Mojo wrote to Nightfox <=-

Re: Re: BBS Software
By: Hemo to Nightfox on Thu May 19 2016 09:59 pm

Hi Nightfox,

I originally ran my BBS from 1994-2000; started out running it on a
386SX-

I seen this and had to say my first computer I ever had was a Packard
Bell 386sx16. That was a long time ago but brings back memories.

Mojo

I remember when I purchased an upgrade for my computer. I got a 486 with a math co-processor. I was so happy about that. I ran that computer for a long long time. I dreamed of getting a laptop but back then computers were expensive and a laptop was out of my reach.

The good old days of computing.

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Electronic Warfare BB

BBSING.BBS wrote to MOJO <=-

I originally ran my BBS from 1994-2000; started out running it on a
386SX-

I seen this and had to say my first computer I ever had was a Packard
Bell 386sx16. That was a long time ago but brings back memories.

My first was a TRS-80 Color Computer II w/extended memory. Upgraded to a
FDD later.

My first "pc" was an 8088 with amber monochrome monitor and dual 5.25
FDD. I put a 14.4 modem in it for dialing up to BBS's.

I remember when I purchased an upgrade for my computer. I got a 486
with a math co-processor. I was so happy about that.

Where I worked we use IBM terminals (don't remember the model) but they
bought a 486 DX for me to use for desktop publishing. :-) That was cool!

I ran that
computer for a long long time. I dreamed of getting a laptop but back
then computers were expensive and a laptop was out of my reach.

And way too heavy! LOL

First 'small' laptop I saw was the district manager's IBM Thinkpad with
the J mouse.

The good old days of computing.

Yep!


... Hey, look! A completely new undocumented fea&%$#*@ NO CARRIER
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to BBSING.BBS on Mon Aug 22 2016 09:12 am

My first "pc" was an 8088 with amber monochrome monitor and dual 5.25
FDD. I put a 14.4 modem in it for dialing up to BBS's.

how could that 8088 handle a 14.4 modem?
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Mro wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

how could that 8088 handle a 14.4 modem?

16550AF UART, if I recall correctly. :)


... If at first you don't succeed - so much for skydiving.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Ben

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to BBSING.BBS on Mon Aug 22 2016 09:12 am

My first was a TRS-80 Color Computer II w/extended memory. Upgraded to a
FDD later.

Ah the COCO!

The COCO2 was my first computer also. Likewise, started out with cassettes until I saved up $379 for FDD drive, J&M controller, case, cables, etc! Back in the day of the Direct Connect DCM-3 300 baud modem also! Shoveled snow all winter to upgrade to an Avatex 1200e modem. I ran the one and only "telnet-able" BBS on a COCO in 1988! The COCO didn't, obviously, have a TCP/IP stack back in those days but I did it serially. My sister let me use her dialin VAX/VMS account at Univ. Cincinnati, which was on the internet/BITnet. One of the DECServers there had a dull duplex 1:1 "channel". Not sure what it was supposed to be for (testing?), but two people could connect to it at the same time and talk to one another. I was using REMOTE3.BIN for my BBS program, which was just in BASIC. With REMOTE3.BIN in memory, anything that was PRINT #-2 was sent to the modem, so it was very easy to write a BASIC program that would dialin the VAX, login telnet to the DECServer, connect to the 8N1 channel, then load the main BBS program. I advertised my board on places
Mars Hotel (mars.ee.msstate.edu) and Quartz Rutgers BBS. Worked well and had quite a few "callers", mainly students from all over. Back in those days, people would create account for one another and it wasn't long before I had accounts ALL over the place, literally about a dozen universities from California to Finland! Those were the good 'ol days, for sure!

As for the COCO's, continued on with them until at the peak was running a 512K COCO3 under OS/9. From the COCO3 went to an Amiga 2000/HD, which was an AWESOME machine! Amiga to Pea-Sea, OS/2 for a while, GNU/Linux staring in '97, FreeBSD for a period, standard Microsoft Windows progression (up unti Windows 7). Did a LOT of multi-booting. On my old x86 laptop, I had 7 OS's. LOL. From Pea-Sea, finally went to Apple: Mac Mini for desktop and MacBook Pro for laptop. I'm running MacOS Sierra now. Raspberry Pi's for GNU/Linux. Two running OSMC with RetroPie installed for entertainment, and one to play with hardware on.
Never "officially" worked with computers (as a job) and don't think I'd want to. What I did do was end up joining the military and did SATCOM in the Air Force...

All started from the COCO! :-)

---
þ Synchronet þ Emeraldhill BBS - telnet://bbs.emeraldhill.org - http:

MRO wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

My first "pc" was an 8088 with amber monochrome monitor and dual 5.25
FDD. I put a 14.4 modem in it for dialing up to BBS's.

how could that 8088 handle a 14.4 modem?

Had no problem at all! Of course I had people tell me, 'you can't do
that,' which served to only drive me to SHOW THEM it would work. :-)

I did have to slow it down to 9600 to upload, but it would connect
and download at 14.4 just fine. :-)


... DOS never says "EXCELLENT command or filename"
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to BBSING.BBS <=-

BBSING.BBS wrote to MOJO <=-

I originally ran my BBS from 1994-2000; started out running it on a
386SX-

I seen this and had to say my first computer I ever had was a Packard
Bell 386sx16. That was a long time ago but brings back memories.

My first was a TRS-80 Color Computer II w/extended memory. Upgraded to
a FDD later.

My first "pc" was an 8088 with amber monochrome monitor and dual 5.25
FDD. I put a 14.4 modem in it for dialing up to BBS's.

I remember when I purchased an upgrade for my computer. I got a 486
with a math co-processor. I was so happy about that.

Where I worked we use IBM terminals (don't remember the model) but they bought a 486 DX for me to use for desktop publishing. :-) That was
cool!

I ran that
computer for a long long time. I dreamed of getting a laptop but back
then computers were expensive and a laptop was out of my reach.

And way too heavy! LOL

First 'small' laptop I saw was the district manager's IBM Thinkpad with the J mouse.

I thought anyone with a laptop had to be rich! Now they are quite common.

The good old days of computing.

Yep!

What kind of equipment you running with these days?

I picked up an old c64G .. so happy about that but ... I need some stuff to bring the video out to my LCD.

I built a nice ASUS in 2010 and ran that for a time along with various small computers. Recently broke down and purchased an NUC SkullCanyon, a pretty nice little computer. I wanted to try something that didn't spec for a 1000W power supply.

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Electronic Warfare BBS | telnet://bbs.ewbbs.net

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Mro on Tue Aug 23 2016 09:36 pm

Mro wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

how could that 8088 handle a 14.4 modem?

16550AF UART, if I recall correctly. :)

i dont think an 8088 has that.
---
þ S

Re: Re: Computer
By: Bbsing.Bbs to JIMMY ANDERSON on Tue Aug 23 2016 05:24 am

Where I worked we use IBM terminals (don't remember the model) but
they bought a 486 DX for me to use for desktop publishing. :-) That
was cool!

Man, 1991 - remember when Accounting needed a 486 for reporting, and I needed to pull a special quote for the system. I want to say it was in the neighborhood of $5000, we were an IBM shop.

I thought anyone with a laptop had to be rich! Now they are quite common.

The good old days of computing.

I remember when you had to actually need a laptop to get a laptop. Most tech companies default to "laptop" when you hire someone, whether they take it with them or not. Opens the door to ridiculous conversations, like the person who wanted a laptop for home and one for work so they wouldn't need to carry it with him.

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Re: Computer
By: Mro to Vk3jed on Tue Aug 23 2016 06:53 pm

16550AF UART, if I recall correctly. :)

i dont think an 8088 has that.

It's on the I/O card. I had a 286 with 16550s on the IO card and it could handle 14.4 just fine. The 16550 had a 16 byte buffer to hold inbound data, 16450s had 2 bytes, and 8250s no bytes.

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Re: Computer
By: Poindexter Fortran to Mro on Wed Aug 24 2016 08:08 am

Re: Re: Computer
By: Mro to Vk3jed on Tue Aug 23 2016 06:53 pm

16550AF UART, if I recall correctly. :)

i dont think an 8088 has that.

It's on the I/O card. I had a 286 with 16550s on the IO card and it could handle 14.4 just fine. The 16550 had a 16 byte buffer to hold inbound data, 16450s had 2 bytes, and 8250s no bytes.

yeah but this is an 8088
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: B

MISFIT wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

My first was a TRS-80 Color Computer II w/extended memory. Upgraded to a
FDD later.

Ah the COCO!

The COCO2 was my first computer also. Likewise, started out with cassettes until I saved up $379 for FDD drive, J&M controller, case, cables, etc! Back in the day of the Direct Connect DCM-3 300 baud modem also!

I didn't have a modem for it. :-)

Shoveled snow all winter to upgrade to an Avatex 1200e modem. I
ran the one and only "telnet-able" BBS on a COCO in 1988! The COCO
didn't, obviously, have a TCP/IP stack back in those days but I did it serially. My sister let me use her dialin VAX/VMS account at Univ. Cincinnati, which was on the internet/BITnet. One of the DECServers
there had a dull duplex 1:1 "channel". Not sure what it was supposed
to be for (testing?), but two people could connect to it at the same
time and talk to one another. I was using REMOTE3.BIN for my BBS
program, which was just in BASIC. With REMOTE3.BIN in memory, anything that was PRINT #-2 was sent to the modem, so it was very easy to write
a BASIC program that would dialin the VAX, login telnet to the
DECServer, connect to the 8N1 channel, then load the main BBS program.
I advertised my board on places Mars Hotel (mars.ee.msstate.edu) and Quartz Rutgers BBS. Worked well and had quite a few "callers", mainly students from all over. Back in those days, people would create
account for one another and it wasn't long before I had accounts ALL
over the place, literally about a dozen universities from California to Finland! Those were the good 'ol days, for sure!

WOW! Very cool! And yeah my first "information superhighway" access was when the local community college opened up for dial up. All text based, so I used Lynx for the browser. :-) Built a basic webpage with basic HTML. Had someone send me a message to the effect of, "nice page, but you should have colors
and graphics!" :-)

As for the COCO's, continued on with them until at the peak was running
a 512K COCO3 under OS/9. From the COCO3 went to an Amiga 2000/HD, which was an AWESOME machine! Amiga to Pea-Sea, OS/2 for a while, GNU/Linux staring in '97, FreeBSD for a period, standard Microsoft Windows progression (up unti Windows 7). Did a LOT of multi-booting. On my
old x86 laptop, I had 7 OS's. LOL. From Pea-Sea, finally went to Apple: Mac Mini for desktop and MacBook Pro for laptop. I'm running MacOS
Sierra now.

I'm a Mac as well. I'm answering you with MultiMail running under Windows 7
via Parallels. Running 10.11 and using Syncterm to 'dial up' the BBS's.

Raspberry Pi's for GNU/Linux. Two running OSMC with
RetroPie installed for entertainment, and one to play with hardware on. Never "officially" worked with computers (as a job) and don't think I'd want to. What I did do was end up joining the military and did SATCOM
in the Air Force...

Saw several Pi pieces and add ons at the Huntsville Hamfest. Haven't delved into it (haven't really had the desire) but looks like it could be very interesting, from a hobby standpoint.

All started from the COCO! :-)

---
þ Synchronet þ Emeraldhill BBS - telnet://bbs.emeraldhill.org - http://bbs.emeraldhill.org:8080

... Computer Hacker wanted. Must have own axe.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Ol

BBSING.BBS wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

I thought anyone with a laptop had to be rich! Now they are quite
common.

Agreed. :-) Back in the day you take X computing power. Put it in a
laptop and you doubled the price.

Now I'm seeing desktops built using smaller and smaller form factor,
such that they are using laptop parts.

What kind of equipment you running with these days?

MacBook Air 13" - 500 gig SSD, 8 gig ram.

I picked up an old c64G .. so happy about that but ... I need some
stuff to bring the video out to my LCD.

:-)

I built a nice ASUS in 2010 and ran that for a time along with various small computers. Recently broke down and purchased an NUC SkullCanyon,
a pretty nice little computer. I wanted to try something that didn't
spec for a 1000W power supply.

Intersting.


