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Technology Hardware

1.70 Mhz 8-Bit Ataris Get 10 Mbit Ethernet 208

Posted by simoniker from the next-up-firewire dept.
point writes "Thanks to Chris Martin, 8-bit Atari power users can now enjoy 10 Mbit Ethernet, something that the Commodore 64 crowd have been able to do for over a year now... Time to pick up that age-old flamewar? An Ethernet-enabled Atari port of the Contiki operating system has already been completed, and brings the Atari users telnet, e-mail, a web server and a web browser. Pictures and schematics for the Ethernet card, as well as screenshots of the system in action on an Atari 800 are available from the project's webpage."
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1.70 Mhz 8-Bit Ataris Get 10 Mbit Ethernet More

1.70 Mhz 8-Bit Ataris Get 10 Mbit Ethernet

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  • I'm Sorry, but ... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why?

    I mean? Why not just emulate it on a decent pc?

    I suppose this is one thing I will never get used to.

    Posting anon in case I actually get first post, and I don't wanna get modded down just for that.

    • Re:I'm Sorry, but ... (Score:4, Funny)

      by GregThePaladin ( 696772 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @03:01AM (#7312643) Homepage Journal
      It's the kind of thing we do. We aren't trying to get use out of it, we do it for the humor, and possibly to get on slashdot.
      • All very good reasons. Those of us who do a lot of embedded development also do it for learning purposes. An old 8-bit machine from the '80s is a lot easier to debug than a modern 8-bit microcontroller (more interactivity, easier to place probes in the hardware, etc), while simultaneously having the same limitations.

        Chances are, if you can cram contiki onto an Atari or C64, you can get a TCP/IP stack into an embedded controller of some sort.

    • Re:I'm Sorry, but ... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 26, 2003 @03:05AM (#7312655)
      "If you have to ask why, you are not in the target audience"

    • Three words: Internet Star Raiders.

    • It's called a HOBBY (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pizaz ( 594643 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @03:23AM (#7312692)
      some people build scale replica plastic models, and others like to do new things with old hardware.

      To each his own...

      -PizaZ

    • Since you don't seem to get this site, and the people that frequent it, let me explain to you why you got modded down. It was not because you FP'ed, it is because you asked "Why". In the tech world, as in every facet of life, there is sometimes a desire to be "silly" and be reminded of a time when everything seemed to be simpler. Some do this by obtaining toys they loved to play with in their childhood, some watch classic TV, and some do senseless (in your opinion) things like make an obsolete technology
    • Part of the allure of older hardware is just that, the hardware..

      You cant emulate the 'feel' of a working ST.. its just not the same watching GEM poke along in a window as it is to really have it in front of you...

      ( yes i know this was about 8 bit atari, but you get my point )

  • Yet Contiki for NES still doesn't have com support (Score:4, Interesting)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @02:56AM (#7312631) Homepage Journal

    I hope somebody figures out a way to connect networking hardware to the Nintendo Entertainment System so that yet another old 8-bit platform's port of Contiki can get net support.

    • Re:Yet Contiki for NES still doesn't have com supp (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, that would be cool. The easiest solution we've been able to come up with for communication would run through the controller port to a host program on the PC. There's posts about it on the nesdev.parodius.com forums. But I'm not sure if that can work with Contiki, maybe it can somehow?

      I'd like to find out. I've got the commucication schematic already, it just needs to be tested. My kingdom for a devcart! heheh.

      If anyone has any ideas, or is just interested, feel free to stop by the NES hardware [parodius.com]
    • What about that goofy "expansion port" they have in the base of the NES? I can only fathom a guess that it was designed with the intent of releasing an unreleased disk drive (similar to the model released in Japan), designed to connect to the net and store games on said disks.

      Maybe that would solve the problem, just need to hack together the communications hardware, RAM and disk drive. Perhaps a visit to eBay or whatnot can obtain the drive and then some reverse engineering can be done.

  • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:C64 die-hard alert (Score:3, Informative)

      by runderwo ( 609077 )
      Huh? There was a hard drive for 8-bit Atari machines too. Logically enough, it connected to the joystick port [atariarchives.org].
      • Hmm... Corvus must have made MANY HDDs for boxes that couldn't take HDDs - they made a 10MB one for the //c (I want one, a serial-to-ethernet adaptor, and a port of Contiki)
    • Good old 8-bit wars.

