13 ms·

Using an Atari ST as Unix/Linux Terminal

133 points by indigodaddy 7y ago

tombh 7y ago
Wait, am I reading that right? Debian 6 runs on the Atari ST with automatic hardware detection? Can it `ssh brow.sh`?
- minimaul 7y ago
  No, you’re definitely reading it wrong ;) This is just connecting up a serial console, nothing more.
  - tombh 7y ago
    I see, so the hardware detection is from the modern machine detecting the serial port. That truly is the definition of a terminal then. Still, pretty cool!
- 0815test 7y ago
  Debian does have an unofficial m68k port, although I'm not sure how well it runs on this specific hardware. SSH from vintage hardware is a pain btw, there is YT video somewhere of someone SSH'ing out from a 486-compatible "586" box with a modern Linux install, and the overhead introduced by SSH is quite real there.
  - walkingolof 7y ago
    It won’t run on an ST, but a Atari TT can run *nix like OS’s
    - cmrdporcupine 7y ago
      TT can actually run full Unix. Atari sold a full SYS V Unix for it, and later on NetBSD was ported to it. m68k Linux also ran on it at one point, I believe. Classic ST can't do it, because no MMU. On them we had MiNT, which was a Unix-like extension to TOS. Ran fine on an ST with a 1MB or so of RAM. At various times I ran a full suite of Unix ports... bash, emacs, nn, vi, the whole nine yards. There was also a port of the MGR window system. But the machines with an '030 (TT And Falcon) could run a proper Unix. Including X11. I remember even seeing discussion of this in UnixWorld magazine back in the day.
- Annatar 7y ago
  Atari ST has an alternative operating system called MiNT and RPM-based SpareMiNT, which is a UNIX-like operating system, but still TOS compatible. http://sparemint.org/Welcome-to-SpareMiNT http://sparemint.org/Welcome-to-SpareMiNT
no-onelikescode 7y ago
Except I have never actually wanted a Linux terminal. I'd rather have the Atari back, please?
finphil 7y ago
For those late weekend nights :)
SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
I had exactly this setup a couple of years back using a Raspberry Pi and my childhood STE (which is still going strong 25 years later!) One benefit that the linked article doesn't mention is the ability to initiate file transfers over the very same serial connection using ZMODEM / YMODEM / Kermit etc. When I had this set up it was very useful to act as a bridge to my NAS and download software from there onto the ST. Good times!
indigodaddy 7y ago
I imagine similarly could be done on any old computer? (Amiga, etc?)
- jerrysievert 7y ago
  you could run x11 on an amiga, along with xterm, but yes you could run a simple terminal emulator as well.
  - Annatar 7y ago
    I could use that. What's the X11 archive for Amiga called on "AmiNet"?
    - jerrysievert 7y ago
      unfortunately i don't know - the last time i booted an amiga was a little over 20 years ago, but it looks like DaggeX might do the trick (just search for x11 on aminet)
- reaperducer 7y ago
  I imagine similarly could be done on any old computer? (Amiga, etc?) Yes. I do this occasionally with a TRS-80 Model 100. And back when they were both still current, I would dial in to a PR1ME and Vax minicomputers with a Commodore 64. My holy grail is figuring out how to run a personal Zork server on an Ubuntu machine that I can access (serial or telnet) from the 100.
  - Zenst 7y ago
    https://bytemyvdu.wordpress.com/2016/09/03/tandy-trs80-m100-serial-terminal/ https://bytemyvdu.wordpress.com/2016/09/03/tandy-trs80-m100-... Would be most, if not all the battle. Might need to run the serial at a lower speed to accommodate the serial buffer on the M100. From there, you can telnet to the localhost and avoid a lot of messing with the zork server if you are unable to hook it directly to the serial port you are using.
timthorn 7y ago
As an 8 or 9 year old boy, I spent an afternoon calling out an interminable list of numbers for my Dad to enter into DATA statements in a BASIC program on our ZX Spectrum to turn it into a terminal emulator by means of a hex loader. Once we'd entered it (correctly - we ended up making a few inevitable errors along the way) and saved it(!) to tape, we hooked up our phone to an acoustic coupler* and Dad spent a few minutes connected to the university mainframe. * This (exact) one: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/37926/Moore-Reed-TC-301-universal-Acoustic-Coupler/ http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/37926/Moore-Reed-TC-3...
- stevekemp 7y ago
  I remember typing in programs from magazines with those lines of DATA-statements - if your magazine was Sinclair User, Your Sinclair, or similar it was easier than if it was a book. Most books would print a program for BBC-Basic, and give you a set of lines to change for other systems. e.g. Adding in the LET statement for Spectrums.
- jcims 7y ago
  We used to do the same with those machine code games for the c64 in the back of Compute or Byte magazine. One reader, one typer and one proofer huddled around the screen for hours. The worst part is that we didnt have the 1541 drive yet, so the game was only around for as long as the power was on. The good old days lol
  - foobarian 7y ago
    Compute! had a handy little program to print a checksum of each line of BASIC on the left margin. Then, their other BASIC listings had that checksum printed alongside, so that eliminated the "proofer" job for us :-)
    - tomcam 7y ago
      MLX, I think it was called. I used it to type out Speedscript, a word processor that took only 3K for my Commodore 64 and used it for my first years as a professional writer, it was connected to a Brother electric typewriter with a parallel printer interface to the Commodore 64.
rebbie 7y ago
I still have a Heath/Zenith terminal like the one pictured alongside the story. Ahh ... memories :-)
bencollier49 7y ago
Hah, that's pretty amazing that someone put this online. I did this back at the dawn of time with my old ST, some telephone cable, and Slackware Linux running on - possibly an 8088 (or could have been a 486). Funny to see it crop up again. Of course, no-one in their right mind would do this to run a second terminal, as the Atari ST had the worst keyboard since the ZX81.
