Tag Archives: pc

Bringing dry bones back to life: The Kirschen software collection

Yaakov Kirschen works on "The Goldberg Variations" in 1983.

Yaakov Kirschen works on “The Goldberg Variations” in 1983.

It’s time to bring some dry bones back to life.

In coming days, I will publish a curated collection of lost software developed by the Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen together with programmers from Gesher Educational Affiliates as well as from his own studio, LKP Ltd.

The collection includes ten games, demos, and experiments in artificial personality and artificial creativity. The software was developed between 1983 and 1989 for various platforms including the Apple II, Atari ST, and IBM PC.

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Telnet to a BBS using a PC terminal program within the DOSBox emulator

Login screen for Digital Distortion BBS as seen in Telemate under DOSBox.

Login screen for Digital Distortion BBS as seen in Telemate under DOSBox.

A few months ago I wrote about my experiences trying to telnet in to Atari BBSes using an emulated Atari on my Mac.

Basically the solution boiled down to this: Use tcpser4j to change a telnet connection to a serial connection, use socat to pipe that serial connection to a file, and set the Hatari emulator to use that file as a virtual RS232 device. After those steps, I could run my favorite old Atari ST terminal programs like ANSIterm and Freeze Dried Terminal.

Recently I decided I wanted to do the same thing with a DOS emulator like DOSBox — but for different reasons.

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