Uthernet in my Apple IIgs

Posted on June 21, 2008 by Blake Patterson

Back in April I made a post regarding the Uthernet card, Ethernet for the Apple II. As I indicated, I laid down my $89 and ordered one as soon as I learned that a2RetroSystems was selling a new batch. It promptly arrived and I promptly threw it into my Apple IIgs. Let me tell you about it.

The hardware install was rather straightforward; I just dropped the card into slot 2. As for the software, I wrote out an image of Contiki and also installed the Marinetti TCP/IP stack for GS/OS. To my surprise, Contiki provides a much more full-featured web suite than Marinetti and the available GS/OS Internet apps I’ve been able to find, which I find to be an unfortunate situation as I’d hoped to use the graphical WIMP interface of GS/OS for most of my IIgs net activity as opposed to the text-based interface of Contiki. Perhaps this will change down the road. (Any suggestions on useful GS/OS web apps would be most appreciated.)

So far I’ve browed the web, chatted on IRC, performed various FTP operations, and fiddled with tenet on the IIgs using Contiki. The most valuable of these functions to me is FTP, as it was always a massive hassle to get an Apple II disk image downloaded from the net my Mac Pro to the IIgs–my previous drill had me routing the image through my Mac Plus. Now it’s cake. As well, It’s great fun to mess around on the net in general using the IIgs.

My $89 was definitely well spent. I had, for some time, contemplated the purchase of a LANceGS Ethernet card which debuted a few years earlier than the Uthernet, but its higher price always kept me from making the leap. It’s great to have found a route to Ethernet on my IIgs for under $100.

Have a look at my IIgs photo gallery and get a look at the Uthernet board. Thanks a2RetroSystems. This is what retro computing is all about.

Posted in Apple II | 6 Comments

Web 2.0? It’s “Brain 2.0” I say.

Posted on June 11, 2008 by Blake Patterson

For the past week or so I have had basically no connectivity via my normally blazing fast Comcast internet connection. It’s up for brief moments, but that’s it. It’s rather unfortunate as Arnold Kim and I are trying hard to make Touch Arcade the end-all reader destination for iPhone gaming news. But it’s turned into a bit of an academic evaluation of my life as a hardcore geek.

I have been using the net more than casually for, well, ever. I had a home PPP connection back in 1994. That was early. In 1997 I had my first high-speed internet connection. Since then it’s been more or less golden at home. Well, the net has eluded me in my home for the past few days.

And I just can’t cope.

A while ago I embraced Facebook and it’s gotten me in touch with schoolmates I’ve not spoken with in 15 years. Lovely. More recently I have embraced Twitter and a few other social networking services as part of my daily routine. Without the net, my inability to “tweet” my latest inconsequential event has left me feeling utterly…out of my element. I have come to realize I am more dependent than I have ever in my life been on technology. And I don’t apologize for it. I warmly welcome the fact that I need to tweet about how a drink I’ve never ordered at Starbucks before tastes. I do not apologize for the fact that I need to post iPhone game news on my new site Touch Arcade late into the night.

The lack of immediate web access makes me realize that–yes, what I most want is a discreet, headset HUD and a chorded keyboard ball to finger on the streets as I walk about my daily life–a daily life that now is rather fully tied to the web. Am I an internet addict? Perhaps. Is everyone else a “talking addict?” It’s really the same question.

I hope the Comcast tech scheduled to visit me early on Friday morning can ease my pain. Else…what am I to do?

Posted in Just Rambling | 2 Comments

Newton Poetry: An Active Newton Blog…In 2008

Posted on June 1, 2008 by Blake Patterson

As my readers are likely aware, I’m a big fan of the Apple Newton. I consider my MessagePad 2100 to be the finest PDA I’ve ever owned, relatively speaking. That said, imagine how surprised and happy I was to run across an active Newton blog!

Have a look: Newton Poetry: MessagePad Jabberwocky

So what’s it all about? As Dave Lawrence who runs the site describes it, Newton Poetry is…

    A blog about Apple’s MessagePad, Apple in general, and Newton Poetry.

    What’s Newton Poetry? I find a poem. I input it into my Newton MessagePad 110. The Newton galumphs and translates the text, and spits out Newton Poetry.