- Zenst 7y ago
  >Of course, no-one in their right mind would do this to run a second terminal, as the Atari ST had the worst keyboard since the ZX81 I hooked up an Oric-48k as a terminal once, having owned an Atari ST, I'm kinda in agreement with you. The Atari Keyboard had a weird springy feel about it, had Atari made mattresses, they would probably of been the best in the World - based upon the spring-feel of their keyboard. Though the Psion II I used with the serial adapter was the most funkiest at the time, ABC style calculator keyboard (still better than ST apart from layout). But it was portable and a dream. Though I still to this day and occasionally use my Psion 5mx with serial adapter cable.
  - chiph 7y ago
    Now that you mention it - my 1040ST's keyboard was pretty springy, and you never were totally sure about whether it had registered your key hit. I never ran unix on it, but I wrote a VT100 emulator for it to connect to a multi-processor Xenix machine.
    - tom_ 7y ago
      It was very spongy indeed - but (when using the OS - so pretty much universal in GEM apps, and very common for TOS programs) there was a brief sound chip blip each time a keypress was registered. I for one never minded it. If the blip was there to compensate for the lack of feedback, it worked well.
- weinzierl 7y ago
  > possibly an 8088 (or could have been a 486) Almost certainly the latter. Linux ran only from the 386 upwards.
droithomme 7y ago
Back in the 90s I ran Minix on my Atari and did serious development on it as a contractor for various defense and aerospace companies. One war story, a big name company had some image processing that needed to be done on a spacecraft. Their scientist had written some software in lisp which was incredibly slow and took 15-30 hours to process one image on a Sun workstation. I was brought in to port it to C in the hopes of improving it, as well as to add several new features. I saw that his algorithms were really bad and rewrote the entire thing using entirely different algorithms I invented myself, bringing the run time down under 10 seconds on my Atari. I was pretty excited about this. The scientist took my algorithms and published them in a journal as his own work without crediting me. So I quit. Still pissed off about that one.
- wizardforhire 7y ago
  Well you’ve got my support! This is amazing, thanks for sharing!
- ddingus 7y ago
  You should have published, with source, time stamps, the works.
- madengr 7y ago
  I filed an invention disclosure with my company, but they were not interested in patenting it. Then one of our “business development” people ran his mouth to another division about the technology. Two years later I get a call from that division, saying they “may” put my name in their patent if I disclose more details about the technology. I’m still pissed about that.
- btrettel 7y ago
  If you're comfortable with giving details, I'd recommend posting a comment at PubPeer on the paper. https://pubpeer.com/ https://pubpeer.com/ Plagiarism like that is far too common. Every paper a plagiarist gets away with helps their career and hurts other more honest folks because the number of academic positions is limited.
Annatar 7y ago
Atari ST will also run a normal EtherNet TCP / IP stack with Netusbee (I have one): https://youtu.be/m3Lk96knpI0 https://youtu.be/m3Lk96knpI0
- maximus1983 7y ago
  I've done the same with my Amiga 600 / 1200 with a PCMCIA Ethernet Card and Miami. http://www.retro-commodore.eu/network-installation-on-the-amiga/ http://www.retro-commodore.eu/network-installation-on-the-am...
  - amiga-workbench 7y ago
    I've got an RR-Net MK3 cart for my C64 and have the Contiki web browser handy. http://mos6581.com/pictures/commodore-64/fsf.jpg http://mos6581.com/pictures/commodore-64/fsf.jpg
remvee 7y ago
Aaah, those were the days.. I went from an ST to Slackware on a 386, hooked them up using the serial port and wrote my own terminal emulator because whatever emulator I could get my hands on could not keep up with the maximum baudrate; https://github.com/remvee/st-tty https://github.com/remvee/st-tty
bhauer 7y ago
Sounds fun, though I would recommend my old friend's FreeZe Dried Terminal as the terminal program on the ST side.
keithnz 7y ago
funny, this is exactly how I accessed the internet back in the early 90s, dial up to a terminal on a unix (and VMS) box from my Atari ST :)
justaaron 7y ago
+ midi!
m-i-l 7y ago
My dad's workplace had several original Atari 520ST machines (not the STM with FM modulator or the STFM with floppy disk and modulator) which they used simply as VT220 terminals for accessing their DEC PDP and VAX minicomputers. Apparently the Ataris were a lot more cost effective than specialised VT220 terminals.
JdeBP 7y ago
This was written in 2012. The instructions for getting a TTY login session on the terminal device are now out of date. /etc/inittab is a thing of the past, and telinit q is no longer the tool. In systemd operating systems, one would instantiate a serial-getty@ttyUSB0.service , tweaked to set the TERM environment variable appropriately. On systems with nosh service management, one creates and uses an agetty@ttyUSB0 or mgetty@ttyUSB0 service bundle, adjusted with "rcctl set" to set the TERM environment variable appropriately. (What one does on runit/s6 systems is, of course, similar.) * http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-getty-is-history.html http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-getty-is-history.html * http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-is-history.html http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-is-history.html * https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/248313/5132 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/248313/5132 * http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/real-terminal-login.html http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/real-terminal-login.ht...
dekhn 7y ago
I bought an Apple IIe (just like my original personal computer), installed a serial card, and used it as a terminal. You can connect to google and search in text mode just fine.

