Idea: FujiNet Server

[pixelmischief]

Wouldn't it be cool if one Atari with a FujiNet could mount the drives of another Atari with FujiNet?  Or use an Atari as a print server?  Yeah...that would be cool.  Any love for that idea?

Edited December 15, 2021 by pixelmischief

[pixelmischief]

I mean, could a TNFS server for OS devices be written for an 8-bit Atari?

[danwinslow]

Probably, TNFS is pretty simple, I think IP65 has an example. Remote mount was an idea I was planning for Dragoncart back in the day, although I was planning on using a custom driver.

[_The Doctor__]

remote desktop in a way..

[pixelmischief]

If I could remote boot my Atari from another, seeing the drive spin up on the server machine, it would rock my world.  And I would be fine if the server system was otherwise unusable.  I mean, I'd need a status screen showing which systems were connected to which drives, but oh man!

Edited December 15, 2021 by pixelmischief

[danwinslow]

Yeah, but then what? After the cool factor wears off, how actually useful is it, given the ease of FN's file servers and just the general capability to shoot ATR's back and forth?

 

That's the problem with a lot of this network connection stuff - yes, you can hit the internet. Congratulations. With a very restricted color system and a screen the relative size of a postage stamp and enough memory to hold maybe the initial headers & some text from your average website, now what? Chat? You bet. Can we do email? Yeah, sort of, an 80 col card would probably make that pretty tolerable. FTP and other file transmissions? Yep. Can we use the web? Not the real web...we might be able to use our own custom sub-web of NEON-style pages, but somebody has to write a shit-ton of code to make it all happen AND people need to generate content that's useful/interesting. Can we play games together over the internet? Yes, although somebody needs to write/adapt them, and playing a fast action game is doubtful with current setups.

 

There's so many limitations and so much work involved in all of this, that while it's certainly cool and it does have some application, it kind of stops in 1990's-land.

[pixelmischief]

1 minute ago, danwinslow said:

After the cool factor wears off, how actually useful is it

40 years later and it's all still cool.  And "useful"?  How useful is any of it?  We don't do it because it's useful, we do it because it's cool.  To me, the allure of this idea is that it keeps the solution as much Atari-only as possible.  But I guess your points can be distilled down to a "no" vote.

[+Stephen]

43 minutes ago, danwinslow said:

There's so many limitations and so much work involved in all of this, that while it's certainly cool and it does have some application, it kind of stops in 1990's-land.

But there lies the fun - this is a 70s machine after all, why not bring it into the future?  I guess - if you consider 30 years in the past the future

[Atari8guy]

51 minutes ago, danwinslow said:

Yeah, but then what? After the cool factor wears off, how actually useful is it, given the ease of FN's file servers and just the general capability to shoot ATR's back and forth?

 

That's the problem with a lot of this network connection stuff - yes, you can hit the internet. Congratulations. With a very restricted color system and a screen the relative size of a postage stamp and enough memory to hold maybe the initial headers & some text from your average website, now what? Chat? You bet. Can we do email? Yeah, sort of, an 80 col card would probably make that pretty tolerable. FTP and other file transmissions? Yep. Can we use the web? Not the real web...we might be able to use our own custom sub-web of NEON-style pages, but somebody has to write a shit-ton of code to make it all happen AND people need to generate content that's useful/interesting. Can we play games together over the internet? Yes, although somebody needs to write/adapt them, and playing a fast action game is doubtful with current setups.

 

There's so many limitations and so much work involved in all of this, that while it's certainly cool and it does have some application, it kind of stops in 1990's-land.

Well said, though I think there is some utility in hitting news sites and wikipedia - via frogfind.  I might actually find that useful.  But ultimately, that's just me, my utility isn't everybody's but I'm also a big fan of "can we?" as justification for this type of stuff.  Your point on practicality is spot on though.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Atari8guy
me can't do grammar

[pixelmischief]

8 minutes ago, Atari8guy said:

Your point on practicality is spot on though.

So that's another "no"

[+x=usr(1536)]

The file-swapping part of this can already be done with a TNFS server accessible to both machines.  Just create a /incoming directory somewhere in the TNFS file hierarchy (root is probably best), set the appropriate permissions and ownerships, and there you go.  You could even go full-duplex and run one at each end, which would ultimately be not terribly different to using FTP, SCP, NFS, etc.

 

As for remote reboots, etc., that sort of functionality could be built into the FujiNet's webpage and then exposed to the Internet.  Thing is, that would require adding TLS support to the web interface as well as some form of authentication.  99.9% of users would then be port-forwarding to their FujiNet(s), which would almost certainly be sitting on the same flat network that everything else in their house is.  From a security standpoint, this is not a good idea.

 

As much as I think the idea is nifty and have no reason to decry it, I also can't find a solid reason to support it.  If it ever gets implemented, cool, but it doesn't seem like something that would ever really fill a niche.

