vga256

vga256, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago) to opensource

as some of you know, i'm writing a decentralized #foss reddit-like, not- #usenet server/web client called #tomo.

i'm at the stage where i need to make some decisions about how discussion groups are organized on the network, and i'd like your thoughts.

an open question for #fidoNet, #usenet and #reddit users of yore:

1. do you prefer nntp's hierarchical tree-style format for groups, e.g. alt.binaries.warez.ibm.pc.old, or reddit's flat organization of /r/mysubreddit? how about fidonet-style?

2. what's a reasonable character limit on group names? e.g. reddit enforces a 21 character limit on subreddit titles.

vga256, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to hamradio

this past year alone, my family has faced evacuation twice in the #canadian north due to #wildfire. during the current evac, thousands of northerners have zero communication with their families, emergency personnel or access to wildfire data.

this is entirely due to the collapse of NorthwesTel's fibre network infrastructure and zero secondary systems for comms. the sub/arctic is infamous for its fragile, ancient comms architecture.

i want to change that, and i'd like help thinking out loud about potential citizen-owned/operated technologies for long-distance emergency comms.

#hamradio and #packetradio enthusiasts - could you please recommend some research resources on the following:

• legal/frequency considerations for non-voice/packet transmission specific to #Canada
• recommended hardware & software for 1000km+ transmission, tcp/ip
• examples of amateur radio clubs that have undertaken this kind of role before

if possible, please respond with links to documentation, research and/or policy papers.

my entire family has worked wildfire management since the teletype days, and i hopefully can effect some actual useful change for northerners here.

vga256, 2 months ago to SmallWeb

little story for tonight.

while i was goofing around with #globalTalk, I ended up searching for some old Simpsons icons for my classic Macintosh (an LC 475), and stumbled upon an entry on the garden called Banned Simpsons Icons. (Who could resist downloading something with a title like that?)

They were called the "Banned Simpsons Icons" because Fox once sent the artist - Jeanette Foshee - a cease & desist letter for her uncannily perfect renderings of the copyrighted characters. they planned on suing her for every penny she made ($0.00) on them. this was back in 1995.

i thought - hell, what a wild story. why don't I get a hold of the artist - jeanette - and find out more about her banned icon set?

what i stumbled upon broke my heart, and i ended up spending a week digitally preserving what i could find.

read the rest of this diary entry here: https://www.dialup.cafe/~vga256/diary.htm

#smallWeb #homepage #worldwideweb #marchintosh #macintosh

vga256, 11 months ago to reddit

while i'm sad to see #reddit circling the toilet, it only reminded me of how urgent it is that we finally ditch centralized social media. reddit itself isn't the problem - it's a symptom of a much more generalized problem we've had since FB became a thing in the late 00's.

i've spent the past week re-purposing, patching, porting, and expanding a great piece of software based on the same #nntp protocol that #usenet uses, for creating discussion groups. i'm calling it "tomo" (友 - 'friend') bbs.

some time soon folks can spin up their own tomo shards, create discussion groups in a similar manner to reddit, decide whether they want to keep the group restricted to their shard, or share the group with other tomo shards in a public network of discussion groups called tomonet. completely decentralized private or public discussions without supercorporation bs.

best of all, since it is based on plain 'ol usenet-like nntp, you can read and post to discussion groups from a 1977 VAX mainframe, a 1984 IBM PCjr at 2400 baud, an Apple Newton, or a brand new phone.

i can't wait to bust out forté free agent for windows 3.11 and get posting this weekend. 😎

vga256, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago) to usenet

#IndieWeb #SmallWeb #RetroComputing

some of you know that i've been working on a decentralized reddit-like that uses an ancient ambrosian protocol called nntp, minus #usenet, called #tomo

after several requests for a project status page, and lacking the courage to build a fancy web portal that is 190mb and 20,000 javascript calls, i did the exact opposite:

i stayed up until 2am and wrote a #homepage is absolute raw satan-approved php. it generates the webpages from text files with a tiny markup language i wrote at the same time

for now, the tomo homepage is a plain old .plan file (when's the last time we heard that word, since the carmack vs romero wars?), and you can have any colour you want as long as it's amber and looks like wordperfect 5.1 running on some godforsaken library terminal on the #worldwideweb

is it like a blog? kinda. i'll set up some more static pages for project-related stuff in the coming days

if people really, really want to, and someone asks nicely, i'll even run a fingerd server so you can finger me and pull down the .plans down yourself 😅

https://tomo.city/index.php

vga256, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to SmallWeb

after watching doug block's Home Page (1999) documentary a half-dozen times over the past year, i realized how much i missed having a personal home page.

