Tony is a Geek

  https://neal.fun/internet-artifacts/  It's a journey back in time to the beginnings of what has become a daily part of life for most of us today – the Internet. Neal has unearthed a few gems that might make some laugh or bring tears to their eyes. Somehow, the web used to be a better, more colourful, and more free place than it is today. But let's be optimistic. Someday, someone will look back at the 2020s and say:  Remember back in the good old days... No, no they won't.  Why not? well, people in general today (Gen Z's) are users and mostly not creators.* Well, that was a flaming generalistic statement to make & will probably get me 'cancelled' - however, it is a much deeper conversation starter that I'm not going to attempt to embrace in textual verbage here, instead enjoy the trip down memory lane: https://neal.fun/internet-artifacts/ go buy the guy a coffee too. *note the final date in the list... not much has happened really since 2007, has it?......

Okay, so as you saw in the previous article - the FujiNet device arrived, I plugged it in - I gave it a little whirl, I loaded a few things and pondered what to then do with it. Well, I then decided to do something with it.  Inspired by the weather API lookup and display app, I wondered if I could get it to call out to a node-red API that I'd custom written and get the resulting data and output it to the screen on the Atari 800 XL. As this is version 0.1, I wasn't expecting miracles, not was I expecting it to be polished or pretty - I was just after pure function and I believe I achieved that. So....after scanning a few online videos on good old YouTube and watching many side distraction videos along the way, I found a nice chap who was knowledgeable in all things Atari BASIC - yes, you don't need to code in C (yet), so long as you load up the right APP first!  I confess I did forget that as part of the start of the video and did waste about 15mins wondering what on earth I...

As I expected, the start of the year did it's usual - I had a lovely time over xmas/new year period doing fun things in my personal time and then a return to work and the big blue dominant shadow of work/work overshadowed and eclipsed everything.  TBF though I could just ignore it and carry on as before, however, I needed to wrestle back control of my current project as it was being overrun by people intent on a downward spiral of destruction and I couldn't have that - I have worked too bl00dy hard for the past 3-years to allow it to all collapse and die just because they were not mentally capable of changing into a Research & Development mindset.  Alas, something has to give and for me that is/was my time and effort.  I am glad to say, I and the project are back on track and heading into a positive trajectory. I digress. Whilst my return to Captain-ship and alleviation of mutiny was squashed , I did take the plung and order myself a FUJINET device for the 8-bit Atari...

Yes, you read that correctly.  I've finally managed to get my IBM PC 110 devices running MS-DOS and hooked up to the internet.  The follow page is basically a reminder for myself on how to take a stock device that may or may not have been purchased from Buyee.jp and get it configured for Internet awesomeness... CLICK THE LINK BELOW to READ & SEE HOW IT IS DONE: https://tonyisageek.blogspot.com/p/setting-up-ibm-pc-110-for-wifi-from-ms.html It is indeed possible - if you have enough time and patience, which funny enough I seem to have an abundance of at the moment..... BTW - for context, the IBM PC 110 device is SMALL and I mean really small, considering it was made in 1995, the dimensions are: (HxWxD) (158mm x 113mm x 33mm) - it's the size of an external 3.5" floppy drive ( if you're old enough to remember what one of those is ) https://tonyisageek.blogspot.com/p/setting-up-ibm-pc-110-for-wifi-from-ms.html CLICK THE LINK BELOW to READ & SEE HOW IT IS DONE: CLICK...

Keep an eye out for how this pans out..... yep, Russia built their own internet.  Can't blame them really, if you think about how it was originally designed, how/where traffic goes through, how prone to reliance on other servers in other countries, it does make you wonder why they didn't do something like it sooner. Interesting article here and here and here one quote to keep in mind:  " It’s hard to object to the idea of a robust “sovereign internet” should such a thing become necessary, but it’s hard not to think of it as preparation for conflict to come rather than simple investment in national infrastructure. That said, what exactly Runet will grow to be and how it will be used are still a matter of speculation until we receive more specific reports of its capabilities and intended purposes. "

Whilst doing some tidying up between Xmas and New Year, I found myself in the attic/loft and I found that I had a couple of ATARI ST home computer systems sitting in a few boxes. Well....I had a few days spare and it is that time of year to do some pointless things that are not strictly work related, but are technical and retro. After rummaging through the boxes I found that I had bought a Hard Disc drive back in 2007, this got me thinking and I wondered if I could do something useful with the Atari ST, apart from just playing games... CLICK HERE TO SEE HOW I CONNECTED IT TO THE INTERNET! (and fetched some GMail email) I've even got it setup to compile/build C code too.... let's see what wonders I can create during the following year.  Okay, so it's not going to be competing with the Unreal Engine C++ work I've been doing, but it'll keep me out of trouble.