Parallel networking

[Brufnus]

Hi there!

 

After a long and troublesome fight with my Amiga 500 CDTV, I've finally managed to create a couple of 18 GB hard drive partitions on it, as well as installing the latest AmigaOS 3.2.

 

So now I'm considering using some sort of network between that one and my Geneve 9640 in order to make a backup of my TI/Geneve hard drives.

The Amiga has a "Parnet" application for this use, but I've never seen other than, say, TELCO or GENTRI for the TI/Geneve... does any of you know if there's any software for parallel comm for these computers?

 

(Perhaps I should simply code my own, but that's pretty time consuming...)

[+arcadeshopper]

Hi there!
 
After a long and troublesome fight with my Amiga 500 CDTV, I've finally managed to create a couple of 18 GB hard drive partitions on it, as well as installing the latest AmigaOS 3.2.
 
So now I'm considering using some sort of network between that one and my Geneve 9640 in order to make a backup of my TI/Geneve hard drives.
The Amiga has a "Parnet" application for this use, but I've never seen other than, say, TELCO or GENTRI for the TI/Geneve... does any of you know if there's any software for parallel comm for these computers?
 
(Perhaps I should simply code my own, but that's pretty time consuming...)

I say get a tipi and just use samba

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[+9640News]

A TIPI is the way to go on the Geneve with the newest 7.30 version of MDOS.  I would use GDM2K to copy files from your Geneve to your TIPI drive.  MDOS and GDM2K work with SCSI, IDE, and MFM controller cards to the TIPI.

 

Beery

[+OLD CS1]

ParNet on the Amiga is an old-timey hack to use the parallel port between a PC and an Amiga, so far as I recall there was never any development beyond this point, in any form^*.  Forget it.  It might be fun to experiment, but if you want something low-maintenance you go with something modern to give yourself a network port.  As @9640News and @arcadeshopper say, install Samba on your Amiga and get a TIPI.

 

If you cannot get a network card for your Amiga, then an FAT-formatted floppy on the Amiga (with fat95 or CrossDOS filesystems) and a USB floppy on the TIPI should work (hey, @jedimatt42, would the TIPI support a USB floppy?) might work, too.

 

You have an Amiga 500, or a CDTV?

 

* Though, IIRC, Amiga Explorer uses a similar interface, but offers serial and parallel.  Additionally, ParNet on the PC side only runs in a non-NT kernel (that is, DOS or Win9x.)  Oh, and it does appear there are a few other similar programs with similar caveats.  In theory, you could run a TCP/IP connection over serial to a PC with the appropriate software (PC2Amiga, I believe.)  Nonetheless, I stand by the rest of my statement.

 

Here is a thread at EAB from 2002 regarding this.

 

I was surprised to see someone mention using the parallel cable with WinXP as the NT kernels isolate the parallel port hardware from user-land.

[Tursi]

43 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

I was surprised to see someone mention using the parallel cable with WinXP as the NT kernels isolate the parallel port hardware from user-land.

Yeah, but there was a simple driver called UserPort that opened it up - I used it for a really long time to run my parallel port software from 2000 onwards... I think I last ran it in XP.

 

[+arcadeshopper]

ParNet on the Amiga is an old-timey hack to use the parallel port between a PC and an Amiga, so far as I recall there was never any development beyond this point, in any form^*.  Forget it.  It might be fun to experiment, but if you want something low-maintenance you go with something modern to give yourself a network port.  As [mention=62580]9640News[/mention] and [mention=25598]arcadeshopper[/mention] say, install Samba on your Amiga and get a TIPI.
 
If you cannot get a network card for your Amiga, then an FAT-formatted floppy on the Amiga (with fat95 or CrossDOS filesystems) and a USB floppy on the TIPI should work (hey, [mention=42954]jedimatt42[/mention], would the TIPI support a USB floppy?) might work, too.
 
You have an Amiga 500, or a CDTV?
 
* Though, IIRC, Amiga Explorer uses a similar interface, but offers serial and parallel.  Additionally, ParNet on the PC side only runs in a non-NT kernel (that is, DOS or Win9x.)  Oh, and it does appear there are a few other similar programs with similar caveats.  In theory, you could run a TCP/IP connection over serial to a PC with the appropriate software (PC2Amiga, I believe.)  Nonetheless, I stand by the rest of my statement.
 
Here is a thread at EAB from 2002 regarding this.
 
I was surprised to see someone mention using the parallel cable with WinXP as the NT kernels isolate the parallel port hardware from user-land.

I sell a parallel port to Ethernet for Amiga in my store

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[jstimson]

1 hour ago, OLD CS1 said:

 

You have an Amiga 500, or a CDTV?

 

 

 

The CDTV is mostly an A500 at heart.

[+jedimatt42]

7 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

If you cannot get a network card for your Amiga, then an FAT-formatted floppy on the Amiga (with fat95 or CrossDOS filesystems) and a USB floppy on the TIPI should work (hey, @jedimatt42, would the TIPI support a USB floppy?) might work, too.

 

Common USB floppy drives take power from the Raspberry PI and cause undervoltage/load spikes. Stick with USB floppy drives that have their own external power... Otherwise, if linux has a filesystem support for it, it'll likely work. That's a question for the 'Linux' and 'Raspbian' side of the internet.  I can mount a 720K floppy on linux in a usb drive with 

 

sudo mount -t msdos /dev/sdb /mnt/teac

where /dev/sdb is the device described as the floppy in /var/log/syslog, and /mnt/teac is a directory I created to mount it into... on a TIPI, for access from the 4A, you'd make a directory under /home/tipi/tipi_disk, and mount there... But.. On my usb-floppy powered by the PI, it fails for me with read errors 'cause PI power... a powered usb hub might improve things... 

