USB sticks & Ethernet/Internet with ROM Bees

[someone]

Here's an article for historical reasons.

Back in 2007 or so, someone Internet/Ethernet & USB enabled one of their microbees using the FTDI VDRIVE and WizNet WIZ810MJ .

Giving a microbee a USB (host) port is as simple as connecting up an FTDI VDRIVE module to the User port and and installing a NET ROM.
The supporting ROM works in conjunction with the MWBASIC ROMS and provides the following commands:
  NETDIR [8.3 filename]
  NETLOAD <8.3 filename>
  NETSAVE <8.3 filename>

[] - denotes optional parameter
<> - denotes mandatory parameter

The files are natively in FAT format so they are immediately interchangeable with PCs and MACs.

The modules are designed to give legacy equipment some USB or Internet/Ethernet functionality.
For the microbee, the SPI interface was used. It comprises of the connection of just a 6 wires
  GND
  +5V
  SCLK
  MOSI
  MISO
  CS

Silly as it seems, the modules have considerably more horsepower & capability than the hosting microbee.
These days (2022) there are even more modules available with additional features such as WIFI and Bluetooth.

[MbeeTech]

Sounds excellent Someone.

It would be great to have some more details so that people might be able to try it for themselves.
Perhaps a step by step how-to? A connection list (ie: which pins to connect the SPI signals to on the parallel port) would be a good start.

[someone]

The connection couldn't be simpler:

PIO PIN# DESCRIPTION
GND (8)  GND
+5V (1)  +5V
DA6 (10)  SCLK
DA5 (3)  MOSI
DA7 (2)  MISO
DA4 (11)  CS

Jumper the VDRIVE for SPI

No additional voltage sources are required. USB Sticks and the VDRIVE draw minimal current (around 200mA when active).

For the VDRIVE module, the SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) is bit bashed according its SPI specifications.
SPI is a very loose informally described interface and is implemented in a multitude of ways.
The VDRIVE is peculiar, when a byte is sent to it, an extra clock cycle needs to be clocked out to allow the VDRIVE to respond with an ACKnowledge bit via the MISO pin.
(The most common practice is to send an additional byte to read the SPI device's response.)

The MISO has been strategically placed at DA7 so that the Z80's IN r,© or %ED %70 undocumented instruction can used in conjunction with a JP M,nnnn, or JP P,nnnn to branch off according to the MISO state.
Unlike the 8080's IN A,(n) instruction, the Z80's IN r© and %ED %70 instructions update the contents of the Flag register according to the input value.

The driver just resides in a NET ROM which needs to be plugged into the NET ROM socket on a coreboard.
This ROM works identically to the BeeNet and StarNet ROMS but redirects its I/O to the VDRIVE module.

The Ethernet/TCP/IP Internet module can also be simultaneously plugged in although it is now recommended to provide an external +5V power supply.
For the exception of the nCS signal, all other connections are identical.
An small SPI E2PROM (connected in the identical manner) is recommended hold the configured TCP/IP and Ethernet parameters.
The driver works in the identical manner to other NET ROMS but has its I/O directed to an TFTP server.
In addition to NET ROM functionality the Ethernet/TCP/IP module also enables the host microbee to connect to Internet based hosts using Telnet and other protocols.

[MbeeTech]

Excellent.
Thanks for the write-up Someone.

I assume you've created a NET ROM equivalent to use specifically with the VDRIVE module ( & Wiznet module ) ?