... No you cannot call 911! I'm downloading my mail!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

POINDEXTER FORTRAN wrote to BBSING.BBS <=-

I remember when you had to actually need a laptop to get a laptop. Most tech companies default to "laptop" when you hire someone, whether they take it with them or not. Opens the door to ridiculous conversations,
like the person who wanted a laptop for home and one for work so they wouldn't need to carry it with him.

Now that's just funny right there. :-)



... And on the 8th day God said, "Murphy, you're in charge."
-

Poindexter Fortran wrote to Mro <=-

16550AF UART, if I recall correctly. :)

i dont think an 8088 has that.

It's on the I/O card. I had a 286 with 16550s on the IO card and it
could handle 14.4 just fine. The 16550 had a 16 byte buffer to hold inbound data, 16450s had 2 bytes, and 8250s no bytes.

Correct. Selecting the right serial card was vital in those days. If you ran more than 2 serial devices (like most sysops ;) ), not only did you have to check the chips to make sure they were 16550s, but you also had to make sure that the IRQs for the serial ports were selectable, because the default was for COM3 and COM4 to share the same IRQ as COM1 and COM2, which doesn't work when you want to run multiple nodes or msomething serial while the BBS is running. I have been known to resort to using the knife to cut PCB traces, hookup wire and a pinout of the ISA bus to hardwire the IRQ lines of serial cards for COM3 and COM4! :)

IRQ allocation was a real skill back then! Today, it all "just works", and even many so called tech people wouldn't know an IRQ line if it hit them over the head. :)


... ILLITERATE? Write for a free brochure...
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, A

Mro wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-

@VIA: VERT/BBSESINF
@MSGID: <57BE1EE8.7727.dove-gen@bbses.info>
@REPLY: <57BDB87B.14997.dove.dove-gen@realitycheckbbs.org>
@TZ: c168
Re: Re: Computer
By: Poindexter Fortran to Mro on Wed Aug 24 2016 08:08 am

Re: Re: Computer
By: Mro to Vk3jed on Tue Aug 23 2016 06:53 pm

16550AF UART, if I recall correctly. :)

i dont think an 8088 has that.

It's on the I/O card. I had a 286 with 16550s on the IO card and it could handle 14.4 just fine. The 16550 had a 16 byte buffer to hold inbound data, 16450s had 2 bytes, and 8250s no bytes.

yeah but this is an 8088

8088 is a CPU, the other chips we're talking about are UARTs. Different beasts. Every 8088 PC with a serial port used some form of UART. Initially, it was the 8250, then the 16450, but the 16550, with its better FIFO was the sought after UART for BBS sysops. Also sought after were the multi serial port cards which could share a single IRQ. I did get to work with some of those in the late 1990s under Linux (which had drivers in the kernel for the boards we used).

Back then, all serial ports were on add on cards. Motherboard integration of serial (and parallel) ports was nearly 2 decades later for desktop PCs (late 1990s).


... IBM = Institute of Black Magic
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Misfit wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to BBSING.BBS on Mon Aug 22 2016 09:12 am

My first was a TRS-80 Color Computer II w/extended memory. Upgraded to a
FDD later.

Ah the COCO!

The COCO2 was my first computer also. Likewise, started out with cassettes until I saved up $379 for FDD drive, J&M controller, case, cables, etc! Back in the day of the Direct Connect DCM-3 300 baud modem also! Shoveled snow all winter to upgrade to an Avatex 1200e modem. I ran the one and only "telnet-able" BBS on a COCO in 1988! The COCO
didn't, obviously, have a TCP/IP stack back in those days but I did it serially. My sister let me use her dialin VAX/VMS account at Univ.

Must have had a really cool sister.

Cincinnati, which was on the internet/BITnet. One of the DECServers
there had a dull duplex 1:1 "channel". Not sure what it was supposed
to be for (testing?), but two people could connect to it at the same
time and talk to one another. I was using REMOTE3.BIN for my BBS
program, which was just in BASIC. With REMOTE3.BIN in memory, anything that was PRINT #-2 was sent to the modem, so it was very easy to write
a BASIC program that would dialin the VAX, login telnet to the
DECServer, connect to the 8N1 channel, then load the main BBS program.
I advertised my board on places Mars Hotel (mars.ee.msstate.edu) and Quartz Rutgers BBS. Worked well and had quite a few "callers", mainly students from all over. Back in those days, people would create
account for one another and it wasn't long before I had accounts ALL
over the place, literally about a dozen universities from California to Finland! Those were the good 'ol days, for sure!

As for the COCO's, continued on with them until at the peak was running
a 512K COCO3 under OS/9. From the COCO3 went to an Amiga 2000/HD, which was an AWESOME machine! Amiga to Pea-Sea, OS/2 for a while, GNU/Linux staring in '97, FreeBSD for a period, standard Microsoft Windows progression (up unti Windows 7). Did a LOT of multi-booting. On my
old x86 laptop, I had 7 OS's. LOL. From Pea-Sea, finally went to Apple: Mac Mini for desktop and MacBook Pro for laptop. I'm running MacOS
Sierra now. Raspberry Pi's for GNU/Linux. Two running OSMC with
RetroPie installed for entertainment, and one to play with hardware on. Never "officially" worked with computers (as a job) and don't think I'd want to. What I did do was end up joining the military and did SATCOM
in the Air Force...

Nice choice. You still in?

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Electronic Warfare BBS | telnet:

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to POINDEXTER FORTRAN <=-

POINDEXTER FORTRAN wrote to BBSING.BBS <=-

I remember when you had to actually need a laptop to get a laptop. Most tech companies default to "laptop" when you hire someone, whether they take it with them or not. Opens the door to ridiculous conversations,
like the person who wanted a laptop for home and one for work so they wouldn't need to carry it with him.

Now that's just funny right there. :-)

I think users still try that now. I know at my work they have. The initative was incases of a disaster we are issuing everyone laptops. Then they started leaving them at work unlocked, after they got stolen, they had to be locked up, so everyone locked them in their drawers instead of bringing them home. Then they ask us for equipment so they can have them at home. Sometimes another laptop sometimes monitor, mouse, keyboard, docking station, extra powers cables ... etc. Pretty funny. I get these erquest coming from running minimal hardware (couldn't afford much) and in my mind think when I used to get asked that .. are you nutts?! Do you know how expensive these things are. Then most times they wouldn't buy even an extra charge cable for their phone, or better yet they ask if we can give them a power supply because the one for their personal computer broke. Users are funny :)

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Electronic Warfare BBS | telnet://bbs.ewbbs.net

Re: Re: Computer
By: Mro to Poindexter Fortran on Wed Aug 24 2016 05:25 pm

yeah but this is an 8088

Doesn't matter - the IO card was typically an 8 bit ISA card, which would fit in an 8088. Remember, back then, nothing was onboard!

--

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to BBSING.BBS on Wed Aug 24 2016 03:10 am

Now I'm seeing desktops built using smaller and smaller form factor,
such that they are using laptop parts.

When I was supporting a call center in 2006, power, space and heating were issues. Lenovo and HP both offered a ultra-small form factor PC with a laptop cd drive (most USFFs have that now) and a Pentium M chip. Their eventual goal was to get the whole system to be able to run via POE and distribute the power from a central, backed up supply.

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to POINDEXTER FORTRAN on Wed Aug 24 2016 03:11 am

conversations, like the person who wanted a laptop for home and one
for work so they wouldn't need to carry it with him.

Now that's just funny right there. :-)

I've got a million of them. I had a user who escalated to her manager, who was my manager's manager, because she wanted a MacBook Air 11, which we didn't carry. We carried the 7 ounce heavier (and significantly better) MacBook Air 13. Didn't matter. She had a serious SHOULDER INJURY and needed the 8 ounces off her kit.

Suffice it to say, she could have lost 8 ounces other ways. Like putting down the sandwich - that would have dropped a quick half pound.

---
þ Synchronet

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Aug 25 2016 07:37 am

IRQ allocation was a real skill back then! Today, it all "just works", and even many so called tech people wouldn't know an IRQ line if it hit them over the head. :)

It was all good until serial mice came around and people had to IRQ share. I used to have a piece of paper taped to the inside of the case with the assignments.

Reminds me of a time when we played a joke on our QA lab guy -- old soundblaster cards had this sound file they'd play during setup that said "performing IRQ Test". If it sounded fine, the setting was probably good.

We went into the lab managers desk and added a modified sound file that played "perperperperforminginging IRQQQQQ Test". He'd install the card, the setup file would play the sound, he'd tweak the card, couldn't get it to work, then we'd go over with our updated setup disk and it'd work fine.

That was more fun than it should have been.

---
þ Synchrone

Re: Re: Computer
By: Bbsing.Bbs to JIMMY ANDERSON on Thu Aug 25 2016 05:46 am

I think users still try that now. I know at my work they have. The initative was incases of a disaster we are issuing everyone laptops.

My finance department tried that a few jobs back, business continuity and all, needed a laptop to take home, and a desktop to run reports on. Both stayed at the desk.

These guys were finance, you think they'd be a little more careful of costs. Who watches the watchers?

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

yeah but this is an 8088

Doesn't matter - the IO card was typically an 8 bit ISA card, which would fit in an 8088. Remember, back then, nothing was onboard!

Perhaps he was thinking an 8088 wouldn't be fast enough to keep up with a 14.4k modem and a 16550 UART. I suppose it's possible though.

Nightfox

---
þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

VK3JED wrote to POINDEXTER FORTRAN <=-

Correct. Selecting the right serial card was vital in those days. If
you ran more than 2 serial devices (like most sysops ;) ),

I wasn't a sysop - just a dial up user.

not only did
you have to check the chips to make sure they were 16550s, but you also had to make sure that the IRQs for the serial ports were selectable,

Oh man! I totally forgot about IRQ's!!! Cute little jumpers for IRQ setting
as well as when I did graduate to a hard drive on a 386 and wanted another hard drive you had to jumper for master & slave. Had TOTALLY forgotten about all that! LOL

IRQ allocation was a real skill back then! Today, it all "just works", and even many so called tech people wouldn't know an IRQ line if it hit them over the head. :)

Very true!


... La Quinta is Spanish for "Next to Denny's."
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

BBSING.BBS wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

I think users still try that now. I know at my work they have. The initative was incases of a disaster we are issuing everyone laptops.

I carry my laptop EVERYWHERE so I have ALL my stuff right there! Yes, I
use the cloud for things, but not for EVERYTHING. :-)


... Grace Period: The time it takes to ask the meal blessing.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

POINDEXTER FORTRAN wrote to MRO <=-

yeah but this is an 8088

Doesn't matter - the IO card was typically an 8 bit ISA card, which
would fit in an 8088. Remember, back then, nothing was onboard!

Correct. It was an 8bit modem I still remember buying at Sam's Club in Memphis...


... It beeped and said "Countdown initiated". Is that bad?
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

POINDEXTER FORTRAN wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Now I'm seeing desktops built using smaller and smaller form factor,
such that they are using laptop parts.

When I was supporting a call center in 2006, power, space and heating
were issues. Lenovo and HP both offered a ultra-small form factor PC
with a laptop cd drive (most USFFs have that now) and a Pentium M chip. Their eventual goal was to get the whole system to be able to run via
POE and distribute the power from a central, backed up supply.

A POE computer is not a bad idea! I hadn't thought of that... Defeats the purpose of going wireless though. :-(


... Backup Aborted: Please remove disk #92 and start over
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7

POINDEXTER FORTRAN wrote to VK3JED <=-

We went into the lab managers desk and added a modified sound file that played "perperperperforminginging IRQQQQQ Test". He'd install the card, the setup file would play the sound, he'd tweak the card, couldn't get
it to work, then we'd go over with our updated setup disk and it'd work fine.

That was more fun than it should have been.

Nice! :-)


... Don't be sexist. Broads hate that.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wc

Re: Re: Computer
By: Bbsing.Bbs to Misfit on Thu Aug 25 2016 05:41 am

Nice choice. You still in?

Retired...

---
þ Synchronet þ Emeraldhill BBS - telnet://bbs.emeraldhill.org - http://bbs.emeraldhill.org:8080

NIGHTFOX wrote to POINDEXTER FORTRAN <=-

Doesn't matter - the IO card was typically an 8 bit ISA card, which would fit in an 8088. Remember, back then, nothing was onboard!

