16 Mar
2001
16 Mar
'01
4:20 p.m.
Bob,
That sounds very cool. Have you found any sources on the web of more
info concerning it??? I'm into the old Corvus constellation equipment
myself. There used to be a language lab in the Fordham Prep school in the
Bronx, NY that had 64 Atari 800's connected to a single 10mb hard disk and
autobooted from it using a modified OS board called "The Integrator"
designed by David Small. A few years back I checked in with the gentleman
who maintained the lab, sadly he turned the lab over to another person since
he had a new job at the school. Well the idiot who took over the lab threw
everything out because he thought it would be better to have brand new PC's
in the lab. Damned shame!!!
So lets hear more about this CP/M networking, very very intriquing :-)
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Stek" <r.stek(a)snet.net>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 8:34 PM
Subject: New find - Poor Man's Network - - for CP/M!
I just came across a piece of software I don't
remember from 1987. It is
called "Poor Man's Network: A Networking Package for CP/M Computers." It
was put out by Anderson Techno-Products of Ottawa, Ontario. Judging from
the manual, it appears to have been a one- or two-man operation (nothin'
wrong with that - been there, done that).
It uses standard serial or parallel ports and is based upon a very
modified
Christensen protocol to communicate with itself on the
other computer (it
only support two computers - after all, you couldn't afford more than two
computers if you were really poor <g>). It's capabilities seem to have
been
to allow allow read and/or write access to files on
the other computer
(handy for those NorthStar hard-sector disk file transfers to and from 8"
drives, for example), sharing drives on the other computer on a R/O basis,
redirecting output to use the other computer's printer or plotter, sending
one-line messages to the other computer, and the ability to send screen
messages and data mesaages to the other computer and to receive data
messages from the remote computer (simultaneous read and/or update a
database using added BDOS calls). Sharing was on a drive basis only. It
took up about 7-8k memory and worked with CP/M 2.2, ZRDOS or equivalent.
Has anyone had any experience with this gem? Or even remember it? Were
there others like it? By '87 I had become enmeshed in the IBM-Microsoft
world, and don't remember this one at all!
Bob Stek
Saver of Lost Sols