      Righto... I'm not going to say the atari was better then the commodore... instead i'll give you a list of hardware I had before I switched to a 386sx machine.

      1. 130xe
      2. One MIO board by ICD, a little box that had a 1meg ram disk, scsi host adapter, serial and printer ports.
      3. Seagate st-419 15meg full height HD in external case
      4. Adaptec mfm scsi controler
      5. Spartados

      While the commodore was very spiffy in it's day in many ways, the atari had damn good hardware and software suppor

  • 1.70 Mhz?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 26, 2003 @03:01AM (#7312645)
    1.70? I think you mean 1.79 Mhz. Geez-us. :-P
    • I thought it was 3.579545 to be synched with the NTSC chromo signal. Just about all 6502 based machines were clocked at this rate; c64, Atari 8-bit, Nintentdo 8-bit, TurboGrafx16, and apple 8-bits.

      • Re:1.70 Mhz?? (Score:2, Informative)

        by Thowllly ( 529311 )
        No, it was clocked at 1.79Mhz (half the NTSC color carrier frequency). The the 6510 in the C64 was clocked at 1Mhz.
      • The 65(c)02 in the Apple II ran at 1MHz (closer to 0.9MHz in the Apple IIe line - they underclocked it for hardware compatibility, as several cards, including the Supercard, didn't work at 1.0MHz on the Apple IIe), except for the Apple IIc+ (4MHz). The Apple /// ran at 2MHz.

    • Re:1.70 Mhz?? (Score:5, Funny)

      by reddish ( 646830 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @05:29AM (#7312924) Homepage
      1.79 MHz? I take it you mean 1.7897725 MHz (NTSC models) or 1.773447 MHz (PAL-models)... Sjeeesh! :-)
  • that their website is not hosted on one of those. It would be a pity for all that hard work to go up in flames. (literally)

  • Atari NIC (Score:5, Funny)

    by ndavidg ( 680217 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @03:07AM (#7312662)
    Now you can have multi-player pong LAN parties.
  • How fast is this gui OS running on the atari, compared to current desktops that are well over 1000x faster that run Gnome/KDE/WinXP ?

    • How fast is this gui OS running on the atari, compared to current desktops that are well over 1000x faster that run Gnome/KDE/WinXP ?

      Well, shit, judging from my recent experiences with all three of these on *fast* hardware, it couldn't possibly be worse.

      Joking aside, as much of a waste of time these projects seem like it's still impressive how they can do so much with so little. The evolution of the desktop environment seems to have been entirely based on development of processor-intensive eye-candy for
    • Have a look at and/or try Contiki. It lacks SO much functionality that a modern OS has. Any comparisons aren't worth much.

  • Hum... (Score:2, Funny)

    by SWTP_OS9 ( 658064 )
    Wonder what will be next...

    A) Atari: 1024 ST.
    B) Tandy: Color Computer { 1,2 or 3 }. Use OS9 or MS Basic as OS.
    C) SWTP SS50 bus computer.
    D) Smoke Signal Broadcasting: Chiftan.
    E) Coleco: Gamesystem.
    F) Coleco: Adam { If you can keep it running ).

    Actualy its not the final results but the knowledge to get it going at all. Be fun to try!

  • Not perfect yet (Score:5, Informative)

    by Martigan80 ( 305400 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @03:12AM (#7312674) Journal
    Current Status:
    # Compiling: Contiki, UIP, CS8900A driver, Telnet, Email, Web Browser.
    # The Telnet only version works under SpartaDOS.
    # Pings work, but many packets dropped.
    # Telnet works, but looses connection.

    So there is still a way to go. They have a work in progress but are not fully up.

    • Hmm, telnet. Clear-text passwords and all that. But it would be insane to try porting ssh to such a machine. So is there any way to get secure remote logins?

      Perhaps you could generate a 100-kilobyte file of random data, get a copy of it at either end somehow (does this Atari have disk drives? maybe even put the file on tape heh heh) and use it as a one-time pad for remote connections.

      • Re:Telnet? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Unominous Coward ( 651680 )
        If you need to use an Atari to do your work in security, you're in trouble.
      • S/Key, works with telnet, ssh, ftp, and a ton of other things.

        Basically you use a secure connection to the remote location to generate a list of one time passwords, which you then use on the unsecure connection when needed. Being onetime, it doesnt really matter if someone grabs the key you jsut used, and the keys have to be used in order of generation.

