[vox] Hello from my Atari

[Bill Kendrick]

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 08:11:28PM +0100, Edwin Groot wrote:
> 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?

Yes & yes.  It's got a whopping 1/4MB!  (So in practical terms, I typically
just use the extra memory as a 192KB RAMdisk, which is about 2 small
floppies' worth)


> 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,

Woah that rang a serious bell. :)  I actually maintained the Atari 8-bit
section of the UMich archive, when the previous fellow stepped down,
up until I was kicked out for mot being at all connected to UMich itself.
Sad :(


> 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.

Yep!  Thems were the days.  Now it's all yelling at my phone for
taking more than 3 seconds to load a 2MB animated GIF on Twitter.

-bill!

> 
> 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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> >
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-- 
-bill!
Sent from my computer