Interconnecting classic computers

[Tony Duell]

> > > There was a panel that was a mux/demux to 24-ish diskless model 3s.  The 
> > 
> > I thought the standard one was for 16 slaves to one host, but there's no 
> > reason for that limit.
> 
> Sixteen student machines to one instructor station is correct.
> 
> > I seem to rememebr the same hardware could be used with Model 1s, Model 3s
> > and Cocos, but that the host and slaves had to e the same type of machine. 
> 
> The first version, the Network 1, was limited to the 500 bps data rate 
> of the Model One interface.  Model Ones could be combined with Model 3s 
> and Model 4s, provided the users of the newer machines specified the 
> slow cassette data rate.  The Network 2 supported the 1500 bps rate of 
> the Model 3 and 4, the Color Computer line (including the MC-10) and the 
> Model 100/200.  3s and 4s could be mixed at will, all versions of the 
> Color Computer line could co-exist (except the MC-10 -- although the 
> MC-10 used the same data format as the other Color Computers, the BASIC 

Presumably it also would have worked with the UK Dragon computer, with 
the same restrictions (that had the same cassette hardware as a CoCo, but 
the tokens were different, for what reason %deity only knows..)

> ROM tokenized the keywords in its own unique way, so any BASIC code 
> exchanged would be garbage).  The 100 and 200 could be intermixed.  I 
> recall hearing about somebody using a Model 4 with its Mod100 exchange 
> utility getting that combination to work, but I never tried it myself. 

I can see no reason why it wouldn't work. As far as I know, the Network 1 
and 2  units were essentially amplifiers to boost the cassette output of 
one machine and make it suitable to feed into the cassette input of 
another. They did nothing with the actual data. 

I would be interested in seeing schematics/service manuals for these 
units, I don;'t suppose they exist anywhere.

-tony