BlueSCSI v2 - Plans to implement WiFi features on Pico-W?

[AvadonDragon]

I haven't noticed it being discussed yet so I figured I would ask. I don't know what the future possibilities might be. Could you conceivably upload files to your SD card over WiFi without having to access an internal drive? Obviously DaynaPort emulation would be the dream but I don't know if that would be remotely feasible. Has there been any talk about this that I might have missed?

 

[eric]

It's something we're looking at for sure! Tons of things you could do with wifi and scsi! We've hit a few road blocks with the current pico libraries for wifi so no promises, but we'll keep poking and seeing what cool things we can do.

 

[retr01]

WiFi SD is another way but those are not cheap.

Looking forward to the WiFi implementation (somehow) with a modern and 68k/PPC app on both sides to facilitate the transfers.

 

[AvadonDragon]

WiFi SD is another way but those are not cheap.

Oh neat I haven't seen one of those before. I have an old WiFi compact flash card so I should have guessed such a thing existed.

It's something we're looking at for sure! Tons of things you could do with wifi and scsi! We've hit a few road blocks with the current pico libraries for wifi so no promises, but we'll keep poking and seeing what cool things we can do.

I am really curious what will be possible! I've seen people running web servers on the Pico W and I stubbled across a SimpleFTPServer but it looks like it is meant to be used with LittleFS on its SPI flash so I don't know how hard it would be to get it to work with the SD card.

 

[luminescentsimian]

Dynaport emulation would probably be the easiest feature to start with because the Pico would be doing any processing, just passing packets in and out. Maybe with a WiFi configuration utility added to the Toolkit eventually. That depend on the underlying Pico libraries getting WiFi working reliably, and the WiFi not using any of the pins already used for SCSI.
I want to see iSCSI for the shear perverse pleasure of connecting to a multi-terabyte SAN volume. I'm not holding my breath for this one.

 

[retr01]

A question I have is will using WiFi rob performance from the primary function of using SCSI drives on BlueSCSI v2?

Being connected to a network is actually constantly having packets coming in and out which may affect performance. We do not notice on modern computers, but it may be noticeable on vintage computers.

 

[AvadonDragon]

I think there might be some complication with DaynaPort or Nuvolink emulation due to the fact that you can't emulate a WiFi network adapter directly. First you'll have to emulate an Ethernet adapter then also an ethernet to WiFi bridge.

 

[luminescentsimian]

A question I have is will using WiFi rob performance from the primary function of using SCSI drives on BlueSCSI v2?

Being connected to a network is actually constantly having packets coming in and out which may affect performance. We do not notice on modern computers, but it may be noticeable on vintage computers.

Nah. There's a whole second CPU core on the Pico currently unused that can babysit the WiFi.

 

[luminescentsimian]

I think there might be some complication with DaynaPort or Nuvolink emulation due to the fact that you can't emulate a WiFi network adapter directly. First you'll have to emulate an Ethernet adapter then also an ethernet to WiFi bridge.

It shouldn't be a big deal. WiFi is ethernet over an invisible wire. The association and authentication can be handled by and hidden by the Pico and just expose the ethernet layer to the Mac. It's been done by dumb Wifi-ethernet bridge devices for as long as there has been WIFI. Longer even as there are even older technologies that would encapsulate ethernet over other mediums like ATM in early DSL roll outs, or even dial-up modems *shudder*.

 

[retr01]

TCP/IP works through any connection, even via infrared beams that the Apple Newton used or the light beams such as between ships of the United States Navy.

 

[AvadonDragon]

Very true. I've used an original DaynaPort with a wifi-ethernet bridge to connect to the internet on a compact Mac. I just wasn't sure if the Pico will have the resources to do everything. Or I guess more importantly how hard it will be to code.