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Mac 128K, BBS & The Internet?
- Thread starter Mac128
- Start date
luddite
Host of RetroChallenge
If you can figure out the serial connection to OS X part the you could just sign up for a RetroNET account (type "telnet retro-net.org" at the prompt), that will give you access to to PINE (email and usenet) and LYNX (internet) and a few other nifty things without having to mess with the UNIX command-line. I realise it's not exactly what you had in mind, but it's likely the easiest way to accomplish the goal of sending email from your 128K.
4seasonphoto
Well-known member
Remember that in the The Olden Days, the heavy lifting (TCP/IP, mail clients, etc) were all done by the host system! Even after Apple officially supported TCP/IP with Open Transport in the System 7.5 era, it remained an OPTIONAL install for some time. Up until that time, you connected to the outside world as a terminal, and some of these terminals grew very fancy and graphical, like AOL's and eWorld's, but the basic functionality still resided on the host computer.
When you connect as a terminal to an OS X box (or other Unix-type system) you don't need to worry about "converting terminal based mail app output" because the host system takes care of that. OS X already includes mail (non-GUI) which you can use, but you will need to configure it to talk to your mail servers.
Just as an aside, well... I was fuzing with this out of curiosity, and I never was able to make a USB serial adapter spawn a console out of /etc/ttys automatically. The oft-quoted "use 'screen' to start a getty" manual process works, but trying to adapt the procedure that works for built-in serial ports (on old G3s or Xserves) faceplanted. I wasn't able to Google an example of someone making it go. (Closest I got was someone saying they couldn't make it work on a Mac Mini+USB dongle either.) Anyone here ever bothered?
Configuring a serial console is of course child's play on any other UNIX...
epooch
Well-known member
Find the tty device you want to use in /dev. Here are the devices I can use:
Code:
$ls /dev/tty\.*
tty.modem
tty.usbserialedit /etc/ttys to include the usb serial device:
Code:
tty.usbserial "/usr/libexec/getty local.9600" vt100 on
Code:
sudo killall -HUP launchd
If you have a newer old Mac with MacTCP and MacPPP installed, but no ethernet card, configure pppd (see "man pppd") on Mac OS X and just run pppd when you login. That will start a full TCP/IP session over the serial port. No ethernet adapters, routers or bridges required.
So, what's the proper serial cable?
With a Mac Plus or newer with mini Din 8 serial port, you can use a apple DB9 modem cable, or just make it and include the null modem loop-backs:
This : http://www.jneuhaus.com/applserl.html or this: http://ccadams.webatu.com/se/serial.html should do the trick.
I made a mini DIN8 to DB9 rs422 to RS232 adapter, and then a null modem and a straight through DB9 cable.
If you are using a pre-Mac Plus you have to convert from the DB9 RS422 to DB9 RS232. I made an adapter as posted here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA27966?viewlocale=en_US.
But you need to find a female mini Din 8 and male DB9. This way I can use the same cable on either computer and just use an extra adapter. You can make the connection directly using 2 DB9 connectors, but you will need to figure the pinout out yourself using the two links from above. A straight through DB9 cable or RS232 null modem WILL NOT WORK.
Good luck!
Last edited by a moderator:
epooch
Well-known member
Here are a few final things:
You can do file transfers back and forth from MacTerminal (I still use v 1.1) to Mac OS X with a few command line utilities (macutils) available on Mac OS X. It is nice because you can initiate the transfers in both directions from the old mac, just like you used to on a BBS system. I used to use ZTerm on Mac OS X to send applications to 400k disks, but it can be a pain to have to go back and forth to start the transfers.
Because the Mac OS X serial port is being used by getty, it is unavailable for other applications. With the cheap price of these things (prolific adapters on ebay or old Belkin adapters in the thrift store), it is pretty cost effective to have a few laying around.
So that's about everything you need to know to get your old Mac connected to Mac OS X, and then the internet just like when you used to connect to a BBS. All you need to do is learn a tiny bit of unix command line syntax!
You can do file transfers back and forth from MacTerminal (I still use v 1.1) to Mac OS X with a few command line utilities (macutils) available on Mac OS X. It is nice because you can initiate the transfers in both directions from the old mac, just like you used to on a BBS system. I used to use ZTerm on Mac OS X to send applications to 400k disks, but it can be a pain to have to go back and forth to start the transfers.
Because the Mac OS X serial port is being used by getty, it is unavailable for other applications. With the cheap price of these things (prolific adapters on ebay or old Belkin adapters in the thrift store), it is pretty cost effective to have a few laying around.
So that's about everything you need to know to get your old Mac connected to Mac OS X, and then the internet just like when you used to connect to a BBS. All you need to do is learn a tiny bit of unix command line syntax!