As you might have guessed, the site was inspired by Gary Trudeau’s famous August 1993 Doonesbury comic strip which lampooned the early Newton’s (less than ideal) handwriting recognition. It’s a nice mix of the amusing poetry translations and Newton news and thoughts.

I’m very glad to have found it. Strong work, Dave!

Posted in Handhelds | Leave a comment

MyAppleSpace: MySpace For Those That Don’t Suck

Posted on May 31, 2008 by Blake Patterson

I just ran across MyAppleSpace. It’s pretty much MySpace for those that don’t suck. But then I’m pretty heavily Apple biased. I wanted to share. It’s really well done. If you’re of the brotherhood…sign up!

I created two retro groups within the network: Apple II Users and Classic Mac Users

Here’s me: http://www.myapplespace.com/profile/blakespot

I like. Have a look!

Posted in Just Rambling | 2 Comments

My New TRS-80 Model 4

Posted on May 17, 2008 by Blake Patterson

In my last post, I mentioned that I had rearranged my basement computer room to make room for a new addition to the Byte Cellar. Well, my latest acquisition finally arrived: a TRS-80 Model 4, my first Tandy / Radio Shack computer.

My first memories of the Model 4 are from way back in the summer of ’83. There was a Radio Shack in the mall my mom used to frequently drag me to when I was but an 11 year old geek. This one day, this particular Radio Shack had setup a computer display in front of the store, out in the mall. I sat down at a Model III and fiddled with it a bit. I was using a TI-99/4A at the time and recall really liking that Model III. I asked the woman running the display all about it. She mentioned that the Model 4 was about to be released and that, if I was going to jump, it would be better to wait. Well, I wasn’t about to jump on anything, but it was the first time I’d heard mention of the Model 4.

A big part of why I wanted that TRS-80 is because its form-factor always, to me, represented the image of just what a computer should look like. Its design is perfect, for what it is — screen, drives, keyboard all in just the right place. I wanted to sit in its presence and feel its keyboard and bask in the glow of its 12-inch monochrome CRT. So I bid and won the eBay auction and in the mail it went. And that’s where the adventure began.

This unit was shipped to me by way of the U.S. Postal Service. I’ve often said that J. R. R. Tolkien’s immortal classic The Lord of the Rings could have been a lot shorter if it had simply been decided at the council of Elrond that the ring would be shipped to Morder by way of the USPS. There is no question that it would have been utterly destroyed. So, as you may have guessed, damage ensued.

Upon initial power-up, I discovered two problems: several keys were not registering and the system was not recognizing its floppy drives. Upon opening the case, the cause of the problems were quickly apparent. Jostling during shipping caused the floppy drive controller’s power cable to come loose. Quickly remedied. A look at the bottom of the keyboard, however, revealed a more complex problem. It seems that somewhere along the line a postal worker dropped the package from the top of a mail truck…or something like the same; something caused the TRSDOS document binders to impact the keyboard hard enough to thrust the mid-keyboard support peg through the keyboard’s PCB. It wasn’t pretty. Happily, soldering three bridge lines to the proper key contacts got the keyboard back in working order.

As regular readers will have already guessed, the first thing I did was to set up the Model 4 as a text terminal to my Mac Pro. Omniterm Plus, a hand-made null modem cable and a few magic words in the OS X terminal was all it took. Using vintage machines in this way gives me such a great excuse to finger their keyboards regularly. Some people are serial killers — I’m a serial terminaler, it seems, as this is my fourth such project (one, two, three).

That said, moving through the various TRSDOS and CP/M apps I’ve got on hand is most interesting. I’m expecting to have much fun with this machine in the coming months.

Have a look at my photo gallery as well as the “TRS-80 Love” Flickr group I setup.

Posted in Other Platform, Serial Terminal | 7 Comments

So…How Does a Byte Cellar Podcast Sound?

Posted on May 13, 2008 by Blake Patterson

Inspired by some of the retro computing podcasts I follow (Retrobits, 1MHz, etc.), I’ve developed a slowly growing itch to plop a mic down on my desk and prattle on to anyone who might want to hear what I’ve got to say about computing as I’ve lived it during the 80s and thereabouts.

What do you think? Would another retro computing blog make the world a happier place? Would anyone lend me their ears?

