[Xastir] AGWPE/MixW

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

> I have Xastir connecting to AGWPE and receiving packets.  Transmit
> code isn't functional yet.

AGWPE lets you use your sound card as a TNC (like the Soundmodem
interface in Linux), but also allows you to use baycom, serial-mode
TNC's, and KISS-mode TNC's as well (like the AX.25 kernel networking
in Linux).  It'll handle up to 100 TNC definitions (according to the
spec), and up to 100 clients connecting to it.  It's free, but it's
on Windows only.

If you had rather a lot of TNC's and computers and little common
sense, you could connect up to 1500 TNC's to Xastir, 100 on each
AGWPE instance (one instance per computer?) and connect Xastir to
each of those 15 instances.  If that's not enough, we could bump the
number of interfaces up that Xastir can handle (perhaps an even 2000
or 20 interfaces?).  Another possibility would be to have remote
TNC's located over a wide area and have one Xastir instance hook to
all of them as if they were local RF.  No, I can't think of a
practical use for any of this, but it's fun to think about.  For
those of you that were feeling I/O-limited today.

Saturday I moved my PK-88 TNC (kiss mode) over to an AGWPE instance
on an old Win95 laptop and then told Xastir to connect to it via
ethernet for testing this weekend.  It ran all day sunday with no
hiccups.  That's Xastir on Linux and the TNC on Win95.

For some users running Windows/Cygwin/Xastir, AGWPE might give them
a good option for a TNC interface.  That's mostly why the code was
written.  Once the transmit side is functional, people will be able
to take a Windows laptop on the road using Xastir and a soundcard
interface.  No, it won't be me!  Well, maybe for testing.

Another use would be to take advantage of other serial ports on
other machines around the house if you're running out of ports.
Hook up an old laptop or desktop (or 2/3?) running Win95 or better,
throw AGWPE on there, and then Xastir on your
Unix/Linux/MacOSX/Windows box can use the remote TNC's or
soundcards.

Perhaps at an EOC they could be running AGWPE in order to make one
or two radio ports available to multiple computers.  Xastir can tie
into that interface now.

Another topic:  Anybody familiar with MixW?  I'm not sure that I
want to write code for it, as it's not free (well, it is for 15
days).  Any other similar sorts of software that we might want to
know about?

Any software for Linux/Unix boxes that makes TNC's available
remotely, similarly to how AGWPE does it?

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_ at tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"