Post by thread:[OT]: handshaking between two computers through L

<x-flowed>Hi All, I have two computers linked up together by a simple LAN, is there any way I can make them "talk" to each other? What I mean is, if computer A wants to tell computer B something, it will issue a command and send through the LAN cable to computer B and vice versa. I want to avoid writing the command into a file in a commonly shared hard-drive, since the handshaking will be quite frequent, this method will be slow and too heavily using the hard-drive. Thanks in advance! John ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com </x-flowed>

John Waters wrote: > Hi All, > > I have two computers linked up together by a simple LAN, is there any way I > can make them "talk" to each other? What I mean is, if computer A wants to > tell computer B something, it will issue a command and send through the LAN > cable to computer B and vice versa. I want to avoid writing the command into > a file in a commonly shared hard-drive, since the handshaking will be quite > frequent, this method will be slow and too heavily using the hard-drive. Unless there was a specific reason not to, I'd say use an established protocol, such as TCP/IP. After all, it's well documented and there's *lots* of stuff out there that speaks TCP/IP. Also example code using TCP/IP abounds. If you could be more specific on what you are trying to do, perhaps more specific suggestions could be made. Perhaps even someone has already done whatever it is that you are trying to do, and would be willing to share precisely how it was done. -- Mike Werner KA8YSD | "Where do you want to go today?" | "As far from Redmond as possible!" '91 GS500E | Morgantown WV | Only dead fish go with the flow.

Could share a RAM drive and use that for info passing? Fast, cheap, pretty effective. Something like Create message file, then write, then create Flag file and release both - other machine deletes them as it reads them, creates counterparts, this is really really crude (TCP/IP is better but this'd work with the crudest of tools.) I do some things this way off an old 286 (Sorta a "You have upgrade files to pick up" thing. Need to move that to a larger machine...) Mark John Waters wrote: {Quote hidden}> Hi All, > > I have two computers linked up together by a simple LAN, is there any way I > can make them "talk" to each other? What I mean is, if computer A wants to > tell computer B something, it will issue a command and send through the LAN > cable to computer B and vice versa. I want to avoid writing the command into > a file in a commonly shared hard-drive, since the handshaking will be quite > frequent, this method will be slow and too heavily using the hard-drive. > > Thanks in advance! > > John

> > > > I have two computers linked up together by a simple LAN, is there any way I > > can make them "talk" to each other? What I mean is, if computer A wants to > > tell computer B something, it will issue a command and send through the LAN > > cable to computer B and vice versa. I want to avoid writing the command into > > a file in a commonly shared hard-drive, since the handshaking will be quite {Quote hidden}> > frequent, this method will be slow and too heavily using the hard-drive. > > Unless there was a specific reason not to, I'd say use an established > protocol, such as TCP/IP. After all, it's well documented and there's > *lots* of stuff out there that speaks TCP/IP. Also example code using > TCP/IP abounds. > > If you could be more specific on what you are trying to do, perhaps > more specific suggestions could be made. Perhaps even someone has > already done whatever it is that you are trying to do, and would be > willing to share precisely how it was done. There are controls about that allow you to forget all about the low level protocols and just send the data. I think the Winsock control in VB would do what you are looking for. Not sure tho having never used it for your purpose.

Assuming you have TCP/IP on the network, use it. I've written several VB applications to communicate via TCP/IP. Easy to code. You need to have a basic understanding of IPs and sockets, and the difference between UDP and TCP. For instance, I have a client and a server which have two text boxes each. The client can request a connection, and assuming the server allows it, the client sends the contents of the bottom box whenever it changes (which appear in the top box of the server) and the server does the same thing with its bottom box. I used it to test some TCP based communication between computers. I have another program which does UDP packet messages, which is very appropiate for many applications. The really nice thing is that if I want the program to run over my network here, or over the internet I change nothing. Controlling my PIC projects and various hardware at home would be a snap from work (if I only had a dedicated internet connection at home... <sigh> ;-) Anyway, if you have TCP/IP on that network, then this is what I strongly recomend. If you tell us the nature of the communication (how frequent, how long, how much data, whether it needs to be responded to, if it's going from one computer to one computer, one to many, many to one or many to many, etc.) Actually, I didn't even think about it, but you could use TCP/IP to test out PIC networking code... Hmmm... Anyway, let us know a few more details, and we can help you out some more. If you like, email me privately for my TCP 'chat' program. only a few dozen lines for both the server and the client. (ok, it's an extension of what's included as a VB example - see the MSDN about the winsock control) -Adam John Waters wrote: {Quote hidden}> > Hi All, > > I have two computers linked up together by a simple LAN, is there any way I > can make them "talk" to each other? What I mean is, if computer A wants to > tell computer B something, it will issue a command and send through the LAN > cable to computer B and vice versa. I want to avoid writing the command into > a file in a commonly shared hard-drive, since the handshaking will be quite > frequent, this method will be slow and too heavily using the hard-drive. > > Thanks in advance! > > John > ________________________________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com