It was a pretty cheap find, which I got together with a bunch of other old hardware (an ADSL UBS modem, a Microsoft USB optical mouse, a wireless ADSL router) for a grand total of 15 Euros.
The tech sheet is here: Enet EP132 (PDF) (http://www.sunsln.com/enetep132.pdf). It's an industrial-grade product, with a nice metal casing and tolerant power supply input.
Seeing how much one of those things can cost ($173 on this page!) (http://www.sunsln.com/) it was a bargain ;D
Since one of the purpose of those devices is to allegedly "bring Ethernet connectivity to legacy devices", I suppose that it should be also usable for retrocomputing? Does anyone have any experience with similar devices o the CPC or other 8-bit/16-bit micros?
Ironically, the microcontroller it contains is more powerful than the Amstrad CPC's CPU. ::) There's also an improved 100 Mbps version which actually has an ARM7 CPU, 128 KB of RAM and 2 MB of ROM, powerful enough to run an Amstrad CPC under emulation WITHIN the converter, if reprogrammed :o
Quote from: Velktron on 10:17, 31 August 15Since one of the purpose of those devices is to allegedly "bring Ethernet connectivity to legacy devices", I suppose that it should be also usable for retrocomputing? Does anyone have any experience with similar devices o the CPC or other 8-bit/16-bit micros?
There's a bit of work on it for SymbOS. Admittedly, it's for MSX computers only at the moment. Since the CPC doesn't have a serial connection out of the box, it gets a bit tricky on the hardware side.
SymbOS network support development (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/programming/symbos-network-support-development/msg96008/#msg96008)
QuoteIronically, the microcontroller it contains is more powerful than the Amstrad CPC's CPU. ::) There's also an improved 100 Mbps version which actually has an ARM7 CPU, 128 KB of RAM and 2 MB of ROM, powerful enough to run an Amstrad CPC under emulation WITHIN the converter, if reprogrammed :o
Well, anything produced these days will beat the specs of our 4MHz Z80. The HxC and gotek also do have processors which are much faster.
Hell, every single SD card contains a microprocessor more powerful.
Here's a sample one that is used for SD card with speed up to type 6 (so, not the most powerful):
http://www.appotech.com/dp/sites/default/files/factsheet/ax215a-fl-002-en_0.pdf (http://www.appotech.com/dp/sites/default/files/factsheet/ax215a-fl-002-en_0.pdf)
On Hacking MicroSD Cards « bunnie's blog (http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554)
It's an 8-bit, 8051 compatible RISC processor with speeds from 10-90 MHz. Instructions are 1 cycle except for branches (i.e. 90 MIPS possible).
Well, after all, even the C64's 1541 drive contained its own 6502, and was more complicated than the C64 itself ;D
Turns out that in the end, my model is the more capable ARM7-based one :o
The documentation and web resources that are around really aren't very clear, showing the older 8-bit model having the same-exact case and marking as mine, while the model numbers are apparently the same between the older and newer models. Go figure. So, an ARM7 in a box, waiting somehow to be tapped...though the challenge so far is getting it to be recognized and communicate over the network at all >:( (again, the cryptic documentation and flakey software don't help, plus I don't know what the previous owner did with/to it...).