Re: Serial-based OS: crazy idea?

If a patched (aka cracked) game is what's being talked about loading,
then the timing becomes a moot issue. The software side on the PC
wouldn't be as hard as you might think, even if it did the bulk of the
timing for copy protection emulation. Still, show me one disk image
available for the Apple II series that hasn't had it's protection
removed. All of them that I've seen are all pre-cracked. I guess
nobody thought to add the protection type/method to the image file for
real floppy recreation. There's a program to emulate the Atari 8-bit
disk subsystem that does just that, so I'm sure something could be
worked out for an Apple version. And, while we're at it, who's to say
that we actually have to go serial, anyway. Almost every PC these days
is capable of full bidirection I/O on the parallel port. However, even
the oldest parallel port can do nybble transfers in both directions.

Granted, the hardware approach that I've mentioned would exclude the
//c (and //c+, obviously). However, wouldn't we all love to be able to
slap a card into any slotted II system that acted as a disk controller
but actually linked to a PC?

Going software only will, no matter what you do, cause issues at one
point or another. It may work for most things, but won't work for
everything. Keep in mind, the RWTS code being talked about has to stay
within the original space, and it used available ROM code. Doing
things through the serial port may, sadly, cause just enough overhead
to require more space (especially if we're talking about using AuxRAM
to hold the code, then there's the code to switch that RAM in and out,
keeping track of where interrupt vectors are pointed to, making sure to
not swap out that code if interrupts are still being generated).

I'm not saying it's a waste of time to do the software. By all means,
do it. That will certainly reveal what, if any, demand there might be
for a hardware based solution.

.

Relevant Pages

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