For some reason I find connecting any dial-up modem era computer or earlier to the internet rather interesting. Not because a computer this old would make a great device to use to surf the net, because of course it doesn’t. It’s a terrible user experience. This article therefore over at Ars Technica caught my attention, about connecting a TRS-80 model 100 laptop to the internet, using homebrew serial cable connections and various other technical noodlery to get working.
Maybe it was this intro to the article that got my attention:
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.
Yep, been there recently. I posted a while back on G+ about connecting an Kantronics Packet Radio TNC (Terminal Network Controller) to my Atari 1040ST, for no other reason than at the time that this was the only computer I had available on my desk that still had an old school style DB25 serial port connector.
I’ve been shopping for a while to add network and/or SD Card disk support to my Atari ST, but still wondering if I really want to spend this much on adding support to something that I only tinker with occasionally? On my shopping list is either one of these or one of these, but maybe a better option would be one of these FPGA boards with support for a number of different hardware devices. This will probably give me more flexibility to tinker with a number of platforms. Choices choices. 🙂