24.6 Midi Network

MidiNet

Has anyone here set up a successful MIDI network between STs? If so, what software do you use. I've tried MEDNET, MIDICOM and another program that I don't recall the name of, and haven't achieved positive results yet.

Yes, I did that between my Hades and my STe. What was good about this setup was that on my Hades a partition icon was produced. Double-clicking on the icon produced folders, each representing the partitions on my STe. I could copy, delete and even run the programs. It was neat running a program on he STe and having it come up on my Hades. However, if I tried to access the Hades using the STe, the program crashed probably due to the Hades. Below is the text file included with the program.

The network uses the MIDI port to allow disk sharing between two ST's that are both running MX2NET. The remote drives can be used just like your local drives but they will of course be slower because of the transfer of the data through the MIDI ports.

The remote drives are defined in the MX2NET.INF file. This is a ascii file with the drive parameters all on one line. For example if you have cfr,dgr,eow in your file.

                       cfr,dgr,eow
                       |||       |
                      / | \       \
                     /  |  \       \
               remote local read    write
               drive  drive access  access

You will be able to access remote drive C as your local drive F read-only. Remote drive D will be G and remote drive E will be O with write access. If you wish to change the drives simply edit the MX2NET.INF file, reboot your ST and rerun the MX2NET.PRG. A max of 14 drives can be defined with P being the highest. If there is no MX2NET.INF file no drives will be defined locally but a remote machine still can access your drives.

The MX2NET.OPT file defines program options. It is an ascii file with all option characters in lower case. Current options are:

t

Get GEMDOS date and time from remote ST. Normally your "HOST" ST would not have this option set.
 

o

Mask over existing drives. If this option is set it is possible to overlay a networked drive ID over a real drive on the local ST by assigning it's ID in the MX2NET.INF file. If this option is not set a cold-boot is needed before restarting MX2NET.
 

m

Allow memory transfers to and from remote ST. Enables shared memory and remote operation.
 

5

Remote ST is 520ST. Screen physical memory is found at 78000 HEX.
 

Be sure to cross connect the midi cables ie... the MIDI out to the MIDI in on the other ST and vice verse.

                            midi in ___  ___ midi in
                  ST 1                 \/                 ST 2
                  HOST     midi out ___/\___ midi out    REMOTE

The MX2NET.PRG is a standalone network driver that runs from the DESKTOP or another GEM program. It should NOT be installed in an AUTO folder. If ST 1 is the HOST it should be started first then start the program on ST 2.

Drive 31 is a special ID that MX2NET uses for network function calls. Use the rwabs bios call to access these functions.

A call to this ID to read sector 0 will return the local network status into the buffer. Sector 1 will return the remote network status.

A write to sector 2 will send the buffer into the keyboard buffer in the remote ST. Location 0 in the buffer contains the count while location 1 is the start of the string. The buffer is an array 0..63 of longs.

A read to sector 3 will return in the buffer an array of checksums of the remote physical screen memory. Any read or write of a sector more that 3 will read that 512 byte section(s) of memory to or from the rwabs buffer.

        NOTE:

        mx2neta.prg                     :       RS-232 port version.
        netstat.prg                     :       read local network stat's.
        netstatr.prg                    :       read remote network stat's.
        netview.prg                     :       View remote ST's screen
                                                memory. Use the Undo key
                                                to exit.
  status record structure

  stat        = RECORD
                 inpackets      :       LONGCARD;
                 outpackets     :       LONGCARD;
                 retrys         :       LONGCARD;
                 checksumerrors :       LONGCARD;
                 timeouts       :       LONGCARD;
                 rwabsreqs      :       LONGCARD;
                 resets         :       LONGCARD;
                END;

PS

It is recommended that this program be used for read-only access to your remote drives. It is possible to scramble the FAT if both machines try to write to the disk at the same time.
 

Edward S. Baiz Jr.