 

But if you are going to TIPI, you might as well PLIPBox the Amiga, and use SAMBA... there is a SAMBA share on TIPI already, so you can just use the Amiga to slurp your backup up...

 

Now... where did I put my PLIPBox... 

[+OLD CS1]

4 hours ago, jstimson said:

 

The CDTV is mostly an A500 at heart.

I am mostly a 20 year-old at heart.

 

5 hours ago, arcadeshopper said:

I sell a parallel port to Ethernet for Amiga in my store

Does that use SANA-II, or does it require a special program?  Either way, this will probably be the least expensive hardware route.  The CDTV does not have a side expansion port like the 500, so the only other Ethernet options I can think of will be a Vampire, or some clock port expansion used with a RapidRoad (actually pretty damn cool.)

 

Leave it 68000, add clock port and RapidRoad, then use RoadShow TCP/IP stack (TermiteTCP and Miami will work but are no longer supported, or AmiTCP and Genesis which are newer but also dated,) with ANAIIS, and you could get a reasonably fast enough network for TI/Geneve stuff.

 

What else am I missing?

[+arcadeshopper]

Does that use SANA-II, or does it require a special program?  Either way, this will probably be the least expensive hardware route.  The CDTV does not have a side expansion port like the 500, so the only other Ethernet options I can think of will be a Vampire, or some clock port expansion used with a RapidRoad (actually pretty damn cool.)
 
Leave it 68000, add clock port and RapidRoad, then use RoadShow TCP/IP stack (TermiteTCP and Miami will work but are no longer supported, or AmiTCP and Genesis which are newer but also dated,) with ANAIIS, and you could get a reasonably fast enough network for TI/Geneve stuff.
 
What else am I missing?

Works with A500, A600 A1200 A2000 A3000 and A4000. Compatible with PlipBox open source firmware.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[+OLD CS1]

15 minutes ago, arcadeshopper said:

Works with A500, A600 A1200 A2000 A3000 and A4000. Compatible with PlipBox open source firmware.

There is something a little more modern for you, then.  It looks like the PlipBox is also compatible with RoadShow TCP/IP stack, which I highly recommend.  Yeah, you can get a copy of Miami somewhere, or pull Genesis from a 3.9 installation, but RoadShow is currently developed and Olaf is a long-time Amiga developer.

[Brufnus]

I've completely missed the latest replies, sorry about that... guess I've been too busy elsewhere.  

 

Anyway, things have evolved since my question was asked; I now have a Pistorm accelerator in the CDTV (with wi-fi, of course), and am on the verge of purchasing an MFM emulator for the Geneve. So there's no point in that parallel port connection to the Amiga anymore, really... except for the fun of it, perhaps.  

 

I have considered the TIPI indeed... might purchase one of these some day!

[Brufnus]

On 8/20/2021 at 4:05 AM, OLD CS1 said:

There is something a little more modern for you, then.  It looks like the PlipBox is also compatible with RoadShow TCP/IP stack, which I highly recommend.  Yeah, you can get a copy of Miami somewhere, or pull Genesis from a 3.9 installation, but RoadShow is currently developed and Olaf is a long-time Amiga developer.

I don't have a plipbox; could purchase one of course... but I have RoadShow running now with my Pistorm - haven't had any luck forwarding from the Amiga yet, however, but eventually I should have a wi-fi connection on the Amiga that way. I haven't heard about Genesis before, but I do have a 3.9 OS, so I'll take a look at that as well. I guess the CaffeineOS includes it as well...

 

How to connect the Geneve to anything without a TIPI, however, is a more delicate question. That leaves me with only the RS232 and parallel ports as it is... but my soon-to-be MFM emulator purchase could solve my backup needs.

[Brufnus]

On 8/20/2021 at 3:43 AM, OLD CS1 said:

I am mostly a 20 year-old at heart.

 

Does that use SANA-II, or does it require a special program?  Either way, this will probably be the least expensive hardware route.  The CDTV does not have a side expansion port like the 500, so the only other Ethernet options I can think of will be a Vampire, or some clock port expansion used with a RapidRoad (actually pretty damn cool.)

 

Leave it 68000, add clock port and RapidRoad, then use RoadShow TCP/IP stack (TermiteTCP and Miami will work but are no longer supported, or AmiTCP and Genesis which are newer but also dated,) with ANAIIS, and you could get a reasonably fast enough network for TI/Geneve stuff.

 

What else am I missing?

The Pistorm which is now installed in my CDTV, functions as both accelerator, RAM expansion (fast Zorro III), wi-fi interface, HDMI video output and emulated SCSI hard drive. Those Raspberries are quite useful for a bunch of stuff; I also have a 3B+ now for my LAN gateway instead of a complete computer.

 

Anyway, instead of 1 MB RAM and a stock 8 MHz CPU the CDTV now runs roughly 1.400 times faster than the stock and has as much as 365 MB RAM with the new Emu68 emulator. I installed RoadShow a few days ago; for some reason I can't ping from the Amiga side yet but eventually it should work.... need to give my conf an inspection. 

Edited September 11, 2022 by Brufnus