Hello Daryl Stout!

** On Sunday 07.02.21 - 19:38, Daryl Stout wrote to August Abolins:

...Anyway, this drop dead
gorgeous, curvaceous female walked up to them...and sternly
admonished "You boys need to watch your language. I teach
CW at the Naval Academy across the street!!", and walked
out. They were as red as tomatoes!!

Yes.. I remember reading that story some time ago. When I was a
kid I discovered that my first language could be used as a
secret code when in public. It was a lot of fun to be verbally
rude in public without other people even know it.

I was listening to a Morse Code class, and the first word
they taught was the S word (and it wasn't "snow" <G>). But,
when you looked at the Morse Code pattern for it, then it
made perfect sense!!

SNOW = ... .... .. _

What's so "obvious" about that? I don't get it.

I tried Morse Code on my own, but failed to decipher the codes
over SW radio. Everything just seemed to go too fast. I just
couldn't figure out where the pauses between the letters would
be.

For intance, something like ... _ _ _ ...
could still be ..._ _ _ ...

It's easy to depict the "pause" visually here, but when sounding
it out, the pauses are not so obvious.
--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.48
* Origin: (} Pointy McPointface (618:250/1.9)

Hello Daryl Stout!

** On Sunday 07.02.21 - 19:36, Daryl Stout wrote to Mike Powell:

One funny thing I remember is that at one gathering, we
were at an area Denny's Restaurant (which long since
closed down, the building was razed) when this one Sysop
(he's dead and gone now, and his BBS is long gone), put
this case on the table and took a fancy new laptop out of
it, and started working with it. Like a magnet, all eyes
gravitated to his table, and it was like a collective
"WOW!!" emanated from the crowd. <G>

Reminds me of the time when I was on a business trip, rented a
laptop (an early offering that only had an LCD screen) for a
week, took that to work and used it to "dialup" to my office and
transfer files, using Kermit. Before that, the files were copied
onto disk and sent via mail/courier. Email wasn't trusted to be
secure enough. When there was a coding problem we could exchange
segments of code several times a day.

I also used the laptop to dialup BBSes with Fidonet so that I
could keep up with echomail from my hotel room. I thought it
was very strange that the engineers and techs at my remote
office didn't know about dialup BBSes at the time - or they
thought BBSes were just for exchanging porn files?
--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.48
* Origin: (} Pointy McPointface (618:250/1.9)

August,

Yes.. I remember reading that story some time ago. When I was a
kid I discovered that my first language could be used as a
secret code when in public. It was a lot of fun to be verbally
rude in public without other people even know it.

One couple was signing dirty jokes, then was shocked when they
realized that a deaf couple at a nearby table was reading everything
they signed.

What's so "obvious" about that? I don't get it.

3 dits, 4 dits, 2 dits, and a dah. Everyone has different ways
of learning Morse Code...as it's basically another language.

I tried Morse Code on my own, but failed to decipher the codes
over SW radio. Everything just seemed to go too fast. I just
couldn't figure out where the pauses between the letters would
be.

For intance, something like ... _ _ _ ...
could still be ..._ _ _ ...

SOS versus VTTH ??

It's easy to depict the "pause" visually here, but when sounding
it out, the pauses are not so obvious.

Unless your ear is trained for it.

Daryl

... Ham Radio Messages And Replies Will Be Sent In Morse Code.
=== MultiMail/Win v0.52
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

August,

I also used the laptop to dialup BBSes with Fidonet so that I
could keep up with echomail from my hotel room. I thought it
was very strange that the engineers and techs at my remote
office didn't know about dialup BBSes at the time - or they
thought BBSes were just for exchanging porn files?

When I was on dial-up, a long distance caller from Chicago paged
me for chat, and at the time, I was available (not so much now).

He typed "Where's all the porn files??". When I replied "On the
internet", the response <CLICK!> NO CARRIER.

Daryl

... Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it.
=== MultiMail/Win v0.52
--- SBBSecho 3.11-Win32
* Origin: The Thunderbolt BBS - tbolt.synchro.net (618:250/33)

Hello Daryl Stout!

** On Monday 08.02.21 - 16:30, Daryl Stout wrote to August Abolins:

..I thought it was very strange that the engineers and
techs at my remote office didn't know about dialup BBSes
at the time - or they thought BBSes were just for
exchanging porn files?

When I was on dial-up, a long distance caller from
Chicago paged me for chat, and at the time, I was
available (not so much now).

In my case, the internet wasn't a common household thing, yet.
It was only usenet and gopher and CLI like that.

He typed "Where's all the porn files??". When I replied
"On the internet", the response <CLICK!> NO CARRIER.

