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Author Topic: SymbOS (Read 446278 times)

Offline Trebmint

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #600 on: 2015.March.06. 13:07:00 »
Yes there is quite a bit going on behind the scenes at symbos towers. Prodatron, Edoz and I probably talk everyday, and everyday we come up with something new and cool which would push symbos forward. If it all happens only time will tell, but 3.0 looks to be special already

Offline Povi

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #601 on: 2015.March.06. 13:32:05 »
Great news!
Thanks :-)
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Offline lgb

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #602 on: 2015.March.06. 14:18:18 »
Maybe drop the version number 3.0 then and use 4.0 ... or 10.0 :) for the next release. It seems to be a common method nowdays to switch to a rapidly increasing version numbering system for many software even skipping some version numbers ... Oh my, where is windows 9 for example? :)
« Last Edit: 2015.March.06. 16:34:53 by lgb »

Offline Prodatron

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #603 on: 2015.March.23. 20:49:27 »
SymShell 2.0beta is now available for download:
http://www.symbos.de/preview.htm

Here is the current changelog of SymShell 2.0beta:
- TAB auto-complete: while typing in the command line use the tab key in the way you know it from modern shells; this also works with more complex path statements and for the command parameters
- "search path" functionality for starting COM-files: if a COM file can't be found in the current directory/device, SymShell will try to start it from the SymbOS system directory; as an example you can copy AHEAD.COM into the system directory (e.g. C:\SYMBOS\ ), and can always start it even if you are on a floppy disc, which only contains the files you want to edit
- HELP command updated (full list, %P switch for pause) and enhanced with detailed information for each command by typing HELP <commandname>. The "appshell.man" file has to be placed in the same directory like "appshell.exe".
- new commands: DATE, TIME; these behave like the MS-DOS versions
- new command: ATTRIB for displaying and changing file attributes
- wildcard support for COPY, REN, MOVE, TYPE, ATTRIB; all these can process multiple files now
- %H (process hidden files) and %S (process system files) flags for DIR, COPY, REN, MOVE, TYPE, ATTRIB
- proper path handling for all commands; source (and destination) can be a full absolute or relative path; pathes, which end with an directory instead of a file(mask) always have a "/" (or "\") at the end, otherwise it will be handled like a file (this should be autodetected in the future)
- COPY command supports an increased copy buffer and is able to copy multiple source files into one single destination file, if specified

There is currently one known bug: The TYPE command may hang in special situations, when the shell is running in Window mode. It can be reproduced and will be fixed for the final 2.0.
Because of the platform-specific fullscreen-mode-code there are now individual versions for each platform available to decrease the size of the application. The PCW version is currently not available.
The included AHEAD.COM requires SymShell 2.0 and won't run properly with older versions.

TBH I couldn't test it on a real EP yet, I hope it's working?! :roll:

Offline lgb

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #604 on: 2015.March.23. 21:01:49 »
Great! SymShell now is more like shell bash on Linux/UNIX with similar auto-completing feature :) But hey, still no "Enterprise" on the "facts" page at "platforms" on symbos.de :) Also a question: DenYoNet is planned to be supported network hardware on MSX by SymbOS, if I understood well, and it's wiznet 5100 based solution. So you know how it is differ from wiznet 5300? I know maybe 5300 supports more "hardware sockets" (8 vs 4, if I remember correctly), but I don't know about other differences. I just ask this because a friend of mine living in the UK was mad enough to give me a little gift, a WIZ830MJ module, it's a little PCB with "magjack" Rj45 connector and needed other components with through-hole connectivity. But it's based on the wiznet 5300 chip, not 5100. It seems to be not hard to be connected to a machine (like Enterprise) as it supports 8 and 16 bit buses as well, and so on (maybe 5V vs 3.3V issue can be a problem, but inputs at least are 5V tolerant,  I hope so at least). Anyway :) I just wanted to ask how hard is to support 5300 too at some time ...

Offline gflorez

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #605 on: 2015.March.23. 22:38:34 »
3.3v is not a problem with this dc-dc regulator.

It accepts from 36v to 4.75v input, so it can work perfectly with 9v without heat dissipation, not as the 780x used on the Enterprise.

I have replaced successfully the 7805 of some devices from the 80-90s era with the same chip but output at 5v.

