FUJINET for Intellivision?

[Sinjinhawke]

I was listening to the ANTIC podcast today and they were talking about bringing the FUJINET (https://fujinet.online/) to more platforms.  Currently working to bring it to the ADAM but they did say they want to bring it to all old computers(via existing interfaces) and consoles (via a cartridge).  Except for the TI99/4a since that system already has TIPI.  I have it for my 8-bit Atari and it's use it for loading games over WIFI and displaying the current weather.

 

Now they never said Intellivision and I have no idea if it's even on their radar or if the device has any value/use on Intellivision.   I doubt they could make it as cheap for Intellivision as it was for my Atari (around $60) but it would be a nice option for playing ROM files on our systems (SD card or over the network).

 

Probably a million technical reasons why it won't happen but a nerd can dream.

[+BBWW]

Sounds like a very cool tool.

[First Spear]

On 10/31/2021 at 11:44 PM, Sinjinhawke said:

I was listening to the ANTIC podcast today and they were talking about bringing the FUJINET (https://fujinet.online/) to more platforms.  Currently working to bring it to the ADAM but they did say they want to bring it to all old computers(via existing interfaces) and consoles (via a cartridge).  Except for the TI99/4a since that system already has TIPI.  I have it for my 8-bit Atari and it's use it for loading games over WIFI and displaying the current weather.

 

Now they never said Intellivision and I have no idea if it's even on their radar or if the device has any value/use on Intellivision.   I doubt they could make it as cheap for Intellivision as it was for my Atari (around $60) but it would be a nice option for playing ROM files on our systems (SD card or over the network).

 

Probably a million technical reasons why it won't happen but a nerd can dream.

I was lucky to see that at VCF-East several weeks ago. The presentation/demo was very slick. I think it has limited application for the Intellivision, but it does look fun.

 

 

[carlsson]

I have a feeling that LTO Flash! somehow could be used for this purpose. The manual says: "You can also play a ROM directly from your computer without adding it to the menu. This is especially useful when developing new games."

 

What do you connect the Fujinet to - a PC, a router?

 

While the availability of the LTO Flash! pretty much is zero at the time of writing, I'm sure eventually the stock will be filled again plus that a fair number of units already are in the hands of Intellivision users. Also based on previous experience, new hardware takes long time to develop if it ever materializes. With the situation of the LTO being hard to obtain for some time, if it was relatively easy to make even a SD card based device, someone would've designed it and begun selling it by now.

[Sinjinhawke]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

What do you connect the Fujinet to - a PC, a router?

 

I'm not technical enough to answer questions on the hardware.  I do have one and it connects directly to my home WIFI and I can use my web browser to then connect to FUJINet to configure it. 

 

Yes, it has a Micro SD card so I can load software from the card or over the internet from a hosted service which could be your own computer.  As you implied I was thinking it will be difficult to get it doing this behaviour on the Intellivision since multi-carts seem to be complicated for it.

[rietveld]

The coleco Adam version is coming along nicely.  I plan on getting one as soon as its available 

 

don't forget the problem with the intellivision is the lack of a dedicated Rx line.  

[carlsson]

I wonder if the LTO can be connected to a Raspberry Pi, Arduino etc by USB and that device in its turn uses wi-fi to connect to the network. Perhaps the Pi then would be the FUJINET client and customized to serve files to the LTO as when you use the PC client to transfer files directly to it. A bit of a hack solution but would require minimum hardware development.

[rietveld]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

I wonder if the LTO can be connected to a Raspberry Pi, Arduino etc by USB and that device in its turn uses wi-fi to connect to the network. Perhaps the Pi then would be the FUJINET client and customized to serve files to the LTO as when you use the PC client to transfer files directly to it. A bit of a hack solution but would require minimum hardware development.

Lathe26 posted a video showing how he used the UART to make the ecs aux port bidirectional, allowing both Rx an Tx of data. . This could also be a way to introduce data in and out of the intv. 

Your idea also sounds very doable if the bus connection that the LTO plugs into allows the same manipulation of the UART line

[carlsson]

The ECS only has 2 kB 8-bit RAM so if the intention is to download ROM files from the network, it wouldn't be nearly enough anyway. For live text chatting on FUJINET (assuming that is one of its functions) it would do, but not a lot more.

[+Lathe26]

8 hours ago, rietveld said:

Lathe26 posted a video showing how he used the UART to make the ecs aux port bidirectional, allowing both Rx an Tx of data. . This could also be a way to introduce data in and out of the intv. 

Your idea also sounds very doable if the bus connection that the LTO plugs into allows the same manipulation of the UART line

Regarding the ECS's UART, it is only half-duplex which limits where it can be used.  This means that it can Rx or Tx but not both at the same time (ex: if the ECS is transmitting bytes, then any bytes sent to the ECS will be lost).  The ECS's UART has to be switched by software from Rx-mode to Tx-mode and back.

[First Spear]

On 11/3/2021 at 5:38 PM, Lathe26 said:

Regarding the ECS's UART, it is only half-duplex which limits where it can be used.  This means that it can Rx or Tx but not both at the same time (ex: if the ECS is transmitting bytes, then any bytes sent to the ECS will be lost).  The ECS's UART has to be switched by software from Rx-mode to Tx-mode and back.

 

The live demo I saw at VCF-East used an Atari 400, tricking the hardware into thinking it was connecting to a cart/tape while it was going over the internet. The Apple II version is progressing pretty well (demo at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aGr3f-o2bk).

 

Since the ECS isn't an option due to tx/rx limits, and using an ECS for Fujinet communication would mean it couldn't do ECS jobs for games, what about a Fujinet adapter taking over the Keyboard Component IO and ROM space? If the KC and MC used the cartridge lines for bi-directional IO, would that work?

 

[+Lathe26]

26 minutes ago, First Spear said:

 

The live demo I saw at VCF-East used an Atari 400, tricking the hardware into thinking it was connecting to a cart/tape while it was going over the internet. The Apple II version is progressing pretty well (demo at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aGr3f-o2bk).

 

Since the ECS isn't an option due to tx/rx limits, and using an ECS for Fujinet communication would mean it couldn't do ECS jobs for games, what about a Fujinet adapter taking over the Keyboard Component IO and ROM space? If the KC and MC used the cartridge lines for bi-directional IO, would that work?

 

That would definitely work.  The only catch is that KC's are expensive and rare and there is only 1 known serial adapter for the KC known to exist.

 

Of course, someone could build a new serial adapter for the rare KC.  However, it would then be about as easy to design such a board directly for the MC alone or MC+ECS.  Alternatively, 2 of the 3 multi-carts already support serial communication.  The CC3 has a normal UART that can go 115Kbps and the LTO FLASH has serial-over-USB that can go 1Mbps.   

[JohnPCAE]

The ACC has a bidirectional parallel port. You could connect that, I would think.

[tschak909]

This could be doable using e.g. a pair of 595 latches and some decoder logic to put it on the bus, talking to the ESP32 over SPI. 

 

You'd essentially have a SRAM, a bootstrap ROM, the ESP32, and some glue creating a sort of developer system setup, but connecting to the outside world, instead of a parallel port. We are exploring this particular setup for game system targets, to at the very least provide (1) a way to load games over the network, and (2) provide a simple network adapter which can leverage the full breadth of the FujiNet protocol adapters to create networked games.

 

-Thom

[rietveld]

Well , since I am using tschak909 s fujinet on my colecovision adam , i am a beleiver