This is a very simple, even naïve, implementation of a networking hub which allows DCPU-16 emulators to exchange data.
To see the data exchange in action, open http://188.40.187.185/index.html?isSender=1 in your browser. It will display a link to another machine - open this in another browser window.
Whatever you type in the first window is send to the keyboard ring buffer of this machine. The running program picks up new data from the buffer, and echoes it to its console, and puts in on the network wire.
The second machine puts up everything that arrives on the wire and displays it in its console.
The code is very beta, although some basic sanity and error checkings have been implemented. The demo uses calculates random network addresses for sender and receiver - collisions might occur.
The demo uses my own JavaScript emulator, which probably isn't perfect (e.g., it has an ASCII-only console).
From the DCPU-16's point of view, the network wire work similar to the keyboard ring buffer.
The emulator must establish a WebScokets connection with the hub at 188.40.187.185:80 and register an id between 0x1 and 0xffff.
Once the connection is established, data exchange between the hub and the machine works as follows:
Whenever the emulator receives a packet from the hub, it writes the id of the sender to the machines memory at [0x6000+index], and the data to [0x6000+index+1], and then increases index by 2. This memory area works as a ring buffer, i.e., after writing to [0x607f], subsequent writing starts at [0x6000] again.
Whenever the machine writes data between addresses [0x6080] and [0x60ff], the emulator must pick up this data, interpreting every even field as the hub id of the receiver, and every uneven field as the payload, i.e., when data is written to [0x6081], the emulator uses [0x6080] as the hub id, and [0x6081] as the data .
The receiver hub id & data packet is then send to the hub, who delivers it to the emulator which is connected at the receiver id in question.
Currently, the is basically no security whatsoever, however, you use hub connections that are already in use.
If you want to use make use of the network from your DCPU-16 machine, you must extend your emulator, that is, you must write a virtual Network Interface card that is able to register with the hub, read memory data that is written to [0x6080]-[0x60ff] and send it to the hub, and handles incoming hub data by writing it to [0x6000]-[0x607f].
This virtual NIC must speak the WebSockets protocol to connect to the hub. This is relatively simple in JavaScript using Socket.io, but should be doable in other emulator implementations, too.
An example NIC can be found at: https://github.com/ManuelKiessling/jsDCPU16/blob/2f62c17a3d0ec1cf7a9e816a4924213882c35e71/app/NetworkInterfaceCard.js#L1
This is an example DCPU-16 assembler application that sends every keyboard input to hub id 2:
SET A, 0 ; terminal index
SET B, 0
SET I, 0 ; keyboard index
SET J, 0 ; network index
:loop
IFE [0x9000+I], 0
SET PC, loop
SET B, [0x9000+I]
SET [0x8000+A], B ; write to terminal
SET [0x6080+J], 6500 ; receiver hub id
ADD J, 1
SET [0x6080+J], B ; set network data
ADD J, 1
SET [0x9000+I], 0
ADD A, 1
ADD I, 1
IFE I, 16 ; cycle keyboard index
SET I, 0
IFE J, 128 ; cycle network index
SET J, 0
SET PC, loop
And this is an example application that echoes everything which is received on the network to the console:
SET A, 0
SET B, 0
SET I, 0
:loop
IFE [0x6001+I], 0
SET PC, loop
SET B, [0x6001+I]
SET [0x8000+A], B
SET [0x6000+I], 0
SET [0x6001+I], 0
ADD I, 2
ADD A, 1
IFE I, 128
SET I, 0
SET PC, loop
Feel free to use ws://188.40.187.185:80/ as the hub for you emulator Network Interface Card.
Find me on Twitter as @manuelkiessling or send me an email at manuel@kiessling.net