Perhaps he was thinking an 8088 wouldn't be fast enough to keep up with
a 14.4k modem and a 16550 UART. I suppose it's possible though.

Of course it was possible - it was my unit and I used it for BBS's and then
the freenet. :-)

Again, I had to slow it down to 9600 for UPLOADS, but not for downloads or
just normally connecting. :-)


... Please no deja vu; I don't want to go through that again.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

Poindexter Fortran wrote to Vk3jed <=-

IRQ allocation was a real skill back then! Today, it all "just works", and even many so called tech people wouldn't know an IRQ line if it hit them over the head. :)

It was all good until serial mice came around and people had to IRQ
share. I used to have a piece of paper taped to the inside of the case with the assignments.

Yep, serial mice certainly complicated matters. :) And yes, I remember having to keep track of my IRQ assignments. :)

We went into the lab managers desk and added a modified sound file that played "perperperperforminginging IRQQQQQ Test". He'd install the card, the setup file would play the sound, he'd tweak the card, couldn't get
it to work, then we'd go over with our updated setup disk and it'd work fine.

ROFLMAO!!! That's pure evil genius! :-) Reminds me of the time I planted a virus simulator into AUTOEXEC.BAT on the secretary's PC. :)

That was more fun than it should have been.

I bet, those sorts of practical jokes did work well. :-)


... Adam to Eve-> 'I'll wear the plants in this family'.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

Correct. Selecting the right serial card was vital in those days. If
you ran more than 2 serial devices (like most sysops ;) ),

I wasn't a sysop - just a dial up user.

Yep, get a fast modem and you had to upgrade your serial card. :)

Oh man! I totally forgot about IRQ's!!! Cute little jumpers for IRQ setting as well as when I did graduate to a hard drive on a 386 and
wanted another hard drive you had to jumper for master & slave. Had TOTALLY forgotten about all that! LOL

And before IDE, you had to set all sorts of jumpers on your HDD controller and drive, then low level format the drive. :) And you could roll the dice by trying a MFM drive on a RLL controller to get 50% more space, at the increased risk of data loss. :)

IRQ allocation was a real skill back then! Today, it all "just works", and even many so called tech people wouldn't know an IRQ line if it hit them over the head. :)

Very true!

Yes, the old days were fun in a geeky way. :-)


... This tagline is freeware; future support is unavailable.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Mro on Thu Aug 25 2016 12:31 pm

i dont think an 8088 has that.

It's on the I/O card. I had a 286 with 16550s on the IO card and it
could handle 14.4 just fine. The 16550 had a 16 byte buffer to hold inbound data, 16450s had 2 bytes, and 8250s no bytes.

yeah but this is an 8088

8088 is a CPU, the other chips we're talking about are UARTs. Different beasts. Every 8088 PC with a serial port used some form of UART.
Initially, it was the 8250, then the 16450, but the 16550, with its better

yeah but i'm talking about the type of computer that has that processor.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Computer
By: Poindexter Fortran to Mro on Thu Aug 25 2016 08:03 am

Re: Re: Computer
By: Mro to Poindexter Fortran on Wed Aug 24 2016 05:25 pm

yeah but this is an 8088

Doesn't matter - the IO card was typically an 8 bit ISA card, which would fit in an 8088. Remember, back then, nothing was onboard!

well if you guys say so. i just never heard of such a thing.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Aug 25 2016 09:23 am

yeah but this is an 8088

Doesn't matter - the IO card was typically an 8 bit ISA card, which would fit in an 8088. Remember, back then, nothing was onboard!

Perhaps he was thinking an 8088 wouldn't be fast enough to keep up with a 14.4k modem and a 16550 UART. I suppose it's possible though.

i'm not saying he's a liar, but i never heard of such a thing and i used to get old computers from my uncles businesses that were 286 and earlier and i had friends back in the day that had EVERYTHING, old and new.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to BBSING.BBS on Thu Aug 25 2016 12:09 pm

I carry my laptop EVERYWHERE so I have ALL my stuff right there! Yes, I
use the cloud for things, but not for EVERYTHING. :-)

i just use my phone and remote desktop in if i need to.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Doesn't matter - the IO card was typically an 8 bit ISA card,
which would fit in an 8088. Remember, back then, nothing was
onboard!

Perhaps he was thinking an 8088 wouldn't be fast enough to keep up
with a 14.4k modem and a 16550 UART. I suppose it's possible though.

i'm not saying he's a liar, but i never heard of such a thing and i used to get old computers from my uncles businesses that were 286 and earlier and i had friends back in the day that had EVERYTHING, old and new.

People could customize their PC any way they wanted. I suppose it was more likely that someone would use a 16550 & 14.4k modem with a faster machine,
but it's certainly possible that someone could have tried putting an I/O card with a 16550 UART in an 8088 machine and using a 14.4k modem with it.

Nightfox

---
þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to MISFIT on Wed Aug 24 2016 03:08 am

Lynx for the browser. :-) Built a basic webpage with b

I still use Lynx around my LAN and on Wikipedia.
Drives my GF nuts. :-) (But she is happy as long as KODI is working.)

Semi-lazy gets iPad (with Zagg rugged keyboard case)
using Remoter. Sometimes it gets the Kindle HDX
(with a forgot_brand_name keyboard case) running Bash Pro.
The majority of the time goes to my iPhone SE, also
running Remoter -- hence the occassional typo here and
there. The Mac Mini and Macbook Pro sit in another room,
crunching SETI and anxiously waiting for me to do some
"real work" when I'm not lazy. :-)

---
þ Synchronet þ Emeraldhill BBS - telnet://bbs.emeraldhill.org - ht

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to JIMMY ANDERSON on Fri Aug 26 2016 06:30 am

And before IDE, you had to set all sorts of jumpers on your HDD controller and drive, then low level format the drive. :) And you could roll the dice by trying a MFM drive on a RLL controller to get 50% more space, at the increased risk of data loss. :)

Ah, i just used a MFM drive with a regular MFM controller and then used stacker on the drive for more drive space and it worked great.

The good ole days....

Mojo

---
þ Synchronet þ Mojo's World BBS - mojo.synchro.net

Mro wrote to Vk3jed <=-

yeah but i'm talking about the type of computer that has that
processor. ---

I'm not sure what your point is.


... I refuse to be intimidated by Reality
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freewa

Mro wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-

Doesn't matter - the IO card was typically an 8 bit ISA card, which would fit in an 8088. Remember, back then, nothing was onboard!

well if you guys say so. i just never heard of such a thing.

Really? I've probably still got some old serial cards from those days kicking around! Back then, you ended up filling most of the slots in the PC, by the time you added everything you needed.

Display adapter
Hard disk controller
Floppy disk controller
Serial card *
Parallel card *
Network card (if running a LAN)
Memory expansion card (early XTs often had 256k or less RAM on the
otherboard).

* Later on, you could get a "multi I/O card", which had serial and parallel ports on the one card.


... If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Mro wrote to Nightfox <=-

i'm not saying he's a liar, but i never heard of such a thing and i
used to get old computers from my uncles businesses that were 286 and earlier and i had friends back in the day that had EVERYTHING, old and new. ---

Back in those days, I used to collect hardware and build my own PCs to save (heaps of) money, so I have good recollection of the cards I needed. A far cry from today's desktop that needs only the motherboard (though more often than not, a display adapter is added to improve on the one board one), drives and a power supply inside the case.

My first PC was a home built XT clone (8088 based PC). From memory, I had 640k RAM, think this motherboard actually had the RAM on board, parallel and serial ports on two multi I/O cards, a multiport ham radio TNC card, floppy controller, monochrome (text only) display card (later upgraded to CGA). Later, I added a hard disk controller and 10MB MFM drive. This PC I'm on now has 100,000 times the storage capacity! :)


... Deja Booboo: When you feel you've screwed this up before.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Nightfox wrote to Mro <=-

People could customize their PC any way they wanted. I suppose it was more likely that someone would use a 16550 & 14.4k modem with a faster machine, but it's certainly possible that someone could have tried
putting an I/O card with a 16550 UART in an 8088 machine and using a
14.4k modem with it.

I think I was running at least a 286, if not a 386, by the time I had a modem that needed a 16550 to talk to it. :)


... Friends are the spice of life! Are you hot or mild?
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

VK3JED wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Yes, the old days were fun in a geeky way. :-)

Have you ever geocached? It was more fun when it was
more geeky... Today you just need a smart phone. Back
then you needed a handheld GPS and you either had to
enter the coordinates by hand or with a download and
a data cable to your GPS (I ordered a pastic endpiece
that would fit our Garmin Yellow and made a serial cable,
then got a USB to serial adapter), go out and find it,
then finally log the find when you got back home.

I'm not one of these hipsters that wishes it was still
elite or anything - I'm glad more people are enjoying
it and it's more accessable to the public, but there
was a certain charm back then... You were an actual
hobbyist and not just 'using another app.'


... This tagline is umop apisdn
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

NIGHTFOX wrote to MRO <=-

People could customize their PC any way they wanted. I suppose it was more likely that someone would use a 16550 & 14.4k modem with a faster machine,

Yep - people told me, "you can't do that," which made me try even harder.
:-)

but it's certainly possible that someone could have tried
putting an I/O card with a 16550 UART in an 8088 machine and using a
14.4k modem with it.

It was an internal 14.4k modem - 8 bit ISA card - I didn't put an I/O
card and THEN the modem - it was all one piece. I wish I could remember
what model it was...


... I don't have time to wait for instant gratification.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winse

MISFIT wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Lynx for the browser. :-) Built a basic webpage with b

I still use Lynx around my LAN and on Wikipedia.
Drives my GF nuts. :-) (But she is happy as long as KODI is working.)

Had no idea LYNX was still a thing! Very cool! And I had to google
KODI - wasn't familar with that. :-)

Semi-lazy gets iPad (with Zagg rugged keyboard case)
using Remoter. Sometimes it gets the Kindle HDX
(with a forgot_brand_name keyboard case) running Bash Pro.
The majority of the time goes to my iPhone SE, also
running Remoter -- hence the occassional typo here and
there. The Mac Mini and Macbook Pro sit in another room,
crunching SETI and anxiously waiting for me to do some
"real work" when I'm not lazy. :-)

LOL


... Why does the Psychic Hotline have to ask for your name??
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Poindexter Fortran on Thu Aug 25 2016 09:23 am

Perhaps he was thinking an 8088 wouldn't be fast enough to keep up with a 14.4k modem and a 16550 UART. I suppose it's possible though.

Could be - the whole idea behind the 16550 UART was that it would buffer data to compensate for a slower CPU and/or multitasker.

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Aug 26 2016 06:26 am

It was all good until serial mice came around and people had to IRQ
share. I used to have a piece of paper taped to the inside of the
case with the assignments.

Yep, serial mice certainly complicated matters. :) And yes, I remember having to keep track of my IRQ assignments. :)

Serial mice were a problem for me because I inherited an Apple Laserwriter and used serial to connect it to my PC. Serial mouse, modem and priner on 2 IRQs?

Worked, surprisingly.

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Re: Computer
By: Mojo to Vk3jed on Thu Aug 25 2016 11:10 pm

Ah, i just used a MFM drive with a regular MFM controller and then used stacker on the drive for more drive space and it worked great.

Ah, all the memories come flooding in... I had an RLL 30 MB drive, and used AddStor - a friend of mine did QA for them. Same idea as Stacker, create a compressed container file and do config.sys level tweaks to make the container look like your C: drive. All good until the container file goes south. :(

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to VK3JED on Fri Aug 26 2016 05:14 am

I'm not one of these hipsters that wishes it was still
elite or anything - I'm glad more people are enjoying
it and it's more accessable to the public, but there
was a certain charm back then... You were an actual
hobbyist and not just 'using another app.'

You mean, like the INTERNET nowadays? :)

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Mojo wrote to Vk3jed <=-

Ah, i just used a MFM drive with a regular MFM controller and then used stacker on the drive for more drive space and it worked great.

