July 20, 2005

This past weekend I was able to get my DEC Rainbow 100, a mid-1980s 
machine running MS-DOS, to serve webpages successfully via a SLIP 
connection to a Linux box.  It was quite an achievement.  I made some 
ever-so-slight modifications to the uIP TCP/IP stack to get it to run.  
I also combined it with some mid- to late-1980s technology, the FOSSIL 
driver.  I believe FOSSIL stood for Fido-Opus-Seadog Standard Interface 
Layer.  It was invented during BBS times because people with Rainbows 
and Epsons and HPs couldn't use stock BBS software designed to access PC 
serial ports.  It really was a great idea, and the FOSSIL standard 
survived well into the mid-1990s until the demise of BBSs.  So my little 
program can run on basicly any FOSSIL-compatible system.

I wrote the program for the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 1.0 that's 
coming up at the end of July.  It should be fun.  My father's flying out 
and we're both driving out to Purdue University in Indiana for it.  Good 
times.  I keep taking Rainbows to the VCF shows, but I'm not sure anyone 
really gives a crap about the Rainbow 100 other than a handful of people 
(I'm talking less than 10...).  That poor platform is slowly passing 
from all memory.

Adios,
Jeff
.