December 2nd, 2013

Payton Byrd announces Hayesduino

Via comp.sys.apple2

What Is It?

Hayesduino is an Arduino sketch that provides a bridge between the world of the Internet and small devices that do not have built-in ethernet capabilities. Old computers, such as the Commodore 64, Apple II and Atari 800 have serial ports, but do not have readily available Internet solutions with wide software support. While specialized solutions do exist for these platforms, they all require specialized software to use them and do not lend themselves to more general usage such as simply opening a socket, sending some data, and/or receiving some data.

Hayesduino bridges this gap by emulating a Hayes compatible modem. This allows users to initiate Internet communications via sockets that are opened by “dialing” to a hostname and port. An example would be initiating a telnet session with a host by simply typing atdt hostname:23 and waiting for the host to respond. Using this technique, any online socket can be reached and communicated with.

Hayesduino could have accomplished this without emulating a modem, but there needed to be a good way to allow the small machine to receive incoming connections. The three platforms listed above were all very popular systems for hosting BBS (bulletin board systems) which would accept calls over a telephone line via modem. Hayesduino simulates the incoming phone call whenever the software receives an inbound connection on port 23 (this is changeable in the code). When an incoming connection is detected, the Hayesduino will toggle the DCE-DCD line to trigger the remote software to answer the incoming “call”. In this way a classic BBS can be hooked up directly to the Internet.

https://hayesduino.codeplex.com/

December 1st, 2013

Nishida Radio releases UNISDISK Disk II/Smartport drive emulator

Nishida Radio has released the UNISDISK, a Disk II/Smartport disk emulator for the Apple II series. You can read more about at http://tulip-house.ddo.jp/DIGITAL/UNISDISK/english.html

I’m traveling right now and will post additional details later after I get home.


unisdisk

December 1st, 2013

Ivan Drucker releases Raspple II

Via Ivan Drucker

I’m pleased to announce Raspple II for the Raspberry Pi. It’s an easy-to-install version of the Raspbian operating system, with preinstalled, newly updated versions of A2SERVER and A2CLOUD, plus David Schmenk’s nifty Apple II Pi, and other goodies.

Find it at: http://appleii.ivanx.com/rasppleii

Raspple II includes:

A2SERVER: Network file server and network boot host for Apple IIgs and IIe computers. Newly updated to support the latest version of Raspbian and the most recent Raspberry Pi boards.

A2CLOUD: Mass storage, internet access, and floppy disk transfer for any Apple II computer (even the IIc), courtesy of David Schmidt’s ADTPro and VSDRIVE. Newly updated to let you participate in Apple II IRC chat and Usenet discussion groups from your Apple II (which I’m in fact doing right now to post this), and to include the KEGS and LinApple IIgs and IIe emulators.

Apple II Pi: Lets you interface your Apple II’s hardware — keyboard, mouse, joystick, drives, and CPU — with your Raspberry Pi, which creates all kinds of interesting possibilities.

Unlike previous releases of A2SERVER and A2CLOUD, Raspple II doesn’t require using special software or Unix commands to install. You just download the zip file, expand it, copy its contents to an SD card, and put it in your Pi. You can download it from http://appleii.ivanx.com. There’s also extensive documentation there for getting up and running with A2SERVER and A2CLOUD.

If you are already using A2SERVER or A2CLOUD and want the new features and updates, including Apple II Pi, you don’t need to start over. Just type
“a2server-setup” or “a2cloud-setup” at your Raspberry Pi’s prompt.

More information about Apple II Pi is on Dave’s web site: http://schmenk.is-a-geek.com/wordpress

Of course, Raspple II is free. I hope you enjoy this new release, and as always please let me know if you have any questions, feedback, or comments.

Cheers,
Ivan.

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