Wow. Time to bring my 130xe out of storage and see if it boots...
I bought one of these. About $60.
The FujiNET is amazing. It works via the standard SIO subsystem provided by the Atari system OS ROM. Device independent I/O.
D: DISK P: PRINTER ETC...
Now has N: for network.
This device makes Atari Basic Internet capable. People have written 10 line programs to do all sorts of Internet tasks. Multi player online games are possible and have been done.
There are app servers hosting disk images.
I got mine, connected it to my home wi-fi and was playing Zork over the internet in about 5 minutes.
It has an SD card slot for local storage and the onboard CPU has all sorts of capabilities aimed at making the Internet useful to existing Atari software and permit easy new development.
That device is a lot of fun and replaces having a disk drive and some sort of modem or serial interface to work online.
https://fujinet.online/2023/06/28/fujinet-and-meatloaf-at-vc...
Unless I understand it very wrong, in the base C64 OS, you run an "ls" by opening the floppy device and asking the drive to read it.
OTOH, while autobooting or running unmodified software is not an option, nothing prevents the modification of existing software to run with the Fujinet’s extra features. The very basic stuff, the ability to load software off a disk image, is there.
https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Device_number.
Fujinet on the C64 supports modem comms - the implementation is based on the Meatloaf project:
I watched the Meatloaf videos; thank you. Does this mean that FujiNet hardware for the C64 will connect to both the serial and user ports? If so that would solve both the backward compatibility and throughput issues, at the cost of more hardware (but understandably so, given the C64's hardware).
PS - What is the upper throughput limit on the Commodore serial bus? I know it's a serial version of IEEE-488, but I assumed that the upper limit is lower than what is required for modem access. But now that I think about it, the throughput for disk access (even if brokenly slow by default) must be much higher than that of contemporary modems, right? To put another way, is there anything—whether throughput, or signaling/traffic—inherently preventing modems on the serial port à la SIO?
From what I understand, the C64 product requires one to use BASIC to kick something off, just like everyone does for the disk drives.
But, after that it's looking like the overall features and experience are going to be there. The video shows command line access working. A more friendly client won't be far behind, and that could be in BASIC and perform reasonably in most cases.
Yes, this is what I was alluding to. I know it's no big deal to type `LOAD "*",8,1` or whatever to start the FujiNet main menu, but there is still a qualitative difference between that and being able to turn the Atari 8-bit on and have the functionality automatically be available. That's possible on C64, too, but not if the hardware is connected only via the Commodore serial port; it would require the cartridge port, or a ROM change. As mentioned, I am also unsure of how the throughput would compare.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the lack of functionality with telecom software. Commodore modems don't connect to the serial port, so terminal emulators and such won't work out of the box with FujiNet the way they can on Atari.
The serial port is a bummer! What is used? Cart port?
I am getting one for my Apple, and want to get a C128 sometime in the near future.
Was all Atari for a long time, and then a while back, I bumped into an Apple //e and realized just how much fun all these machines are!
The C128 is next.
And, in short order, we could all write programs that talk to one another over the Internet via FujiNET devices. Good times ahead.
And yeah, SIO is pretty cool. Atari got that right. The one thing I envy about the C64 and friends is full 320 pixel color resolution. The Ataris are 160 pixel. And I am not talking about size. Both machines can deliver 320 pixels, but Atari machines can only specify a difference in lumanance between pixels at that resolution.
In the last 10 years, that difference has proven itself with some damn cool demoscene productions on C64 and friends. Plus, the 128 has a real 80 column display. My Apple has that too, and I really miss it on the Atari.
Anyhow... have fun.
In the early '90s I wanted to get some drawings I did with the Atari Touch Tablet into my Windows computers. So I looked at the specs for the BMP format and learned enough 6502 assembly language to do the conversion on the Atari. Then I hooked the Atari modem and a Windows computer up to phone jacks in my parents' house, fired up TinyBBS (if I remember correctly) on the Windows computer, and uploaded all the graphics from the Atari over the household phone lines.
Felt pretty clever after that.
People moved data in many ways didn't they?
Print it out. I moved some code and data that way. Just type it in again.
Some people made cables and toggled lines in the controller ports.
Audio.
Who knows what else?
Of course with only 32ish K available, you weren't sampling much. I think I probably still have the first one I captured: "White Horse" by Laid Back. Now there's a timestamp.
BTW, one of the drawings I converted from the Atari wound up in the documentation for a multi-million-dollar manufacturing system sold by Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) in the '90s.
Was a great resource, especially in the older machines that had 4 ports.
I say they can rent spectrum from someone. It's not like the people who are doing those kinds of volume need yet another free gift. And mooching off amateur spectrum is exactly that.
Life has taken me away from radio for a while now, but I could jump back in anytime. It's great tech.