not an itch.io page. not a github repo. not an imgur album.

an actual personal home page full of links to interesting places and people, and a little blog area to write personal stuff in. i haven't had a personal blog since the early 2000s.

i wanted to have some fun, so I hauled my dusty ol' iMac G5 out of storage and installed Macromedia Dreamweaver and Fireworks. i hadn't used any of them in almost 20 years.

i thought it might take me a week to build a home page...

... it took me a year 😅

so this is my little attempt at rebuilding what we lost in the 90s. let me know if you've got a little homepage i can link back to in my hyperlinks area.

http://www.dialup.cafe/~vga256

#smallWeb #worldWideWeb #homePage #indieWeb

vga256, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to random

TIL: someone has been rebuilding Eudora 7 from source, with QoL (and modern SSL) improvements for the past few years... and plans eventually release final builds for Win/Mac.

has anyone had a chance to try HERMES 8 e-Mail? the only thing i can find on the web is an early Windows alpha here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/hermesmail/files/

Update: it turns out Eudora was open sourced a few years ago! The original Eudora 7 Win/Mac source available here, even for commercial use:

https://computerhistory.org/blogs/the-eudora-email-client-source-code-license-agreement/

vga256, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to internet

now that i've got a lot of the core parts of #tomo working, i have an open design question for you fellow amateur architects of social communities:

the #internet of the #90s was seen as a means for replacing regionalism with globalism. we gained a lot - mostly a high volume of people with shared interests, but i think we lost something vital in that transition.

the #bbs of the 80s and 90s was unique in that most were inherently geared to local use within a 5-20 km radius, often due to telco long distance fees. users already had locality in common by the time they began a conversation.

local user meetups were commonplace. people would spontaneously invite everyone in an area code to a "403 gathering" or a "667 meetup", have beer and coffee, and chat for the sake of chat.

i'd like to facilitate letting users weave their local social fabric into tomo's design, and i'd like some examples of how that has worked elsewhere.

have you ever seen an online community that had a unique way of creating a sense of locality for its users? what did you like about it?

vga256, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago) to Canada

my extended family (not me!) was put under evac notice a few hours ago in the northwest territories of #canada

this photo by julie beaver looks as if someone got a little happy with instagram filters....

... but it is perfectly color-accurate. this is what it looks like in the southern #NWT right now, due to dozens of out of control #wildfires

vga256, 10 months ago to bbs

as a teenager in the mid 1990s my first real game programming job was a port of @rtsoft's LORD to my badass TI-85 graphing calculator.

in the evenings i'd dial up my local #bbs, play LORD for 25 turns and write down every interaction, trying to figure out the game mechanics

the next morning in high school math class, i'd take my notes and implement them in TI-BASIC. this cycle went on for weeks.

a month later, i was failing math. the teacher figured out i was making games, took my TI-85 away, wiped its memory, and locked it in her classroom closet for the rest of the semester 🤣

a few years ago, over a few nights, i reprogrammed Legend of the Black Dragon v2.0 on my slightly newer TI-83+ and implemented more balanced combat and extensive courtship mechanics. 😆

A TI-83+ screen that reads: ROSA THE BARMAID 1. WINK AT HER 2. PECK HER CHEEK 3. KISS HER! 4. BEND A KNEE
A TI-83+ screen that reads: RABID FARMER DIES IN AGONY YOU LOOK 27 GP AND GAIN 4 XP.
A TI-83+ screen that reads: VILLAGE SQUARE 1. FOREST 2. TAVERN 3. BLACKSMITH 4. SHRINE 5. SAVE AND QUIT

vga256, 3 months ago to retrocomputing

over one year my retrocomputing storage room went from an organized archive to this disaster. today i’ve had enough. time to sort and clean. 😬

