New subject: Excercising vintage items - was: Commodore 8010 IEEE-488Acoustic Modem ?

21 Oct 2004

...
   I have to
admit - I do not have a burning desire to connect to anything
 at 300 bps --- But I do have a burning desire to see it work. 
Understandable.  If you really need a serial port, there are faster items
out there... but AFAIK, at the moment, that's the fastest you have... 
I don't *need* a serial port (I have a real one on my SuperPET) ... My point
is that I don't like to just put stuff on the shelf ... I like to get it
working.

...
   In this case,
I think it would be "cool" to be able to demonstrate a PET
 connected through the 8010 IEEE modem to my Hayes S-100 modem (also a 103 type)
 in an Altair running a BBS system - This would show how it really worked!
 - but I don't expect anyone to actually want to use such a setup for any
   other purpose. 
Sure.  I even have a couple of devices that are handy for that - Telephone
C.O. simulators...  
Thats no a problem for me - One of my main lines of "day" work these days is
the development of a small office PBX (www.talkswitch.com) which is very small
and easily portable (good for demos), and provides full switching etc. I also
do dial-up point-of-sale banking terminals, so I have lots of equipment to
simulate and monitor various phone line condition - not that it's really needed
to "make a call" to a demo BBS.

...
 The other thing I do with vintage equipment is
show-and-tell.  Mostly at
home with friends, but I have hauled an -8/L, w/rack, w/ASR-33 to a
local convention for a computer exhibit (along with lots of C= equipment)
Unfortunately, some bastard, most likely a hotel employee (or someone
with a lockpick, since it was after hours from a padlocked room) walked off
with my Dell P-133 laptop with about two weeks of recent Open Source
work on it.  The show was a success - losing two wireless cards and a
fully tricked out Linux laptop was a real bite. 
That really bites. Agree completely on "show and tell" - I also find it's
a great ice-breaker, I don't know how many people have come to the office
for meetings of one sort or another and almost immediately start talking
about seeing something on my site which was their first computer. Often
said meeting is followed by a trip to the basement to play with the toys.

Regards,
Dave
-- 
dave04a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Vintage computing equipment collector.
                http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html