[Coco] Hi all. New to the list

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 23 February 2010, Todd Wallace wrote:
>Hey all!  Just joined the mailing list and wanted to introduce myself. 
> Lately I have been viewing alot of nostalgic videos of classic computers
> on the net, and it inspired me to drag out my old CoCo3 and hook it up.  I
> used to be part of a mailing list 10 years ago or so.  I look forward to
> discovering what others are doing in this modern age with their own CoCo
> stuff.  I know of one guy who is using his as a webserver. Very cool. In
> this modern day of laptops and PC/Macs without disk drives at all, how do
> you guys go about transferring files back and forth from the internet to
> your CoCo's? Thanks
>
>- Todd Wallace

First, welcome to the list.

I used to use sneakernet, but I built a new linux box about a year ago, and 
the chipset in it no longer has the ability to write a 256 byte sector disk 
format, so I am forced to fire up a copy of a terminal proggy, called minicom 
on linux, and make it use a serial port.  Then I setup my rs-232 pack in an 
MPI as /t2 (running nitros9, used to be OS9, on the coco obviously, 
sourceforge has that and its free also) at the same baud rate, picking one 
slow enough that rz can keep up, 4800 baud will usually be slow enough that 
the broken flow controls won't be needed, and any other errors that creep in 
rz will handle.  Using a stock null modem cable between the two.

Then I start a shell on the coco with "shell i=/t2&" from its keyboard.  From 
minicom on this box, a tap on the enter key and I am looking at the shell 
prompt from the coco.  For me, its 25 feet away in the basement.

Then from minicom, I cd to where I want to put the file on the coco,  and do 
the same with minicom, pointing its upload path at the directory the file I 
want to move is in, then from minicom, start rz on the coco, and then a 
ctrl+a, s enter to pick the zmodem default, which opens a selector window, 
scroll to the file(s) to send, tap the space bar to select, and hit the enter 
key.  Go refill whatever you are drinking, they should get there eventually.

This has exposed some bugs in the current serial driver on the coco, so I and 
Robert Gault are working on swatting those, as once swatted, the transfers 
can go about 2x faster.

Many others have a package called DriveWire working, and I understand it is 
even faster.  It is setup for winders boxes for the most part, and makes it 
appear that you have unlimited storage space attached to the coco, but the 
files actually live on the windows boxes hard drive.  You can get that from 
Cloud9 but will need to make the interconnect cable, or buy it from cloud9, 
the software is free for the downloading.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

I like your SNOOPY POSTER!!