Ahh, I remember Stacker. :D

As for RLL, I did have a 30MB RLL drive and controller at one stage, before upgrading to 70MB MFM. :) That was my last MFM drive. The next drive I had was IDE (330 MB, IIRC). :)


... Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Austra

Re: Re: Computer
By: Poindexter Fortran to Mojo on Fri Aug 26 2016 06:11 am

Ah, all the memories come flooding in... I had an RLL 30 MB drive, and used AddStor - a friend of mine did QA for them. Same idea as Stacker, create a compressed container file and do config.sys level tweaks to make the container look like your C: drive. All good until the container file goes south. :(

Yeah, I hear that it happened to me once and I had to do a new install of everything to get it back up and running. Ah, the good ole days when things were more simple at the time.


Mojo

---
þ Synchronet þ Mojo's World BBS - mojo.synchro.net

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Mojo on Fri Aug 26 2016 10:38 pm

As for RLL, I did have a 30MB RLL drive and controller at one stage, before upgrading to 70MB MFM. :) That was my last MFM drive. The next drive I had was IDE (330 MB, IIRC). :)

Well you had a bigger drive than I didmy first IDE drive was only 106mg.


Mojo

---
þ Synchronet þ Mojo's World BBS - mojo.synchro.net

Ah, i just used a MFM drive with a regular MFM controller and then
used stacker on the drive for more drive space and it worked great.

Ah, all the memories come flooding in... I had an RLL 30 MB drive, and used AddStor - a friend of mine did QA for them. Same idea as Stacker, create a compressed container file and do config.sys level tweaks to make the container look like your C: drive. All good until the container file goes south. :(

I remember using Stacker back in the day. I had a relatively small MFM drive and used Stacker to increase its space.

I remember Microsoft including their own drive compression with MS-DOS 6.00. Then I seem to remember hearing they got sued by Stacker because Microsoft's drive compression used code taken from Stacker (or something along those lines). Microsoft released MS-DOS 6.21 without drive compression, then re- wrote their drive compression and introduced it back into MS-DOS 6.22.

Nightfox

---
þ Synchronet þ

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Mro on Thu Aug 25 2016 05:19 pm

People could customize their PC any way they wanted. I suppose it was more

that is dependant on if the hardware supported these customizations.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Mro on Fri Aug 26 2016 03:49 pm

Mro wrote to Vk3jed <=-

yeah but i'm talking about the type of computer that has that processor. ---

I'm not sure what your point is.

go back and reread the thread.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Mro on Fri Aug 26 2016 04:05 pm

well if you guys say so. i just never heard of such a thing.

Really? I've probably still got some old serial cards from those days kicking around! Back then, you ended up filling most of the slots in the PC, by the time you added everything you needed.

Display adapter

how old are you? i thought you were a lot younger than most of us here.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Mro on Fri Aug 26 2016 04:12 pm

My first PC was a home built XT clone (8088 based PC). From memory, I had 640k RAM, think this motherboard actually had the RAM on board, parallel
and serial ports on two multi I/O cards, a multiport ham radio TNC card, floppy controller, monochrome (text only) display card (later upgraded to

you should talk to poindexter about this stuff. it's just a yawn to me.
i dont get off on talking about old stuff. i was there and i lived it, but i dont see what the big deal of it was.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Aug 26 2016 12:29 pm

I remember using Stacker back in the day. I had a relatively small MFM drive and used Stacker to increase its space.

I remember Microsoft including their own drive compression with MS-DOS
6.00. Then I seem to remember hearing they got sued by Stacker because Microsoft's drive compression used code taken from Stacker (or something along those lines). Microsoft released MS-DOS 6.21 without drive compression, then re- wrote their drive compression and introduced it back into MS-DOS 6.22.

if that is true it's a good thing because stacker would fuck your shit up.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

Have you ever geocached? It was more fun when it was
more geeky... Today you just need a smart phone. Back

I did, and it was back in those days. Never caught on with me, I preferred to do things like Amateur Radio Direction Finding - a cross between radio direction finding and orienteering. :)

I'm not one of these hipsters that wishes it was still
elite or anything - I'm glad more people are enjoying
it and it's more accessable to the public, but there
was a certain charm back then... You were an actual
hobbyist and not just 'using another app.'

I agree, a lot of technical hobbies back then involved using deeper technical skills. BBSing is a classic example, where you often had to know your hardware (like what UARTs to buy and how to assign IRQs), how to make software from different authors work together, and how to write some pretty decent batch files.

Today, you can plonk a copy of Mystic or Synchronet on your PC and you pretty much have a working BBS. Networking it is not much more difficult. It's great that we're able to do this now, though there was that charm of being able to delve into the internals of a PC and make the hardware and OS work, before choosing your mailer, tosser, BBS package, FOSSIL and any utilities. Add in QEMM and DESQview, tweak QEMM, and so on... :)


... There's nothing a vulture hates more than biting into a glass eye.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freewa

Poindexter Fortran wrote to Vk3jed <=-

Serial mice were a problem for me because I inherited an Apple
Laserwriter and used serial to connect it to my PC. Serial mouse, modem and priner on 2 IRQs?

Worked, surprisingly.

Hmm, interesting that it did actually work. I'd have assigned a different IRQ for one of the serial ports - 7 was often free, because printers rarely, if ever, used interrupts. 5 was also free, until sound cards came along. Hmm, I still remember PC IRQ assignments! :-)


... Useless Invention: Airplanes that don't fly so they don't crash.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Mojo wrote to Vk3jed <=-

Well you had a bigger drive than I didmy first IDE drive was only
106mg.

Yeah, and they got bigger from there - next one was 1.2 gig, then 6 gig and so on. :)


... I wrote my own benchmark. My machine is now 500GHz.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Mro wrote to Vk3jed <=-

how old are you? i thought you were a lot younger than most of us here.

Probably in the same general age range. 48. :-)


... Spam: The triumph of technology over taste.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet

Mro wrote to Vk3jed <=-

you should talk to poindexter about this stuff. it's just a yawn to me.

Maybe I will. :-)

i dont get off on talking about old stuff. i was there and i lived it,
but i dont see what the big deal of it was.

It was just a different way of doing things. I did enjoy working with the hardware and getting that working the way I wanted - something that one doesn't get to do these days very often. Don't get me wrong, computers are cetainly better than they were, it was just a different way of doing things.


... Blessed be the pessimist for he hath bought insurance.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to NIGHTFOX <=-

It was an internal 14.4k modem - 8 bit ISA card - I didn't put an I/O
card and THEN the modem - it was all one piece. I wish I could remember what model it was...

Must have had a 16550 on board then. :)

... I don't have time to wait for instant gratification.

Hahaha!


... New Mail not found. Start whine-pout sequence? (Y/N)
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to MISFIT <=-

Had no idea LYNX was still a thing! Very cool! And I had to google
KODI - wasn't familar with that. :-)

Yep, I keep it around on my Linux boxes. Comes in handy from time to time, especially if I want to download sometning from places like Sourceforge direct to a Linux box when I'm logged in over SSH.

Semi-lazy gets iPad (with Zagg rugged keyboard case)
using Remoter. Sometimes it gets the Kindle HDX
(with a forgot_brand_name keyboard case) running Bash Pro.
The majority of the time goes to my iPhone SE, also
running Remoter -- hence the occassional typo here and
there. The Mac Mini and Macbook Pro sit in another room,
crunching SETI and anxiously waiting for me to do some
"real work" when I'm not lazy. :-)

Hahaha. :-) My systems have to wait until I _am_ lazy for me to use them! :D


... Diplomacy gets you out of what tact would have prevented.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ F

Nightfox wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-

I remember Microsoft including their own drive compression with MS-DOS 6.00. Then I seem to remember hearing they got sued by Stacker because Microsoft's drive compression used code taken from Stacker (or
something along those lines). Microsoft released MS-DOS 6.21 without drive compression, then re- wrote their drive compression and
introduced it back into MS-DOS 6.22.

Now that you mention this, I have vague recollections of this happening.


... If something is confidential, it'll be left in the copier.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Aug 26 2016 12:29 pm

I remember Microsoft including their own drive compression with MS-DOS 6.00. Then I seem to remember hearing they got sued by Stacker because Microsoft's drive compression used code taken from Stacker (or something along those lines). Microsoft released MS-DOS 6.21 without drive compression, then re- wrote their drive compression and introduced it back into MS-DOS 6.22.

That figures microsoft wou;ld do something like that. It reminds me of the movie Anti-trust where the company in the movie steals code from other people then kills the people and re-write the code for there own use. The whole move made me think of microsoft when I see it and still does now when i watch it again.

I use DOS 6.22 but never knew it had any kind of drive compression in it. I always just used it the way it was back when I ran my T.A.G. bbs and also on a different machine that I ran windows 3.1 and 3.11 on.

Mojo

---
þ Synchronet þ Mojo's World BBS - mojo.synchro.net

Mojo wrote to Nightfox <=-

Re: Re: BBS Software
By: Hemo to Nightfox on Thu May 19 2016 09:59 pm

Hi Nightfox,

I originally ran my BBS from 1994-2000; started out running it on a
386SX-

I seen this and had to say my first computer I ever had was a Packard Bell 386sx16. That was a long time ago but brings back memories.

Mojo

I remember when I purchased an upgrade for my computer. I got a 486 with a math co-processor. I was so happy about that. I ran that computer for a
long long time. I dreamed of getting a laptop but back then computers were expensive and a laptop was out of my reach.

The good old days of computing.

Those were the days for sure. I remember a bbs called TINY that ran several nodes on 20 meg drives and a 2400 baud modems. The SysOp had a 20 meg hdd for sale for 100 bux, and I drove 17 miles in the rain for this great deal!

Those were the days for sure.

--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Electronic Warfare BBS | telnet://bbs.ewbbs.net

---
þ Synchronet þ The Hard Drive Cafe BBS is BACK! telnet://bbs.hdcbbs.com

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to JIMMY ANDERSON on Sat Aug 27 2016 08:13 am

I did, and it was back in those days. Never caught on with me, I preferred to do things like Amateur Radio Direction Finding - a cross between radio direction finding and orienteering. :)

I've never done geocaching either. However, I am a HUGE fan of ARDF...a group of local guys has a county-wide hunt once a month. The "Fox" hides the transmitter on public accessible property anywhere in the county, transmits one minute on, one off, and the rest of us start from the meeting point, get a bearing on the signal, and off we go. Person who drives the shortest distance wins and gets to hide the next month. A yearly winner is declared.

It's a lot of fun, and they've kept it going monthly since about 1994.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tim Wray, Sysop - Backwood Realm BBS
telnet: bwrbbs.ddns.net web:home.backwoodrealm.com


---
þ Synchronet þ The Backwood Realm BBS -

Tim Wray wrote to Vk3jed <=-

I've never done geocaching either. However, I am a HUGE fan of ARDF...a group of local guys has a county-wide hunt once a month. The "Fox"
hides the transmitter on public accessible property anywhere in the county, transmits one minute on, one off, and the rest of us start from the meeting point, get a bearing on the signal, and off we go. Person
who drives the shortest distance wins and gets to hide the next month.
A yearly winner is declared.

That's actually a foxhunt, which are a lot of fun. I used to participate in foxhunts many years ago.

ARDF is a very specific sport with its own rules. Basically, there are 5 transmitters (1-5 or MOE, MOI, MOS, MOH and MO5, which are the Morse IDs - count the dits for the number). Each competitor gets a map, which has the start and finish marked, as well as two exclusion circles - 750 metres around the start and 400 metres around the finish. There are no transmitters within those circles, but they can be anywhere else on the map.

Each transmitter transmits for a minute, then shuts down for 4, with the next numbered Tx taking over for a minute, and so on, untiul Tx5 finishes, at which point, the cycle starts again. So Tx1 transmits for a minute, then Tx2, then 3, 4, 5, and the cycle starts again every 5 minutes. Competitors are started one by one every 5 minutes when Tx1 starts transmitting. The entrance to the course is a corridor (marked by tape) for the first 100-200 metres, so they are out of sight of the start, before they are aboe to head off in their chosen direction.

Once on the course, the idea is to find as many of the transmitters as possible and get back within the time limit (typically around 2 hours). Winner is who has the most transmitters in the shortest time, with number of transmitters taking precedence over time - for example 5 Tx in 1:59:00 beats 4Tx in 1:20:00.
However, the optimal route is not necessarily 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The transmitters can be found in any order, so you have to determine the order while on the course, to get around in the shortest time.

