Roadshow for 68K -Needs your support!

[olsen]

Sadly i talked with Olaf and last time he was busy with other projects and i "think" the problem was distributing roadshow with the people who he was working with. This was about a month ago i talked with him.

Let's say there were some problems beyond my control, since resolved, and the only thing that keeps the product from getting released is that the web page, etc. text needs to be written. I have been trying to do that for quite a while now, but I am having big trouble summoning the energy.

All this will pass, as it always will, but until it does, I hope the project will not be forgotten. It's 99.76% ready to go.

[olsen]

there has been lots of stuff about not wanting to release as open due to quality control, documentation etc.

Done and done (most of it was already done in late 2010). The problem here is that I am currently very willing but very unable to get that last simple bit finished, namely writing the text that should go on the web site on which the product will be sold.

It happens, it happened before, it will happen again. It just sucks that after all the work that went into making Roadshow happen, it's the smallest thing that manages to stop it.

but actually, if it had just been dumped on sourceforge, its quite probable by now the community, would have cleaned it up, made some documentation and a website etc.

Well, my outlook on this is pessimistic. If it really were that easy, we'd have a lot more projects on sourceforge.net (or Google code, whatever) than is currently the case. Fact is, hardly anybody who went through the hassle of learning Amiga software development is still doing it, and the state of the platform being as it is, few people want to learn it.

[olsen]

Many open source amiga apps have become successful, been ported across multiple amiga platforms, and still get a little tlc even if not actively developed. however if you take the attitude there is no point, and don't do it, then of course, nothing will improve.

I am not disputing that good can come of it, stress on "can". Amiga programming is hard, like any other programming task is. Only this platform has today even less material available than possibly any other that is more than 25 years old. Some men (and women) like a challenge, I suppose. But some don't.

As for Roadshow, let's say I'm not ready to part with a project that has been with me for more than 10 years, and for which I feel responsible. I don't want to walk away from it.

Ask me again in ten years time

[olsen]

Sorry

This isn't how I thought it would go. "Roadshow" 68k isn't dead, it's just that I got so heavily side-tracked in the past months that literally everything else I had in the pipeline got short shrift.

I still want to get Roadshow published properly, and the only obstacle right now is me and my spare time.

[olsen]

Oh, that would be a nice surprise, just in time for Christmas!

Yup, and just about time. Sorry for the delay, but the last two years in which I had been trying to get this show on the road have been a lot more arduous than I had expected.

So, without further ado, I'll go back to getting the missing pieces on the board. Not that there are many pieces to speak of, which are not exactly missing, but you get the general idea

[olsen]

So the project's not been buried after all , thanks for this knowledge!

No, neither buried, nor dead, nor "resting", just terribly embarrassed

[olsen]

Is that all that happened?
*whew*

I thought you had gotten old or something. :razz:  :lol:

Well, we all do in the end...

Incidentally, the product page is up: http://www.apc-tcp.de/support/0042e.php

The demo version and the SDK are already available for download. The demo version is virtually identical to the commercial release version (which will be available in January 2013), except for a time limit on how long it allows you to stay online.

[olsen]

Great news Olsen! Can't wait for its proper release. Any idea what the price will be?

Honestly, we haven't quite decided yet. Given the price range discussed in this very thread, my best guess is that the price will be in the 20-25€ range for the digital download (yes, I am aware of the irony of downloading a TCP/IP stack from the Internet), plus some extra money should you prefer a CD-R (with the installation software and the SDK on it) mailed to your home (no idea how that much would cost, though).

[olsen]

way to go, olsen! very pleased to see the best IP stack for amiga being made available for OS3 users!

-- eliyahu

Well... it's been an epic *thirteen* years since the initial work I did over Christmas 1999 until now. I just hope I didn't do something completely and utterly unredeemably stupid in the end which causes the software to fail or something like it.

[olsen]

How to read amiga guide documents with windows? I would like to read documentations first with my PC

The documentation also comes in PDF format. Just download the demo version, unpack it, then look into the "Roadshow/Documentation/Printable" drawer. There should be a file "Roadshow.pdf" inside.

This file covers just about everything, from installation to the all the configuration and command options. I managed to edit it down to some 105 pages after cleaning out some duplicate sections.

[olsen]

I downloaded and tested. It feels faster than Miami. I'm using SANA-II and a Mediator with 100 Mbps card. Very easy to set up. I will definitely pay for this!

You can tweak the device configuration file, increasing the number of read/write requests as necessary. When I performed my initial testing back in 2001, I found that the default settings were too conservative. Once I turned them up to 32 (used to be 10), performance went through the roof.