Offline lgb

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #606 on: 2015.March.23. 22:52:47 »
I didn't mean about the power supply but the align of logic voltage levels between the module (3.3V) and the EP (5V). As far as I remember, inputs are 5V tolerant on the wiznet chip and its outputs can be enough (?) to reliable represent the high TTL logical level too, but of course I am not sure ...

Offline Prodatron

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #607 on: 2015.March.23. 23:18:09 »
Hi LGB, yes, network is also in progress now! :)
Since last week I am working on the network support for SymbOS. The first version is based on the Wiznet W5100 ethernet controller, which is used in the DenYoNet card for the MSX (as well as in the Spectranet hardware). There is a W5100 project for the CPC, too, but I can also imagine the ESP8266 for the EP very soon! Here is a first screenshot...

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

...showing the test utility, which is loading the WWW.MSX.FI homepage.
The driver is designed in a way, that it's very easy to exchange the used hardware by dividing the code into three layers. The low level code is for accessing the W5100 hardware directly, which is different between the MSX and other implementations. The mid level is for working with the hardware, which is the same for all systems using the W5100. Other hardware like the ESP8266 Wlan module, which can be connected to the Enterprise 128, are realisable with just another midlevel code. The high level is for managing the connections and communication with the processes, which want to do networking.

All TCP routines seem to work now, now it's time for UDP to make DNS and DHCP possible.

The network driver is running as a "Daemon", which is an own background process in the multitasking environment. Applications can send messages to it, like asking for opening a new connection, sending data to an already opened connection etc. They will also receive messages from the network daemon, if there is new incoming data or if the status of a connection changed etc. This makes it possible to run multiple applications at the same time, which all can have open connections.

The new network driver takes care about compatibility to Dr.Zeds NetD driver from 2007, which was developed for the SYMBiface 3 expansion card.

[ Guests cannot view attachments ]

That makes it easy to adapt applications like SymTEL and Dr.Zeds' GUI-based SymFTP ftp client.

Regarding the W5300, wow, that sounds very cool! I didn't read about if before. Because of the layer structure inside the driver it should be very easy to support it, too!
« Last Edit: 2015.March.24. 19:31:42 by szipucsu, Reason: Thumbnail created for too large pictures »

Offline lgb

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #608 on: 2015.March.23. 23:44:33 »
Thanks for the information! Though I am not sure I can understand: afaik 5100 (5300 at least ...) has hardware level of tcp/ip implementation with an embedded MCU for real, or such. Thus you don't need to implement low level stuffs like with an ENC28J60 (ethernet frame, IP packet, fragmentation, windows, etc etc) but virtually you need only to tell to open tcp or udp connection to a given IP and the "hardware" (the MCU for real) will do it, also maintaining the tcp handshaking, and the connection, etc etc. I am not sure about that ESP stuff (which is wifi based if I remember correctly), it's something which can be used through an serial connection or so. There was an article on "hack a day" that you can even reprogram its MCU, but not so much interesting I think.

Quote
The network driver is running as a "Daemon", which is an own background process in the multitasking environment. Applications can send messages to it, like asking for opening a new connection

This seems to logical, as SymbOS is a message passing micro-kernel like architecture OS (as far as I can understand), I would expect something like this :) Not because I need to teach you about SymbOS internals, it would be ridiculous :) :) I am also curious that is something like "VNC access" for SymbOS is ever planned (so eg from a PC you can "remote control" a SymbOS desktop). AFAIK, Contiki OS supports things like this (on some platforms this is the only solution as there is no video hw, just the network, btw). And the opposite direction can be funny to: eg use a windows or such from SymbOS as 'remote desktop' (though I am not sure about the rdesktop protocol itself, vnc seems to be more simple).

Quote
Regarding the W5300, wow, that sounds very cool! I didn't read about if before. Because of the layer structure inside the driver it should be very easy to support it, too!

Maybe it's even backward compatible with W5100, so no (or minimal) modifications needed only, but of course it would not use the additional power of the 5300 for example 128K of rx/tx buffer space instead of 16 (?). The module I own now is quite nice (I would not solder something like that 5300 or 5100 chip myself ...) it costs about 20EUR at mouser. And the best, that it seems to be Z80 bus friendly (for me, at the first sight) not so much interfacing is needed for the EP too much (but the logic voltage level what I am not sure about).

Now I am only thinking that SymbOS3 will require more memory even without network support loaded (? or there will be different builds for network support). As we know now, 128K is a bare minimum for just the OS, but SymbOS 3 seems to have many new things and not only the network support, I guess ...

