PIKit - Parallel Interface Kit by Paul Statham 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 Cheap Networking for the Amiga? Yes but why? I have had my A500 for almost 5 years now, and with two floppies and an extra 2 meg memory it was time to upgrade. The decision then was to sell the A500, the 9pin colour printer and accessories to help offset the purchase of the new machine a A4000/030. After several attempts to sell the A500 I decided that I would try out PIKit and network the two machines together. You'd wonder why since the A4000 was a far superior machine, I surely could have used its multitasking to run any number of programs simultaneously so why network when you're the only user?? The main reason is because there are some things you can do better with two machines than with one. It took some rearranging of the computer desk and some thought as to how I could run two machines at once without losing my grip on reality but it actually has become quite surprisingly useful. I have a desk which is two-layered shelf style I intend at some point to install a keyboard shelf under the monitor shelf to keep the A500 tucked away when not in use. The top shelf has both my multisync and 1084 monitors and a data switch as well as an extendable desk lamp. The lower shelf is just big enough for the A4000 keyboard to fit with a slight overhang, in front of the A500. Beside this I have a small space for disks and pens and a A4 drawing board (not drawing tablet) which doubles as a notepad and mousepad for both mice. The A4000 itself sits on its side on a single filing cabinet. All in all its a very tight arrangement and I'm having to learn to be tidy, something I haven't noticed in other computer persons. The PIKit requires connection through the parallel port and therefore cuts out any idea of printers, scanners and anything else that you want to use. So for the cost of around $50 I bought a data switch allowing me three possible connections from my A4000 port. It is recommended that you get a "break before make" switch if you intend to be able to switch the port while your computers are running. Other than that it has returned some of the former glory to the poor old A500 which looked as if it was to be relegated to the rubbish heap. The 1.3 workbench runs a number of older programs that WB3.0 would rather not know about, including BASIC, an old version of QED and is quite happy with fullview among others. QED for instance under WB3.0 will not search and replace control characters ctrl-M or ctrl-H which I need for my database text file reading, and so mass updates of information with these characters is difficult. On the A500 I can search and replace a 750K ASCII text file removing some 15,000 spaces and Ctrl-M's in under 15 seconds. While I'm sure the A4000 could do it faster, it refuses to recognise the characters as valid options to search. AmigaBASIC of course runs nicely, although there are a few problems when you misname a file and the whole system crashes on you. With a little effort I figure I can also get a number of programs and demos to run on the A500 via the network whilst being able to store them on the A4000's Hard Drive.  But why not keep the A500 as a seperate item? It is cheaper to use PIKit to network the two machines than buy a harddrive for the A500. It saves disk swapping enormously. It allows me to run the A4000 in super HiRes 1408*269 and the A500 in HiRes 640*250. QED especially is easier to read at the lower resolution and DUIII+ on Super HiRes means I can have it running twice on the same screen side by side. I found it very handy when cleaning up a large number of text files to be able to see and manipulate the file while viewing the directory from which I was working at the same time. It also allowed me to use fullview to view my results without swapping screens. It has come in useful for viewing text files while I am working on databases, word processing, or just comparing files. I have managed to delete or combine a number of files which had similar or identical information contained within each other. Although I am the single user on both machines, a number of people who have more than one user in the household could take advantage of this cheap networking facility. When the network is not operating the A500 can be used as normal. But with heavier use in the areas of education or programming the access to a hard drive, CD Rom etc is useful. It also saves the cost of buying duplicate equpiment for both machines. Anyone doing ray tracing might be more prepared to accept the slower machine doing some of the work while leaving the host free to do other things at a more reasonable speed. Ever tried raytracing and music at the same time????? PIKIT Installation itself I ran into a number of