WiFi Cartridge...?

Discussion forums for users of the Cambridge Z88 Portable Computer
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NightIsland
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jul 13, 2024 1:14 pm

WiFi Cartridge...?

Post by NightIsland »

After seeing the impressive work on building the 1MB cartridge, I can't help but wonder if anyone has tried making a WiFi cartridge...?

Email access on the Z88 would surely be easy and wonderful, heck even a Lynx port or FTP access would be enormously helpful.

Anyone up for doing it?
g7mmj
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2022 4:25 pm

Re: WiFi Cartridge...?

Post by g7mmj »

This would be quite difficult to do, as apart from providing the WiFi hardware, a large and complex (possibly too much for a Z80?) amount of software would be needed as well in order to provide the hardware drivers and TCP/IP protocol stack, before any appliactions such as email were added.

While it's probably possible, I don't think it would be practical.

Steve
okto
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Apr 22, 2023 7:48 am

Re: WiFi Cartridge...?

Post by okto »

I think you’d pretty much run everything on the more powerful hardware (ESP32, Pi Nano, etc) in the cart and only expose text transfer protocols to the Z88 side. WiModem but in a slot.

Dual-ported memory to treat select memory addresses as IO registers would be a simple way to do it.
g7mmj
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2022 4:25 pm

Re: WiFi Cartridge...?

Post by g7mmj »

Yeah, I guess that would work. Still quite a bit of work though. :|
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