[HN Gopher] Using a Minitel 1B as a serial terminal
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Using a Minitel 1B as a serial terminal
Author : jgrahamc
Score : 79 points
Date : 2022-03-20 16:13 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.jgc.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.jgc.org)
| andrelaszlo wrote:
| I bought one of these in France and tried to get the USB/serial
| connection working but failed the first time. Perhaps I should
| give it a second shot.
| alduin32 wrote:
| I have one of these working as a terminal near me, feel free to
| ask any questions !
|
| You basically just need an USB FTDI and a 3.3/5V TTL converter.
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| Hi Alduin32, May I ask you a related question? I bought
| recently a VaxStation 3100 and tried to connect to it with a
| USB FTDI (I didn't try hard), but I was unable to get
| anything.
|
| Do you have a suggestion?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAXstation
| tyingq wrote:
| You do need to turn on the "alternate console".
|
| https://groups.google.com/g/comp.os.vms/c/CKTvD6yObJ4/m/t9r
| S...
|
| And page 230 of this pdf:
| http://www.vaxhaven.com/images/0/00/EK-VSM31-OM-002.pdf
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| Thanks for the tip. I think mine was up but I will check
| again.
| tyingq wrote:
| Also, try <ctrl-p> to send a break.
| ttul wrote:
| But how does it now somehow interact with Cloudflare Workers?
| gorgoiler wrote:
| When I first saw minitel in the early 90s what surprised me was
| not just the technology, but the sense from the _denizens_ that
| this was just a completely normal service to have.
|
| I'm sure they had a honeymoon period when it felt magic, but
| thereafter it was such a useful part of life that it just became
| a commodity.
|
| I wish I could objectively see how the true internet affected me
| in that same light. Being immersed in it, I had no idea how it
| went from a toy to part of everyday life.
| fmajid wrote:
| In my university days I used this setup, via the school's then
| brand-new PBX and the built-in serial port in the phone in my
| dorm room, to connect to the university VAX. The 9600bps speed
| was, shall we put it, leisurely, but still a major improvement
| over the original Minitel's 1200/75. Ethernet was far from
| widespread in the early 90s, certainly not all the way to the
| dorms.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _The 9600bps speed was, shall we put it, leisurely_
|
| I've been playing Zork at 600bps all morning. Haven't gotten
| very far, but at least it displays faster than I can read.
| jfim wrote:
| One of the things that blog post makes me realize is that we
| don't have instruction manuals that are intended for a technical
| audience anymore. The odds of seeing an instruction manual with
| pinouts for connectors and voltage levels are pretty much nil
| nowadays.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Because "documentation" isn't part of sprint or agile.
|
| Modern middle managers think documentation is a roadblock, not
| an asset. They're wrong.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I've never encountered middle managers who think this way.
| They'd be overjoyed if the engineers want to write
| documentation. Getting engineers to write docs on the other
| hand... sigh. Most engineers I've worked with don't even want
| to comment their code beyond the bare minimum and throw a
| temper tantrum when having to write more than a few sentences
| on a service they've written. Heck I know engineers who see
| another non-updated comment in the codebase and use that as
| justification to not write docs themselves.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Instruction manuals, interface documentation... yeah, modern
| devices are treated like black boxes.
|
| Say you go buy a Fitbit, is the manufacturer going to tell you
| how the protocol works to communicate with it? No, they're
| going to give you an app, that may or may not track usage data,
| and that they can decide to stop supporting whenever they want.
| If you want to write your own, you'll have to reverse-engineer
| it.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Odds are that the communications protocol is part of a DRM
| system, too. In the U.S. that will make it illegal to reverse
| engineer without an exemption.
| jfim wrote:
| > Say you go buy a Fitbit, is the manufacturer going to tell
| you how the protocol works to communicate with it? No,
| they're going to give you an app, that may or may not track
| usage data, and that they can decide to stop supporting
| whenever they want. If you want to write your own, you'll
| have to reverse-engineer it.
|
| I agree 100%.
|
| Wouldn't it be nice if protocol documentation was mandatory?
| I understand why it's done this way (because 99% of consumers
| wouldn't care and it allows them to change the protocol
| later), but it's really annoying to have to reverse engineer
| everything.
|
| It's funny too, I bought a fitness device a few years back
| (Lumo lift by Lumobody tech) and the app doesn't work since
| the company got acquired by another. If there was
| documentation, someone might have stepped up and written a
| replacement app or something to connect to the device.
|
| At this point, this kind of puts me off from buying any kind
| of hardware tech from a startup that might not be around for
| a few years, since it might just turn up to be another tech
| paperweight.
| marcodiego wrote:
| > Wouldn't it be nice if protocol documentation was
| mandatory?
|
| Totally agree. This should be law.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| > At this point, this kind of puts me off from buying any
| kind of hardware tech from a startup that might not be
| around for a few years, since it might just turn up to be
| another tech paperweight.
|
| Same. The vast majority of peripherals meant to be used
| with mobile phones I just wont buy at this point, because
| they're almost all like this.
|
| At least I know I'll be able to use my Pebble or PineTime
| indefinitely; the former because it's been reverse-
| engineered, and the latter because it's open from the
| start. As appealing as the newer Fitbits are, I can't say
| the same for them.
|
| > Wouldn't it be nice if protocol documentation was
| mandatory?
|
| Yeah - I'd love to see this, just like we've seen a push
| for repair documentation with recent right to repair
| legislation.
| ewalk153 wrote:
| It's wonderful how Raspberry PI has restored this old
| tradition. I love that I can download the schematics for any
| board and that their site has a ready made guide to interface
| with the header pins.
|
| There is probably a market for x64 PCs that would let you build
| Linux from scratch and run it on hardware that is hackable. I'm
| not sure if licensing would permit this.
| pojntfx wrote:
| Thats really cool! I set up one as well (the Italian version) -
| if someone is interested in some more pictures and Getty/tmux
| config I published everything here:
| https://pojntfx.github.io/minitel/main.html
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Very nice. That's a great write up. I'll add a link to my post.
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| A very long time ago (~1985), I dropped my Minitel and the screen
| was dead. I cabled an Ascii keyboard on the Mother board and made
| an interface for a Black& White TV with only one transistor
| (2N2222 probably) and a few resistors. The motherboard was
| inserted in a "Traoumad" metal box for the famous biscuits.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traou_Mad
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