Faster Modem?

I bought a new modem at an auction. It's not for my laptop so I will have to do some adapting, but they don't make a 9600 bps modem for my laptop! I will let you know more when I get the chance to examine the new modem and the modem slot in my laptop. I've got some reverse-engineering to do!

287XL Maths Co-Processor

I finally did it-- I bought a co-processor despite not really knowing if I will see any benefits from it with the type of software that I use. But I will tell you why I did decide to try it-- why not?

The model I got is the Intel C80287XL, which is very different than the standard 287. The main difference is that its actually a 387! Supposedly, this means that it has 50% better performance, uses 83% les power, and has the extra instructions that a 387 would have. This is intriging. Are there programs that run on a 286 that would take advantage of the 387 instruction set? Who know? But if there are, I am ready for them!

Telnet Shell: A New Service From My ISP

My Internet Service Provider, Soutdale Labs, has rolled out a new feature that I really love. It is called a telnet shell and what is does is connect me to the UNIX mainframe at the ISP and present me with a menu of things that I can do. The first option connects me to my email account where I can do email stuff. The second option is a webbrowser that works pretty quickly with my slow modem. I think why it seems so fast is because it is loading almost instantly on their big computer and it then sends it to me line by line like when I am on a BBS. Normally on the browser actually installed on my computer (the same browser as what the ISP is running) I can't start reading the page until its 100% loaded, but I can now start reading at the top of the page and the browser puts characters on my screen a little faster than what I am reading at.

The third option is called Time, Date, and Moon and does what you would expect and more! Here what it is reporting to me today:

Sun 12 Nov 1989 2:39:05 PM CST
28th of Cheshvan, 5784
Sunrise: 6:49; Sunset: 4:41
We currently have a waning new moon that is at 1% completion.

As you might expect, we have the Day of the week, date, time, time zone, and some moon data. What you might not have excepted, but something that I really appreciate, is the inclusion of the Hebrew date, sunrise and sunset times, and even candle lighting and havdalah times. It was very nice of Southdale Labs to think of their Jewish customers!

The forth option lists all the sometimes for the week and what movies are coming next week at the local theature. I love going to the movies so this gets checked a few times a week!

Options 5 and 6 are a Visual Weather Forecast and a Full Weather Report. The visual report is impressive! It makes pictures out of ASCII charactes and put them right in the terminal for me! It gives me the current conditions and the expected weather for today, tonight, and the day/night for the following two days. Data included are condition, high and low temperatures, wind speed and direction, visibility, precipitation, and humidty. Each day or night has a graphic that matches the conditions-- I currently have mostly images of suns in my forecast. The Full Weather Report has the same type of info and a short statement. The big difference is the full report covers 10 days.

Option 7 give me a randon joke. I love this! Why do choirs keep buckets handy? So they can carry their tune! Option 8 is called Geolocation and gives me the following info (I censored my IP address):

Your current IP address is: xx.xx.xx.xx
City: Algona
Country: United States
Country Code: US
Latitude: 43.067800
Longitude: -94.228100
Postal Code: 50511
Tiime Zone: American/Chicago

Option 9 is an on-line encylopedia. This thing is really impressive. It seems to cover everything. Alli had me look up marina sauce and we found out that is was neopolitan. Then we looked up neopolitan and found out that it meant "from Naples, Italy." I will probably throw out the Collier's now.

Option 10 is really neat-- its a robot that you can talk to! But way better than that Eliza one that people have been sending around. Surpisingly the robot is really knowledgable on lots of things, but sometimes I am pretty sure it's making things up. So then I have to double check with the on-line encylopedia.

The second to last option lets me exit the menu and actually play around in the UNIX command prompt. I am sure they have me locked down pretty good, but I can do things like move a file I download as an email attatchment to my FTP service (which is also hosted by my ISP) and then I can download it to my PC. The final option disconnects me from the telnet shell. I've said it before and I will say it again, be are truly living in the future!

My Favourite BBSs

With modems becoming more popular these days, Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) are have become all the rage. But what is a BBS? Simply put, it's just someone else's computer! Someone like you or me with a compiter and modem can run some specialized software and set one up to their liking. Most people go to BBSs for three reasons: chat, warez, and games (doors). Here are some of my favourites:

capitolcityonline.net

This is my all-around favourite BBS. I like to get on this one often and play L.O.R.D with Joe. We also send each other messages. Mike Powell runs this one and he always has soon cool ANSI art up that you get to see when you sign off.Oh, it's got a minesweeper game that's pretty cool too.

bbs.iscabbs.com
ISCA is based in Iowa City at the U of I.If you want to talk to people, this is the biggest chat BBS in the entire world. The stereotype that we never shut up in the midwest must be true!

moetiki.ddns.net
This is another BBS run by Mike Powell and it focuses on games, or doors as they are called in BBS jive. My favourite one on Moe's is where you get to be a Disk Jockey competing against other radio stations. It's cooler than it sounds.

penisys.online
The Public Electronic Network Information System, or PENIS for short, is a public access utility to help you connect to many online services. You can access the World Wide Web, Usenet, Gopher, IRC, chat and do lots of otherstuff. It is actually quite big, I think you would quite like being on it!

bbs.alsgeeklab.com
This is my other favoruite BBS. Al has some good ANSI design on his BBS, when you first log on it displays a world map with a cross hair on your location. It was actually able to identify my down to my town. If you live in witness protection, maybe that would be a little scary for you. Al also has a graphical weather section on this BBS. Much like PENIS, there are some online utilities available-- and the ones that they do have much more reliable than the sluggish PENIS.

