Break Into Chat

Josh Renaud’s blog about BBS history, retro computing and technology reminiscences.

  • Web browsing on the Atari ST with a CosmosEx

    Web browsing on the Atari ST with a CosmosEx

    Probably the best retrocomputing purchase I’ve made in recent years is the CosmosEx, a cool peripheral for Atari ST, STe, TT, and Falcon computers. Soon after I bought it, creator Jookie added “screencasting”, a feature which lets you control your Atari remotely through a web browser. Amazing! Around that time, Jookie was also working on…

  • I rescued “Mom and Me” for the Atari ST

    I rescued “Mom and Me” for the Atari ST

    I rescued “Mom and Me” for the Atari ST! (though I guess I’m about a month late for Mother’s Day)

  • New ANSImation: Star Wars opening crawl

    New ANSImation: Star Wars opening crawl

    When Star Wars debuted in 1977, the first sequence audiences took in was the iconic opening crawl: a wall of yellow text rolling up the screen, shrinking toward a vanish point in the distance. This crawl was George Lucas’ homage to the old Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s (which inspired many other parts of…

  • New parallax ANSImation: Millennium Falcon dodging asteroids

    New parallax ANSImation: Millennium Falcon dodging asteroids

    I want to push boundaries. That’s what the original Star Wars films did. Industrial Light & Magic revolutionized special effects with novel new techniques for motion control and amazing model work. When I work on ANSI projects now, I try to think about ways to do things in ANSI that weren’t possible in the 1990s…

  • Detention Block AA-23

    Detention Block AA-23

    Is today the 40th anniversary of the original release of “Star Wars”? Blocktronics is all over it. The ANSI supergroup’s new artpack “Detention Block AA-23” landed today, and amazingly I contributed a few pieces! The first is a new parallax ANSImation of the Millennium Falcon dodging asteroids, inspired by the scene from “The Empire Strikes…

  • RS232 WiFi dongle for your retrocomputer

    Paul Rickards has introduced a cool new gadget called the WiFi232. It’s a Hayes-compatible modem that lets your retro computer telnet to a BBS. Seems like it could be a nice alternative to the UDS series of serial-to-ethernet adapters.



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