[pixelmischief]

What I am imagining is more like a SAN.  It would be block level storage presentation.  But I guess given that the arguments are all against the practicality of the thing, that clarification won't change any minds.

[_The Doctor__]

change the mounted files or disks on the remote fujinet, then reboot... doesn't sound like a lot of work at all, the fujinet is suppose to be an encryption capable device already, though password protection to the interface is definitely something that should already be...

 

I can see this as a classroom useful function, as well as a BBS useful function, not to mention a NEON server useful function... for those who have used or would like to use their Atari as a neon or web server... which can and has been done to a degree, including telnet...

 

[Atari8guy]

1 hour ago, pixelmischief said:

So that's another "no"

I wouldn't say that, I'd say it's a temper our expectations.  As a "lets see if we can do it" I'd say go for it.

[+x=usr(1536)]

7 minutes ago, Atari8guy said:

As a "lets see if we can do it" I'd say go for it.

Exactly.

 

WRT my previous comments, when I say that I may not see a niche for a particular feature, that applies to literally only my own perspective at that particular point in time.  Someone else may look at it differently and have an immediate, "hey, this would be perfect for..." epiphany.

 

This isn't discouragement from pursuing the idea - it's more thinking out loud based on the available data.

[FifthPlayer]

2 hours ago, danwinslow said:

That's the problem with a lot of this network connection stuff - yes, you can hit the internet. Congratulations. [...] Can we use the web? Not the real web...we might be able to use our own custom sub-web of NEON-style pages, but somebody has to write a shit-ton of code to make it all happen AND people need to generate content that's useful/interesting.

 

I don't know, I think this line of thinking is pretty short-sighted.  Certainly it's possible to develop custom 8-bit clients to consume web services.  The weather app is the poster child for this, as well as the ISS tracker and Astronomy Photo of the Day apps. 

 

A decent Twitter client is probably possible, as well as a stocks/financials app, an app to browse news headlines, maybe a recipe search app.  Doing so would kind of give us a sort of retro alternative history of productivity apps for the Atari.  Back in the 80s there were stock and news apps that used the modem for their networking, what would they have been like with a better network infrastructure than dial-up and a centralized, limited backend like Compuserve? We can see what that would have been like, and it gives us an insipriration for writing new software other than games.

Edited December 15, 2021 by FifthPlayer

[Atari8guy]

I thought I about trying to pull down stock quotes (and the data that comes with them)....I think Yahoo finance's API is open - I don't know about Googles for stocks. But its a more ambitious project than I have time for right now.  (Also, I don't know shit about it - other than pulling the quotes into modern spreadsheets, so the learning curve for me would be steep).

[danwinslow]

Yeah, as long as it's small and textual, then sure.

In general, I acknowledge the 'it's still cool' factor, but I'm tempering it by knowledge of how much work would have to be done for some of the less straightforward things to be possible.

 

[pixelmischief]

5 hours ago, danwinslow said:

Yeah, as long as it's small and textual, then sure.

Yeah, but what I am proposing is a block-level storage presentation device.  Something like a SAN LUN.  The server would be configured with LUNs.  Each LUN would target a device and the MAC Address of the system that would mount it.  The client side would mount the LUN and it would be presented as that device to the OS.  I mean, isn't it just an SIO protocol wrapper at that point?  Isn't that very much like what is already being done by FujiNet at the client side?

[pixelmischief]

Instead of SAN, we could call it SION.  Instead of LUNs, they could be DUNs.  You guys are saying that an SIO transport over TCPIP to slave remote storage and print devices wouldn't be cool?

Edited December 16, 2021 by pixelmischief

[pixelmischief]

I guess it is technically more like iSCSI than anything else.  iSIOSI?  I am so down with that!

[danwinslow]

Yeah, like I said, it's a cool idea and definitely doable. But, like game ideas, you need somebody to actually write it. 

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

Maybe this could be more like The Multiplexer by CSS (Bob Puff, not DjayBee!).

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

[mickster]

On 12/15/2021 at 11:35 AM, danwinslow said:

Yeah, but then what? After the cool factor wears off, how actually useful is it, given the ease of FN's file servers and just the general capability to shoot ATR's back and forth?

 

That's the problem with a lot of this network connection stuff - yes, you can hit the internet. Congratulations. With a very restricted color system and a screen the relative size of a postage stamp and enough memory to hold maybe the initial headers & some text from your average website, now what? Chat? You bet. Can we do email? Yeah, sort of, an 80 col card would probably make that pretty tolerable. FTP and other file transmissions? Yep. Can we use the web? Not the real web...we might be able to use our own custom sub-web of NEON-style pages, but somebody has to write a shit-ton of code to make it all happen AND people need to generate content that's useful/interesting. Can we play games together over the internet? Yes, although somebody needs to write/adapt them, and playing a fast action game is doubtful with current setups.

 

There's so many limitations and so much work involved in all of this, that while it's certainly cool and it does have some application, it kind of stops in 1990's-land.

When using original equipment, the 'cool factor' never wears off!!!