I'm curious about the setup process. The installation script should put everything on the boot volume, but you still need to edit the networking device configuration. I know how to do that, but is there something you think could be done better? It's not exactly user-friendly :-/

[olsen]

Yes, that will cause complains by less experienced users for sure. Maybe installation script should ask basic network settings and apply it to configuration file in devs:. Doesn't need much, just little playing with scripts. And then you could reconfigure it by running installation script again. Pretty old fashioned, but would be better than nothing if you're not up to write full prefs program.

Picking the right configuration is hard. If you assume that DHCP ought to work, it would make the basic setup easier. But, trouble is, if DHCP does not work, then the boot process will stall until the failed negotiation times out. I don't have a good solution for this yet (yes, the OS4 version of Roadshow has exactly the same problem).

Specific configuration options which suit your local network are more often than not tough to get exactly right. I remember that when I used AmiTCP for the first time, back in 1994, I didn't understand exactly how IP-Adress, subnet mask and default gateway would play together. If I remember correctly, DNS servers were configured separately. Any small mistake would render the whole configuration useless, and not being an expert greatly increased the likelihood of making that small mistake

And btw. could you add preconfigured interface file for 3com driver too? And Hydra & X-surf too...

I'd be happy to. The current set of files represents only the hardware which I had access to and could test by myself. If you could point me to working configurations (e.g. what goes into the "device=" line of the respective Storage/NetInterfaces config file), I'll update the demo version and the release version archives.

[olsen]

These to devices:
3c589.device (3Com Etherlink III PCMCIA cards)
hydra.device (Hydra Systems' Amiganet cards)
norway.device (Norway ethernet add-on for Highway USB controller)
x-surf.device (Individual Computers' X-Surf cards)

I haven't tested them with Roadshow, but they do work without any tricks with old amitcp at least. I may be able to test at least some of them later, if needed.

Thank you, I have just added new ready-made configuration files for these devices, and these changes will hopefully soon appear in the demo version, and eventually the commercial release in January next year.

[olsen]

Does it work with poseidon usb-ethernet adapters? IIRC there was some problem on OS4 using Roadshow+Poseidon because it was mandatory to use a file based device (and in contrast Poseidon created the network device in memory so choosing it was not possible)

Which name does the Poseidon SANA-II driver have?

Since Roadshow on 68k does not have a GUI to select the driver with, adding the driver's name to the configuration file by means of a text editor should help to avoid that SNAFU

If you can tell me the name of the driver, I'll add another ready-made configuration file for it right now.

[olsen]

I'll give that a try! I never ran the installer, just extracted the files to a temp place and made some assigns, copied and checked the config file and then ran the startup command.

I think I prefer the stack not to have a gui, maybe a prefs editior for those less experienced.

That's what I was (and still am) uncertain about.

The current configuration process works something like this:

1) You run the installer, which copies everything to the boot volume
2) You restart your system, so the S:Network-Startup will get invoked
3) You pick one of the network interface configuration files in SYS:Storage/NetInterfaces which matches the hardware you have installed
4) If that works out, you move that configuration file into DEVS:NetInterfaces
5) The next time you reboot your system, the network should come up automatically, configured using DHCP

If you don't know much about how TCP/IP networking actually does work out, and what the configuration options do, then this approach should still work. You do not need expert knowledge to get going. It would be easier, however, if Roadshow could suggest the network interface driver you ought to use, if you don't know it already (which brings further complications: what if you have two Ariadne cards installed? then you'd need to make copies of the Ariadne config files and change the unit number in one of them).

Assuming that there was a GUI for Roadshow, how would the setup process look like? My guess is that it would not be more complicated, and probably not much simpler either.

If you were to venture beyond the simple setup process, I'd say you would have to have sufficient experience to set up your network, picking the right IPv4 address, the right default route, the right DNS server. If you know how to do that, you won't be deterred by having to use a text editor to make these changes to the Roadshow configuration files, and maybe open the shell and use the Roadshow shell commands that may be required.

Chances are that you set up your network once and rarely if ever make changes to the configuration.

And the same would be true if there was a GUI. A GUI which would likely be used once only, and which would take quite some effort to get it right. I have tried to get this off the ground four times, and it always came to nothing. Part of me wants to see this as the Universe giving me a hint that I ought to have smartened up after the second attempt.

[olsen]

Don't forget prism.device

Is that prism.device or prism2.device? I already have a ready-made configuration file for prism2.device in the demo version.