Denial

sydbolton wrote:In response to those saying this is "cheating" - I submit that I never once claimed this was a native TCP IP situation on the VIC. I used a small PC "box".

You're confusing cheating with lying (not that anyone accused you of either). Semantics and your protestations aside, the VIC-20 did not tweet; your "small PC" did. The VIC-20 acted only as a terminal. Had you actually written a TCP/IP stack and a Twitter client for the VIC-20, that would have been noteworthy.

To say it's cheating to communicate would be like saying any wireless device that goes through a router is cheating since a router is essentially a computer (usually) running Linux.

Uh, no. Obfuscation much?

The bottom line? We accomplished what we set out to do.

Unabashed self-promotion?

Wow Golan you are coming off as a bit bitter here -- it's quite unwarranted.

Sorry you don't feel this has been noteworthy. The thousands of other people must just be wrong.

Not going to argue the point any further -- since there really isn't anything to argue. You have your opinion, and I have mine. As I said, we accomplished what we wanted to.

I'll wait for your contribution so I can stand back and take shots at you too.

It's a good thing that the majority of people in the vintage computing community are supportive of each others efforts and don't just stand back and criticize others with offering very little value beyond hollow words.

sydbolton wrote:Wow Golan you are coming off as a bit bitter here -- it's quite unwarranted.

I'm not bitter. I was simply stating facts. I guess I hit a nerve.

Sorry you don't feel this has been noteworthy. The thousands of other people must just be wrong.

Not wrong, ignorant. Most people don't have the technical knowledge necessary to comprehend the subtle difference I described in my previous post. As a result, they're easily impressed. P. T. Barnum had a pithy observation about this phenomenon.

At any rate, I understand that you need to stage these kinds of events to raise awareness about and funds for your museum. I'm glad things worked out for you.


I wonder how long it will take for the shirtless buffoon with the rolling eyes to show up?

Congratulations on your accomplishment, Syd! We talked about the tweeting on the VIC-20 at today's FCUG meeting. I hope one day to visit your museum.

Thank you to Leif for posting the photos.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

gklinger wrote:I'm not bitter. I was simply stating facts. I guess I hit a nerve.

Congratulations on keeping your composure, this time.

sydbolton wrote:The VIC is responsible for converting the characters from "PETSCII" to "ASCII" since the TweetVER server software expects standard ASCII (you have to have a standard in one place anyways). The VIC doesn't have an underscore so if you send a "-" in your username, the server software translates it to an underscore.

While your setup slightly differs from what I thought in my first mail, I still wonder I you couldn't have used a GSM module instead. After all, Twitter is supposed to be used via cell phones. This way, more of the Twitter API could be shifted to the VIC.

The VIC is able to change the displayed character set. I.e. you can display ASCII glyphs instead of PETSCII.

Finally, getting a 3 minutes TV broadcast on this *is* a feat. Well done.

Greetings,

Michael

sydbolton wrote: I'll wait for your contribution so I can stand back and take shots at you too.

You'll be waiting a long time. Unless you consider him reselling junk he got for free a "Contribution."

I'm with you on this; technically, all of our computers are mere "Terminals" connected to servers. I think you did a nice job.

Better to be an eye-rolling shirtless buffoon than a short, fat, bald, whiny cat-loving people hating ass clown.

PaulQ wrote:I'm with you on this; technically, all of our computers are mere "Terminals" connected to servers.

Technically, you are incorrect.

I am technical and I have a hard time following this thread ...

To summarize what I got from it, a VIC 20 sent an asynchronous "tweet"(?) via a local "proxy" that was a gateway to a real Twitter client? And the accomplishment here is the general availability of this serial gateway to Twitter, which demonstrated that it can allow for any computer ever created with a serial I/O -- even a VIC 20 -- to send tweets?

If that's accurate, it's okay by me. I guess if I were less technical or even cared just a little about Twitter, I might have more interest in it outside of the publicity stunt. Regardless, kudos for the effort and the publicity!

And for the not-so-technical, I would not categorize all of our computers as mere terminals connected to servers. Perhaps you meant "our sessions here at Denial" ... ?

rhurst wrote: And for the not-so-technical, I would not categorize all of our computers as mere terminals connected to servers. Perhaps you meant "our sessions here at Denial" ... ?

I meant that in the context of web access, such as Denial or, in the context of this thread, which would be the posting of tweets to twitter.

6502dude wrote:My impresssion of twitter in general is - that it is alot of hype and not much substance.

You've reminded me of this Onion article:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_br ... _on_iran_i

Yes, if pauline doesn't have it, it must be "used junk"

sooooo typical....


and I knew it would not end up being an actual twitter client and my guess that it was a dumb terminal was dead on.

I guess I should make a post about using a wyse terminal connected to a linux box tweeting and call it a record.

From the people I have spoken to and the information I have read regarding the "museum" I still suspect the "museum" is how someone funds their retro hobby.

From the people I have spoken to and the information I have read regarding the "museum" I still suspect the "museum" is how someone funds their retro hobby.

Wow, what a joke. You clearly have no idea what we have done, what we have accomplished and how we work!

I won't even get into the fact that we've donated over 1,000 computers back into our community, helped many people find jobs locally, and given tours to THOUSANDS of school kids and helped educate them on where personal computing got its start.

As far as "funding" my retro hobby -- hardly. I have personally spent over $100,000 of my own money on the museum and have never taken a cent back. I still pay for the insurance and telephone out of my own pocket, and I don't charge the museum any rent.

Before making a statement like that, I'd do your research first because you will get blasted so far back you might actually end up in 1981 with the VIC-20.

GET A FREAKING CLUE.

hmm, the website says $2 per student for school tours, so you have NEVER taken any money?

anyway, its "open" what, one day a month for a few hours. Call it YOUR retro den or something, and I'll buy its on the level. I got the feeling something is fishy about it when I inquired about it at WoC 2008.

We ask for a $2 donation for students to help cover costs. We have monthly electricity bills, storage costs, and other expenses such as association costs. We are a legitimate registered Canadian Charity with CRA (look it up if you wish). We are registered with both the BMGA (Brant Museums and Galleries Association) and the Ontario Museum Association. This money NEVER goes to me personally! The museum is a not for profit organization with its own set of books and bank account.

We are open every Monday evening for recycling drop offs and open one Saturday per month where we have all the machines on.

We also spend one Saturday a month (usually) giving away computers that our volunteers spend time refurbishing. This is in addition to our regular open house (as the location for the giveaway is separate)

We open for school tours whenever requested. We have two former educators (one principal and one a retired physics teacher) that lead those.

We are volunteer run so it's not really fair to ask to be open fully for the day more than once a month since everyone is donating their time. Plus, if we were open more than that I am not sure we'd have the traffic. It builds up more interest making our Saturdays that we are open busy.

This is not just a "retro den" or something. Again, do your research. Explore our website. Get an idea of the scope of what we are doing.

We have over 30 volunteers. This isn't just some "fly by night" thing.

If someone gave you that impression somewhere else, they are misinformed. I have also seen a number of people get very jealous of what we're doing - and I suppose that is where this stems from.

Again, try talking to me about it if that's how you feel instead of airing something like this in public space. It really burns my ass to hear comments like this with all the work that myself and my team have put into making preserving history, educating, and in general trying to make a difference in our community. I imagine if one of the people who has had their lives changed by receiving a free computer from us ever saw this, they would shake their head in disgust.

Here's our charity listing:

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ebci/haip/srch ... 1013RR0001

Which also means we file tax returns and have to report all of our revenue and expenses publicly.