6 ms·

It's highly unlikely any terminal software would be installed on an old Mac, even if it had a modem. (Although I don't know about Clarisworks.) It was counter t

by flomo 2y ago

It's highly unlikely any terminal software would be installed on an old Mac, even if it had a modem. (Although I don't know about Clarisworks.) It was counter to the whole mentality. There was a bootstrapping problem where you needed to get the software which allowed you to download the software, and even the common MacBinary/Stuffit/etc programs did not come with the system.

oneplane 2y ago
I found the example where this exact ClarisWorks process was used: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/transfer-applications-to-mac-over-serial.78777/ https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/transfer-applicati... Because serial ports (and modems) were pretty much the default thing to use (besides LocalTalk and AppleTalk) the desktop software usually supported that out of the box, no terminal required. This is also why Fax support was built in, because even then, any other type of peer connectivity wasn't really big enough. And around that same time, ClarisWorks was also really common on Macs. Now, we don't know for sure that the author also had ClarisWorks, but we don't really know much about what was available in general (except the games, the sound files and the fax). But in general serial file transfers, modem and serial based methods were pretty 'normal' to have.
- flomo 2y ago
  Good finds everyone! Other than LocalTalk (which was 'normal'), I don't believe the old MacOS had any OOB support for serial transfers. Thus Clarisworks or ZTerm or etc was needed.
canucker2016 2y ago
From the screenshot after the picture of the battery and a picture of a circuit diagram, we can see that the fax software is from Global Village ("GlobalFax PowerPort/Mercury Duo", probably v2.5) GlobalFax had a terminal emulator app included, most likely ZTerm, in this case. from https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/09/10/tech-support-at-the-village/ https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/09/10/tech-support-at-the-vi...: " the absolute garbage terminal emulator software we were including in the box. And I set about pestering Rick to get somebody to Dave Alverson’s ZTerm terminal emulator app bundled with our modems because it was light and easy and supported the ZModem file transfer protocol which " So the user could have likely run ZTerm to transfer the files.
- ruslan 2y ago
  Excellent find! The user should have consulted HN before diving into the problem. :)
- tfvlrue 2y ago
  Awesome sleuthing! Should we discover any more files to recover from the laptop, I may explore this avenue a bit further. If the ZTerm software is present, the trickiest part might be physically connecting the serial port to something else. Not an insurmountable problem.
  - Moru 2y ago
    As a poor Atari owner out in the nowere, I used metal paper-clips bent into shape and welded cables on them to connect my weird non-standard ports to other things. Worked pretty good :-)
  - oneplane 2y ago
    I think that'd be cool. The physical connection might be easy enough, if the serial speed is set low-ish you can get by with just some wires: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/powerbook-100-180-serial-to-rs232.39308/ https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/powerbook-100-180-se...
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    SLIP, zmodem, and uuencode are tremendously useful when no other options are available. I suspect you won't even have uudecode, in which case so long as you can transfer binary files, self-extracting ZIP files should work. Might take a while for larger transfers. Getting a Real Operating System onto the old laptop would be a benefit. You might want to look into boot-from-floppy options including TomsRootBoot and Trinux. The former fits onto a single 1.5 MB floppy ("superformatted" to about 1.7 or 1.8 MB). The latter uses 2--3 disk images to include a number of more formidable tools. Trinux still has a Sourceforge page, though I've not dug into it. You may need to hit up Internet Archive for working images: <https://sourceforge.net/projects/trinux/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/trinux/> A 2001 white-paper: <https://www.sans.org/white-papers/327/ https://www.sans.org/white-papers/327/> Tom's Root Boot ... seems to now be offline, but has a Wikipedia article: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt> And numerous Wayback captures. The one from 2008 should be functional and suit your hardware: <https://web.archive.org/web/20080724163531/www.toms.net/rb https://web.archive.org/web/20080724163531/www.toms.net/rb> November 2023 appears to be the most recent active capture: <https://web.archive.org/web/20231123003805/http://www.toms.net/rb/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231123003805/http://www.toms.n...> And a ~2001 article describing TRB's capabilities: <https://www.linux.com/news/little-linux-distribution-could-tomsrtbt/ https://www.linux.com/news/little-linux-distribution-could-t...>
duskwuff 2y ago
ClarisWorks had a "communications" module which is effectively a serial terminal, and which supported sending and receiving files. I'm not sure if it internally supported MacBinary, but it'd at least be enough to get files off the system.
- oneplane 2y ago
  It did automatically detect MacBinary, I think there's even some example out there of someone doing exactly this. You don't need a terminal on the old Mac, but they did use a new Mac because it came with the macbinary tool preinstalled which makes it all very easy.
- giantrobot 2y ago
  The ClarisWorks communication module could act as a TTY, like HyperTerminal. You could just dump text into it and copy from the buffer to SimpleText if you really wanted.