        Right, thats passwords sorted, the only thing you have to worry about now is connection stealing, or man-in-the-middle attacks. Telnet is really open
      • I was just thinking about the fact that one logical application for telnet from an atari 8 bit is for some form of mp3 remote control. I don't remember my history really well, but I believe the 800xl offered chroma/luma output, aka svideo. It wouldn't be anything fancy, stock 40col support is a might bit limited, but hey, good readable TV support isn't anything to sneeze at.

  • I must (Score:2, Funny)

    by madpierre ( 690297 )
    dust off my old Atari 800.
    Retro cool here I come.
    • Mine's already dusted off. It's sitting on top of my current home PC. Strange thing is, I've played more games on it in the past few months than I have on the PC.

  • It even has decent file dialog! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Gnome people should take a look at it.

  • Jeez! (Score:5, Funny)

    by jamesjw ( 213986 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @03:35AM (#7312714) Homepage

    10Mbit ethernet on an Atari 800.. A single ping would almost DoS it..

    We'll see a CERT alert on this for sure!

    -- Jim.
    • Just the normal chatter from compromised windows machines would stiff it out... all those 16k packages coming on port 135...

    • Re:Jeez! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Billly Gates ( 198444 )
      How fast were the early pdp's that ran BSD Unix 4.2 that included TCP/IP? My guess is a maybe a little faster with alot more memory but not much.

      These boxes were used as routers before Cisco came to be during the early internet. They could handle pings quite well I assume.

      Remember to this day the TCP/IP stack of BSD is still used because it had to be so efficient back then..

      • Re:Jeez! (Score:2, Insightful)

        by AndroidCat ( 229562 )
        Indeed. Starting from scratch with a minimum system is a good way to learn TCP/IP inside-out. Anyone can push data with a hot processor and a fat pipe, the trick is to do it without those.

        • Re:Jeez! (Score:2, Insightful)

          by fitten ( 521191 )
          Yeah, the major cause of code bloat and slow apps is that fast processors have allowed people to just ignore or write off being efficient and/or go ahead and add all those other features into the app because they have plenty of room and processing power to deal with it or... to just be sloppy. Back in the day, you had to distill your designs to include the most important stuff and chop out the fat because you didn't have the space or processing power to do some things. Try fitting a word processor that ha
  • The Atari ST has had web browser software for some time. It's called the Crystal Atari Browser [transaction.free.fr].
  • I guess this would be the place to ask, since I haven't had any luck with Google.

    Where would I get an 8-bit ISA network card that's supported in Linux? I've got a couple of Netgear NE2000 cards that were advertised to work in 8-bit slots, but the drivers don't seem to recognize them.

    I'm definitely not a hardware hacker, so I'd be grateful for any hints.
    • Maybe you should hack a bit with the software (drivers).
      There are only subtle differences between the NE1000 (8bit) and NE2000 (16bit) network cards, and the code to recognize the cards may be misguided by the situation. You probably still can get it to work.

      Years ago, I took an NE2000 card, mounted it on a piece of experimenters board, and fitted it into an Atari Mega ST (the ones with the pizzabox case under the monitor, that had a bus slot).
      After modifying the driver that was in the Linux kernel at tha

  • Cool! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sunspot42 ( 455706 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @04:01AM (#7312770)
    Does this mean a networked version of M*U*L*E would finally become possible? Sweet!

  • never really thought about this before... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Malor ( 3658 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @04:04AM (#7312777) Journal
    It just occurred to me, with the "10 mbit Ethernet" reference in the title, that it would be harder than hell (impossible?) to push that much data on one of those 8 bit computers.

    Assuming you're using only the processor, on an 8-bit machine the data speed ought to be very close to the clock speed; a 1Mhz machine probably could copy no more than 1 megabit, and that's assuming that it was doing NOTHING else, like interacting with the user.

    Now, the Ataris have early versions of the some of the custom chips that were in the Amiga, so it's likely that at least some of the load might be able to be offset, but I'd be pretty amazwd if the machines could exceed 2 megabits.

    Honestly, everything past a modem is probably overkill on these old machines; it's like putting tires and shocks to do 200mph on a Model T. No matter how hard you push down the pedal, it's just not going to go much faster. :-)

    It really puts things in perspective, though; I'm sitting here typing on my Web browser, downloading a TV episode off Usenet at about 3 megabits, and streaming Doll Revolution off the Mac via iTunes, playing it on a (kinda crummy) 5.1 surround sound system. And with all that going on, probably 95% of my processor time is going to Folding@Home.

