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Surfing the Internet… From My TRS-80 Model 100

posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 05 2015, @08:48PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-things-we-do dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

ArsTechnica has a fun project--hacking a TRS-80 to get online:

The true test of a man's patience is crimping pins onto the end of a cable that leads to building a custom serial cable—especially if it's the first time you've even handled a serial cable in a decade. So as I searched under my desk, using my phone for a flashlight, I wondered whether I had finally found the IT project that would send me over the edge. On a recent day, I set out to turn my recently acquired vintage Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 computer into a working Internet terminal. And at this moment, I crawled on the floor looking for a DB-25 connector's little gold pin that I had dropped for the sixth—or maybe sixteenth—time.

Thankfully, I underestimated my patience/techno-masochism/insanity. Only a week later, I successfully logged in to Ars' editorial IRC channel from the Model 100. And seeing as this machine first saw the market in 1983, it took a substantial amount of help: a Raspberry Pi, a little bit of BASIC code, and a hidden file from the website of a certain Eric S. Raymond.

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  • (Score: 1) by Illop on Thursday August 06 2015, @04:25PM

    by Illop (2741) on Thursday August 06 2015, @04:25PM (#219134)

    I will leave this here for you. http://commodorebbs.com/ [commodorebbs.com]
    Grab cgterm and get boarding. http://paradroid.automac.se/cgterm/ [automac.se]

  • (Score: 1) by Hyperturtle on Thursday August 06 2015, @04:58PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Thursday August 06 2015, @04:58PM (#219152)

    Awesome, I will have to check some of them out!

    I see some of them appear to be using a similar serial gateway method that I'd mentioned. It almost makes me want to pick up one of those CF card or SD card readers and mount a hard disk on my c64 and start a download with punter. It'd still take a while at 9600 baud... but when relieving memories like this, it is better they remain authentic!

    • (Score: 1) by Illop on Thursday August 06 2015, @05:42PM

      by Illop (2741) on Thursday August 06 2015, @05:42PM (#219170)

      You should! Check out Jim Brains' store http://store.go4retro.com/ [go4retro.com] , specifically the UIEC/SD, Easyflash 3, and the 64nic+. I am a total door game addict and mostly play Empire 2 and Nukem on madworld.bounceme.net:6400. There are still a lot of people BBSing even these days.