CompuServe Messages

Charles, Problem 1: Hardware-wise you're best off with Ethernet. Even with two computers, you'll be mountains ahead of any serial or parallel "networking". You don't want to be loading executables over a 19.2K baud link. Once you're on Ethernet, expanding past two is really easy to do. The Commodore A2065 is _the_ card for the Amiga. Others exist(ed) but the A2065 is by far the most popular choice. Problem 2: There is native Amiga software. There is ENLAN-DFS. It's designed to be transparent – disk drives and directories from the server have icons on the client. ENLAN-DFS makes your clients look as though they've "sprouted" more drives. You can attach to a server's printers, too. If your application will multi-task with itself on the same machine there's no reason it should not work over ENLAN-DFS. This means, as you mention, properly using the AmigaDOS record (byte-range) locking of 2.0 to arbitrate access to shared databases. Booting a "diskless" Amiga today requires a floppy disk to get the system and network up and then Assign'ing your logicals (DEVS:, S:, SYS:, etc.) over to a network drive. It's no more difficult than what you might do to boot an Amiga and run from a RAM: disk. Nick Frabotta Interworks Creators of ENLAN-DFS