Subj : i remember.. a fancy new laptop
To   : Kurt Weiske
From : August Abolins
Date : Tue Feb 09 2021 21:01:00

Hello Kurt Weiske!

** On Monday 08.02.21 - 09:26, Kurt Weiske wrote to August Abolins:

 KW> I discovered one of those way back when. Company had bought
 KW> a Toshiba T1100, an XT-era laptop for transferring files,
 KW> and it sat most of the time unused.

Unused?  The horror!

But I felt like a hot-shot with that thing. I don't remember  
what brand/model mine was, but the year was 1994. It was really  
cool to take some updated code onto diskette, upload it to the  
servers back home and get confirmation from my buddies back at  
the home lab within minutes.

One of the reasons I was sent on the trip was to take "code"  
with me and test things.  And when all bugs or mods were worked  
out, the idea was to come back with something that worked.   
There was a hands-on training component too, but the software  
was the heart of everything.

 KW> With a 1200 baud modem and little adult supervision from
 KW> 0730 to 1000 or so, I could call all my favorite BBSes
 KW> every day.

I demonstrated calling a few bbses from that laptop. I don't  
remember if I left a wow impression or a meh impression with  
that.

 KW> We had a midrange computer with Televideo terminals at each
 KW> desk. I later realized the terminal had 2 serial ports, and
 KW> a function key to switch between the two that worked like a
 KW> "boss" key. see the boss walking down the hallway, hit
 KW> Fn12, and switch back to the work screen.  :)

I had some temptations to call out to BBSes at work too. I had a  
cubicle with an outside window behind me, so I was always facing  
"IN" and could see who was coming.

 KW> Worked like a charm, but the closest to ANSI it'd do was
 KW> VT52.

I was connecting to two different VAX systems so it was VTxxx  
for me too.

--
  ../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.48
 * Origin: my little micronet point (618:510/1.1)

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