If you're interested, a comparsion page about wiznet chips and modules using them.
« Last Edit: 2015.March.24. 01:01:13 by lgb »

Offline gflorez

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #609 on: 2015.March.24. 00:17:08 »
Ok sorry by the mistake. On a Spanish web they talk about 3.3v Zenner diodes to convert the voltage of the serial signals of an Arduino connected to a ESP8266 Wlan module.

Offline BruceTanner

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #610 on: 2015.March.24. 02:01:59 »
lgb hold on to your wiz830mj I have just started working on an Enterprise network interface using one of these. I'm not sure of all the differences between the 5100 and 5300 but I think they are basically the same but with more RAM on the 5300. The 5100 should do the job fine for the Z80 but as they are the same price might as well use the better part which is also more readily available (here in the uk anyway). Don't hold your breath though, it will not be instant and I've only just seriously started looking into it. :)

Offline edoz

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #611 on: 2015.March.24. 09:48:18 »
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Amazing work !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Have fun with the Z80!

Offline Zozosoft

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #612 on: 2015.March.24. 10:30:09 »
It is very amazing!

Offline Prodatron

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #613 on: 2015.March.24. 10:54:41 »
Thanks for the information! Though I am not sure I can understand: afaik 5100 (5300 at least ...) has hardware level of tcp/ip implementation with an embedded MCU for real, or such. Thus you don't need to implement low level stuffs like with an ENC28J60 (ethernet frame, IP packet, fragmentation, windows, etc etc) but virtually you need only to tell to open tcp or udp connection to a given IP and the "hardware" (the MCU for real) will do it, also maintaining the tcp handshaking, and the connection, etc etc. I am not sure about that ESP stuff (which is wifi based if I remember correctly), it's something which can be used through an serial connection or so. There was an article on "hack a day" that you can even reprogram its MCU, but not so much interesting I think.
Yes, the W5x00 does all the stuff including the TCP/UDP layer. Basically you have functions like "open connection", "receive data", "send data", "check status" and "disconnect/close connection" for TCP, UDP, but also for lower layers. So most work is just interfacing with the W5100, but also implementing DNS lookup (and DHCP). The ESP even does DNS by itself.

Regarding VNC, some remote control could probably be implemented, it would be a funny project for sure :D

Maybe it's even backward compatible with W5100, so no (or minimal) modifications needed only, but of course it would not use the additional power of the 5300 for example 128K of rx/tx buffer space instead of 16 (?). The module I own now is quite nice (I would not solder something like that 5300 or 5100 chip myself ...) it costs about 20EUR at mouser. And the best, that it seems to be Z80 bus friendly (for me, at the first sight) not so much interfacing is needed for the EP too much (but the logic voltage level what I am not sure about).
I had a quick look at the datasheet, and yes, it's very similiar. What I like is the higher number of sockets (8 instead of 4), as 4 could be a little bit limited if you exhaust it to the maximum ;) With the 5100 you have 2KB buffer for incoming (RX) and 2KB for outgoing (TX) data for each socket. This seems to be ok for an 8bit system. The 5300 has 16K RX and 16K TX buffer for each socket, which is probably the maximum what makes sense for the Z80.

Now I am only thinking that SymbOS3 will require more memory even without network support loaded (? or there will be different builds for network support). As we know now, 128K is a bare minimum for just the OS, but SymbOS 3 seems to have many new things and not only the network support, I guess ...
The base version of SymbOS 3.0 will require a little bit more ram again, but it will still run on 128K, and you will still have the possibility to start 1-3 small apps. Most of the new "big" features are now located in additional modules, which can be loaded optional. This is stuff like the network service as well as the enhanced desktop with its more Win98 like behaviour and the extended startmenu.

CU,
Prodatron

Offline lgb

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Re: SymbOS
« Reply #614 on: 2015.March.24. 11:10:40 »
Quote
I had a quick look at the datasheet, and yes, it's very similiar. What I like is the higher number of sockets (8 instead of 4), as 4 could be a little bit limited if you exhaust it to the maximum ;) With the 5100 you have 2KB buffer for incoming (RX) and 2KB for outgoing (TX) data for each socket. This seems to be ok for an 8bit system. The 5300 has 16K RX and 16K TX buffer for each socket, which is probably the maximum what makes sense for the Z80.

Well, I have no problem with 5100 that it's small or so :) Just the fact that it was easier to get that module with 5300, that's all :)