[NTLK] Einstein, Newton, and the Internets

[Matthias Melcher]

Hi Newtonians,

in an effort to get the emulated Newton into the Internets (ya'know, those connected pipes) I have added some code to Einstein and written a Newton driver.

It's not done yet, but the goal is to be able to connect to NCX and other network resources. To finish the network emulator, I need test cases. 


Please list applications that you use regularly to access network functionality and that you think could be useful on Einstein. Thanks.


- Matthias

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Technical:

So far, the driver itself works and I can receive and send network packages.

What's missing though is the emulation of the network itself. This is per se not a Newton issue, but a much more general issue for any emulator. I have started to write a quite complex emulator that is nice because it works on every host without root access.

Well, it's a complex task and it will probably be still a few week until Courier can browse the 'Net. But for those who are interested, I submitted the code changes to the Google Code repository. Feel free to browse, add, fix, suggest, and help.


From the source code:

USERMODE NETWORK HANDLER

The user mode Network handler works by emulating an ethernet card on a 
pretty low level for the Newton. To use the network, the NIE2.0 and the 
Einstein NE2000 driver must be installed on the Newton. By inserting
the NE2000 card, the driver will be activated and all network calls
will be forwarded to the Network Handler that was loaded at startup.

All packats from the Newton are at the lowest network level. It is up to
the handler to simulate or forward packets to the host or host network.
The Newton expects to receive packets on the same low level, so we must
generate the network header, IPv4 header, and TCP or UDP header ourselves.

CURRENT STATUS

At the current stage the driver is loaded correctly and all call forwarding 
works. We can send and receive packets. A simuated ARP packet and a DNS
request via UDP are accepted by the Newton.

NEXT ACTION

Next we need to implement handlers for all types of packages that we want
to support. Forwarding packages that the Newton sends should be relatively
easy. Generating the correct reply is a bit more complex.

A working TCP protocol will allow web browsing and possibly reading mail.

The goal is to set up a connection to NCX, Newtsync or Escale running locally.