Notes

A new C Programming on System 6 video showing some work on Carl, my IMAP (and now SMTP) e-mail client

https://jcs.org/2024/02/20/carl

Some weird scenario I think about from time to time:

You wake up in a remote cabin with access to a 1980s computer (pick your favorite) that has slow access to the modern internet through satellite with a working TCP/IP stack but no recursive DNS server configured and no utilities installed (ping, ftp, etc.). The computer is too slow to do SSH, TLS, etc. and you can't remember any logins or passwords to existing systems. It does have a BASIC interpreter, simple compiler (whichever language you want that was around in the 1980s), and assembler. There are no manuals or other documentation available on the computer or in the cabin, other than installed header files or whatever else is needed for the compiler to use the TCP/IP stack.

Can you use the computer and internet to communicate enough to get rescued? What steps would you take?

Version 4 of Subtext, my BBS server for classic Mac OS, is available today. It fixes some bugs, adds things like remote syslog support, and makes telnet negotiation faster.

https://jcs.org/subtext

I wish Microsoft would embrace its roots as a heavy metal band

https://www.ebay.com/itm/386780461528

Me: I should keep my code on GitHub so I get useful bug reports and contributions

GitHub: https://github.com/jcs/progman/issues/20

Ok friends, making 60 PowerBook 1xx batteries was fun but I think I'm done now

These are the last 8 that will be for sale

https://www.tindie.com/products/jcs/powerbook-1xx-battery/

I haven't been able to sell my new PowerBook 1xx batteries internationally because nobody seems to want to deal with them on airplanes, even though I label the box and customs form that it isn't a lithium ion battery (it's nickel-metal hydride). I tried through USPS and they refused it at the border and sent it back.

Someone recently bought two on eBay through their International Shipping program where I only list them as shipping domestically and eBay has me ship to a local forwarder but they deal with repackaging it and shipping it internationally. Apparently they also failed because they just canceled this order but somehow I don't have to refund the buyer and eBay pays for it. I guess I don't get my batteries back though?

I bought a clothes steamer on Amazon twelve years ago and have only used it a few times since then, but I just got an e-mail that it was recalled for a safety issue. The US manufacturer instructed me to sever its electrical cord and upload a photo showing its serial number so they can send me a new model.

I only mention this because 12 years on, I imagine if I went on Amazon today to buy one, there would be hundreds of steamers that all look like they were made from the same plastic mold but are sold from different Chinese companies with terrible randomly-generated names. I'd probably just pick whichever one had the best reviews for the price and not really think about the company disappearing a year later (or generating another random company name), much less still be around 12 years later to do a safety recall.

Well it took 41 years but I finally own my first 5 ¼" floppy disk

I kept seeing this disk for sale on eBay and wanted to know what was actually on it, so I bought an Epson floppy drive and was able to connect it to my Applesauce to image it

The raw FAT12 disk image is on IA: https://archive.org/details/bbsc83

It appears to be a "BBS (Bulletin Board System) written in UNIX SYSTEM-III "C"" written by Mike Kelly, last edited 07/07/1983

How many of you are also on BlueSky?

Mastodon still has the discoverability problem where I can't see random posts I might like because I'm on my own server and can only find new people to follow when someone I already follow forwards something I find interesting enough to investigate (which then leads to the other problem where I can't see a random person's old posts in my client without having to view their profile on their own server).

I don't really want to run my own server and keep it up to date, but I can't join someone else's server with my own identity (I tried living on SDF's servers and they kept forgetting to renew their TLS cert). I wrote my own ActivityPub server but it was too hard keeping up with the private "Mastodon API" that every mobile app uses, so I gave up and switched to the official Mastodon server software which is huge and constantly changing (and breaking).

I hate that Twitter died and fragmented everything.

Upgraded the Braun clock in my office to a slightly different one

🙃

If you've ever gotten this annoying error when trying to restart or shut down System 6 because StuffIt Expander 4.0.1/4.0.2 was running in the background, you can fix it by opening StuffIt in ResEdit and changing the existing 'mstr' resource 100 to have an id of 103.

'mstr' resources tell MultiFinder which menu items to generate fake clicks for in order to quit or open another file from Finder when the application is already open in the background. StuffIt needs one because its File->Open menu item is named File->Expand... but Aladdin goofed and numbered it 100, which is supposed to be the name of the 'File' menu if it's not named 'File'. By changing it to 103, it lets MultiFinder know how to remotely open a file and also unbreaks its ability to select File->Quit at shutdown time.

A new version of my Wi-Fi Desk Accessory for BlueSCSI is out that fixes password entry on Mac OS 8+:

https://jcs.org/bluescsi