133 points by indigodaddy 7y ago

tombh 7y ago

Wait, am I reading that right? Debian 6 runs on the Atari ST with automatic hardware detection? Can it `ssh brow.sh`?

minimaul 7y ago
No, you’re definitely reading it wrong ;) This is just connecting up a serial console, nothing more.
- tombh 7y ago
  I see, so the hardware detection is from the modern machine detecting the serial port. That truly is the definition of a terminal then. Still, pretty cool!
0815test 7y ago
Debian does have an unofficial m68k port, although I'm not sure how well it runs on this specific hardware. SSH from vintage hardware is a pain btw, there is YT video somewhere of someone SSH'ing out from a 486-compatible "586" box with a modern Linux install, and the overhead introduced by SSH is quite real there.
- walkingolof 7y ago
  It won’t run on an ST, but a Atari TT can run *nix like OS’s
  - cmrdporcupine 7y ago
    TT can actually run full Unix. Atari sold a full SYS V Unix for it, and later on NetBSD was ported to it. m68k Linux also ran on it at one point, I believe. Classic ST can't do it, because no MMU. On them we had MiNT, which was a Unix-like extension to TOS. Ran fine on an ST with a 1MB or so of RAM. At various times I ran a full suite of Unix ports... bash, emacs, nn, vi, the whole nine yards. There was also a port of the MGR window system. But the machines with an '030 (TT And Falcon) could run a proper Unix. Including X11. I remember even seeing discussion of this in UnixWorld magazine back in the day.
Annatar 7y ago
Atari ST has an alternative operating system called MiNT and RPM-based SpareMiNT, which is a UNIX-like operating system, but still TOS compatible. http://sparemint.org/Welcome-to-SpareMiNT http://sparemint.org/Welcome-to-SpareMiNT

no-onelikescode 7y ago

Except I have never actually wanted a Linux terminal. I'd rather have the Atari back, please?

finphil 7y ago

For those late weekend nights :)

SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago

I had exactly this setup a couple of years back using a Raspberry Pi and my childhood STE (which is still going strong 25 years later!) One benefit that the linked article doesn't mention is the ability to initiate file transfers over the very same serial connection using ZMODEM / YMODEM / Kermit etc. When I had this set up it was very useful to act as a bridge to my NAS and download software from there onto the ST. Good times!

