Bear with me, it's been a long time since I have built a page, much less
use HTML. Gotta love old school technologies.
Which brings me to my next point...who am I?
My name is John, and I was born and raised in Washington State. That's
right.
The capitol of rain, coffee, and computers. I suppose all of those things
have something in common, as there's not much to do outside when its
raining.
Having grown up in awe of mechanical and electrical marvels, I have
always been intrigued by how things work. This has led to learning about
how to tear down simple machines up to repairing complex circuitry and
system programming.
Now I'm no engineer, I'm merely a student in the advent of technologies,
new and old; but my passion lies more for the latter than the former.
Having an affinity for old computer systems and operating systems, I
have learned not only the history and science of technologies of days
past, but applied those learned concepts to troubleshooting newer techs.
I currently live in the southwest part of what is known as the
Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex (or depending if you're from Fort Worth,
it's Fort Worth-Dallas metroplex) where I enjoy sunshine, lawn care,
porch kittie, BBQ and strong drink (only in moderation folks)
I have a collection of various systems. As of this writing, I am on my
laptop (Windows 7 using PuTTY with SSH login to my shell account on
SDF.org) I suppose there's two subjects that fork from here, but I will
save the divulgent details for my other pages, while trying to be
somewhat brief on this page.
In search of numerous alternatives to the newer commonplace means
of communication and social media, I have delved into the old
stomping grounds of the pre-internet days. Dialup bulletin boards in
which I
dabbled in when I was younger, I happened to have finally came across
such a place in
which I can log on through a terminal program (such as PuTTY as I'm
using right now) or I dial in with my old various systems. With SDF.org
(which if you've read this far, you've seen that I have made numerous
mentions of it, go check it out!) I have been granted access to a small
piece of the web in which I can host this little giblet of my life, and
explain and show some of the things I hold dear and passionate to me.
All along with being able to communicate with others using text-based
email (as opposed to geemail or hawtmail or yaehuoomail), hosting my web
page (which brings back so many memories from years ago) as well as play
text based games such as Zork or Dope Wars (dont knock it til you try
it!)
Anyways, slong story hort, I'm just here having fun learning about how
to communicate and share with others in a more complex and challenging
but fun way for me, as well as showcase some of my collection of vintage
systems and various musings. For now, this is all I have. But my TO-DO
list does consist of at least logging in with one of each of my
collected systems, and writing and posting a page about each system and
a brief history of how they were obtained and so on.
Well, it's so long for now, I'll be back soon. I'm having too much fun
here to stop now. And I'm only getting started!
Acknoledgements
First and foremost: I would like to say Hello to my friends and family!
I know (and heard) how much you would like for me to have a Macebook
Page (spelling changed to protect the not-so-innocents).
This is my stopping point in which my word and thoughts will meld into
pixels and stop-bits. I will post when I can, God willing.
And yes, I will definitely research how to add comment section so each
and every one can throw mud at my digital face and see what sticks. Be
lucky, and I might throw some back! :-P
Second, I would like to thank the members and administrators at sdf.org
(If you're still reading this, go check them out! Non-profit group
allowing small bandwith net access, web hosting, and so much more
through text terminals and the contributions of its members, including
me!)
Thank you!
And last but not least, everyone else still reading up to this point,
from my neurons (and Jack Daniels) to my fingertips, from plastic to
keyswitches, from bits to bytes, from air to copper, to fiber, to what,
who, and whereever....God bless!
And the tribbles.
RIP my parenthesis.
Update: 15 May 2020
Status: Worn - Mood: eh
Well it's Friday morning here in Central time. Listening to some good dnb music (the bassment) thanks to c895.org, which is a
local radio
station in Seattle that hosts dance music, but more importantly, good trance and drum and bass
It's been a long two weeks back to work. But since my last update, I have been able to network my IBM PC AT 5170 with a 3com
3com 3c509TPO network card, using mTCP and telnet to log in and view some newsboards and mess around. Attached to it is my
Samsung Electron Devices amber-colored CRT, which really adds to the effect of a working terminal system. Absolutely love it.
Been waiting awhile to do that.
In addition to that, I have acquired another Apple IIe, and my now most favorite? machine, my 1987 Tandy TL1000, complete with
MSDOS 3.3 and all the original files and DeskMate (which for those who don't know, IS THE BEST compared to Windows.) I took
everything apart and inspected it. Very clean. Only issue was the factory hard disk was stuck and not spinning. I removed the
cover and attempted to manually move the platters, which worked successfully. I removed the drive from the caddy it was
attached to and installed it into the next available 3.5 inch bay, next to the floppy drive, so if for any reason it failed
again, I could easily remove the cover and break the stiction again, as opposed to the removal of the card, drive and caddy.
Very excited to get some games loaded up on both. Will cut some film soon enough for it. (As of now, its trying to extract
Dungeons and Dragons "Pool of Radiance" game. Very slow. Sad!)
Anyways folks, that's all I got for now. Still messing around here, I'll do my best to keep a breast.