    Goddamn, what a difference a few decades make. :-)
    • I haven't looked into the hardware here, but I would guess they use som kind of ethernet chip that takes in 8 bits in parallell, making the maximum dataspeed 8 megabytes per second and not 1.

      And speed is not the only advantage over a modem (or serial connection). Just as important is it to be able to connect the computer to the local network that most likely will require ethernet.

    • Yes, even a 486 box can have difficulty saturating a 10Mb/s Ethernet link, if it uses PIO. With DMA and busmastering you can do better, but still I'd question the ability of the OS and applications to keep up on a slower machine. (In practice, the older Ethernet cards are limited to about 3.5Mb/s due to a conservative implementation of checking whether the medium is free.)

      I think classic Ethernet is about the oldest and slowest networking medium that's still widely supported, unless you want to use seria
      • In practice, the older Ethernet cards are limited to about 3.5Mb/s due to a conservative implementation of checking whether the medium is free.) I think classic Ethernet is about the oldest and slowest networking medium that's still widely supported, unless you want to use serial connections. I can relate to that. I have a Mac LC II with an LC Ethernet card (those things look weird). The other day, I was backing up some software using FTP. Now, it's interesting that I could only download at about 10-30kBp

      • I think classic Ethernet is about the oldest and slowest networking medium that's still widely supported, unless you want to use serial connections.

        I've used serial, parallel, arcnet, and ethernet. Ethernet beats the rest. Unless you're comparing it with fiber optic (not within the budget of most geeks), I don't know how you get off calling it "slowest."

        And what's the difference between "classic" ethernet and the plain-old-commodity-grade ethernet that runs through cat-5 and 3c905 adapters?

        • I said the slowest that's still widely supported, apart from serial connections. Arcnet is not widely supported these days, if it ever was (how many PCs have an Arcnet adaptor?). OK, the parallel port was something I left out.

          And what's the difference between "classic" ethernet and the plain-old-commodity-grade ethernet that runs through cat-5 and 3c905 adapters?

          By 'classic' Ethernet I meant 10Mb/s, not Fast Ethernet (100Mb/s) or Gigabit Ethernet or any of the other networking technologies with 'Eth

          • I have a box of arcnet hardware, and an arcnet card is still available in my firewall machine should I ever need to connect something arcnet-enabled. It's 1MBit, but it has the advantage that you can run a cable up to a kilometer long between cards (not exactly a supported configuration, but it can be done) over regular TV coax. If you ever need to solve the "last-mile" problem, arcnet is a cheap way to do it.

    • Assuming you're using only the processor, on an 8-bit machine the data speed ought to be very close to the clock speed; a 1Mhz machine probably could copy no more than 1 megabit, and that's assuming that it was doing NOTHING else, like interacting with the user.

      Interresting logic. A poor old Z80 running at modest 4MHz was able to move, using a DMA companion chip, quite exactly 1MByte/s (4MHz, 4 clock cycles/byte). The CPU without any special chip was able to move a byte in 21 cycles (via LDIR command) fr

      • > max. 190 kByte/s.

        Well hell, that's still about 10x faster than the Zaurus website after a Slashdotting.
      • Don't forget, LDIR wasn't the fastest way to sling data around on the Z80, despite it being "easier". I think a simple loop could beat it and I remember reading that one of the later spectrum games used a trick something like:

        Change stack ptr to source:
        pop BC
        pop DE
        pop as many as you can get away with
        change SP to dest:
        push ...
        push DE
        push BC
        loop...

        which shifted more bytes/clock than any other method people came up with.
    • Actually, you missed something. The chipset they are using is designed specifically for low-speed applications (like attaching to 8-bit microcontrollers), and does enough of the link-level work by itself that the main CPU doesn't have to. The card will buffer (in internal memory) the incoming packets, screen out any incorrect MAC addresses (unless you are in promisc mode), and even allow the system to access the packets byte by byte, rather than doing a bulk copy.

      While the effective bulk transfer rate w

  • This is really cool.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ken Broadfoot ( 3675 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @04:04AM (#7312780) Homepage Journal
    This kind of stuff is what would have happened if Microsoft and IBM had not destroyed "choice" back in the day.

