Posted: in 2003?

A long time ago I put a RadioShack TRS-80 on the internet by hooking it up to a FreeBSD box using getty, and I wanted to do this project again just to prove it :). So anyway, this is what I did: I have a Sun Sparc LX box running Solaris 9 and a TRS-80 with an rs-232 adaptor cartridge. Below you will see a picture of the TRS-80 (thank you John for donating the TRS-80 to my collection) and the RS-232 catridge.

And here is a picture of the full set up. The Amiga computer is not actually plugged in. I use the Amiga monitor as a TV set by hooking it up to a VCR through the composite out on the VCR. Since the VCR has a TV tuner built in, by hooking up a simple rabbit ear antenna I can get TV. Yes, this is the main TV set I have (further proof that I have no life). The TRS-80 is hooked up to the VCR through an RF-Modulator (as normal) tuned to channel 4. The TRS-80 is hooked up to the Sun Sparc LX box through a NULL modem cable. Since all Sun Microsystems Sparc boxen have a console on the serial port, this is an ideal computer for this project. The Sparc LX is hooked up to the internet through its standard 10BaseT connector. Here is a picture of the setup:

When I turn on the TRS-80 on I get this screen (another note, this is a TRS-80 color box. It's newer than the old Z80 boxen, and runs on a Motorola 6800 microprocessor). Sorry for the crappy photos. The glare killed it. So anyway, the caption on the screen reads: EXTENDED COLOR BASIC 1.1 / COPYRIGHT (C) 1982 BY TANDY / UNDER LICENSE FROM MICROSOFT. Look at Microsoft's claws in everything even in 1982. Altho today we have the blue screen of death, back then we had the green screen of "I'm gonna throw up". No wonder people bought Commodore 64's instead :)

Here is the login screen for the Solaris box. An interesting note is that the TRS-80 cannot do lowercase letters. So to compensate for this, it highlights all letters that were supposed to be lowercase:

Here I am connected to Naken Chat chat server, which you can test out at my contact page if you like:

Here I am trying to read slashdot.org using the "links" browser. What a shame the TRS-80 terminal program can't do ANSI (geee thanks Radio Shack for the lack of features on your terminal.. if I was a real dilsack, I'd take this computer back for a refund tomorrow):

Anyway, that's it for now.. feel free to send me some fun comments :)

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