Please share your thoughts in the comments. Thanks!

Posted in Just Rambling | 20 Comments

Site News. Tweet Tweet Tweet.

Posted on May 10, 2008 by Blake Patterson

Just a brief update about the site.

I spent considerable time today doing various Sys Admin types of things in and amongst Byte Cellar. Due to a curious sort of phenomenon, I was pushed to upgrade Movable Type to the latest build, v4.1. Quite a change on the admin side. It seems a good thing.

Also, while I was at it, I placed a sort of widget on the left side of the pages, there. A list of my 10 latest tweets — tweets being Twitter posts. I’ve become a big Twitter addict of late and roughly half of my tweets concern retro computing, it seems. It seemed to make sense to add them to the site. I hope you agree and find them of some interest. If you’re a Twitter user, please follow me!

That’s it, for now. Just a brief update. I’ve got some interesting projects in motion right now that I’m anxious to detail in upcoming posts. Stay tuned!

Posted in Just Rambling | Leave a comment

Turning My Mac Pro Into A Three Headed Beast

Posted on April 29, 2008 by Blake Patterson

A few months back I made a post regarding my SGI 1600SW flatscreen display. It had been sitting mostly dormant as part of my SGI O2 setup for years, so I decided to get it working with my P4-based Shuttle running Ubuntu and XP. I dropped in the GFX-1600SW board I spoke of in that earlier post and everything came together as I’d hoped. Good times.

Not long after, I had cause to clear off some desk space for a new arrival in the Byte Cellar (that’s another story – stay tuned!), so I moved the Shuttle setup to my main workspace, right next to my Mac Pro. The 1600SW fit nicely and I grabbed a tiny Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2 to go with it. A slick setup. I came to realize, however, that it just sat there sad and dark most of the time, since the Shuttle doesn’t see that much use. And then it dawned on me…

All I needed was a second graphics card to put this screen to use as a third display for my Mac Pro. I even had a two-way DVI KVM lying around unused, so the Mac and Shuttle could share the display. How geekily wonderful! A trip to eBay and a few days later I was sliding a GeForce 7300 GT into slot 1 on the Mac Pro. I wired it all up and — shazaam! My desk now looks like something out of The Matrix.

I grabbed some video (above) of the three headed beast going crazy with a little wrap-around iTunes visualization goodness. I definitely opened a can of badass on my Mac Pro with this little exercise. Good times.

Posted in Macintosh, UNIX | 3 Comments

Streaming Live Video From Windows To The Apple //c

Posted on April 16, 2008 by Blake Patterson

Readers will recall that one of my favorite projects of late was putting my beloved Apple //c to daily use as a text terminal to Mac OS X running an IRC client, by way of a null modem serial link. (In fact, you could say I became carried away with the notion.) A recent project I’ve stumbled upon makes my setup look rather dull by comparison.

Joshua Bell, who works for Linden Lab, creators of Second Life, has posted a video demonstrating an application he has written that streams live video from the Windows desktop to the Apple IIc via null modem serial link. It’s full color video (well, all six colors of the Apple II high res screenmode) and it’s surprisingly smooth.

Unexpectedly, no software need be loaded on the Apple //c to get the video up and running. It’s simply a matter of telling the //c to accept input from the modem port (“IN#2”), keying a couple of modem port config commands, and kicking off the app on the Windows side. It dumps a small assembly language program to the //c which accepts the incoming video data through the modem port and starts it running. And that’s it – voila!

Bell’s demonstration features Second Life running full-screen streamed to the //c. It’s an impressive effort. Where’s the Mac OS X version of this clever application?!

Posted in Apple II | 3 Comments

Uthernet Rides Once More!

Posted on April 10, 2008 by Blake Patterson

Apple II lovers take note: a2RetroSystems is selling a limited run of the $89 Uthernet ethernet board for the Apple ][+, IIe, and IIgs. As of this posting there are 16 available. I ordered mine this morning.

Rest assured that I’ll make a nice, juicy post covering my install and initial experiences with the Uthernet board shortly after it arrives. Don’t let this opportunity slip you by!

[ UPDATE: As of 8 a.m. (EDT) this morning (April 11), there are only 3 cards left… ]

Posted in Apple II | Leave a comment