2024 Econet LAN party: offsite Econets

[friesian7]

For the upcoming Econet LAN Party at TNMoC (18th/19th May), we are planning a number of activities that we want to coordinate in advance.

As mentioned in the event thread, the intention is to extend our Econet beyond Bletchley using Chris Royle's PiEconetBridge code to connect up Acorn boxes from around the world!

I'm working with Chris to setup and help run this.

I've created this as a new thread for visibility (rather than buried in the LAN Party event thread), and for discussing what we might achieve.

Can't be there in person...then you can still be part of things via a remote trunk.

Coming along, but perhaps have a system at home you want to connect?

Follow up if you'd like to participate. We'll then PM you to cover the configuration specifics.

If anyone has other ideas/suggestions for the offsite Econet please post them here!

Thanks,
Jarod
TNMoC Acorn Team

[growntree]

I would be interested in connecting remotely. I've recently got a pieconetbridge and I have two A3000s and a master with econet cards in that I can connect to it to hopefully add to your tally of econet machines.

[KenLowe]

I'll certainly try to join. I've got a number of different games stored on my server, and it would be nice to see if people from around the globe are able to access these, and successfully run them on their machines.

[markusher]

Repton works

You will be able to connect to my network in Switzerland. What will be of use, is to know what is available on the networks being connected to and possible logons. BOOT, GUEST, WELCOME etc etc.

CAVE, CAVEPLUS, MUGINS and Areana are all installed on my public server - although Cave only shows users within ones own network.
The TALK chatroom will also be available.

What would people like to see on remote servers/networks?

[growntree]

Ah yes, good point. Perhaps we need another thread just for econet content ideas and some local setup help (not for connecting remotely, more for setting things up locally) as for example I've created a boot user which a master can log into by being on the ANFS filesystem and using shift-break, but it refuses to run the !Boot file in boot's home directory. People wanting to connect to the econet LAN party would get lost in here if we started discussing content in the same thread though...

[friesian7]

Ah yes, good point. Perhaps we need another thread just for econet content ideas and some local setup help (not for connecting remotely, more for setting things up locally) as for example I've created a boot user which a master can log into by being on the ANFS filesystem and using shift-break, but it refuses to run the !Boot file in boot's home directory. People wanting to connect to the econet LAN party would get lost in here if we started discussing content in the same thread though...

Agreed. A separate thread for setup help makes sense.

For the LAN Party content discussion, and what logons for example are available, I think this ties in nicely with a schedule thread, outlining our plans for the weekend. We can keep the first post updated as we flesh out what we are doing, and what logons we hope to have available.

This is something the Acorn Team have been discussing, and we'll get on with that soon.

For weekend itself, and coordinating the offsite Econets, then we'll use this thread. I know latency of a thread update is glacial compared to an IM group (perhaps email notifications might help?), but there's plenty of advantages for keeping stuff here. Aside from the obvious that we all have accounts and there's no fuss with installing/signing up/verifying/personally identifiable information disclosure, it's great that this forum is public and we like the idea that as such it's visible and searchable by others to see what we've been doing.

[markusher]

Ah yes, good point. Perhaps we need another thread just for econet content ideas and some local setup help (not for connecting remotely, more for setting things up locally) as for example I've created a boot user which a master can log into by being on the ANFS filesystem and using shift-break, but it refuses to run the !Boot file in boot's home directory. People wanting to connect to the econet LAN party would get lost in here if we started discussing content in the same thread though...

log on as boot and then *OPT 4,3 (or 4,2 if it's a machine code boot loader)

[KenLowe]

It would be worth testing this all out before the big day, so we're not spending the whole day fault finding! Make sure people can see our file servers, and make sure we can see other peoples servers. Is that the plan?

[MarkMoxon]

What would people like to see on remote servers/networks?

Elite! Though I may be biased.

I would love to see it working (or otherwise) on different servers, if only to get a feeling for how reliable it is on more sophisticated setups. It might not be multiplayer, but it’s still fun!

Mark

[KenLowe]

It's on my server . *I AM ELITE

[markusher]

I would love to see it working (or otherwise) on different servers, if only to get a feeling for how reliable it is on more sophisticated setups. It might not be multiplayer, but it’s still fun!

I'd love to see the Elite demo working from the Network

[Vee]

@MarkMoxon we're still waiting for multi-user Elite played over Econet!

[Iggypop]

cool !! will there be instructions on how to connect ??

[friesian7]

cool !! will there be instructions on how to connect ??

Yes, but at this stage we are still getting the ducks together...

[8271]

It's on my server . *I AM ELITE

Is that a special version of Elite (or modified), I copied the version across to my network and it hangs at the loader? I assumed it wrote over memory for the network and then didn't know how to finish loading?

[8271]

I might be interested in connecting remotely, I have a Pitube but have not got around to configuring it - is there an idiots guide? I have a RPC Fileserver running L4 which has both AUN and Econet and can see the internet, is there a configuration that would work using this (perhaps with the Gateway application?

[KenLowe]

It's on my server . *I AM ELITE

Is that a special version of Elite (or modified), I copied the version across to my network and it hangs at the loader? I assumed it wrote over memory for the network and then didn't know how to finish loading?

Yes, it's a special version that only runs on the Master or 6502 second processor:

viewtopic.php?t=28355

[KenLowe]

I might be interested in connecting remotely, I have a Pitube but have not got around to configuring it - is there an idiots guide?

PiTube, or PiEconetBridge? If the latter, please see here:

viewtopic.php?p=364719#p364719

[MarkMoxon]

@MarkMoxon we're still waiting for multi-user Elite played over Econet!

Ta-da! Here you go...

https://www.stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29058

Mark

[philpem]

I'll have my PiEconetBridge with me if there's any interest in using it to set up a link.

Would be good to get it set up ahead of the weekend though, and make sure it's working okay.

[Ragster]

I'll likely have my PiEconetBridge with me too - although I've only used it as a network server (and clock, and terminator) and not in Econet bridge mode. (How it will work in the absence of the expected DNS server I don't know.)

So much to do, so little time.

[friesian7]

Since my original post, we've been working on setting up and testing the cloud bridge. We've now got half a dozen or so servers configured, some permanently connected, while others come and go. I've also sent PMs to those who expressed an interest in previous replies in this thread.

At present the plan is to assemble a guidebook which will list what's available, how to run, and how to use these various Econet services.

For those coming along on the day and have a PiEconetBridge, you can either bring it with you, or leave it at home and have it connected into the cloud.

If you bring it along, then we'd ask that you disable the clock and termination before connecting to the onsite TNMoC Econet. Check out Ken's thread for appropriate details for doing this.

If you want to access your fileserver from home, then let me know and I'll PM you with setup details.

Jarod
TNMoC Acorn Team

[sweh]

I was going to try and join this, this year, so we could have an econet from New jersey (and see if transatlantic latency breaks things!) but unfortunately my Mum will be with me that weekend (it's her 82nd birthday and she's decided to fly out). It's probably not a good idea to ignore her and go to the basement where my Beeb stuff is!

Maybe another time...

[robheaton]

I would love to join in remotely, I've got a PiEconet Bridge, I just need to find some cables!
(Which are around here somewhere.........)

[robheaton]

So far, so good!

[techfury]

I volunteer to take sweh's place for transatlantic Econet shenanigans! Have an Econet network over here with a PiBridge, A4000, Model B, and Master.