#marchintosh #retrocomputing

vga256, 6 months ago to random

open question for #dosgaming folks:

has there ever been an adventure game with flight simulator gameplay, or a flight simulator with point'n'click adventuring?

vga256, 22 days ago (edited 22 days ago) to Fonts

oh hell yes. i think i just found the original typeface used: it was LTC Spire by the Lanston Type Company

edit: it led to a fascinating web preservation backstory about the origins of the font itself:
https://dialup.cafe/@vga256/112460660100094359

#fonts

vga256, 2 months ago to zerowaste

i need a new repair and restoration project like i need a third butthole.

but i couldn’t say no to this poor old IBM Selectric rotting in a government surplus warehouse for $5. once the pride and joy of some government office, it is completely gummed with sawdust and old lubricant.

besides, there’s something so wonderful about the premium burgundy/wine ones. i can’t wait to get the grime off and see the original colour. this will become a piece of functional artmaking equipment when it is done.

#typewriters #permacomputing #zerowaste

vga256, 4 months ago to random

🤞 may be picking up an Apple PowerCD today so i can finally play Myst on my LC and Color Classic!

#Macintosh #vintageApple

vga256, 5 months ago to random

when I was ten years old there was nothing more futuristic than a #Sega Master System and games that used the card port

it still makes me smile 🤓

vga256, 8 months ago to random

ever own a piece of electronics equipment that, when you look at it, you say: you’re going to try burning my house down when my back is turned aren’t you?

for me, it’s this ricketyass EPROM wiper made by “L S Engineering” in the 70s or 80s. it’s just a plastic box with a transformer inside wired to a tiny fluorescent ballast. wires run haphazardly inside and terminate in a wall plug. i got it free in a box of junk several years ago

let’s see if this thing works.

vga256, 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to design

i absolutely miss the kai krause #design inspired homepages of the late 90s.

this western canadian ISP's splash page, circa 1997, features the kinds of bulbous, spherical buttons in a circular arrangement that enjoyed a brief popularity in that era ☺️

for @irenes and @alfvaen

https://web.archive.org/web/19970331194330/http://telusplanet.net/

vga256, 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago) to random

today’s pickup is a Palm Tungsten E2. really excited about this one because it has a built-in SD card slot and bluetooth, making for super easy program/file transfers

appears to never have been used, and the battery still holds a strong charge!

this is going to become my bedtime #infocom and #interactivefiction game machine

vga256, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to Japan

in an age of ridiculous unaffordability for video game preservation, it is sometimes miraculous to stumble across incredible deals for japanese games.

for a whole $5, I received four Super Famicom titles, one of which I have lusted over for a more than a decade

left to right:

Dragon Quest VI
Pilotwings
Sound Novel Otogirisou
Sound Novel Yakouchuu

#japan #superFamicom #gamepreservation

vga256, 9 months ago to random

back in '03 i spent two weeks in urban japan, exploring its many train stations and alleys

imagine my shock at finding not only an #Ultima Online ad on a billboard, but showing it running on a flip phone five years after I had stopped playing it

i was always mystified by the billboard, and thought about it on and off for 20 years

i was finally able to track down the story behind the ad. it turned out to be a real game, but not #UO was we know it.

Ultima Online Mobile Edition was a completely different final fantasy-style pixel art combat game for the NTT DoCoMo network. it even had a monster/pet breeding minigame.

sadly, the game is lost to time - the game was only playable on a handful of japanese handsets, and no one ever thought to dump it before it disappeared.

what little information we have about it linked below. thank you to @bombbloke for their help in tracking this all down:

https://k--tai-watch-impress-co-jp.translate.goog/cda/article/news_toppage/13544.html?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

https://www-itmedia-co-jp.translate.goog/mobile/0304/09/n_appdx.html?_x_tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en

https://web.archive.org/web/20030409062708/http://www.dwango.co.jp/press/release/press_r_c20030408.html

Adorable pixel art of a top-down view similar to Final Fantasy II, in a medieval style.
Adorable pixel art of a top-down view similar to Final Fantasy II, in a medieval style. One screenshow shows Lizardmen with spears, and another a troll with a large club.

