John's Jottings

These articles began life as scrawl in old notebooks, they're published here in case they're useful, and as a record of what I once believed to be true. Some of it probably still is.

Treat them the way you'd treat directions from a stranger in a pub: probably fine, occasionally inspired, not something to stake your life on.

And if you're restoring a PDP-8 to serve as a flight computer on a forthcoming space mission, maybe get a second opinion first.

Telstar & Comms

For a full introduction to Telstar see An Introduction to Telstar

Apple II

Nascom & Gemini

PDP/8

Emulating a PDP-8 with Serial Console and Four Serial Users

CP/M and Miscellaneous Z80

Arduino, Pi's

Miscellaneous

`Telstar Status`

Line 1: (01756 664433)
Status: OK

Line 2: (01756 664434)
Status: OK

TCP 1: (glasstty.com:6502)
Status: OK

TCP 2: (glasstty.com:6503)
Status: OK

`What's in a Name`

Telstar is named after a BBS with the same name that operated during the 1980s. That early BBS was created the author and a friend called Terry Slater. Telstar is an anagram of T Slater.

Prestel Servers were typically named after authors that originated from the area the server was located. The Telstar server names, Currer, Ellis and Acton are of course the pseudonyms used by the Bronte sisters, who like the author of Telstar, originated from Yorkshire. These have been selected as the names of the three Telstar servers.

`GlassTTY`

In the 1970s, character mode terminals e.g., ADM3A, VT100 etc. were considered preferable to the large cumbersome teleprinters. These new all electronic devices with their glass screens were often referred to as "Glass TTYs".