7 May
2008
7 May
'08
2:06 p.m.
There was a panel that was a mux/demux to 24-ish
diskless model 3s. The
I thought the standard one was for 16 slaves to one host, but there's no
reason for that limit. I seem to rememebr the same hardware could be
used with Model 1s, Model 3s
and Cocos, but that the host and slaves had to e the same type of machine.
The first version, the Network 1, was limited to the 500 bps data rate
of the Model One interface. Model Ones could be combined with Model 3s
and Model 4s, provided the users of the newer machines specified the
slow cassette data rate. The Network 2 supported the 1500 bps rate of
the Model 3 and 4, the Color Computer line (including the MC-10) and the
Model 100/200. 3s and 4s could be mixed at will, all versions of the
Color Computer line could co-exist (except the MC-10 -- although the
MC-10 used the same data format as the other Color Computers, the BASIC ROM tokenized the keywords in its own unique way, so
any BASIC code
exchanged would be garbage). The 100 and 200 could be intermixed. I
recall hearing about somebody using a Model 4 with its Mod100 exchange
utility getting that combination to work, but I never tried it myself.
I can see no reason why it wouldn't work. As far as I know, the Network 1
and 2 units were essentially amplifiers to boost the cassette output of
one machine and make it suitable to feed into the cassette input of
another. They did nothing with the actual data.
I would be interested in seeing schematics/service manuals for these
units, I don;'t suppose they exist anywhere.
-tony