    Wouldn't it be cool if Commodore and Atari and Texas Instruments made some kinda comeback. The internet was a web of completly different platforms all talking via internet standards. Amigas, Macs and OS2 machines. No Linux/Unix vrs Microsoft.

    I hope this kinda stuff continues. Even if it is just for fun.

    --ken
    • This kind of stuff is what would have happened if Microsoft and IBM had not destroyed "choice" back in the day.

      I'm not sure that the PC revolution was such a bad thing. Part of the reason that the PC took over as the master platform was the low cost clone market. The TI was a really cool platform, as was the amiga. Hell the commodore and atari 8-bits ran circles around the XTs dispite the fact that they had 10x the ram.

      But I don't feel I would enjoy computing in the 21century based on commodore style

  • Don't laugh ! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ignis Flatus ( 689403 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @04:46AM (#7312850)
    One day you guys will be all excited to see that someone has built a subspace carrier-frequency card for the PCI bus and ported a neural-interface OS to the PC.
    • Yes but will it allow you to emit an inverse takeon pulse through the main deflector while setting the shields to a rotating modulation?

      your comment reminds me of the movie hackers:

      Whoa, its got a 28.8 BPS modem!

      Thats going to be a fun one to explain to the kids (when I get some in like 10 years)

  • Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LittleBigScript ( 618162 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @04:56AM (#7312864) Homepage Journal
    A lot of people like to ask "WHY?" when it comes to technology. But these little gizmos, which still work amazingly, answer a different question, "Why not?" Why not play with the old stuff?

    • Re:Why? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by IM6100 ( 692796 )
      It's fine to play with the old stuff. I do it myself quite a bit.

      However, it's foolish to claim that the original processor is running the network stack when the card that it's connected to has an embedded processor that's as powerful or more than the original. That is a bit like running VT100 terminal emulator software on your C64 and claiming you're running 'lynx' on it because it's the serial console for your Linux box running 'lynx'.

      Now, native assembly code on the old system and only the tiniest ph

  • whats next ..? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by KingRamsis ( 595828 )
    WiFi on your favorite TI calculator?
  • ...can't even do that. (Can't find where to stick the ethernet card).

  • Where is the Amiga version!? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Corrado ( 64013 ) <rnhurt@@@gmail...com> on Sunday October 26, 2003 @06:17AM (#7313018) Homepage Journal
    Damn, we have ethernet for the C-64, Atari and even lightbulbs, but I still cant get my old A500 or A2000 on the 'net. Oh sure, I could dig up a really old, crappy Ariadne II board off of eBay for $500, but what's the point in that? I want something like this for the Amiga.

    Come on, it's got enought power to do something like this and you wouldn't have to build the GUI or OS - just the hardware.

    Oh well, I guess a man can dream. :)
  • Well, not really, the LANceGS [a2central.com] has been available for over three years. It works with an Enhanced ][e or IIgs, although there are no apps for the ][e that use the interface. FWIW, Apple had created an ethernet card for the IIgs to be released with System 6 (GS/OS) but killed it at the last minute so as to not have the IIgs compete with the Macintosh LC.
  • This is much more closer my chinese abacus will finally get its deeply missing interface to the internet. I already run a very nice web browser on it: Me-zilla.

    Let's go guys, keep this ball rolling!

  • The Atari joins the commode 64 in the ethernet department, and yet still no one has come up with a homemade ethernet adapter for the dreamcast, whose BBA (when available) runs over $100. Atari: 1.7(9...) MHz. Dreamcast: 200MHz, with a cdrom. Come on, people.

  • Not quite so silly afterall.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by yiantsbro ( 550957 ) on Sunday October 26, 2003 @11:10AM (#7313759)
    The more stories I see like this the more I realize hacking into the alien technology with the little laptop in the movie Independence Day really wasn't so silly after all... :)
  • When will someone finish porting Contiki to the Apple II and write a LANceGS driver for it?
  • I just got an Atari 800 off eBay a few weeks ago. *sweet*

    Oh, I forgot - I was gonna gut it for another project. Guess I'll have to get another. Good thing they're cheap!
  • Whilst newer hardware obviously has the speed advantage, there are some blessing to older hardware. The main one I can see is heat. Processors have become faster, yes, but heat-dissipation efficiency hasn't really come to where it should.

    Now, while an Atari might be a step too far back for many practical applications (maybe you could use it as a relay-to-internet for some form of telegraph info though?) in looking at my older PC's there were no fans, and not much of a heatsink either. For my MMX233, it wa

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