[vox] Hello from my Atari

[timriley at appahost.com]

Thanks for the stroll down memory lane. I remember the move which I
decided to part with my TRS-80 Model I. :-( Your descriptions of the
original micro-computer technology made me remember good times.

Around the time the movie "War Games" came out, I had upgraded to a
Model III and splurged on a 300 baud modem. My computer friend (Paco)
had a Commodore 64, also with a modem. His came with a terminal
emulator; I had to peek and poke mine. We eventually got them to
connect. Everything I typed appeared on both my screen and his, and vice
versa.

I was in the Army at the time, and we decided to play a joke on a mutual
friend -- Jerry. With excitement I knocked on his door and exclaimed, "I
got in; follow me!" He followed me to my room where I told him I hacked
into the Army's personnel computer. Of course, Paco was on the other end
of the line. I typed in Jerry's name, and the computer responded with
his current duty assignment and other things Paco could muster. I then
typed in the "command" to change is duty assignment to Hawaii. The ruse
was great.

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [vox] Hello from my Atari
> From: Bill Kendrick <nbs at sonic.net>
> Date: Sun, February 12, 2017 9:11 pm
> To: LUGOD <vox at lists.lugod.org>
> 
> 
> Not _particularly_ Linux-related, except the fact that I'm taking advantage
> of numerous Linux tools here...  I recently picked up a Lantronix UDS-10,
> a device for connecting devices with serial ports to a network -- i.e.,
> serial port on one end, ethernet jack on other; to the device on one side,
> it looks like an old dialup modem, and to the device on the other site, it
> looks like a telnet client.
> 
> So right now, I'm typing this email into my old Atari 8-bit computer (the
> one I grew up with, over 30 years ago).  I installed "telnetd" on my Linux
> laptop, and fired up a VT-102 capable 80 column terminal program on my
> Atari, and "dialed" my laptop with, basically, "ATDT <ip address>"
> 
> From there, I'm doing my standard habit of ssh'ing to Sonic.net's shell
> server and running Mutt to check my email! :)  At 19.2Kbps, it's a little
> slow, but ncurses-based programs like Mutt & Links are pretty efficient,
> so it's not too bad.  Definitely way better than the 1200bps I used to have
> to deal with, back in my BBSing days (20 years ago)!
> 
> "screen" is a blessing, too.  I was even able to update LUGOD's website
> from my Atari the other day, using screen's copy/paste features to grab Eric's
> talk description from Mutt @ Sonic, and paste it into Vim @ LUGOD.org! :)
> I also hopped on the #lugod IRC channel, to show off. :)
> 
> There was some initial confusion over whether I was running an IRC client
> locally on the Atari, with a TCP/IP stack. Nope... it's just like dialing up
> the old Solaris box at school in the 90s.  Nothing fancy!  (There ARE some
> full-on networking clients for 8-bit computers, though mostly I see all the
> cool fancy stuff on the Commodore 64. (Boo!)  See also: Contiki)
> 
> So, yay Linux (well, Unix in general)!  Heck, I was even able to send a
> tweet over on Twitter (via their mobile site) via Links browser.  I haven't
> had as much luck using Facebook.
> 
> Oh, and as an aside, these old computers (Atari & otherwise) can, of course,
> talk to each other.  There are apparently 100s of BBSes that you can connect
> to via telnet these days.  (The friend I bought this gear from lives up in
> Woodland, and has an Atari 8-bit online via this configuration; you can
> telnet to it from an Atari (or emulator), or just from a modern computer,
> since it's just Telnet!)
> 
> Back in the 90s, I tried writing BBSes & games that people could connect
> to on my Atari... I'm kinda thinking about finally making a fancy little
> "web browser" that runs on the Atari, but utilizes a Linux box to do some
> of the heavy lifting (e.g., converting & scaling JPGs, etc.) -- back in the
> 90s when I thought of this, it would've been my school's $10Ks Solaris box;
> these days, one could do this on a cheap $10(!) Raspberry Pi) ;-)
> 
> Good times. Gotta love nostalgia!
> 
> PS - Photo I posted on Twitter of part of my setup the other day:
> https://m.twitter.com/billkendrick/status/830359988681838592
> 
> <yes, I had to manually type that URL; no cut-n-paste from my Android phone
> to my Atari... yet?>
> 
> -- 
> -bill!
> Sent from my computer
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