A5000 - diving in at the deep end!

[HigashiJun]

[rubber_jonnie]

It's been a busy couple of days for the postie, today I received the 10Base2 stuff I need for further testing of the NIC on the A5000:

PXL_20231104_105731529.jpg (337.03 KiB) Viewed 128 times

I'll have to reset the jumpers on the NIC so it runs over BNC, which I am told by CJE was tested and working. Fingers crossed for a positive result.

I think I also need to find out if the AUI adaptor works.

[rubber_jonnie]

And in a slightly unexpected turn of events, and when I was about to give up, I get this:

PXL_20231109_132508987.jpg (271.69 KiB) Viewed 80 times

Here's how I did it.

1. Formatted the primary drive and dropped in the uniboot folder from CJE.
2. Set the drive to be bootable with the *opt 4,2 command.
3. Dropped the skeleton !boot file from CJE containing the drivers etc over !boot.
4. Rebooted
5. Configured the network settings using !inetsetup. I used 192.168.1.150 as the IP
6. Rebooted.

And it worked...

Then I thought, can I repeat this, so I did, used 192.168.1.200 as the IP, and it doesn't work anymore...

Then I changed the IP back to 192.168.1.150. Guess what, it works. Before anybody asks, 192.168.1.200 is a valid IP for my network, and it isn't in use. 192.168.1.199 doesn't work, but 192.168.1.180 does. Go figure.

So I've set it to an address within the range of my network, but outside of the DHCP range (All the other addresses were inside of it) and it's still working. I'm 100% sure there was no IP clash BTW.

What's different is that e1info now gives me totally different results.

For info, this is connected to a 10Mbit hub using coaxial cable and from the hub to my 10/100/1000 switch.

Now that I have also tested the AUI to 10 base T adapter and I know it works, I need to see if I can make that work directly to my switch and bypass the hub entirely.

I can ping inside and outside my network now, so the gateway is also working.

[rubber_jonnie]

Quick update. Works over AUI too

[HigashiJun]

[Steve]

I was just curious about whether there were Daynaport scsi/ethernet drivers for RiscOS but I can't find any reference anywhere. Which is a shame. The BlueSCSI-v2 now supports Daynaport/scsi-ethernet over Wifi, so it's a perfect little device for any retro SCSI machines for both hard disk and internet.

[alexh]

Good stuff.

My A5000 is still non functional but I was considering if it ever could be resurrected making a new podule with Wifi using a uController such as RPi nano W or ESP32 etc. with some level shifters. An open source podule design already exists but it is only for 8-bit podule (due to the limitations of the GPIO on the uController they used. You'd really want a 16-bit podule.

[rubber_jonnie]

I was just curious about whether there were Daynaport scsi/ethernet drivers for RiscOS but I can't find any reference anywhere. Which is a shame. The BlueSCSI-v2 now supports Daynaport/scsi-ethernet over Wifi, so it's a perfect little device for any retro SCSI machines for both hard disk and internet.

Honestly, I doubt it, at least not for RiscOS 3.1 like I have. You may have better mileage with later versions.

[rubber_jonnie]

Good stuff.

My A5000 is still non functional but I was considering if it ever could be resurrected making a new podule with Wifi using a uController such as RPi nano W or ESP32 etc. with some level shifters. An open source podule design already exists but it is only for 8-bit podule (due to the limitations of the GPIO on the uController they used. You'd really want a 16-bit podule.

Oh no, what'a wrong with it, I can't recall? That sort of thing would be brilliant since network podules are so hard to come by and expensive.

[rubber_jonnie]

Good news (Yes more!!)

After getting things working with the bare uniboot supplied by CJE, I thought I have to try again with my original as I rather like my customised desktop.

So, I deleted the !Boot file from my drive, and copied in a backup of my original SCSI drive contents, including the !Boot file from before, and rebooted. Great, my original desktop is back.

I then dropped in the skeleton boot provided by CJE, configured networking as before, saved and rebooted, and voila, all working and I have my original customised desktop and networking.

Not sure why it didn't work the very first time I tried this, but I don't much care!!!

Woop.