🚀 go-pugleaf

In message <353122a8.41107183@news.demon.co.uk>
          paul@nospam.zero-g.demon.co.uk (Paul) wrote:

> Here's the situation: my kids have an A3010 (2Mb). I have a spare 2.5"
> HDD (250Mb Quantum Daytona) after a recent laptop upgrade, and also a
> spare external 28.8 modem.

Right, you might actually find that the serial port on an A3010 is a bit on
the lame side for Internet usage.

> Obviously, I need an IDE card between the A3010 and the HDD. I
> understand that I can get an IDE card which accepts a 2.5" HDD. Thats
> the easy part. (BTW if anyone knows of anywhere I can get one for less
> than UK�60 then please let me know).

Don't know about less than 60ukp, but I can certainly recommend the Simtec
IDE card. I don't hve one myself, but a friend who does says it's amazing. I
think they make the mini-podule type for the A30x0 series.

> So, assuming I get the HDD working (yes I know all the drive
> attributes; cyl, hds, sects etc and have upgraded umpteen PCs), what
> do I need to get  a tcp/ip net connection?

Acornet.

> Anyone know of a FAQ page or a step-by-step by someone "who's been
> there, done that" ?

Just download Acornet from a BBS, FTP site etc, dearchive it and run it. The
only problem you might have is getting it from one machine to another, so if
possible download it on the Acorn. Although I think it's also available as
several HD floppy sized archives. Acorns will read DOS format disks no
problem, so transferring these will be easy.

> I'm asking from the perspective of a PC user who is used to doing the
> following, regardless of operating system (Win3.x, Win95, OS/2 Warp,
> Linux, WinNT);

The commands used on Acorn TCP/IP are virtually identical to those on BSD
UNIX. Not surprising, as Acorn's TCP/IP implementation is ported from BSD
4.3, later versions from 4.4

> enabling tcp/ip support
> set up dialler (inc ip addresses)
> getting hold of net software as required (browser, mail client, ftp
> client, irc client, newsreader etc etc etc)

Acornet will set all this up for you. However, I mentioned earlier you will
probably find the A3010 a little slow. The serial port can do 38,400 at a
push, but is much happier with 19,200, so you won't get high download
speeds.

There is an alternative. You can buy an Ethernet card for the A3010, and
network it to a UNIX box if you have one to hand. Then run a proxy server on
the UNIX side, and set the browser etc up to proxy through the UNIX gateway.

I'm running a system similar to this, although I'm using a RISC PC as the
gateway. I will probably be going over to UNIX soon for this though, leaving
the RPC for running the browser and straight ANSI comms (BBS, Fidonet etc).

-- 
Glenn Richards      glenn@squirrel-net.demon.co.uk
Squirrel Solutions  Acorn comms/networking specialists
                    http://www.squirrel-net.demon.co.uk/