==== Irc, Internet on X68000 using null modem cable ====

 This article is a kind contribution by our forum member **Neko68k**. Thank you for shedding light on this rather grey area !

First of all you will need to download these:
|[[http://nfggames.com/X68000/Mirrors/x68pub/x68tools/UNIX/NETWORK/pppxr5.lzh|Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) Driver]]|pppxr5.lzh|
|[[http://nfggames.com/X68000/Mirrors/x68pub/x68tools/UNIX/NETWORK/TCPPACKA.LZH|TCP/IP Driver]]|TCPPACKA.LZH|
|[[http://retropc.net/x68000/software/system/rs232c/tmsio/TMSIO031.LZH|RS-232C Driver With Buffer Control and Hardware Flow]]|TMSIO031.LZH|

It might also be useful to install [[http://nfggames.com/X68000/Mirrors/x68pub/x68tools/HUMAN/TwentyOne/tw136c14.lzh|TwentyOne]] (long file name support) if you haven't already.

  *unlzh PPPXR5.lzh
  *put PPP.SYS in \SYS
  *put PPP.X KILL.X and PPPX.BAT in \BIN

If you install PPP.X anywhere else, be sure to modify the first line of PPPX.BAT to point to that directory.

I found it helpful to add the following line to the end of PPPX.BAT:

<code>inetdconf +dns 192.168.0.1</code>

You have to do this anyway so might as well just make it happen. This is to point at your dns server, I used the IP address of my router. 

While you're at it, change:

<code>inetd</code>
to
<code>inetd -t -1</code>

This allows internet to work in KOWIN.

  *unlzh TMSIO031.LZH and put TMSIO.X in \BIN
  *unlzh TCPPACKA.LZH and merge the folders it contains with your existing \BIN \ETC and \MAN
  *edit \ETC\hosts and \ETC\networks to reflect your actual network, for example:

<code>
#
# /etc/hosts
#
127.0.0.1	localhost		localhost
192.168.0.11	x68k			x68k
</code>

<code>
#
# - /etc/networks
#
127		loopback
192.168.0	private-net
</code>

Optionally add this line to \ETC\services, clat asks for it:

<code>irc			6667/tcp</code>

Add to your config.sys the following (RSDRV.SYS comes with Human):

<code>
PROCESS 16 10 50
DEVICE = \SYS\RSDRV.SYS
DEVICE = \SYS\PPP.SYS
</code>

Once this is complete plug in your null modem cable and reboot the x68. A wiring diagram for making a null modem cable can be found here: 

[[http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:rs232_null_modem_cable_with_partial_handshaking|RS232 null modem cable with partial handshaking]]

  *On your x68k run PPPX.BAT. On the emulator this throws an error, it can be safely ignored.
  *Once at the ppp> prompt type 'term' and push enter then switch to your Linux box. This also throws a couple errors in emulation and they can also be ignored.

  *On your Linux machine(I am using Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat) open a terminal.
  *At the prompt type the following where:
    *192.168.0.10 is the host IP, 192.168.0.11 is the x68k IP. It doesn't matter what these are necessarily as long as they dont collide with any other IP addresses on your network.
    */dev/ttyS0 is your serial port(ttyS0:COM1 ttyS1:COM2 etc)

<code>pppd -detach crtscts lock proxyarp 192.168.0.10:192.168.0.11 /dev/ttyS0 38400</code>

If everything worked you should see something like this:
|{{:x68000:internet_1.png?400|}}|{{:x68000:internet_2.png?400|}}|

To test it out try:

<code>ping google.com</code>

and ignore any errors that may occur.

You can try the following Web browsers:
  *[[http://nfggames.com/X68000/Mirrors/x68pub/x68tools/UNIX/NETWORK/lynx27r0.lzh|Lynx]] is probably as good as any.
  *I tested [[http://nfggames.com/X68000/Mirrors/x68pub/x68tools/UNIX/NETWORK/vwxb25.lzh|VWX]] and it had serious out of memory problems.
  *I also tested [[http://w2332.nsk.ne.jp/~gonta/arc/wx046_0b_0206220.lzh|WebXpression]], this version works very well.
  *For IRC I recommend [[http://sharl.haun.org/a/x68/clat-beta5.tar.gz|Clat]]

To configure clat, put clat.x somewhere handy and create a file called clatrc in the same folder and fill it in as follows:

<code>
SERVER irc.efnet.org
NICK yournick
MAIL blah@whatever.com
NAME whatever
USERINFO blahblahblah
QUIT yourquitmessage
</code>

{{:x68000:internet_3.png?400|}}

You have to be in the directory you installed clat.x and clatrc or it will fail to find the clatrc file. I think the docs said there is a way to change that but I didn't follow up on it. If you have TwentyOne you can also call it .clatrc but it doesn't matter.

I didn't test out NFS but it seems pretty straightforward.

Keep the scene alive !