problems installing PIKit on my A4000 and the A500 mostly because I followed the instructions which were intended to run the HOST machine from a floppy disk booted machine (assume A500). The associated notes with PIKit claimed that due to a bug in ParNet you should boot up the CLIENT machine first. This is not actually necessary, as long as you don't run Parnet on the HOST machine until the CLIENT has booted up. The lock-up of the machines is related to the fact that parnet in looking for a drive(device) on the other machine can't find it and in embarrasement spends about 5 - 6 minutes looking for it before reporting back. It also does the self-same thing when you look at a floppy drive with no disk in it. So going cd net:df0 to a machine booted from a hard drive with no disk in df0: does the same thing. In order to avoid all confusion when I want the network and I already have the HOST machine up and working I save what I'm doing then boot up the A500 from its internal drive which has next to nothing on it. Enough workbench and CLI commands to get started, a copy of fullview and DUIII+, the CLI icon and an icon linked to Iconx called LinkUp. The startup-sequence also starts Parnet but doesn't call the devices on the other machine. In my :s directory on the hard drive I have a script which starts Parnet and PnetKeys. Once the A500 is booted I run this script with execute s/network in the Shell (yes I could HotKey it) and then open up the Client disk icon on the A500 and click on the LinkUp icon. Since the majority of the workbench 1.3 commands, libraries and fonts have been stripped from the boot up disk I assign them to the hard drive via the network through the LinkUp, which makes boot up faster and saves actually using the disk for almost anything else once the network is running. Does the Network slow down the A400? Yes, but only noticable when you access the drives. Can you switch the Network Off? No, not without rebooting. So turning one machine off and trying to access the network from the other will give you the 5-6 minute freeze mentioned earlier. Can you use your printer while the network is running? No. Actually, Yes. If you have a "break before make" data switch it is possible to print from the host machine and then switch back the port for the network. Where you are the only user of both computers this isn't a problem but if there are two seperate users, you will find that the client machine will lock-up somewhere along the line looking for something via the network. It is far better to save everything to disk and print later when the network is no longer required.  Following are the three scripts I use to get ParNet running which might be  of use if you intend to run Amiga to Amiga Network This assumes a Host Machine booting from DH0: with a DH1: partition and the Client with only df0:  The startup-sequence on the Client Machine Addbuffers df0: 30 c:SetPatch >NIL: _r echo "PIKit Workbench disk. Release 1.3 version 34.20*N" c/BindDrivers c/wait 3 c/SetClock >nil: Opt load c/blitzfonts c/setfont pearl 8 resident CLI L:Shell-Seg SYSTEM pure add resident c:Execute pure mount newcon: failat 11 resident c:Resident pure resident c:CD pure resident c:Mount pure ;the next 3 are loaded for speed during startup resident c:Assign pure resident c:Makedir pure makedir ram:t assign T: ram:t makedir ram:env assign ENV: ram:env makedir ram:clipboards ;set up CLIPS: assign assign CLIPS: ram:clipboards mount mouse: netpnet-server unit 0 mount net: System/SetMap usa1 path ram: c: sys:system add LoadWB delay endcli >NIL:  The script for Starting ParNet from the Host Machine: echo "Setting up Parnet:" netpnet-server unit 1 mount net: from devs:mountlist ; I cut & paste the Parnet mountlists together dir net:df0 ; I prefer DIR to CD to save changing Directories run c/pnetkeys net:mouse echo "Now complete"  The LinkUp script run from the Client Machine: cd df0: dir net: ; this gives you the Network Icon dir net:dh0 ; this gives you access to dh0: copy node.rinfo net:dh0.info ; this gives you an icon for same on client dir net:dh1 ; this gives you access to dh1: copy node.rinfo net:dh1.info assign fonts: net:dh0/fonts ; assign for fonts assign c: net:dh0/fake ; assign for 1.3 commands assign libs: net:dh0/libs ; assign for libraries cd df0: The only problem I now have is that in order to use PNetKeys and thereby use the one keyboard and mouse for both machines is that typing Left-Amiga-P needs two hands so I can't hold on to the mouse and switch over easily The other thing to remember is that when you type in the path through the network the device is Net: and dh0: and dh1: (or any other devices become directories) ie Net:dh0/s/startup-sequence Paul Statham Lakemba Mar94 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39 +-+ 39