by flomo 2y ago

oneplane 2y ago

I found the example where this exact ClarisWorks process was used: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/transfer-applications-to-mac-over-serial.78777/ https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/transfer-applicati... Because serial ports (and modems) were pretty much the default thing to use (besides LocalTalk and AppleTalk) the desktop software usually supported that out of the box, no terminal required. This is also why Fax support was built in, because even then, any other type of peer connectivity wasn't really big enough. And around that same time, ClarisWorks was also really common on Macs. Now, we don't know for sure that the author also had ClarisWorks, but we don't really know much about what was available in general (except the games, the sound files and the fax). But in general serial file transfers, modem and serial based methods were pretty 'normal' to have.

flomo 2y ago
Good finds everyone! Other than LocalTalk (which was 'normal'), I don't believe the old MacOS had any OOB support for serial transfers. Thus Clarisworks or ZTerm or etc was needed.

canucker2016 2y ago

From the screenshot after the picture of the battery and a picture of a circuit diagram, we can see that the fax software is from Global Village ("GlobalFax PowerPort/Mercury Duo", probably v2.5) GlobalFax had a terminal emulator app included, most likely ZTerm, in this case. from https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/09/10/tech-support-at-the-village/ https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/09/10/tech-support-at-the-vi...: " the absolute garbage terminal emulator software we were including in the box. And I set about pestering Rick to get somebody to Dave Alverson’s ZTerm terminal emulator app bundled with our modems because it was light and easy and supported the ZModem file transfer protocol which " So the user could have likely run ZTerm to transfer the files.

ruslan 2y ago
Excellent find! The user should have consulted HN before diving into the problem. :)
tfvlrue 2y ago
Awesome sleuthing! Should we discover any more files to recover from the laptop, I may explore this avenue a bit further. If the ZTerm software is present, the trickiest part might be physically connecting the serial port to something else. Not an insurmountable problem.
- Moru 2y ago
  As a poor Atari owner out in the nowere, I used metal paper-clips bent into shape and welded cables on them to connect my weird non-standard ports to other things. Worked pretty good :-)
- oneplane 2y ago
  I think that'd be cool. The physical connection might be easy enough, if the serial speed is set low-ish you can get by with just some wires: https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/powerbook-100-180-serial-to-rs232.39308/ https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/powerbook-100-180-se...
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  SLIP, zmodem, and uuencode are tremendously useful when no other options are available. I suspect you won't even have uudecode, in which case so long as you can transfer binary files, self-extracting ZIP files should work. Might take a while for larger transfers. Getting a Real Operating System onto the old laptop would be a benefit. You might want to look into boot-from-floppy options including TomsRootBoot and Trinux. The former fits onto a single 1.5 MB floppy ("superformatted" to about 1.7 or 1.8 MB). The latter uses 2--3 disk images to include a number of more formidable tools. Trinux still has a Sourceforge page, though I've not dug into it. You may need to hit up Internet Archive for working images: <https://sourceforge.net/projects/trinux/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/trinux/> A 2001 white-paper: <https://www.sans.org/white-papers/327/ https://www.sans.org/white-papers/327/> Tom's Root Boot ... seems to now be offline, but has a Wikipedia article: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt> And numerous Wayback captures. The one from 2008 should be functional and suit your hardware: <https://web.archive.org/web/20080724163531/www.toms.net/rb https://web.archive.org/web/20080724163531/www.toms.net/rb> November 2023 appears to be the most recent active capture: <https://web.archive.org/web/20231123003805/http://www.toms.net/rb/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231123003805/http://www.toms.n...> And a ~2001 article describing TRB's capabilities: <https://www.linux.com/news/little-linux-distribution-could-tomsrtbt/ https://www.linux.com/news/little-linux-distribution-could-t...>

duskwuff 2y ago

ClarisWorks had a "communications" module which is effectively a serial terminal, and which supported sending and receiving files. I'm not sure if it internally supported MacBinary, but it'd at least be enough to get files off the system.

oneplane 2y ago
It did automatically detect MacBinary, I think there's even some example out there of someone doing exactly this. You don't need a terminal on the old Mac, but they did use a new Mac because it came with the macbinary tool preinstalled which makes it all very easy.
giantrobot 2y ago
The ClarisWorks communication module could act as a TTY, like HyperTerminal. You could just dump text into it and copy from the buffer to SimpleText if you really wanted.