Mulad
New Member
Hi Folks, I'm Mike and I live in Minneapolis.
I have a long history of working with IBM PCs and compatibles beginning with my experiences as a kid in the early '80s, initially using DOS, Windows 3.x, OS/2, and then Linux from around 1997 until today, and I've always had an interest in the history of computing, partly because my parents both worked at IBM in Rochester when I was growing up. These days, my day job is working as a system administrator for a certain supercomputer company known for their location in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin (though long after their heyday -- I started after they had already switched to using AMD and Intel CPUs). Of course, we're now merged into a megacorporation, but it still lets me poke at some interesting technology.
I've been getting into watching several tech-related YouTube channels over the past several years, including Techmoan, The 8-Bit Guy, LGR, Adrian's Digital Basement, and others, and have seen VCF mentioned several times, and have happily enjoyed watching some presentations from the recent VCF Midwest event (as well as older ones too). My inspiration to finally look you guys up and join came after watching Tech Tangents' recent video on backing up a Dauphin DTR-1, and watching Shelby's frustration with trying to get data off of the machine. I felt he was on the right track trying to get INTERSVR/INTERLNK to work, but wasn't aware that there are also ways of either typing in a program on the DOS command line or using the serial port to inject a program directly onto the machine in an automated way, which has led down quite an interesting rabbit hole.
Of course, the ways of doing that were on the edge of my knowledge, too. I'd used LapLink ages ago, and recommended he try that, but then I went on a kick of thinking about how to write a program myself to do what I was thinking of -- DOS version 2.0 and up has the "CTTY" command, which I now have learned has been exploited by programs like FastLynx, Norton Commander, and even LapLink to enter commands on a target machine, transfer data, and do other automation and control. I've made a couple of little proof-of-concept utilities, and if they ever get to the point of being able to transfer full files and do anything actually useful, I may finally have something to publish to that GitHub account of mine that's just been collecting dust...
Anyway, aside from my interest in a wide variety of computing topics, I'm also into a number of other things like urban design, public transit and trains/railroading, and bike/pedestrian policy and infrastructure.
Hope to see you around
I have a long history of working with IBM PCs and compatibles beginning with my experiences as a kid in the early '80s, initially using DOS, Windows 3.x, OS/2, and then Linux from around 1997 until today, and I've always had an interest in the history of computing, partly because my parents both worked at IBM in Rochester when I was growing up. These days, my day job is working as a system administrator for a certain supercomputer company known for their location in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin (though long after their heyday -- I started after they had already switched to using AMD and Intel CPUs). Of course, we're now merged into a megacorporation, but it still lets me poke at some interesting technology.
I've been getting into watching several tech-related YouTube channels over the past several years, including Techmoan, The 8-Bit Guy, LGR, Adrian's Digital Basement, and others, and have seen VCF mentioned several times, and have happily enjoyed watching some presentations from the recent VCF Midwest event (as well as older ones too). My inspiration to finally look you guys up and join came after watching Tech Tangents' recent video on backing up a Dauphin DTR-1, and watching Shelby's frustration with trying to get data off of the machine. I felt he was on the right track trying to get INTERSVR/INTERLNK to work, but wasn't aware that there are also ways of either typing in a program on the DOS command line or using the serial port to inject a program directly onto the machine in an automated way, which has led down quite an interesting rabbit hole.
Of course, the ways of doing that were on the edge of my knowledge, too. I'd used LapLink ages ago, and recommended he try that, but then I went on a kick of thinking about how to write a program myself to do what I was thinking of -- DOS version 2.0 and up has the "CTTY" command, which I now have learned has been exploited by programs like FastLynx, Norton Commander, and even LapLink to enter commands on a target machine, transfer data, and do other automation and control. I've made a couple of little proof-of-concept utilities, and if they ever get to the point of being able to transfer full files and do anything actually useful, I may finally have something to publish to that GitHub account of mine that's just been collecting dust...
Anyway, aside from my interest in a wide variety of computing topics, I'm also into a number of other things like urban design, public transit and trains/railroading, and bike/pedestrian policy and infrastructure.
Hope to see you around