There are two bands used for high level ARDF competition - 80 metres and 2 metres.

You must finish within the time limit. If you don't, you are disqualified. A typical ARDF event can involve up to 10km of running.

I had success up to international level at the 2003 Region 3 ARDF Championships, where I got 2 team gold and (2m and 80m) and an individual bronze in the 80m event. I had to give up ARDF for a lack of local events, and I'm not a distance runner, which limits how fast I can move around the course My RDF and navigation skills are pretty good though. Today, I run sprints with a local athletics club (I have a meet today, actually). I'm built for speed, not endurance. :)


... A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it!!!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

VK3JED wrote to MRO <=-

Really? I've probably still got some old serial cards from those days kicking around! Back then, you ended up filling most of the slots in
the PC, by the time you added everything you needed.

Display adapter
Hard disk controller
Floppy disk controller
Serial card *
Parallel card *
Network card (if running a LAN)
Memory expansion card (early XTs often had 256k or less RAM on the otherboard).

Don't forget sound card. :-)

* Later on, you could get a "multi I/O card", which had serial and parallel ports on the one card.

I remember those! They were cadillac. :-)


... Is fire supposed to shoot out of it like that!?
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.4

VK3JED wrote to NIGHTFOX <=-

People could customize their PC any way they wanted. I suppose it was more likely that someone would use a 16550 & 14.4k modem with a faster machine, but it's certainly possible that someone could have tried
putting an I/O card with a 16550 UART in an 8088 machine and using a
14.4k modem with it.

I think I was running at least a 286, if not a 386, by the time I had a modem that needed a 16550 to talk to it. :)

I'm the guy in question here - the 8088 was a hand me down - I dreamed of
a 386, but alas dind't have the budget (two small kids). I would dial up
to the BBS's late at night when the phone wasn't needed. :-)


... Frisbyterian: when you die, your soul goes up on the roof
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

POINDEXTER FORTRAN wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

I'm not one of these hipsters that wishes it was still
elite or anything - I'm glad more people are enjoying
it and it's more accessable to the public, but there
was a certain charm back then... You were an actual
hobbyist and not just 'using another app.'

You mean, like the INTERNET nowadays? :)

Yep! Now the WWW is at your disposal - back then you had
to ARCHIE & FETCH & FTP... :-)


... There will be a seminar on Time Travel last Thursday.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

VK3JED wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Have you ever geocached? It was more fun when it was
more geeky... Today you just need a smart phone. Back

I did, and it was back in those days. Never caught on with me, I preferred to do things like Amateur Radio Direction Finding - a cross between radio direction finding and orienteering. :)

That sounds like fun! We were talking on the road up here (in Nashville
for Anniversary weekend - yeah, I did a mail run while she's getting
ready for us to go out - LOL) and I mentioned that Geocaching was most
fun back in the day when we'd do group hunts into the night with friends.
Now I wish we could do that again but with our HAM radios, even HT's
on Simplex would work. :-)

I'm not one of these hipsters that wishes it was still
elite or anything - I'm glad more people are enjoying
it and it's more accessable to the public, but there
was a certain charm back then... You were an actual
hobbyist and not just 'using another app.'

I agree, a lot of technical hobbies back then involved using deeper technical skills. BBSing is a classic example, where you often had to know your hardware (like what UARTs to buy and how to assign IRQs), how
to make software from different authors work together, and how to write some pretty decent batch files.

Today, you can plonk a copy of Mystic or Synchronet on your PC and you pretty much have a working BBS. Networking it is not much more
difficult. It's great that we're able to do this now, though there was that charm of being able to delve into the internals of a PC and make
the hardware and OS work, before choosing your mailer, tosser, BBS package, FOSSIL and any utilities. Add in QEMM and DESQview, tweak
QEMM, and so on... :)

I was never a SYSOP, but even a USER had to know these things to be able
to connect! And yes I miss being elbow deep and having to figure things
out. :-) I atrribute a lot of my current career in IT to those early
days. :-)


... No Purchase Required. Details in package.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

VK3JED wrote to MRO <=-

how old are you? i thought you were a lot younger than most of us here.

Probably in the same general age range. 48. :-)

49 here...


... Grace Period: The time it takes to ask the meal blessing.
--- Mul

I did, and it was back in those days. Never caught on with me, I preferred to do things like Amateur Radio Direction Finding - a cross between radio direction finding and orienteering. :)

I've never done geocaching either. However, I am a HUGE fan of ARDF...a group of local guys has a county-wide hunt once a month. The "Fox"
hides the transmitter on public accessible property anywhere in the county, transmits one minute on, one off, and the rest of us start from the meeting point, get a bearing on the signal, and off we go. Person
who drives the shortest distance wins and gets to hide the next month.
A yearly winner is declared.

It's a lot of fun, and they've kept it going monthly since about 1994.

That DOES sound like a lot of fun! I assume I'd have to have a directional antenna and some sort of hardware?


... I don't know what apathy is, nor do I care!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS -

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

Don't forget sound card. :-)

I was going back even before they were commonplace, but yes, that added a further complication. :)

* Later on, you could get a "multi I/O card", which had serial and parallel ports on the one card.

I remember those! They were cadillac. :-)

Only if they had COM3: and COM4: IRQ jumpers, and the ability to disable the LPT IRQ. :)


... Many Myths are based on truth. Spock, stardate 5832.3.
--- MultiM

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

I'm the guy in question here - the 8088 was a hand me down - I dreamed
of a 386, but alas dind't have the budget (two small kids). I would
dial up to the BBS's late at night when the phone wasn't needed. :-)

Yeah cash was tight when I built my 8088 PC. I had just left home, not that highly paid and getting used to balancing a budget.


... Let me know if you didn't receive this message.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
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JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

That sounds like fun! We were talking on the road up here (in Nashville for Anniversary weekend - yeah, I did a mail run while she's getting
ready for us to go out - LOL) and I mentioned that Geocaching was most
fun back in the day when we'd do group hunts into the night with
friends. Now I wish we could do that again but with our HAM radios,
even HT's on Simplex would work. :-)

Ahh, the foxhunt, they were a lot of fun. :-)

I was never a SYSOP, but even a USER had to know these things to be
able to connect! And yes I miss being elbow deep and having to figure things out. :-) I atrribute a lot of my current career in IT to those early days. :-)

True, BBS users were often a technical lot too, sorting out IRQs and stuff, and ensuring they got the best out of that shiny new modem. :)


... Command not found. Damn, it was here a minute ago... hold on...
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Fre

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

Probably in the same general age range. 48. :-)

49 here...

Yep many of us are in that range it seems. :)


... It's not the money I want, it's the stuff.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchro

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to TIM WRAY <=-

It's a lot of fun, and they've kept it going monthly since about 1994.

That DOES sound like a lot of fun! I assume I'd have to have a
directional antenna and some sort of hardware?

Minimum is a directional antenna, radio (ideally with a signal meter) and an attenuator (for close in working). From there, the sky's the limit. :)


... If you try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to JIMMY ANDERSON on Sun Aug 28 2016 06:24 pm

Yeah cash was tight when I built my 8088 PC. I had ju
highly paid and getting used to balancing a budget.

I just wanted a new game console over the then-aging Atari
Entertainment System ("2600") such an Atari 5200, Colecovision, Intellivision, anything. (Nintendo NES and SEGA Master System were still a year or so away). Fortunately, my family got me a Radio Shack 6809e Color Computer ("COCO") 2 instead of just a gaming console. At the time, I didn't think so, but now definetly do! With that 8-biter, modem, subscription to Rainbow magazine (published specifically for that computer), etc, actually learned and was entertained. Made use of the ADC's for all sorts of hardware projects, ran a BBS, learned VAX/VMS and UNIX through my sister's dialIN University (Cincinnati) account, learned my way through BITnet and 80's internet, etc. It
was all so much more valuable than just a game machine would have been. When I got to Keesler AFB to begin what would be a career in SATCOM, already had a pretty firm grasp in basic electronics, analog/digital conversion, modulation techniques, etc. All the stuff I had to learn from there fell into place: RF, frequency conversion, amplification, antennas, encoding, encrytption, multiplexing, etc, etc. All starting from a RAT Shack "toy" computer,
Now I'm starting my second career. I want to learn how to use technology to help people medically. Took a few year "hiatus" after leaving the military, but getting ready to go back to school for Electrical Engineering Biomedical.

---
þ Synchronet þ Emeraldhill BBS - telnet://bbs.emeraldhill.org - http://bbs.emeraldhill.org:8080

VK3JED wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

* Later on, you could get a "multi I/O card", which had serial and parallel ports on the one card.

I remember those! They were cadillac. :-)

Only if they had COM3: and COM4: IRQ jumpers, and the ability to
disable the LPT IRQ. :)

LOL - very true! :-)


... Political Season: Does this mean we can shoot them?!?!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

VK3JED wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

... It's not the money I want, it's the stuff.

I know it's not a direct quote, but I jsut watched that movie
again the other day...


... I am Procrastitron. I will destroy you, eventually.
---

MISFIT wrote to VK3JED <=-

I just wanted a new game console over the then-aging Atari
Entertainment System ("2600") such an Atari 5200, Colecovision, Intellivision, anything.

My first "atari" was a Sears Entertainment System. :-)

Fortunately, my family got me a Radio Shack
6809e Color Computer ("COCO") 2 instead of just a gaming console.

That was my first computer too, and I had forgotten about Rainbow
magazie! You'd get the BASIC programs in text to type in on your
own, then next month a correction to a line or two of code. :-)

With that 8-biter,
modem, subscription to Rainbow magazine (published specifically for
that computer), etc, actually learned and was entertained.

Never had a modem on it... Was using the 8088 before I made my
first connection...

All starting from a RAT Shack "toy" computer, Now I'm starting my
second career. I want to learn how to use technology to help people medically. Took a few year "hiatus" after leaving the military, but getting ready to go back to school for Electrical Engineering
Biomedical.

Excellant! Good luck! I know you'll do well!


... Rehab is for quitters.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Ne

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Tim Wray on Sun Aug 28 2016 07:53 am

That's actually a foxhunt, which are a lot of fun. I used to
participate in foxhunts many years ago.
ARDF is a very specific sport with its own rules. Basically, there are

Ah, yes, I forgot (or never knew) that ARDF and a "Fox Hunt" are different things. I think I considered both types one in the same. I've never had the opportunity to do the regulated 80m foot type, but I've read about it long ago.

I had success up to international level at the 2003 Region 3 ARDF
Championships, where I got 2 team gold and (2m and 80m) and an
individual bronze in the 80m event. I had to give up ARDF for a lack of

I'm quite honored to have encounterd a legit ARDF guy. Sounds like a lot of fun...and a lot of exercise!

73 DE KB9SNL

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tim Wray, Sysop - Backwood Realm BBS
telnet: bwrbbs.ddns.net web:home.backwoodrealm.com


---
þ Sync

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to TIM WRAY on Sat Aug 27 2016 04:17 am

I've never done geocaching either. However, I am a HUGE fan of
ARDF...a group of local guys has a county-wide hunt once a month.
The "Fox" hides the transmitter on public accessible property
anywhere in the county, transmits one minute on, one off, and the
rest of us start from the meeting point, get a bearing on the
signal, and off we go. Person who drives the shortest distance wins
and gets to hide the next month. A yearly winner is declared.

That DOES sound like a lot of fun! I assume I'd have to have a directional antenna and some sort of hardware?

Yep, as VK3JED has already mentioned, minimum a radio, directional antenna (often homebrew), and an attenuator if you're smart...I'm a glutton for punishment and like to use the 2nd and 3rd harmonic frequency (frequency * 2 or *3) when I'm in close. My Icom IC-208H I hunt with in the car has a built in attenutor past 50% on the squelch, but it's only good for a bit, in close, it is overloaded by signal (full strength on the meter in all directions)

There are more complex pieces of hardware such as "sniffers" that osciallte a tone that gets higher in pitch when you're antenna is in the right direction, and complex "doppler" systems using multiple vertical antennas that I won't pretend to understand...yet...that's one of the things I'm planning to learn about in the near future.

