I’ve created an adapter for the Cidco MailStation Z80 computer which adds the ability to use WiFi for data transfer, code uploading, and to act as a WiFi modem for my msTERM terminal emulator.

Continue reading 1,553 words...

Lenovo has finally made a smaller version of its X1 Carbon, something I’ve been looking forward to for years.

Continue reading 1,988 words...

On the modern web, everything must be encrypted. Unencrypted websites are treated as relics of the past with browsers declaring them toxic waste not to be touched (or even looked at) and search engines de-prioritizing their content.

While this push for security is good for protecting modern communication, there is a whole web full of information and services that don’t need to be secured and those trying to access them from older vintage computers or even through modern embedded devices are increasingly being left behind.

Continue reading 1,629 words...

Fifteen years ago, NetBSD’s Bluetooth audio stack was imported into OpenBSD. From what I remember using it back then, it worked sufficiently well but its configuration was cumbersome. It supported Bluetooth HID keyboards and mice, audio, and serial devices. Six years ago, however, it was tedu'd due to conflicts with how it integrated into our kernel.

While we still have no Bluetooth support today, it is possible to play audio on Bluetooth headphones using a small hardware dongle.

Continue reading 1,468 words...

Returning to the development of my IMAP client, I add SOCKS5 support to be able to connect through a network proxy, particularly the one I made that is able to convert TLS-encrypted data from my real mailserver into plaintext that the Mac’s slow CPU can support.

Continue reading 174 words...

In the previous episode I quickly ported OpenBSD’s diff(1) but there wasn’t any interface to select files or scroll through the output. I’ve since added a proper GUI with the ability to select files or folders, and in this episode I walk through the GUI and filesystem code and then add a proper Edit menu. I also make a formal release of the code and binary available for download.

Continue reading 192 words...

I’ve wanted a simple revision control system on my Mac since starting development of my IMAP client. Porting a large system like Git or even CVS would be overkill (and very slow), but maybe something small like OpenBSD’s RCS implementation would suffice. For now, just having a diff utility would be helpful so in this video I port the guts of OpenBSD’s diff(1) and show it generating a unified diff between revisions of a C file.

Continue reading 239 words...

In this episode, I fetch the flags of each message and for unseen messages, make them appear in the list in bold. That introduces an off-by-one which I run out of time to fix while recording.

Continue reading 136 words...

Today, I implement plaintext message viewing and hook it up to the message list. I also review a cleanup of int variables to make them either short or long throughout the project.

Continue reading 161 words...

I wrote a utility function to parse RFC822 dates/times sent by the IMAP server, which then converts them to a UTC time. In this video, I hook it into the IMAP parser and add a resource string for the local timezone offset setting, so these UTC times can then be converted to a local time and displayed in the message list.

Continue reading 170 words...

I recently read about using a jump instruction as an LDEF resource to allow keeping the list definition function in the main program executable/project, so in this video I implement the technique for the message list.

Continue reading 201 words...

In this video, I get the list of messages displaying again and fix a bug that occurred when closing a mailbox. I provide a quick summary of creating LDEF procedures in THINK C for drawing custom list cells, which I will expand upon on in a future video.

Continue reading 167 words...

In this episode, I fix the off-by-one error in the IMAP envelope parser noted in the previous episode, then improve the tracking of a malloced buffer that gets shifted around during parsing.

Continue reading 102 words...

Returning to the development of my IMAP client, in this video I add functionality to fetch the default mailbox name from the resource file (later to be moved to a preferences window) and then eventually locate a crash in the IMAP protocol parser from a bogus memmove.

Continue reading 197 words...

In this video, I create a new GUI application from scratch, create a resource file and add an image to it, and then display that image in a window. I also cover using THINK C’s debugger to inspect a struct. Then, my Mac dies.

Continue reading 514 words...