Announcing availability of a QLNET driver for the Q68 (ND-Q68)

[martyn_hill]

Wahoo! Welcome to the world of reliable QL Networking, afx!

Glad to see the driver being put to good use on Peter and Derek's beautiful piece of kit

[janbredenbeek]

Finally, my Q68 already has QL NET installed by Derek Stewart.
Derek has performed a very professional installation, the connectors are firmly installed and very discreetly on the Q68 right side.

Looks very good. I have recently fitted it myself but chose to sacrifice the power switch for it.
Fitting the network sockets this way seems to be a lot more difficult as the sides of the case are thicker and the sockets are mounted firmly to the case and have to be dismounted when you want to slide the board out of the case. This has been discussed extensively in this thread...

Jan

[afx]

Hi!

I have a little problem with the QL network. Specifically when I try to combine QLNET and SERNET.

The two networks work well separately, they also work well when I combine the two networks but only in one direction.

The scenario is as follows:

Station 1: QL + SuperGoldCard (NET 1 and FSERVE)
Station 2: Q68 (NET 2, SNET 2 and FSERVE)
Station 3: QPC2 (SNET 1)

(I have loaded the corresponding drivers in all systems).

When I access to Q68 or QPC2 resources from the QL everything works correctly (Q68 acts as a "bridge" by sharing DEV devices). It also works correctly when I access to QL or QPC2 resources from Q68.

But when I access from QPC2 to QL or Q68 resources then the network speed is very very slow.

If in Q68 I don't load FSERVE then everything works fine, but in this case I would not be able to access QL resources from QPC2. It seems that the problem is FSERVE in combination with SERNET.


Any idea?

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I think the system is getting confused by having more than one network server, though the Toolkit 2 manual says that more than one QL Network server can exist.

I asdume that the Sernet server is running on Q68 or QPC2.

Maybe try have a single FSERVE running.

[Peter]

But when I access from QPC2 to QL or Q68 resources then the network speed is very very slow.

I had the same scenario, but a Q60 instead of an emulator and didn't see the problem. IIRC you have a Q60, maybe try it to encircle the issue.
Also check if you have hardware handshake off on SER.

[mk79]

If in Q68 I don't load FSERVE then everything works fine, but in this case I would not be able to access QL resources from QPC2. It seems that the problem is FSERVE in combination with SERNET.

Why would you need the FSERVE running on the Q68 to access resources on the QL?

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

I would setup the network system with QPC2, Q68, SGC QL as:

QPC2:
SNET1
SERNET Server

Q68:
SET 2
NET 1
FSERVE

SGC QL:
NET 2

This should allow the SGC QL to access the resources of the Q68.

For the SGC QL to access the resources of QPC2, a psuedo device can be setup on the Q68 using the NFS_USE command:

NFS_USE QPC,s1_win1_,s1_win2_

entering DIR QPC1_ on the Q68 will access the QPC2 WIN1 drive.

The QGC QL should be able to see the NFS_USE drives, so on the SGC QL, entering:

DIR n1_QPC1_

Should give a directory listing of QPC2 WIN1 drive.

I am not sure if adding another FSERVE on the SGC QL will confuse the network. I will have to test this out.

[afx]

Maybe try have a single FSERVE running.

With one instance of FSERVE I have the same problem.

Specifically, my configuration is this:

QPC2:
SNET 1
SERNET

Q68:
SNET 2
SERNET
NET 2
FSERVE
DEV_USE 6, s1_win2_
DEV_USE 7, s1_dos2_
DEV_USE 5, n1_flp1_

SGC QL:
NET 1
FSERVE
DEV_USE 6, n2_dev6_
DEV_USE 7, n2_dev7_

With this configuration I can access to QPC2 resources from the QL (dir dev7_ for example) and the speed is very good. On the other hand, from QPC2 I can read the QL's floppy disk drive (dir s2_dev5_), but in this case the speed is very very slow and sometimes the system gets stuck (this is my problem).

I had the same scenario, but a Q60 instead of an emulator and didn't see the problem. IIRC you have a Q60, maybe try it to encircle the issue.
Also check if you have hardware handshake off on SER.

Yes, I have hardware handshake off on SER. (The communication between Q68 - QPC2 is perfect with SERNET, the problem is when SERNET and QLNET are running at the same time in Q68. In this case, the access from QL(or Q68) to QPC2 works very well, but from QPC2 to QL (or Q68) works very very slowly).

Why would you need the FSERVE running on the Q68 to access resources on the QL?

I think it is necessary to share resources in both directions QL => QPC2 and QPC2 => QL with the same network configuration. I don't know an alternative way. (SERnet connects Q68 to QPC2, and QLNET connects QL to Q68).

[Peter]

I had the same scenario, but a Q60 instead of an emulator and didn't see the problem. IIRC you have a Q60, maybe try it to encircle the issue.
Also check if you have hardware handshake off on SER.

Yes, I have hardware handshake off on SER. (The communication between Q68 - QPC2 is perfect with SERNET, the problem is when SERNET and QLNET are running at the same time in Q68. In this case, the access from QL(or Q68) to QPC2 works very well, but from QPC2 to QL (or Q68) works very very slowly).

Did you try your Q60 instead of QPC? I can not see the same effect there (but my Q60 installation is rather old).

Which baudrate are you using? 115200 Baud here.

Are you using a USB-Serial converter for the PC? In that case, all kinds of odd slow-downs are possible depending on timings and bad luck. Better use a decent serial card directly on PCI/PCIe.

[Peter]

afx_qlnet.png

Thanks for posting the picture, the placement of the network connectors looks very nice. Great job, Derek! I still found no time to make a decent case mod like yours.