vga256, 4 months ago to retrogaming

i am playing déjà vu for the first time and i seriously think i missed out on a crucial childhood experience 🤣

#vintageApple #1bitArt #retroGaming #hypercard

vga256, 3 months ago to minidisc

GASP

it took 20 years, but i finally got my dream minidisc player: a Sony MZ-S1 Sports NetMD. 🤯

a neighbour down the street listed it for sale "untested" which usually means 'i tested it and it's broken'.

i gambled and bought it on sight. i practically ran home like a 9 year old just to put it through its paces, and it is perfect. 😆

the build quality is rugged and beautiful throughout. many of the surfaces are rubberized with a polymer that is still soft (and hasn't broken down). the curvilinear surfaces feel so good in the hand, makes you want to hold it. the pearlescent white finish hasn't even yellowed yet (!)

instead of a jog dial, you get a mini thumbstick which rests surprisingly well under the thumb. the deep orange display of the Sports S2 line has always been a favourite of mine - something no other company did.

i can't wait to load up SonicStage on my iMac and start transferring music :D
failing that, i'll be using WebMiniDisc to transfer music in-browser

https://webminidisc.com

#miniDisc

The top of a Sony NetMD showing a white thumbstick which controls volume and tracks.
The side of the Sony NetMD, showing a "miffy" branded minidisc ejected from the side.

vga256, 17 days ago to retrocomputing

when i was a kid, buying a new game was serious business. it meant saving up my weekly farm-chore allowances of $2.50 for six to eight months, before I could afford a brand new computer game. this usually meant about one new PC game a year, along with whatever I got for christmas.

among the lost pieces of canadian computing history are the retail prices for computer hardware and software we swallowed in the 1990s

buried in the archives was this Softwarehouse catalogue from 1994 - an Edmonton-based computer retailer from the 80s and 90s.

enjoy skimming through the eyeball-gouging prices we paid back then, like an $80 copy of Isaac Asimov's Science Adventure for DOS. this was mostly due to a crushing US-CAN exchange rate at the time.

ps: anyone else remember visiting Softwarehouse in YEG? it was at 102 ave and 108 st :D

#retroComputing #gamePreservation #1990s #yeg

Prices for games: Dark Legons - $57.95 Isaac Asimov's Science Adventure - $79.95 Myst $74.95
Prices for desktop publishing software. CorelDraw 5 - $799.95 FrameMaker - $929
Prices for computer games. Myst $74.95 Microsoft Flight simulator $59.95 Doom $64.95 Spectre VR $59.95

vga256, 17 days ago to retrocomputing

i'm finally opening up boxes of software from my archive that haven't seen the light of day in 15-20 years. today, i found a program that has never been archived or probably seen in over 40 years.

i absolutely adore this dungeon mastering program for the TRS-80 that was distributed in ziplock bags in 1982

i can find only one mention of it on the web - the august 1982 issue of TRS-80 Rainbow magazine that advertises it for $19.95 + S&H

happily, i found the cassette, which has never been archived anywhere AFAIK. i am scanning in the printed documentation, along with making a recording of the tape.

#gamePreservation #trs80 #tandy #retroComputing #retroGaming

The rear page of the game's cover, printed on tan-coloured stock. It describes the different programs included with the software: Rooms I - "This displays 99 different rooms on the screen in hi-res graphics." Character Generation: With this your color computer will make the tedious job of rolling up new characters for players and non-players a breeze The Dungeon: A completely mapped and keyed two level dungeon designed for use with the ROOMS I program. Monster Generator: With just a touch of a key, a complete set of random monster characteristics The dice Bag: Simulate 36 different rolls of polyhedral dice instantly. It will make your old dice bag obsolete.
A hand-drawn map of a dungeon schematic (from the top-down), with a cave-like entrance, into a series of interlocked passageways and rooms. It has hatched shading marks to indicate dungeon walls.
There is obviously a great deal of interest in fantasy and included, with the numbers of the rooms supplicd. role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons™ That is. Module Two allows for the creation of both player and ‘one of the reasons we carry regular column on the sublect. non-player characters...