RTG or Ethernet?

[Miked]

Well I managed to get a Zorro adapter for my A500.  Now I am faced with a bit of a decision.  Do I add an RTG to the Amiga or an Ethernet card (assuming I could find one).  If you had the choice between the two, which would you choose?

-Miked

[CLS2086]

RTG !
and ParNet for the net

[Ilwrath]

I agree... unless you need to transfer large files regularly.    Even then, large files in terms of an A500 aren't exactly LARGE, anymore....  ;-)

Though the RTG may also not be too helpful if you haven't upgraded the processor...  What spec A500 are we talking about?  68000 isn't going to get nearly the lift by a graphics card that a 68030 would.

[doctorq]

I'll vote RTG as well. If you need to transfer large files, connect a CD drive to what ever controller you are using.

[keropi]

RTG is the best upgrade you can do!!! IMHO better to have a 020+rtg than a 060+chipset...

[Miked]

Thanks for the comments.  If all goes well, I should have an 030 soon for my A500.  

Hmm, is there any way to connect a cable from the serial, parallel or floppy port to an internet router and be on my way?  It seems, aside from an ethernet card or regular modem, there is no "direct" way to gain internet access.

Has anyone had success with a cybervision 64/3D on an Amiga 500? How about a Picasso IV?  (I've really only heard of Picasso II success stories).

-Miked

[Floid]

Miked wrote:

Hmm, is there any way to connect a cable from the serial, parallel or floppy port to an internet router and be on my way?  It seems, aside from an ethernet card or regular modem, there is no "direct" way to gain internet access.

You can run PPP, SLIP, or PLIP to an appropriate "server" over the serial or parallel ports.  This would either be a desktop PC*, or, I suppose, an appropriately hacked router that bothers to feature a serial port.**

*The 'conventional' way to to do this would be with a BSD or Linux box of some flavor, though there's various software for Windows -- possibly including any server features of "Dial-Up-Networking" -- to pull it off, too.  One package was popularized for Psion and Palm users in the '98 days, but I forget its name.

**Certain flavors of Linksys/Netgear/D-Link hardware could conceivably be bodged up to pull this off (see The OpenWRT Project page for a starting point), but that's a fair bit of tinkering unless you really demand it.

I gather the Amiga serial port can be a little anemic with the stock CIA/UART; a friend of mine was using a PLIP (parallel) setup back in the day with FreeBSD and seemed pleased.  You'll have to be rather careful with the pinout of the cable, and find the appropriate software.

[Motormouth]

I agree with everyone else RTG, but just FYI an A2065 will work with a slingshot pro.

I wonder if you get a denise expander working in the A500 so that you could take advantage of the Flicker Fixers in the Cybervision 64/3D or Picasso IV?

[pVC]

Remember that you should also have enough memory for RTG... for example CV64/3D consumes 4M right away. And of course at least 020 cpu. At least I didn't find suitable RTG software for 010 I'd tried CV64/3D on A2k/010/8M But network card works fine on it...

[amyren]

If you search on the internet there are devices that converts serial to ethernet.
This is one, the Compoint - LAN adaptor
But not sure if this works right out of the box, or if there needs to be a special driver for it. Most likely you will need a dedicated driver I think.
This is the product link:
http://www.ak-nord.de/en/produkte/compoint.htm


You might also maybe find this page interesting.
http://www.cs.rose-hulman.edu/~gunnbr/enetAmiga.html
Its quite old, not updated since '95, but still useful.
Its describes a few sidecar otions about how to get ethernet on the A500.

good luck

[Floid]

amyren wrote:
If you search on the internet there are devices that converts serial to ethernet.
This is one, the Compoint - LAN adaptor
But not sure if this works right out of the box, or if there needs to be a special driver for it. Most likely you will need a dedicated driver I think.
This is the product link:
http://www.ak-nord.de/en/produkte/compoint.htm

Those are more for "tunneling" RS-232 data over IP with Telnet, between legacy endpoints (an ancient cash register and one of those Tandy CBM-9000-like minicomputers, say).

Of course, the embedded guts should have more than enough grunt to run a pppd and the simple routing required to bridge an Amiga onto ethernet via serial.  You might want to mention that application in e-mail to them.

[Miked]

 I suppose, an appropriately hacked router that bothers to feature a serial port.**



I saw a serial to rj45 "hack" on a webpage.  It seems that based on what people are saying, that a mere hardware solution is not the problem.  Rather, the ability for the router/host to communicate back to the Amiga is what needs to be addressed. (or is my argument incorrect?)

[Miked]

pVC wrote:
Remember that you should also have enough memory for RTG... for example CV64/3D consumes 4M right away.

So if an Amiga had 4 mb of 16bit Ram and 32 mb of 32bit ram (on the accelerator board) would the RTG "consume" the 32 bit memory or the 16 bit memory?

[Chain]

amyren wrote:

This is one, the Compoint - LAN adaptor
But not sure if this works right out of the box, or if there needs to be a special driver for it. Most likely you will need a dedicated driver I think.
This is the product link:
http://www.ak-nord.de/en/produkte/compoint.htm

According to this manual its complete solution, no drivers, just telnet configurator.

Hmm, it looks  fokin nice, im wondering where i can buy one or two units...

[Miked]

According to this manual its complete solution, no drivers, just telnet configurator.



Does it matter that the Amiga uses an RS232C serial port?

-Miked