Interconnecting Computers Interconnecting computers always intrigued me. I have known IEEE-488, RS-232C and Centronics. I had crafted my own blend of IEEE-488 and Centronics once. However, at the time it looked as if RS-232C would be the one with a future and I started to get more involved into it. The DCE - DTE problem so many wrangled with was no problem for me after a short while. Every serial connection worked at once for me. Also having had programmed the Z80-SIO for the CPAC project was a great help to me to understand the protocol. The other computer interconnection worked over the house telephone switchboard. Those kinds of computer interconnection did not have much of a practical benefit. |
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Network «Intranet» After I had finished a TCP/IP course, I wanted to consolidate what I had learned and built up a network with my old and new computers at home. The three printers — A4 Laser, A3 Inkjet and A3 Plotter — were connected to a printer server. A NAS server was added and two USB harddisks connected to it. |
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A WebCam was introduced as well and this one can even be reached from the public Internet (horo.dyndns.org:81 user and password are both 'Guest'). An «Intranet» is much more useful than an inteconnection based on RS-232C. I can work from every computer, can use the printers and have access to the data. This comes in particularly handy if one of the computer or a graphics card fails.
Currently, computer graphics (CG) is a very important leisure-time activity and to render the pictures, a lot of computer power is needed. Bryce (www.daz3d.com) permits to render over the network since version 5. Even though an old machine may only take 10% of the work this still means a saving of half a day in a five day render.