I've usually hunted with Quad antennas. Our Foxhunts are on 2 meters (146.565MHz). Most of them have been absurd. My current one is more insane. I found a webpage I made documenting some of my misadventures (and mostly my ignorance) that has a lot of pictures of my larger quads I used to freak out other motorists with a decade or more ago. Haha!

You can entertain yourself with it here: http://www.backwoodrealm.com/v5/ham/foxhunt_antennas.htm

I still use the little 2 element quad at the bottom today when I can make time to join the hunts. Thinking about building at Yagi instead though...less wind load...

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tim Wray, Sysop - Backwood Realm BBS
telnet: bwrbbs.ddns.net web:home.backwoodrealm.com


---
þ Sy

Misfit wrote to Vk3jed <=-

Intellivision, anything. (Nintendo NES and SEGA Master System were
still a year or so away). Fortunately, my family got me a Radio Shack 6809e Color Computer ("COCO") 2 instead of just a gaming console. At
the time, I didn't think so, but now definetly do! With that 8-biter,

Yes, wise choice by your parents. :-) I was never a gamer (there is actually a story to that!), always a technical tinkerer. BBSing and packet radio did eventually get my IT career off the ground. When I left home, I built that 8088 PC. Quickly got onto packet radio and through a few locals discovered NET/ROM and the big one, TCP/IP (IPv4). I setup a mailbox that ran on all 3 protocols (IP, NET/ROM and raw AX.25), and I ran a NET/ROM router, using a second radio and a beam antenna to link the eastern half of the state to Melbourne. I also played a lot with IP and became familiar with FTP, SMTP, telnet, etc. At the time, I was studying IP at university, so I'd go into class and talk about the theory, then go home and do the practicals (not officially). 1200 bps half duplex is slow enough that you can watch a TCP handshake in real time and follow what is going on. Very educational.

Shortly after that, I got into BBSing and started my own BBS (the original incarnation of The Bridge), which brought me into contact with someone who I'd spend a lot of time with BBSing. He eventually took over my board. I stayed on as co-sysop until the end, doing the technical side of things. Eventually, we saw the Internet as the future and decided to have a go ad building a dialin server. That exposed me to Linux (in 1995!), and we soon had a 3 line dialin server running alongside the BBS. We did eventually put the BBS on the Internet (using SIO/Vmodem under OS/2).

Some time later, I was interviewed for an IT job. I think the interviewer got a bit of a surprise when I said that I ran a dialup ISP as a hobby! :) Needless to say, I got the job and I worked there for several years, then after a restructure stayed several years more as an independent contractor.

Now I've gone full circle. For long and complicated reasons, IT has returned to its original status as a hobby, rather than a career, and I again use IT as a means of communication and exploration, along with a healthy dose of advocating for myself and communities that I am a part of. Work wise, I've been a lot more hands on - despite being drawn to IT, I'm even more strongly drawn to the outdoors. However, I have just started a second job which involves me using IT as a catalyst for mentoring young autistic people. Again, IT is the vehicle, not the end goal. :) I see that sort of work as my future.


... If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

Only if they had COM3: and COM4: IRQ jumpers, and the ability to
disable the LPT IRQ. :)

LOL - very true! :-)

Yep those cards were gold. However, I have been known to use a knife, hookup wire and soldering iron to configure IRQs on cards without jumpers! :-)

... Political Season: Does this mean we can shoot them?!?!

Please, PLEASE! :D


... Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true.
--- MultiMail/

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

I know it's not a direct quote, but I jsut watched that movie
again the other day...

:-)


... Keyboard not connected . . . . Press F1 to continue.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Fre

Re: Computer
By: Mro to Nightfox on Fri Aug 26 2016 16:08:38

People could customize their PC any way they wanted. I suppose it was
more

that is dependant on if the hardware supported these customizations.

Yes, but we're talking about an internal modem, which was probably on a standard ISA extension card.. I believe the ISA bus was standard on 8088 machines.

Nightfox

---
þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Tim Wray wrote to Vk3jed <=-

That's actually a foxhunt, which are a lot of fun. I used to
participate in foxhunts many years ago.
ARDF is a very specific sport with its own rules. Basically, there are

Ah, yes, I forgot (or never knew) that ARDF and a "Fox Hunt" are
different things. I think I considered both types one in the same. I've never had the opportunity to do the regulated 80m foot type, but I've
read about it long ago.

Yes, ARDF is a very specific sport, with its rules to an international standard, just like other international sports.

I had success up to international level at the 2003 Region 3 ARDF
Championships, where I got 2 team gold and (2m and 80m) and an
individual bronze in the 80m event. I had to give up ARDF for a lack of

I'm quite honored to have encounterd a legit ARDF guy. Sounds like a
lot of fun...and a lot of exercise!

Thanks, and sure is a lot of exercise and a good workout for the head as well, as you're direction finding, triangulating and navigating all on the fly, while working out your route strategy. I don't do ARDF now, I'm a track sprinter these days. Ran a PB in the 100m and 200m yesterday, and second fastest 400m I've run. :)

I did enjoy my time in ARDF. It's an awesome sport. The distance running side of it was a challenge. My best recorded 10k run, which took place on a road is around 57 minutes, and many are in the 35-45 min/10k on the course. My optimal distance range is actually in the 100m - 400m range, even by 600m my performance falls off sharply. :)

Take the distance running out of the equation and I get very hard to beat. I remember at the Victorian ARDF Championships in 2004, I was recovering from glandular fever (mononeucleosis), which I had contracted 3 months earlier. On the first day, I attempted to run the 80m event and had to pull out early due to fatigue, but still bagged a few controls. Luckily I was reasonably close to the finish when I hit the wall. The next day I returned, but this time I entered the walking category for the 2m event to avoid hitting the wall again. At walking speed, my range is indefinite (best so far is 95km in a 24 hour period) and I can maintain 6+ km/h under almost all conditions for hours on end. This proved to be true, even with my health the way it was then. I'm also able to do all of the RDF and navigation on the fly while walking. I won that event easily, being the only person to score all 5 controls and making it back with a few minutes to spare. Second place only managed 4.

If you get a chance and you're still up to it, give ARDF a try. There is an active group in the US, with their own mailing list, which I'm subscribed to.


... Political Season: Does that mean we can shoot them??
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Tim Wray wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Yep, as VK3JED has already mentioned, minimum a radio, directional
antenna (often homebrew), and an attenuator if you're smart...I'm a glutton for punishment and like to use the 2nd and 3rd harmonic
frequency (frequency * 2 or *3) when I'm in close. My Icom IC-208H I

The only problem with harmonics is the antenna's pattern is not known. :) I did also have some success injecting noise into the VCO and tuning off frequency. This effectively acted as a controllable attenuator, but without the direct pickup issue. As the signal got stronger, you simply tuned further off frequency. Only downside is you had to rely on the meter, there was no audio other than possibly white noise. Using a tone equal to the channel spacing might work too.

There are more complex pieces of hardware such as "sniffers" that osciallte a tone that gets higher in pitch when you're antenna is in
the right direction, and complex "doppler" systems using multiple
vertical antennas that I won't pretend to understand...yet...that's one
of the things I'm planning to learn about in the near future.

I now have a sniffer for ARDF, which could be used for all stages of the hunt. It is roughly as sensitive as a conventional receiver, but can still RDF a 50W transmitter within inches of its antenna without overloading. It has auto attenuation "whoopee" tone (pitch inceases with signal strength) and a boatload of features. Built by Bryan VK3YNG, a (relatively) local RF enginner, orienteer, distance runner and ARDFer. Google VK3YNG Mk4 Sniffer. :)

I've usually hunted with Quad antennas. Our Foxhunts are on 2 meters (146.565MHz). Most of them have been absurd. My current one is more insane. I found a webpage I made documenting some of my misadventures

I've tended to use Yagis of various design. On my sniffer I use the "VK3VT Yagi", a simple 3 element design with 0.15 wavelength spacing between the driven element, reflector and director, which has a very clean radiation pattern and minimal rear pickup. These are dead simple to build as well, and can be made from aluminium tubing, braid on fibreglass or even tape measures (good for bush bashing!).

I still use the little 2 element quad at the bottom today when I can
make time to join the hunts. Thinking about building at Yagi instead though...less wind load...

When I was foxhunting, we had a roof rack on which the Yagi was mounted. We had a pulley arrangement using bicycle chains which was turned by a handle that projected in through the car window.


... I DID IT! I invented the unadoptable tagline! Try it. Won't work.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in

TIM WRAY wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Yep, as VK3JED has already mentioned, minimum a radio, directional
antenna (often homebrew), and an attenuator if you're smart...I'm a glutton for punishment and like to use the 2nd and 3rd harmonic
frequency (frequency * 2 or *3) when I'm in close. My Icom IC-208H I
hunt with in the car has a built in attenutor past 50% on the squelch,
but it's only good for a bit, in close, it is overloaded by signal
(full strength on the meter in all directions)

<whistle> yeah - that's a little much for this n00b :-)

I've usually hunted with Quad antennas. Our Foxhunts are on 2 meters (146.565MHz). Most of them have been absurd. My current one is more insane. I found a webpage I made documenting some of my misadventures
(and mostly my ignorance) that has a lot of pictures of my larger quads
I used to freak out other motorists with a decade or more ago. Haha!

You can entertain yourself with it here: http://www.backwoodrealm.com/v5/ham/foxhunt_antennas.htm

VERY much entertainment! Thank you!

This part gave me pause...

3. The KB9SNL OptiQuad
Duration of Use: One hunt, fall of 2005. Still in use as a base antenna here at home.

Is that for 2m/70cm ? If so, I need to look into building one!

My wife and I used HT's for a while until I bought us each a mobile rig
and antenna. Now I'm really hitting repeaters far away! I have a hand me
down HF rig and homemade antenna - just have to pick up a power supply
and get the antenna mounted. BUT - I still want a dual band rig at home.

I've thought seriously about picking up a third identical radio and a PS
for home, but still need an antenna (I don't think a third Diamond 770
will cut it for a base station?). I've seen and read about the "J" and
I think I could build one, but I wonder if something like this would be
a better choice for me?

þ Synchronet þ The Backwood Realm BBS - bwrbbs.ddns.net - The heart of Southern Indiana

How Southern? I'm in Northwest Tennessee. We drive the I-69 corridor when
we go to McCordsville, IN to visit our son...


... Be alert! The country needs more lerts.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Br

VK3JED wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Only if they had COM3: and COM4: IRQ jumpers, and the ability to
disable the LPT IRQ. :)

LOL - very true! :-)

Yep those cards were gold. However, I have been known to use a knife, hookup wire and soldering iron to configure IRQs on cards without
jumpers! :-)

Never did that myself... My extent of soldering was repairing instrument cables. Never did get the hang of it though...


... Jesus Saves -- passes to Moses - he shoots! HE SCORES!!!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to VK3JED on Sun Aug 28 2016 03:46 am

I remember those! They were cadillac. :-)

Only if they had COM3: and COM4: IRQ jumpers, and the ability to
disable the LPT IRQ. :)

At work, I had a Digiboard 8 port serial board -- all 16550s, with its own processor running the IO. They drove 8 Multitech 14.4 modems, back when we
kids had 2400 baud modems. We used it on an OS/2 system to poll 150 store POS systems, but I always wanted to use it to call 8 BBSes at one time. :)

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Nightfox wrote to Mro <=-

Yes, but we're talking about an internal modem, which was probably on a standard ISA extension card.. I believe the ISA bus was standard on
8088 machines.

Technically, the ISA bus was the 16 bit bus in the AT and to 486 era machines. I don't recall what the 8 bit bus on the 8088 machines was called. Possibly XT bus?


... I'm at the corner of WALK and DON'T WALK...
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Yes, but we're talking about an internal modem, which was probably
on a standard ISA extension card.. I believe the ISA bus was
standard on 8088 machines.

Technically, the ISA bus was the 16 bit bus in the AT and to 486 era machines. I don't recall what the 8 bit bus on the 8088 machines was called. Possibly XT bus?

I do seem to remember there being 8-bit expansion ports. Perhaps that was called the XT bus; not sure..

Nightfox

---
þ Synchronet þ Digita

machines. I don't recall what the 8 bit bus on the 8088 machines was called. Possibly XT bus?

