[vox] Hello from my Atari

[Edwin Groot]

Damn, that sounds like it was a lot of fun. Isn't that hottie (with
heavy use of the Start and Break keys) in Twitter an Atari 1200? Does
it have more than 64 kB?
I'll have to try that on my Big Board I single board computer (2.5 MHz
Z80, nyah nyah!). So far I just used an old Linux laptop as a serial
terminal console for it. Unfortunately the Big Board sends ADM-3A
terminal controls, which comes up as weird strings on the Linux side.
I am impressed by the other GBOFH on the list. I didn't get on the
Internet until 1986, and that was on a used Novation CAT 300-baud
acoustic coupler. Oh, the fun of Telnet-ing the VAX, then FTPing to
wuarchive.wustl.edu, getting binarieZ to my VAX account. And then
switching over to Kermit to transfer from the VAX to my floppies. My
mother complained sometimes about the long periods my phone being
busy.

Edwin
Retro-enthusiast

Sent from my Linux computer

On 13/02/2017, Bill Kendrick <nbs at sonic.net> wrote:
>
> 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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