parnet

[orange]

When making a parnet cable, should SEL be connected to SEL on other Amiga? I understand it has to be connected to local ACK, but what about the remote?

There are several versions, what parnet file from Aminet is best?

How do I install it?

[DanDude]

I belive I used parnet.lha package back then.  Instead of making a new cable, I purchased a plastic box and soldered connectors according to specs.  And, just for kicks, soldered in ultra low-power LEDs to monitor connectivity and transfers.  Each green LED is used to see if my Amiga is connected and turned on.  The red LED shows traffic prescense.  Let me see if I have that box lying somewhere....  I'll take a snapshot and post it here.

[orange]

Does it work with KS 1.3?
What is the max length of cable?

[doctorq]

I have used Parnet to connect my Amiga 500 with my Amiga 1200. Haven't got any problems with it at all, even though the Amiga 500 is running Kickstart1.3.

I have been using a cable that's about 10 meters. I have been told that it's not a good idea to go further, but haven't got that confirmed.

Only thing I remember about Parnet is that it's a bit tricky to get disk icons for each drive on the remote computer, but since I only used the setup once or twice a year I didn't bother playing around with it.

[DanDude]

I have used 2 5ft (1.5m) cables to hook between my interface box and my Amigas and they work fine.  Especially with the ultra low-power LEDs hooked to them.  :-)

[doctorq]

@DanDude

Could be nice to see some shots of the box, so have you been able to dig it out? I would like to make one myself if I knew how, so have you got some schematics for it?

[jjans]

I used the scematics found on this page to build my cable, and it worked fine. (It took a hell of a lot of time, and patience, but I used a multimeter to test each line that I spliced together as I went.

As for Parnet installation in a dual Amiga network, I found the easiest, and most reliable to be ParNFS.lha on  Aminet by Olaf 'Rhialto' Seibert. His readme is here

It is a great networking Filesytem as it enables you to easily set up automatic copy of server machine's disks on the client machine and vice versa. This enables using the other machine's drives as local disks from the workbench as you wish to use. The documentation on how to edit the scripts to accomplish this I found easy to follow ( I am an inexperienced spazzz when it comes to networking ).

This is the only parnet package that I have been able to use the cross debugger CPX with SASC/C++ 6.xx via a parallel (parnet) connection. Prior to parnet I was limited to the relatively small baudrate of a serial connection.

My networked machines at the time of parNFS installation was  A500/A530 WorkBench 2.04 -> A500/A590 WorkBench 1.3. I have since upgraded both machines to WorkBench 3.1/3.9(dual), and 2.04 respectively, and have enjoyed reliable connection in all environments.

Incidently, when I upgraded my ROMS to 3.1, my serial connection via BaudBandit.device to my PC had to be dropped from 57600 bps, to 38400. Go figure...

[orange]

Building cable is a LOT easier than PC2Amiga one, because its simpler, each pin is connected to identical on other side.

Is 3meters (10 ft) of cable length OK?

How do I install it? The manual doesn't even say copy parnet.device to devs: and similar (I know thats obvious, but..)

Do I have to change mountlist at server side (put server instead of handler)?

[doctorq]

If you onle need 3 meters then there is no problem at all.

Regarding software installation then I had a Parnet 3.0 disk which had an installer script for installing server and a script for installing remote. Then you edit the file S:ParNET-DriveList or something and then you should be able to mount the drives you need on each side.

[orange]

It works, thanks all.
The only thing that crashes is if I try this on client side:

dir NET:smbfs

where smbfs is samba on an Ethernet Amiga (parallel server).
It is "asking too much", but I wonder if that could be made to work? :-o