The SIP project

ORIGINAL SITE: http://www.ensica.fr/~frances/sip.html


Goals
Design choices
First targets, development environment
Current state
I want you !
FAQ



Goals

The SIP project aims to provide small computers (like old 8-bit computers or embedded microcontrollers with little memory) with standard Internet access through a TCP/IP/PPP stack on top of a RS232 link.

This development should demonstrate that you don't need a Mega-Turbo-Pentium-GTI (tm Intel) with 64 MB memory, running Windows 2010 (tm Microsoft), in order to really connect to the Net (you can connect to the Net using a dumb terminal, but providers of such accounts will be more and more rare). More than that, with such traffic on the Net nowadays, you could surprise your friends because a big cpu won't make a big difference if you can only grab a few hundreds of bytes per second...

In order to allow applications running on top of SIP, like mail, ftp, telnet, www, etc. clients, the smallest memory footprint is targetted.

Design choices

First targets, development environment

Ok, time for you to have a laugh : this project tries to give a second life to old 8 bit computers, or all those computers people think they aren't powered enough to run internet software. Here are the two computers I want to plug to the Net : an 8088 with 64KB memory (it's a PC-XT in fact), and an Oric Atmos (this one has a 1 MHz 6502, and no serial port, but serial interface add-ons exist). However, the code could easily serve other 8-bit platforms than the AppleII, C64, 8-bit Atari's, etc., because most of it is written in C. Of course, you need a C compiler on your platform. On the 8088, many compilers are available, just pick an old enough version to develop 'tiny model' programs. On the 6502, I use the lcc compiler with my 6502 code generator, the code is very good (some people have reported it is better than commercial compilers like AD2500's). But I'm also waiting for a 6502 code generator the folks at Franklin Electronic Publishers have developed for *GCC* !

However, to ease development, the code will be tested on Linux first.

Current state

I'm building the stuff bottom-up, as can be seen from the following :

I want you !

I have started this development, and should reach UDP and some trivial UDP applications in 'some time' (don't ask when). If you are interested in making the project go faster, join in !

If you see flaws in the design, tell me too !

FAQ

This is First Asked Questions, not Frequently Asked Questions yet. As I'm just making this 'call for contributions' now, no questions have been raised yet 8-)

Ok, if you want to contribute or ask something, you might need to mail-me.