to its SLIP driver, patch, and recompile :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Works fine with my ATR8000.

 

Nice.

 

Does the ATR8000 and your cable have all the hardware handshaking lines hooked up? If so, can you try it with the unpatched version of slattach and let me know if it works?

 

That's actually pretty important for e.g. Windows users: it's probably possible to get Windows to do SLIP, but not possible to grab the source to its SLIP driver, patch, and recompile :)

 

Sorry. No can do.

 

My "null modem" is just quick hack. All I had to work with is a RJ11 to DE9 adaptor that is configured to be the PC end of my enternal SIO2PC. As a null modem I have only TX, RX, and ground. I can't modify it. The DE9 end uses insertion pins and I lost my extractor tool.

 

- Steve Sheppard

Edited by a8isa1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

FujiChat 0.2 has been released. It's still "alpha" quality, but there are some new features:

 

- DNS support. No more typing server IP addresses

- Local and peer IP addresses are now configurable from within the program instead of hard-coded

- FujiChat now works with FreeNode IRC servers

- Can now exit to DOS after disconnecting from server, instead of having to reboot

- Miscellaneous stuff (visual bell, message beep, ...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

this is so cool ... only thing we need now is a ethernet2serial adapter ... at the moment this is still my (virtual) linux box, so the hardware-effort is still the same at the moment as when I use the atari as a dumb terminal to get to the net

 

but anyway, to see the atari8 doing the TCP/IP and IRC is so damn cool and fun too! great work!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

this is so cool ... only thing we need now is a ethernet2serial adapter ... at the moment this is still my (virtual) linux box, so the hardware-effort is still the same at the moment as when I use the atari as a dumb terminal to get to the net

 

...or PBI ethernet? Or something like the USB cart with a USB Ethernet adaptor... All of these are possibilities. uIP already can handle Ethernet of course, I'd just need to write a glue layer to shuffle Ethernet frames between the hardware and uIP stack.

 

but anyway, to see the atari8 doing the TCP/IP and IRC is so damn cool and fun too! great work!

 

Danke! TCP/IP and IRC on the Atari has been my "holy grail" for a couple of years now. It feels good to be getting something done... but it still needs a lot of work before it can replace the fancy clients like irssi or mirc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are already threads on AA discussing Ethernet on a cart - on the PBI would be another option. There are Ethernet interfaces designed to interface with 8-bit systems - see http://microcontrollershop.com/product_inf...roducts_id=1202. Perhaps we need to define a hardware standard for the Atari 8-bit - that will provide HW and SW developers with standards to address, vice everyone doing thier own thing and further fragmenting the market.

 

I also seem to recall a "Project ICE - Internet Connectivity for Eight-bits"; I think that page may still be online, with source code available.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those of you who have tried it, probably noticed FujiChat 0.3 doesn't work with most (all?) 80-column software drivers...

 

I'm trying to optimize RAM usage to fix this... if anyone using a Black Box, MIO, P:R: connection, or any other device with an RS232 port could tell me the value of MEMLO with the R: handler booted, I'd be much obliged.

 

To do this, boot BASIC with your R: driver loaded, then:

 

? PEEK(743)+256*PEEK(744)

 

I've already got numbers for the Bob-verter, ATR8000, and Atari 850 drivers, just need to make sure there's nothing weird about any of the others.

 

Also, it'd be helpful to know the MEMTOP numbers for the various 80-column drivers (SDX's con80/con64, ACE-80, Omniview-80, Bit3 if anyone's got one). I suspect the XEP-80 loads low, so MEMLO would be the important number for that one.

 

To get MEMTOP:

 

? PEEK(741)+256*PEEK(742)

 

(actually, FujiChat runs with BASIC disabled, so the true MEMTOP would be 8K higher)

 

I've decided against using anything like a custom display list for the chat display, and I really don't want to get sidetracked trying to write my own 80-column driver (especially since so many good ones already exist).

 

Basically the plan is to move the whole program down as low as possible in RAM, including using the tape buffer, page 6, everything I can without stepping on DOS or the R: driver... and use high RAM for a scrollback buffer (dynamically sized depending on MEMTOP, 80-column software drivers using GR.8 might not get any scrollback at all).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi atarians,

 

using this modified script for the linux host,

i am able to onnect two Ataris using SIO2PC and FujiChat.

 

Perhaps it is of use to someone.

 

#!/bin/sh

modprobe slip &> /dev/null
ifconfig sl0 down &> /dev/null
ifconfig sl1 down &> /dev/null
a8_slattach -L -p slip -s 9600 /dev/ttyS0 &
sleep 1
a8_slattach -L -p slip -s 9600 /dev/ttyS1 &
sleep 1
ifconfig sl0 192.168.10.1 pointopoint 192.168.10.2
ifconfig sl1 192.168.11.1 pointopoint 192.168.11.2
ifconfig sl0 mtu 576
ifconfig sl1 mtu 576
echo "1" > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
iptables -t nat -F
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE

Link to comment
Share on other sites

using this modified script for the linux host,

i am able to onnect two Ataris using SIO2PC and FujiChat.

 

Ah, you got it working, nice.

 

For those of you using Windows, I found a set of directions on setting up XP to do SLIP:

 

http://www.sics.se/~bg/telos/slipintro.pdf

 

After setting up SLIP, you'd need to also have the XP machine do NAT (aka "Internet Connection Sharing" in Windows-speak), or else you need to add a static route to your router for the newly-created SLIP network (not sure if the consumer-oriented D-LinkSysGear type stuff even has a way to add a static route though). According to Microsoft's web site, Vista has dropped SLIP (aka "Direct Cable Connection") support.

 

If anyone does get FujiChat working with Windows (any version), I'm really interested in including a good set of instructions with FujiChat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Those of you who have tried it, probably noticed FujiChat 0.3 doesn't work with most (all?) 80-column software drivers...

 

I tried SDX with CON64 and CON80 again. FujiiChat 0.4 still works with them. They use only RAM under OS or even banked RAM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

I've been able to get the atari800 emulator r: device connected to a real serial port working very well today.

 

I'm even able to run FujiChat in emulation.

 

Check out the screen shot of Fujichat running in an atari800 curses-only emulation. I'm only using this mode because the serial port I needed to use is on a box with no monitor. But you should be able to run in a full blown x11 mode. This mode is cool though.

 

The other "Getting the Atari Online" thread got me playing with atari800 r: emulation.. and what do you know, it works!

 

Charlie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Allright I've improved the process a bit. Thanks to this project,

 

http://www.ant.uni-bremen.de/whomes/rinas/nullmodem/

 

you can use a virtual null modem to connect:

 

1. to the atari800 r: device configured to connect to a real serial port. Also must edit the source so it will use the serial port the nullmodem prjoect creates for you, I used /tmp/loop0.

2. to the sl0 slip interface. I used /tmp/loop1.

 

Bam! Fujichat in an emulator with no need for real serial ports or cables. All you really need is a linux box with SLIP support in the kernel.

 

Charlie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...