Virtual H89 Computer CP/Net Device

The virtual CP/Net device is a pseudo-device that never existed in real hardware. It is designed to facilitate running CP/Net in a more-efficient way, partly because transfers are done in-memory and do not require the overhead of transport protocols and other communication overheads.

A separate but related component, HostFileBdos, is essentially a CP/Net server that allows access to a native filesystem on the host computer, and converts CP/M file I/O into native file I/O. HostFileBdos is designed to plug directly into the CP/Net device, but it can also be used to make CP/Net servers for remote machines that could connect over true network structures such as sockets.

The CP/Net device is built in to the virtual H89 if the property "cpnetdevice_clientid" exists, unless the USB+Serial device (or some other CP/Net device) is installed. The device is configured as follows:

cpnetdevice_clientid

The CP/Net Client ID to be used by this H89. Default is 0xfe. Must not be 0x00 or 0xff. Must be unique on "the network". If this property does not exist, no CP/Net device is created. If another device has been selected as the netwrok device (e.g. H89USBSERIAL or MMS77422) then this device will not be created regardless of whether a client ID property exists.

cpnetdevice_port

The I/O base port for the device. Existing CP/M software expects this to be 0x18, which is the default.

cpnetdevice_server##

Specifies the type of server/communication device to attach as server "##" (implied 2-digit hexadecimal). Should be a valid class that implements NetworkServer, although it is only compared to known values and so is not required to name an existing JAVA class. Typically, at least one server will exist, namely HostFileBdos as server 00. For example:

        cpnetdevice_server00 = HostFileBdos [args...]

See HostFileBdos for more information.

Also recognizes "Socket" to connect with remote instances of HostFileBdos (or other CP/Net-compatible servers). For example:

        cpnetdevice_server03 = Socket host port

See CP/Net Socket Server for more information.