Maybe it was the FBI.
--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.48
* Origin: (} Pointy McPointface (618:250/1.9)

August Abolins wrote to Daryl Stout <=-

Reminds me of the time when I was on a business trip, rented a
laptop (an early offering that only had an LCD screen) for a
week, took that to work and used it to "dialup" to my office and
transfer files, using Kermit.

I discovered one of those way back when. Company had bought a Toshiba T1100, an XT-era laptop for transferring files, and it sat most of the time unused.

With a 1200 baud modem and little adult supervision from 0730 to 1000 or so,
I could call all my favorite BBSes every day.

We had a midrange computer with Televideo terminals at each desk. I later realized the terminal had 2 serial ports, and a function key to switch
between the two that worked like a "boss" key. see the boss walking down the hallway, hit Fn12, and switch back to the work screen. :)

Worked like a charm, but the closest to ANSI it'd do was VT52.


... The exception also declares the rule
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
* Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (618:300/1)

On 09 Feb 2021, August Abolins said the following...

He typed "Where's all the porn files??". When I replied
"On the internet", the response <CLICK!> NO CARRIER.

Maybe it was the FBI.

I worked at a local computer shop while I was in high school. Most of the systems we sold were new, but occasionally someone would trade in their old computer towards the purchase of a new one.

It was common when selling a used computer for someone to ask "does it come with a Windows CD?" - they didn't. In some cases the computer may have originally come with one, but we we would never get that when it was traded
in.

One day I got a call out of the blue with someone asking a similar question:

"Hello, I bought a computer from there not too long ago and I don't see a Windows CD with it."

I asked if the computer was new or used to which he replied "I'm not really sure, it's grey if that helps?"

"Sir, if the computer was purchased used it would have a sticker with the Windows serial number on the side of the case, but it wouldn't come with a
CD. If the computer was purchased new, a CD would be included with
everything else that came with your computer, though the sticker with the Windows serial number would still be on the side of your computer."

This is were the call got weird: "Ok, thank you for that. Let me conference in my colleague <name I can't remember> to check for that. <Name I can't remember>, do you see anything like that?"

"Yes, I do, everything seems to be in order."

After that, they promptly thanked me for my time & the call was over. To this day I have no idea who they were or what they were after, but I often wonder if that was some random call from Microsoft trying to figure out if we were a pirate shop or something.


Jay

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/02/01 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Northern Realms (618:500/23)

Hello Kurt Weiske!

** On Monday 08.02.21 - 09:26, Kurt Weiske wrote to August Abolins:

I discovered one of those way back when. Company had bought
a Toshiba T1100, an XT-era laptop for transferring files,
and it sat most of the time unused.

Unused? The horror!

But I felt like a hot-shot with that thing. I don't remember
what brand/model mine was, but the year was 1994. It was really
cool to take some updated code onto diskette, upload it to the
servers back home and get confirmation from my buddies back at
the home lab within minutes.

One of the reasons I was sent on the trip was to take "code"
with me and test things. And when all bugs or mods were worked
out, the idea was to come back with something that worked.
There was a hands-on training component too, but the software
was the heart of everything.

With a 1200 baud modem and little adult supervision from
0730 to 1000 or so, I could call all my favorite BBSes
every day.

I demonstrated calling a few bbses from that laptop. I don't
remember if I left a wow impression or a meh impression with
that.

We had a midrange computer with Televideo terminals at each
desk. I later realized the terminal had 2 serial ports, and
a function key to switch between the two that worked like a
"boss" key. see the boss walking down the hallway, hit
Fn12, and switch back to the work screen. :)

I had some temptations to call out to BBSes at work too. I had a
cubicle with an outside window behind me, so I was always facing
"IN" and could see who was coming.

Worked like a charm, but the closest to ANSI it'd do was
VT52.

I was connecting to two different VAX systems so it was VTxxx
for me too.

--
../|ug

--- OpenXP 5.0.48
* Origin: my little micronet point (618:510/1.1)

Warpslide wrote to August Abolins <=-

After that, they promptly thanked me for my time & the call
was over. To this day I have no idea who they were or what
they were after, but I often wonder if that was some random
call from Microsoft trying to figure out if we were a
pirate shop or something.

M$ used to do that but I doubt they really care that much anymore since their main moneymaker these days are Azure and Office 365 subscriptions, not Windows.

I once worked for a place here that was using all sorts of hot M$ software. After telling the owner that he's breaking the law, he fired me. So I called M$ and the SBA ("don't copy that floppy!"). He went out of business six months later. Guy was a real jackass ... so he entered politics and the last I heard he was a city commissioner. Good place for a asskisser like him. <G>

Later,
Sean

... My other computer is an Atari 800.
___ MultiMail/Win v0.52

--- Maximus/2 3.01
* Origin: Outpost BBS // bbs.outpostbbs.net:10123 (618:618/10)