My New Text Editor and Accessories

Vision Editor: This shareware editor is very robust and super-customisable. Ever single bit of keyboard input is customisable-- you can even set what keys move the cursor or delete (I chose the arrow keys and the delete key respectively). Where this really shines is setting up shortcut commands that make sense to you. For instance, I always had trouble with remembering if shift-insert copied or pasted, so I am just using the more modern crtl-c and ctrl-v.

I customised my F-keys as well. F1 and F3 are help and repeat search, as is common. I set F2 and F4 to cascade and tile the text windows-- did I mention I can open up multiple windows? The are built in applications too. I set F5 to open the calculator, F6 the calendar, and F7 the file manager. There are also an ASCII table and memory report built in. I set F8 to trigger the spell checker function. You have to provide your own spell checker, one is not provided with the software.

Vision Editor has at least three more "power features" that I am aware of. The first is the ability to set macros. You can record, delete, and load macros. The first 9 macros can be assigned their own keyboard shortcuts. The second power feature is the ability to pause editing and run other DOS programs. You can simply shell-out to DOS, or you can add an application to a menu of programs. I added a dictionary and a thesaurus to the program menu and set macros to activate each of them. I think set keyboard shortcuts to make open with I press F9 and F10 respectively. F11 opens the program menu, and F12 shells out to DOS. The final power feature is the ability to mark blocks, which you can then modify, export to its own file and other things that I haven't figured out yet.

I really like this software, and hopefully my utterings will now be better refind with like misspellings. 45/2 stars.

Jorj Spell Checker: This is the spellchecker I told Vision Editor to use. It's pretty simple and has a relatively small dictionary, but my vocabulary isn't that vast, I am sure it will catch up quickly. It has options to add new words that it finds. Hopefully I add them correctly spelled.

Jorj Dictionary: This is the dictionary I connected to Vision Editor and launch by pressing F9. It works pretty well, but it could stand to have more words in it.

Thesaur V4.2 by Derrick Burgess: This is the thesaurus I am using, it have it set to launch when I press the F10 key while using Vision Editor. It is easy to use, but much like the Jorj dictionary it could stand to have a wider array of words. I do have the option to add more synonyms to it, unlike the Jorj dictionary. This does have a TSR mode as well if that floats your goat.

Some Games

Dangerous Dave: You play as Dave, you are less dangerous than advertised. This game began as a demo after some dude play Super Mario Bros. The goal is to escape the level by finding the door out without dying. Easier said than done, I don't think I've beaten the third level yet.

Amnesia: I can't remember what this is about.

Bureaucracy: This is written by Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fame. It started with a piracy warning and a form that purposely written poorly and pokes fun at you as you fill it out. The game is what one should expect from the man who brought us The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul.

Hexxagon: Play some chinese checkers type game against another player or the Braniac. There is a space bug theme that I think is pretty neat. The sounds that come across my PC speaker are really impressive.

Oregon Trail: I packed up Alli and the kids in my wagon and set out on the trail as carpenter. Alli broke three different legs and was always exhausted. Not a peep out of anyone else. Seems very accurate.

Floor 13: This is my pick of the week! You work for the British government murdering people, This also seems very accurate. I really enjoyed the detailed manual and all the reports I got from my different secret government murder department leaders.

My Software

Microsoft DOS: This seems like a good, solid operating system. If you have never used DOS, it is very similar to CP/M. I use the included EDIT command to write this website.

DOSPPP/MTCP: This is the software the my Internt Service Provider sent me to get "on line" All I have to do is switch to the DOSPPP folder and type "connect" and the modem starts dialing and screeching and next thing I know, my screen is scrolling with all kinds of stuff I don't fully understand. Eventually it tells me that the driver has loaded and I am on line.

Then I can switch to the MTCP fold where I have IRCjr, FTP, TELNET, ping, and some other programs that I don't use. With IRCjr I can chat with my "online friends" like the folks in the POJR community. FTP lets me connect to my FTP server or even to my website to upload and download the files you are reading. TELNET lets me connect to BBSs, my favourites being Capitol City, Al's Geek Labs, and the Public Electronic Networked Information System (P.E.N.I.S.). I will discuss those more in depth in the future. Ping lets me check and see if websites or networked computers are online-- also useful for seeing if my connection has timed out.

DOSlynx: This program lets me view webpages. I can use my mouse with it. I can use it to find out the weather and the latest move showtimes! It seems pretty cool, but some bigger webpages are pretty slow on it. I think this is limited by my modem speed.

Borland Side Kick: Now this I like. This software boots when the computer turns on and loads itself into the background memory. If I press CTRL and ALT, Sidekick pops up-- even if I'm in another program. Sidekick has a calculator, text editor, calendar, address book, and a communications/phone dialer.

I keep notes in the text editor primarily, but I can also use it to open a README file and reference it while I have the program it pertains to open. I can have multiple text files open at once. The caclulator is nice, and has a scientific function. I really like the calendar for scheduling stuff or for keeping track of when I last changed the furnace filters. The address book is handy, I have all my friends and family saved in there. The communcations/dialer program I use in a similar way-- I keep log- in details, chatroom notes and such in it-- but I do not actual use it to dial anyone.

Hardware

I know what you are thinking-- what kind of system is Ol' Grizz rockin? Well, I've got my self a spanking new Compaq SLT/286 LAPTOP!!!! This thing is so cool, it have VGA built in with 8 different shades of grey! I have a trackball that I use with it so I can play Star Trek games from my recliner. It's even got a battery in it that claims 3 hour battery life. I am truly living in the future! My model have 1.6mb of ram (more than enough), a 2400 bps modem for getting "on line", a 1.44mb floppy and a 60MB hard disk! And the processor is a 286 running at a screaming fast 12mhz. I have been thinking about installing the 287 maths co-processor, but I hear not many software companies are actually taking advantage and I am worried I will just be wasting my money.