I do seem to remember there being 8-bit expansion ports. Perhaps that
was called the XT bus; not sure..

It was originally called the PC bus but when the IBM XT came out it started being called the XT Bus.

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

Yep those cards were gold. However, I have been known to use a knife, hookup wire and soldering iron to configure IRQs on cards without
jumpers! :-)

Never did that myself... My extent of soldering was repairing
instrument cables. Never did get the hang of it though...

I have built numerous electronic projects over the years, as well as being a ham for over 25 years (and my electronics tinkering goes back several more years).


... Profanity - The Language of Computer Professionals!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Nightfox wrote to Vk3jed <=-

I do seem to remember there being 8-bit expansion ports. Perhaps that
was called the XT bus; not sure..

Yes, the 8088 PCs had the 8 bit bus. The ISA bus extended this to 16 bits, with the first 8 bits being backwards compatible - you could plug an 8 bit card into an ISA bus and it would work.


... The truth will set you free. But first it'll piss you off.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

POINDEXTER FORTRAN wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

At work, I had a Digiboard 8 port serial board -- all 16550s, with its
own processor running the IO. They drove 8 Multitech 14.4 modems, back when we kids had 2400 baud modems. We used it on an OS/2 system to poll 150 store POS systems, but I always wanted to use it to call 8 BBSes at one time. :)

LOL - that would have been cool. :-)


... Yes, but you're taking the universe out of context.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to BBSING.BBS <=-

I think users still try that now. I know at my work they have. The initative was incases of a disaster we are issuing everyone laptops.

I carry my laptop EVERYWHERE so I have ALL my stuff right there! Yes, I use the cloud for things, but not for EVERYTHING. :-)

Same here. TimeCapsule is a life saver. :)

---
.-----________________--_ ________.--'-`--.____ Hugs from Flavio Bessa \____==================_) \_'===================' Syzo of Saturn's Orbit
- -|__|-.______|=====/ `---' Netmail 4:801/189.1
Live long ` ù._ _ _ _~~~~~| fcbessa@gmail.com
and prosper... `-.__________,' Always UnionNET Addicted!


... "S› a mor‚ia tem dentes!! " - Cris
--- MultiMail/Darwin v0.49
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Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Mro on Sun Aug 28 2016 05:51 pm

Yes, but we're talking about an internal modem, which was probably on a standard ISA extension card.. I believe the ISA bus was standard on 8088 machines.

isa wasnt always the slot format you are thinking of.
there were a few variations.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Nightfox on Mon Aug 29 2016 04:07 pm

Nightfox wrote to Mro <=-

Yes, but we're talking about an internal modem, which was probably on
a standard ISA extension card.. I believe the ISA bus was standard on 8088 machines.

Technically, the ISA bus was the 16 bit bus in the AT and to 486 era machines. I don't recall what the 8 bit bus on the 8088 machines was
called. Possibly XT bus?

all i know is i used to get old computers from my uncle's company and i saw some crazy shit. for a while there, what was standard was very loosely standard.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to POINDEXTER FORTRAN <=-

150 store POS systems, but I always wanted to use it to call 8 BBSes at one time. :)

LOL - that would have been cool. :-)

I had a Netware remote application that let me share comm ports using
Int13 redirection, which Procomm supported. One OS/2 box, 4 DOS
windows running Procomm, 4 comm ports and dialed into 4 BBSes.



... Powered By Celeron (Tualatin). Engineered for the future.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet

JIMMY ANDERSON wrote to VK3JED <=-

Never did that myself... My extent of soldering was repairing
instrument cables. Never did get the hang of it though...

Once, before I knew that it shouldn't work, I desoldered the clock
crystal from my motherboard and replaced it with a faster crystal.
Double the speed! Well, from 8mhz to 16mhz.

I was studying computer science, cranking out C all day long and
needed all the speed I could get. I should have just gotten a 287
co-processor. :)



... Is it finished?
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Vk3jed wrote to Nightfox <=-

Technically, the ISA bus was the 16 bit bus in the AT and to 486 era machines. I don't recall what the 8 bit bus on the 8088 machines was called. Possibly XT bus?

"PC Compatible". Everyone except IBM came up with the term ISA.




... Always the first steps
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Mro wrote to Vk3jed <=-

all i know is i used to get old computers from my uncle's company and i saw some crazy shit. for a while there, what was standard was very loosely standard.

The early days were odd. The DEC Rainbow ran DOS but wasn't PC
compatible. The FOSSIL concept came from that, I think - trying to
make a standard layer in software that apps could talk to, then your
FOSSIL deals with all of the underlying mess.




... What are you really thinking about just now? Incorporate
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Vk3jed on Mon Aug 29 2016 09:12 am

Yes, but we're talking about an internal modem, which was probably
on a standard ISA extension card.. I believe the ISA bus was
standard on 8088 machines.

Technically, the ISA bus was the 16 bit bus in the AT and to 486 era machines. I don't recall what the 8 bit bus on the 8088 machines was called. Possibly XT bus?

I do seem to remember there being 8-bit expansion ports. Perhaps that was called the XT bus; not sure..

Nightfox

I bet you saw your share of MFM cables, eh? :)


Thanks,
Zombie Mambo


-=+:[ The Zombie Zone BBS * focker.gotdns.com ]:+=-

---
þ Synchronet þ +-=[ The Zombie

I do seem to remember there being 8-bit expansion ports. Perhaps that
was called the XT bus; not sure..

I bet you saw your share of MFM cables, eh? :)

Yeah, I remember using MFM drives.. Once I switched to IDE, I can't say I ever missed MFM. And I think things are even better these days since SATA was introduced.. SATA cables are much more compact. SCSI was nice at the time for its speed, but SCSI cables were a bit of a pain IMO..

Nightfox

---
þ Synchronet þ Digital Dis

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Zombie Mambo on Wed Aug 31 2016 01:27 pm

Yeah, I remember using MFM drives.. Once I switched to IDE, I can't say I ever missed MFM. And I think things are even better these days since SATA was introduced.. SATA cables are much more compact. SCSI was nice at the time for its speed, but SCSI cables were a bit of a pain IMO..

I hear ya on the MFM and SCSI drives they were ok but some what of a pain. Now when I got my first IDE drive it was cool and I liked them real well... Now SATA they are ok but I have had a little bit of trouble with some of them it has made me be discourged on them some. But they are good I will just have to get past the problems I have had and move forward with them since they are all that is available anymore.


Mojo

---
þ Synchronet þ Mojo's World BBS - mojo.synchro.net

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Zombie Mambo on Wed Aug 31 2016 01:27 pm

I do seem to remember there being 8-bit expansion ports. Perhaps that
was called the XT bus; not sure..

I bet you saw your share of MFM cables, eh? :)

Yeah, I remember using MFM drives.. Once I switched to IDE, I can't say I e missed MFM. And I think things are even better these days since SATA was introduced.. SATA cables are much more compact. SCSI was nice at the time its speed, but SCSI cables were a bit of a pain IMO..

SCSI was cool. I remember in the 90's running a multi-line synchronet bbs and I had my killer 40mb HD on a 486 dx/66 with a 286 that had anolther 40mb drive in DOS Interlink slave mode... THe 486 had a 4x CD drive, and I paid like $1500 for a Pioneer SCSI 6-disc changer. It ran each disc a 1x. But oh was it nice to have 7 CDs online to augment the 80mb of files.

Not long after I acquired a 800mb HD and thought OMG I WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF SPACE!

Those were the days.

You want to get really old, did you have anything in the early 80's?
I ran a BBS in TI-Extended Basic on my Texas Instruments computer at 300bps.
I had dual 360k or so Floppy Disks... Back when it took about 2 hours to download a 15 "block" file using Kermit or Xmodem.

THOSE were the OG days of BBSing!


Thanks,
Zombie Mambo


-=+:[ The Zombie Zone BBS * focker.gotdns.com ]:+=-

---
þ Synchronet þ +-=[ The Zombie Zone BBS * focker.ddns.net 61912 ]=-+

Mro wrote to Vk3jed <=-

all i know is i used to get old computers from my uncle's company and i saw some crazy shit. for a while there, what was standard was very loosely standard.

Yeah a number of manufacturers were loose with the standards back then. :)


... Direct from the Ministry of Silly Walks
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Poindexter Fortran wrote to Vk3jed <=-

"PC Compatible". Everyone except IBM came up with the term ISA.

I thought that applied more to the whole machine, not the bus.


... He does the work of 3 Men...Moe, Larry & Curly
--- MultiMail/Wi

Zombie Mambo wrote to Nightfox <=-

I bet you saw your share of MFM cables, eh? :)

I know I did. ;)


... MultiMail, the new multi-platform, multi-format offline reader!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo

Nightfox wrote to Zombie Mambo <=-

I bet you saw your share of MFM cables, eh? :)

Yeah, I remember using MFM drives.. Once I switched to IDE, I can't
say I ever missed MFM. And I think things are even better these days since SATA was introduced.. SATA cables are much more compact. SCSI
was nice at the time for its speed, but SCSI cables were a bit of a
pain IMO..

Yep drive interconnections got easier with time. SATA is just a joy to hook up. :)


... "42? 7 and a half million years and all you can come up with is 42?!"
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Zombie Mambo on Wed Aug 31 2016 01:27 pm

Yeah, I remember using MFM drives.. Once I switched to IDE, I can't say I ever missed MFM. And I think things are even better these days since SATA was introduced.. SATA cables are much more compact. SCSI was nice at the time for its speed, but SCSI cables were a bit of a pain IMO..

MFM was OK, IBM used some interesting tech in their PS/2s called ESDI. If I recall, it had SCSI-like performance but you couldn'g daisy chain.

SCSI was a black art. I worked at a Mac shop in the 90s and spent way too much time trying to get the right combination of SCSI IDs, cable order, SCSI versions and terminators working. The typical developer had a Mac II, a Syquest drive, external HD and possibly a tape drive all running of the back.

---
þ Synchronet þ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org

You want to get really old, did you have anything in the early 80's?
I ran a BBS in TI-Extended Basic on my Texas Instruments computer at 300bps. I had dual 360k or so Floppy Disks... Back when it took about 2 hours to download a 15 "block" file using Kermit or Xmodem.

THOSE were the OG days of BBSing!

:)
I was too young in the early 80s to have any of that stuff of my own. But I remember
my dad having one of the older modems that you'd have to put a telephone handset on
top of.

Nightfox

---
þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Poindexter Fortran wrote to Nightfox <=-

SCSI was a black art. I worked at a Mac shop in the 90s and spent way
too much time trying to get the right combination of SCSI IDs, cable order, SCSI versions and terminators working. The typical developer had
a Mac II, a Syquest drive, external HD and possibly a tape drive all running of the back.

I never had many issues with SCSI. As lond as yo got your IDs and terminators straight, it generally worked. It did get tricky when you had different bus widths on the same chain, but no, I don't recall ever having issues. We did use a lot of SCSI on the servers at work over the years.


... Internal Error: The system has been taken over by sheep at line 19960
--- Mul

Re: Computer
By: Nightfox to Zombie Mambo on Thu Sep 01 2016 10:26 am

You want to get really old, did you have anything in the early 80's?
I ran a BBS in TI-Extended Basic on my Texas Instruments computer at 300bps. I had dual 360k or so Floppy Disks... Back when it took about 2 hours to download a 15 "block" file using Kermit or Xmodem.

THOSE were the OG days of BBSing!

:)
I was too young in the early 80s to have any of that stuff of my own. But I remember
my dad having one of the older modems that you'd have to put a telephone handset on
top of.

Nightfox

They were called Coupler modems. I had one too. I advertised my bbs as operating from 7pm - 12am and I would literally sit in my room, wait for the phone to ring, and answer it. If I heard a carrier signal, I would put it on the coupler modem and watch the person nav my lame bbs.

My parents were so pissed i was able to convince them that by getting me a Hayes Smartmodem 300, nobody would have to hear the phone ring more than once.

Oh I thought I was bad a55 when I got that modem... And it wasn't long before they got me my own phone line and were rid of me. Tried to explain to them that one day everything would be about computers. They didn't want to hear it...
Now my parents can't live without Email, Facebook, and Smartphones. They use computer and think they understand them because they can launch an app in a browser...
And guys like me are avoiding social media and reliving our youth through stuff like telnet bbs!


