Fallingwater
Member
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2009
- Messages
- 47
I have a Compaq Portable II (286, 640RAM, 10 meg hard drive, 5 1/4 floppy) which I'd like to use to read what few BBS are left online, in an attempt to see just how what we know as "the internet" was for the generations before mine. And no, telnet on a new computer won't do: I want to immerse myself in this as much as possible, which somehow I find hard to do when I'm running a quad-core with more RAM than there was in a large corporation back when BBS were all the rage.
I have two problems:
1) it works, but it has no operating system. I have no 5 1/4 drives nor disks, and no easy way to obtain them; also, the floppy and HD inside the CPII are too old to interface with a current system. All I have are a serial and a parallel port, but no idea how to use them to transfer data.
2) how do I put it online? I obviously don't need much bandwidh, just the necessary to receive some text via telnet (or the equivalent in old DOS). I'm thinking I could use a "bridge" computer inbetween, which I could connect via ethernet to my ADSL line and then with a serial/parallel connection to the CPII. Again, I've no idea what I'd need to do to achieve this (beyond buying/building the interface cable).
Little help?
I have two problems:
1) it works, but it has no operating system. I have no 5 1/4 drives nor disks, and no easy way to obtain them; also, the floppy and HD inside the CPII are too old to interface with a current system. All I have are a serial and a parallel port, but no idea how to use them to transfer data.
2) how do I put it online? I obviously don't need much bandwidh, just the necessary to receive some text via telnet (or the equivalent in old DOS). I'm thinking I could use a "bridge" computer inbetween, which I could connect via ethernet to my ADSL line and then with a serial/parallel connection to the CPII. Again, I've no idea what I'd need to do to achieve this (beyond buying/building the interface cable).
Little help?