Updates

June 29th

Experimented a little yesterday with the Arduino (http://arduino.cc), and Windows. Gonna play with it some more today. I'm trying to get a sense for how I want the software on the Arduino to work and how to get the Apple IIe's super serial card to play nicely with it. It looks like it might be as simple as transmitting characters back and forth serially. Probably no handshaking, just make the arduino not to talk unless it's talked to first. I.E. this won't work for some kind of server unless I write new software for the Arduino and then it probably won't be usable as a client at the same time (not sure about that, if both are possible then I'll take a shot at the latter later). Granted the arduino could be used as a server alone (by storing pages in eeprom or ram), but I figure it could also request pages or content from the Apple IIe to send to the requesting user. I'm choosing, possibly foolishly, to just come up with a way to get what I want as opposed to trying to get some known serial protocol working between the two. I figure that the end proximity of the Apple IIe to the arduino means that errors due to interference and miscommunication are much less likely than over longer distances. First, I'm going to get it working, no error correction until I know if it's needed.

June 30th

No preparation accomplished so far, will just to have to ring in the RetroChallenge tomorrow morning. Early AM update if I'm feeling chipper. Hope to start getting a Arduino test program ready for the early stages of communication, no ethernet yet, just serial communication. Once I get the Arduino programmed, I'll make sure it acts the way I want when sent data and then I'll wait until I've got the serial cabling worked out to test it. I might need to implement some kind of handshaking. Whoops, speaking of which, I'll need to get some level-shifting or something going to talk RS-232, the +5v is easy, but -5v... Or I can just hook the supply up backwards? Heh, maybe I can get a pin to 'sink' voltage/current by setting it an input, maybe that will work. If I do that, i'd better attach a switching transistor or something. Methinks that otherwise it will provide a constant signal that ought to be fluctuating with the data. Whatever, if anyone cares to clarify it go ahead. In any case, I'll be attempting to forge ahead tomorrow. Also, from here on out (next update and forward) I'll be mirroring the updates on my blog at http://stardust.dyndns.org:8080/blog/ for anyone who's not using a retro machine/browser. It's a php and text file based blog. This page should be easier to read for them (it's just CSS, images, links, and straight html). If I was being really nice I'd use deprecated html styling, but whatever. Anyway, over and out.

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