Thanks,
Zombie Mambo


-=+:[ The Zombie Zone BBS * focker.gotdns.com ]:+=-

---
þ Synchronet þ +-=[ The Zombie Zone BBS * focker.ddns.net 61912 ]=-+

Re: Re: Computer
By: Vk3jed to Mro on Thu Sep 01 2016 05:18 pm

Mro wrote to Vk3jed <=-

all i know is i used to get old computers from my uncle's company and
i saw some crazy shit. for a while there, what was standard was very loosely standard.

Yeah a number of manufacturers were loose with the standards back then. :)

they probably went with what the engineers thought up at the moment.
---
þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Computer
By: Zombie Mambo to Nightfox on Thu Sep 01 2016 04:56 pm

My first modem was a Radio Shack Direct Connect DCM-3 300 bauder that just a switch for Answer/Originate and a big 'ol 80's-style button to make it happen, but around the same time someone gave me an acoustic coupler modem as well. (Which I never got to work with my TRS-80 Coco because it required some sort of funky non-standard cable. Lookinh back, if i knew the pinout I could make that cable now, but at the time had no idea.) Shoveled snow all one winter to save up for an Avatex 1200e smart modem. One of my siblings let me use their University VAx/VMS account which was on BITnet/internet. In those days, at least in the .edu world, once you had an account sonewhere it was SUPER easy to get accounts all over. Heck, all you had to just do was ask an admin to create
an account and they usually would! I'd see an OPERATOR or Admim at x nachine by fingering it, send@machine (BITnet) or PHONE (VMS) a convetsation with them, BS for a while (they were always students), and get an account there. It was a different (better) culture than today. My parents would ocassionally look at me screen and see I was in another state or even country and I'd hear, "You better not be making long distance phone charges!" Whenever I'd get "grounded from my computer", they would demand that I give them sonething to hold that would "make my computer not work", so I'd give them sone random BS cable like the cable for cassette player (even though I had a FDD) and they'd buy it. "Get off your computer" was also heard being screamed at my house also often when they picked up the phone to try to use it. lol. It all seems so ancient and funny now.

Matter of fact, I think I hear them now
6(uyuhh
NO CARRIER

---
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Mro wrote to Vk3jed <=-

they probably went with what the engineers thought up at the moment.

yeah, likely.
... It's no secret a man's conscience can sometimes be a pest.
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo,

Re: Computer
By: Misfit to Zombie Mambo on Fri Sep 02 2016 02:24 am

screen and see I was in another state or even country and I'd hear, "You bet not be making long distance phone charges!" Whenever I'd get "grounded from computer", they would demand that I give them sonething to hold that would "make my computer not work", so I'd give them sone random BS cable like the cable for cassette player (even though I had a FDD) and they'd buy it. "Get

Oh yes, the days of logging into college systems... and military cord-com TAC systems. I still have a notebook of all the phreak numbers and hack accounts i had back in 82/83/84... Because of the long distance call thing, a good set of MCI phreak numbers was a must have. Those were the fun days of computers/bbsing when it was a hobby and not the norm.

Speaking of 300bps... my modem was a 110/300. That's right 110bps. At some point in time, 110bps must have been "the norm".

Most people I knew could type faster than what a bbs would be displayed to you at 110bps. Even 300bps.

When 1200bps modems came out, we were all like "OMG it just... APPEARS! The entire menu!".


Thanks,
Zombie Mambo


-=+:[ The Zombie Zone BBS * focker.gotdns.com ]:+=-

---
þ Synchronet þ +

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to TIM WRAY on Mon Aug 29 2016 08:17 am

This part gave me pause...

3. The KB9SNL OptiQuad
Duration of Use: One hunt, fall of 2005. Still in use as a base

antenna here at home.
Is that for 2m/70cm ? If so, I need to look into building one!

It was for 2 meters, I think I had the driven element centered on 146MHz. I don't have that one anymore either, it died of rott. It had respectable gain directionally, though. I built it and the others like it off of plans I found on a long defunct Geocities site, which I had saved local and revived later, you can look it over here: http://www.backwoodrealm.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id= 149

My wife and I used HT's for a while until I bought us each a mobile rig and antenna. Now I'm really hitting repeaters far away! I have a hand me

A mobile or base radio is the way to go on FM, 2 meters and up! I have dual band in the car (Icom IC-208H) and an old Icom IC-2100H in the house on 2m only. I use a vertical a ham gave to me, not sure what it is, but SWR is excellent across all of 2m.

will cut it for a base station?). I've seen and read about the "J" and
I think I could build one, but I wonder if something like this would be

A good Jpole will work fine. The quad is cool too, especially if you can get it up high with a rotor of some sort to spin it around.

þ Synchronet þ The Backwood Realm BBS - bwrbbs.ddns.net - The heart
of Southern Indiana

How Southern? I'm in Northwest Tennessee. We drive the I-69 corridor when we go to McCordsville, IN to visit our son...

I'm in the Bedford, IN, area. "South Central" might be a better way to put it, I'm about 1/2 way exactly between Indy and Louisville, KY as far as travel. I'm one county east of where new I-69 intersects with US-231, so you've passed reasonably near me a few times it sounds like!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tim Wray, Sysop - Backwood Realm BBS
telnet: bwrbbs.ddns.net web:home.backwoodrealm.com


---
þ Synchronet þ The Backwood Realm BBS - bwrbbs.ddns.net - The heart of Southern Indiana

TIM WRAY wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

@VIA: BACKWOOD
@MSGID: <57D1FEEE.17093.dngen@bwrbbs.ddns.net>
@REPLY: <57C43D40.85085.dove-gen@vert.synchro.net>
Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to TIM WRAY on Mon Aug 29 2016 08:17 am

For some reason I'm seeing old messages - but still gonna reply. :-)

My wife and I used HT's for a while until I bought us each a mobile rig and antenna. Now I'm really hitting repeaters far away! I have a hand me

A mobile or base radio is the way to go on FM, 2 meters and up! I have dual band in the car (Icom IC-208H) and an old Icom IC-2100H in the
house on 2m only. I use a vertical a ham gave to me, not sure what it
is, but SWR is excellent across all of 2m.

Understood. I've finally gotten my wife's unit installed. I really think
I want to get an identical unit for the house - same unit - same programming - etc.

will cut it for a base station?). I've seen and read about the "J" and
I think I could build one, but I wonder if something like this would be

A good Jpole will work fine. The quad is cool too, especially if you
can get it up high with a rotor of some sort to spin it around.

Well the J was going to go IN the attic - under the roof. :-)

þ Synchronet þ The Backwood Realm BBS - bwrbbs.ddns.net - The heart
of Southern Indiana

How Southern? I'm in Northwest Tennessee. We drive the I-69 corridor when we go to McCordsville, IN to visit our son...

I'm in the Bedford, IN, area. "South Central" might be a better way to
put it, I'm about 1/2 way exactly between Indy and Louisville, KY as
far as travel. I'm one county east of where new I-69 intersects with US-231, so you've passed reasonably near me a few times it sounds like!

Yep - and I'm sitting in my son's house in McCordsville now. We drove up
Friday after work. We're on Fall Break this week so we're staying at least through Tuesday.

On the drive up my wife was driving. I heard some chatter after we passed Evansville and I wound up chatting with some guys from the Washington area. Nice folks! Even did echolink with them for a test. :-)


... How does it change many dyslexics to take a bulb light?
--- MultiMa

* In a message originally to TIM WRAY, JIMMY ANDERSON said:

Yep - and I'm sitting in my son's house in McCordsville now. We
drove up Friday after work. We're on Fall Break this week so
we're staying at least through Tuesday.

We were in Brown County Indiana last weekend... easily could have met
up with you.

On the drive up my wife was driving. I heard some chatter after
we passed Evansville and I wound up chatting with some guys from
the Washington area. Nice folks! Even did echolink with them for
a test. :-)

Cool... you were not far from my cousins in Greenfield indiana.

Allen

... Big or small We tax them all.

---
* Origin: LiveWire BBS -=*=- Louisville, KY -=*=- LiveWireBBS.com (1:2320/100)

HAWKE wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

Yep - and I'm sitting in my son's house in McCordsville now. We
drove up Friday after work. We're on Fall Break this week so
we're staying at least through Tuesday.

We were in Brown County Indiana last weekend... easily could have met
up with you.

Yeah - we ended up being there till Wednesday. Drove to Owensboro, KY
after we had supper with them Wednesday. Went down to Paradise then over
to both dams, then home.

On the drive up my wife was driving. I heard some chatter after
we passed Evansville and I wound up chatting with some guys from
the Washington area. Nice folks! Even did echolink with them for
a test. :-)

Cool... you were not far from my cousins in Greenfield indiana.

Yeah she followed the GPS to 70 (?) East and took that exit.


... Dr. Livingston I. Presume (Dr. Presume's full name)
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
þ wcQWK 7.0 ÷ Neptune's Lair - Olive Branch MS - winserver.org:1974

Re: Re: Computer
By: JIMMY ANDERSON to TIM WRAY on Sun Oct 02 2016 07:45 am

On the drive up my wife was driving. I heard some chatter after we passed Evansville and I wound up chatting with some guys from the Washington area. Nice folks! Even did echolink with them for a test. :-)

Awesome. I bet it was KC9ZAR and some of his buddies, they've got the ham bug bigtime down in Washington! I have the opportunity to talk with them occasionally myself, as they have one of their repeaters linked to one in Northeast Greene county, which is in range of my radio. I'm heard in that group occasionally myself.

73 de KB9SNL

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tim Wray, Sysop - Backwood Realm BBS
telnet: bwrbbs.ddns.net web:home.backwoodrealm.com


---
þ Synchronet þ The Backwood Realm BBS - bwrbbs.ddns.net - The heart of Southern Indiana

TIM WRAY wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

On the drive up my wife was driving. I heard some chatter after we passed Evansville and I wound up chatting with some guys from the Washington area. Nice folks! Even did echolink with them for a test. :-)

Awesome. I bet it was KC9ZAR and some of his buddies

Only one I recorded in my mobile log app is KB9SGN - but there were several
for a short while.

they've got the ham bug bigtime down in Washington!

That's cool. :-) There are some new guys on a repeater well within range
of me that I've been talking to. We're all still new enough that 2m/440 contacts are cool. :-)

I have the opportunity to talk with
them occasionally myself, as they have one of their repeaters linked to one in Northeast Greene county, which is in range of my radio. I'm
heard in that group occasionally myself.

Nice. They said they have an informal net everything Thursday night at
8 pm local time (7 for me). I'll pop on echonet one of these evenings. :-)


... Warning! Tagline thieves abound. See next message area for details!
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* In a message originally to HAWKE, JIMMY ANDERSON said:

Yeah - we ended up being there till Wednesday. Drove to
Owensboro, KY after we had supper with them Wednesday. Went down
to Paradise then over to both dams, then home.

Anytime you are in Owensboro, KY you must stop by Moonlite BBQ...
famous for Kentucky Burgoo... a soup a stew of sort mostly meat. I've
been there several times for the buffet and unhinged my jaw. Walked
in and waddled out.

Allen

... Beware of geeks bearing GIFs.

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HAWKE wrote to JIMMY ANDERSON <=-

@VIA: LIVEWIRE
@MSGID: <58013E0B.85426.dove-gen@vert.synchro.net>
* In a message originally to HAWKE, JIMMY ANDERSON said:

Yeah - we ended up being there till Wednesday. Drove to
Owensboro, KY after we had supper with them Wednesday. Went down
to Paradise then over to both dams, then home.

Anytime you are in Owensboro, KY you must stop by Moonlite BBQ...
famous for Kentucky Burgoo... a soup a stew of sort mostly meat. I've been there several times for the buffet and unhinged my jaw. Walked
in and waddled out.

Will keep that in mind! Thank you!


... Grace Period: The time it takes to ask the meal blessing.
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Misfit wrote to Bbsing.Bbs <=-

Re: Re: Computer
By: Bbsing.Bbs to Misfit on Thu Aug 25 2016 05:41 am

Nice choice. You still in?

Retired...

I'm still in the fight! :) hanging in I hope for another 15 years at least.

... ...::comptech power up::... :)bbsing(:
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