indigodaddy 7y ago

I imagine similarly could be done on any old computer? (Amiga, etc?)

jerrysievert 7y ago
you could run x11 on an amiga, along with xterm, but yes you could run a simple terminal emulator as well.
- Annatar 7y ago
  I could use that. What's the X11 archive for Amiga called on "AmiNet"?
  - jerrysievert 7y ago
    unfortunately i don't know - the last time i booted an amiga was a little over 20 years ago, but it looks like DaggeX might do the trick (just search for x11 on aminet)
reaperducer 7y ago
I imagine similarly could be done on any old computer? (Amiga, etc?) Yes. I do this occasionally with a TRS-80 Model 100. And back when they were both still current, I would dial in to a PR1ME and Vax minicomputers with a Commodore 64. My holy grail is figuring out how to run a personal Zork server on an Ubuntu machine that I can access (serial or telnet) from the 100.
- Zenst 7y ago
  https://bytemyvdu.wordpress.com/2016/09/03/tandy-trs80-m100-serial-terminal/ https://bytemyvdu.wordpress.com/2016/09/03/tandy-trs80-m100-... Would be most, if not all the battle. Might need to run the serial at a lower speed to accommodate the serial buffer on the M100. From there, you can telnet to the localhost and avoid a lot of messing with the zork server if you are unable to hook it directly to the serial port you are using.

timthorn 7y ago

As an 8 or 9 year old boy, I spent an afternoon calling out an interminable list of numbers for my Dad to enter into DATA statements in a BASIC program on our ZX Spectrum to turn it into a terminal emulator by means of a hex loader. Once we'd entered it (correctly - we ended up making a few inevitable errors along the way) and saved it(!) to tape, we hooked up our phone to an acoustic coupler* and Dad spent a few minutes connected to the university mainframe. * This (exact) one: http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/37926/Moore-Reed-TC-301-universal-Acoustic-Coupler/ http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/37926/Moore-Reed-TC-3...

stevekemp 7y ago
I remember typing in programs from magazines with those lines of DATA-statements - if your magazine was Sinclair User, Your Sinclair, or similar it was easier than if it was a book. Most books would print a program for BBC-Basic, and give you a set of lines to change for other systems. e.g. Adding in the LET statement for Spectrums.
jcims 7y ago
We used to do the same with those machine code games for the c64 in the back of Compute or Byte magazine. One reader, one typer and one proofer huddled around the screen for hours. The worst part is that we didnt have the 1541 drive yet, so the game was only around for as long as the power was on. The good old days lol
- foobarian 7y ago
  Compute! had a handy little program to print a checksum of each line of BASIC on the left margin. Then, their other BASIC listings had that checksum printed alongside, so that eliminated the "proofer" job for us :-)
  - tomcam 7y ago
    MLX, I think it was called. I used it to type out Speedscript, a word processor that took only 3K for my Commodore 64 and used it for my first years as a professional writer, it was connected to a Brother electric typewriter with a parallel printer interface to the Commodore 64.

rebbie 7y ago

I still have a Heath/Zenith terminal like the one pictured alongside the story. Ahh ... memories :-)

bencollier49 7y ago

Hah, that's pretty amazing that someone put this online. I did this back at the dawn of time with my old ST, some telephone cable, and Slackware Linux running on - possibly an 8088 (or could have been a 486). Funny to see it crop up again. Of course, no-one in their right mind would do this to run a second terminal, as the Atari ST had the worst keyboard since the ZX81.

Zenst 7y ago
>Of course, no-one in their right mind would do this to run a second terminal, as the Atari ST had the worst keyboard since the ZX81 I hooked up an Oric-48k as a terminal once, having owned an Atari ST, I'm kinda in agreement with you. The Atari Keyboard had a weird springy feel about it, had Atari made mattresses, they would probably of been the best in the World - based upon the spring-feel of their keyboard. Though the Psion II I used with the serial adapter was the most funkiest at the time, ABC style calculator keyboard (still better than ST apart from layout). But it was portable and a dream. Though I still to this day and occasionally use my Psion 5mx with serial adapter cable.
- chiph 7y ago
  Now that you mention it - my 1040ST's keyboard was pretty springy, and you never were totally sure about whether it had registered your key hit. I never ran unix on it, but I wrote a VT100 emulator for it to connect to a multi-processor Xenix machine.
  - tom_ 7y ago
    It was very spongy indeed - but (when using the OS - so pretty much universal in GEM apps, and very common for TOS programs) there was a brief sound chip blip each time a keypress was registered. I for one never minded it. If the blip was there to compensate for the lack of feedback, it worked well.
weinzierl 7y ago
> possibly an 8088 (or could have been a 486) Almost certainly the latter. Linux ran only from the 386 upwards.

