Vintage Computer Festival West

[Lion]

This is already over, but was a great success, and we created what is surely one of the largest ever Econet networks in North America, comprising:

1x BBC Micro
2x BBC Master
2x A3020
1x System 5 (Replica)
1x Raspberry Pi 4 (Bridge)
1x Raspberry Pi 400 (Via Bridge)

There was also quite a lot of attempted explanations of what Teletext was to bemused Americans. A fun weekend!

[trixster]

Wow. This is superb! I bet the set up got plenty of interest!

[flaxcottage]

That looks great.

I wonder if a Bridge could be made using a Pi that links to another network via the Internet then we could have a truly international Econet.

[KenLowe]

That looks great.

I wonder if a Bridge could be made using a Pi that links to another network via the Internet then we could have a truly international Econet.

...and that is entirely possible! I've already done that with @cr12925 where our local Econet networks have been connected together over the internet, via a PiEconetBridge at each end.

[BeebMaster]

We'd have to call it "Inter-Net"!

How does the Teletext feed work, as it's showing "current" current affairs?

[Lion]

The Teletext signal was generated by VBIT2 running on a Raspberry Pi which scrapes news from the BBC News website.

https://github.com/peterkvt80/vbit2/wiki

https://github.com/ali1234/raspi-teletext

[KenLowe]

1x Raspberry Pi 400 (Via Bridge)

What was running on the Pi 400? Was it RiscOS? If so, was it easy enough to get it connected to the network?

I tried getting RiscOS running on a PC (RPCEmu, IIRC), but struggled to get the networking bit working! I gave up in the end.

[cr12925]

That looks great.

I wonder if a Bridge could be made using a Pi that links to another network via the Internet then we could have a truly international Econet.

It was designed and implemented with that in mind... check out the trunking functionality One way of doing it is to set up a t3.nano machine in AWS that is just a hub for trunks. The trunks speak Acorn 'bridge' protocol and will exchange known networks at startup of any bridge in the network. It also has network address translation in case of overlapping network numbers... and a firewall.

C.

Edit: PS. It also contains a gateway for Phil Blundell's EcoTCP ROM, so Beebs/M128s can make raw TCP & telnet over TCP connections to things on the Internet... e.g. Viewdata systems (shamless plug: see http://github.com/cr12925/phoenix).

[flaxcottage]

That sounds great. There is only one problem - I don't really understand what you said.

I still understand the vanilla, wired Econet and can program that and make all sorts of connectors for it but this new technology is way over my head.

A box that plugs into my existing Econet and just 'does it' would be magic. I don't mind a bare board even because I can always fabricate a box.

Then, of course, one would need some sort of easy way to connect to the Inter-Econet; a full-time server somewhere would be great ( just type

*I AM :<address>.<user name> <password>

to get in to one's own workspace).

It is nice to dream.

[BeebMaster]

I don't understand any of it either, but that's pretty much what the Pi Bridge does.

In the past I have had Beebs connected to Ken's Beeb file server. That's not quite international yet, but that's up to the "Supreme Court"!

[cr12925]

That sounds great. There is only one problem - I don't really understand what you said.

I still understand the vanilla, wired Econet and can program that and make all sorts of connectors for it but this new technology is way over my head.

A box that plugs into my existing Econet and just 'does it' would be magic. I don't mind a bare board even because I can always fabricate a box.

Then, of course, one would need some sort of easy way to connect to the Inter-Econet; a full-time server somewhere would be great ( just type

*I AM :<address>.<user name> <password>

to get in to one's own workspace).

It is nice to dream.

I do that now... I can sit at work and connect to my PiFS or (if I left it switched on) my L3FS... There are two ways. Either I use a VPN to home, or I connect over AUN to a PiFS I have in Amazon Web Services, which then has a trunk back to my home network. (My home network has a whole mesh of trunks, and the server in AWS thus learns about them all.)

Have a read of the docs that come with the bridge - thesedays, the High Performance Bridge is probably easier to start with because the config is simpler to read and understand.

Once you set up your local network then, assuming the one(s) you want to talk to have different network numbers, all your need is:

Code: Select all

TRUNK ON PORT xxxx TO <hostname>:<remote port>

The bridge will ignore any network announcements that arrive that have overlapping network numbers with those is knows from your own setup or anywhere else. If you really need the overlapping network number visible, you can translate it to a different number, so that what your compatriot see as his local network (e.g.) 5, you see as something else (e.g. 10):

Code: Select all

TRUNK PORT xxx XLATE DISTANT NET 5 TO LOCAL NET 10

The trunks will automatically learn what's at each end and will daisy-chain themselves together, including with Acorn wired bridges (though I haven't tested one of those yet, but I believe I have the protocol right!).

If you decide that someone is announcing a network to you that you don't want to know about, you can filter it out:

Code: Select all

BRIDGE DROP NET nnn INBOUND ON TRUNK PORT xxxx

Equally, if you don't want to advertise one or more of your own networks on a particular trunk:

Code: Select all

BRIDGE DROP NET nnn OUTBOUND ON TRUNK PORT xxxx

Finally, if you want to stop a particular network or station talking to one of your own networks or stations (e.g. stop traffic to your private fileserver), you can use:

Code: Select all

BRIDGE DROP TRAFFIC BETWEEN nnn.sss AND xxx.yyy

(and there are wildcards that can be used on the firewall command.)

Chris.

[flaxcottage]

I'm sorry. This is all flobblop, weeed.

I guess I'll have to admit I'm now too old school and stick to;

10 PRINT "Hello World"



Thanks for trying to explain.

[Lion]

What was running on the Pi 400? Was it RiscOS? If so, was it easy enough to get it connected to the network?

It was Risc OS, and it wasn't easy, though the hard part was configuration of the bridge, not configuration of Risc OS.

[cr12925]

What was running on the Pi 400? Was it RiscOS? If so, was it easy enough to get it connected to the network?

It was Risc OS, and it wasn't easy, though the hard part was configuration of the bridge, not configuration of Risc OS.

?

Were you using the original bridge ir the HPB?

[KenLowe]

That sounds great. There is only one problem - I don't really understand what you said.

I still understand the vanilla, wired Econet and can program that and make all sorts of connectors for it but this new technology is way over my head.

A box that plugs into my existing Econet and just 'does it' would be magic. I don't mind a bare board even because I can always fabricate a box.

Then, of course, one would need some sort of easy way to connect to the Inter-Econet; a full-time server somewhere would be great ( just type

*I AM :<address>.<user name> <password>

to get in to one's own workspace).

It is nice to dream.

For those who are struggling with this, and just want to get a simple home Econet network running, can I suggest you follow this quick guide I put together:

viewtopic.php?p=365863#p365863

That should get you up and running in about 30 mins!

Once you've got the basics up and running, we're here to help you extend that out to other networks if the jargon is getting you confused .

Note that the above referenced guide is for use with revision 2 and above of the v2 hardware (rev 2 and above has the in built Econet clock and termination). You've got v2 hardware if it's SMD based, and everything is on the one board. It's v1 hardware if it's thru hole based, and the econet module is separate to the bridge board.

I can provide guidance for earlier hardware too, if required.

Were you using the original bridge or the HPB?

Note that the above referenced guide will install and automatically start the original bridge. You have to take some extra steps to switch from the original bridge to the High Performance Bridge (HPB). These extra steps are not detailed in the guide I produced. Again, I can provide guidance if required.