droithomme 7y ago

Back in the 90s I ran Minix on my Atari and did serious development on it as a contractor for various defense and aerospace companies. One war story, a big name company had some image processing that needed to be done on a spacecraft. Their scientist had written some software in lisp which was incredibly slow and took 15-30 hours to process one image on a Sun workstation. I was brought in to port it to C in the hopes of improving it, as well as to add several new features. I saw that his algorithms were really bad and rewrote the entire thing using entirely different algorithms I invented myself, bringing the run time down under 10 seconds on my Atari. I was pretty excited about this. The scientist took my algorithms and published them in a journal as his own work without crediting me. So I quit. Still pissed off about that one.

wizardforhire 7y ago
Well you’ve got my support! This is amazing, thanks for sharing!
ddingus 7y ago
You should have published, with source, time stamps, the works.
madengr 7y ago
I filed an invention disclosure with my company, but they were not interested in patenting it. Then one of our “business development” people ran his mouth to another division about the technology. Two years later I get a call from that division, saying they “may” put my name in their patent if I disclose more details about the technology. I’m still pissed about that.
btrettel 7y ago
If you're comfortable with giving details, I'd recommend posting a comment at PubPeer on the paper. https://pubpeer.com/ https://pubpeer.com/ Plagiarism like that is far too common. Every paper a plagiarist gets away with helps their career and hurts other more honest folks because the number of academic positions is limited.

Annatar 7y ago

Atari ST will also run a normal EtherNet TCP / IP stack with Netusbee (I have one): https://youtu.be/m3Lk96knpI0 https://youtu.be/m3Lk96knpI0

maximus1983 7y ago
I've done the same with my Amiga 600 / 1200 with a PCMCIA Ethernet Card and Miami. http://www.retro-commodore.eu/network-installation-on-the-amiga/ http://www.retro-commodore.eu/network-installation-on-the-am...
- amiga-workbench 7y ago
  I've got an RR-Net MK3 cart for my C64 and have the Contiki web browser handy. http://mos6581.com/pictures/commodore-64/fsf.jpg http://mos6581.com/pictures/commodore-64/fsf.jpg

remvee 7y ago

Aaah, those were the days.. I went from an ST to Slackware on a 386, hooked them up using the serial port and wrote my own terminal emulator because whatever emulator I could get my hands on could not keep up with the maximum baudrate; https://github.com/remvee/st-tty https://github.com/remvee/st-tty

bhauer 7y ago

Sounds fun, though I would recommend my old friend's FreeZe Dried Terminal as the terminal program on the ST side.

keithnz 7y ago

funny, this is exactly how I accessed the internet back in the early 90s, dial up to a terminal on a unix (and VMS) box from my Atari ST :)

justaaron 7y ago

+ midi!

m-i-l 7y ago

My dad's workplace had several original Atari 520ST machines (not the STM with FM modulator or the STFM with floppy disk and modulator) which they used simply as VT220 terminals for accessing their DEC PDP and VAX minicomputers. Apparently the Ataris were a lot more cost effective than specialised VT220 terminals.

JdeBP 7y ago

This was written in 2012. The instructions for getting a TTY login session on the terminal device are now out of date. /etc/inittab is a thing of the past, and telinit q is no longer the tool. In systemd operating systems, one would instantiate a serial-getty@ttyUSB0.service , tweaked to set the TERM environment variable appropriately. On systems with nosh service management, one creates and uses an agetty@ttyUSB0 or mgetty@ttyUSB0 service bundle, adjusted with "rcctl set" to set the TERM environment variable appropriately. (What one does on runit/s6 systems is, of course, similar.) * http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-getty-is-history.html http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-getty-is-history.html * http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-is-history.html http://jdebp.uk./FGA/inittab-is-history.html * https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/248313/5132 https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/248313/5132 * http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/real-terminal-login.html http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/real-terminal-login.ht...

dekhn 7y ago

I bought an Apple IIe (just like my original personal computer), installed a serial card, and used it as a terminal. You can connect to google and search in text mode just fine.