jmcunx OCC 4

Old Computer Challenge # 4 Notes

For OCC 4, which is a kind of "Roll your own" challenge, I went with a theme "Back to 1989". That is around the time I got a UNIX System for use at work. The system (Wang IN/ix) was a 16 bit UNIX based upon Interactive UNIX.

So, I will setup OpenBSD on my R51e Thinkpad to work kind of like that system did back then.

This means:

• No X
• use of the original csh(1)
• vi(1) as opposed to vim(1).
• For usenet I will try using nn(1). That is what I used back then. But I expect I may revert back to tin(1), will see.
• screen(1) as opposed to tmux(1), tmux did not exist back then.
• Email I will use mutt(1). I do not know if that existed back then, but I have no idea how to set up mail(1) to send/receive email on OpenBSD with my mail provider.
• lynx for WEB, amfora for gemini and irssi for IRC. I do not think these existed back then, but will make an exception to keep up with the challenge as much as I can.

Links to Solene's Challenge Pages:

System Information, some from neofetch:

• OS: OpenBSD 7.5 i386 -- Packages: 274 (pkg_info)
• CPU: Intel Pentium M (1) @ 800MHz
• Memory: 2G
• disk size: 40G
• For wireless, I had used an "Edimax Wi-Fi 4 802.11n USB Adapter"

Summary:

TLDR:

This was a fun one, it was a kind of a repeat of my OCC 3, except with different hardware and stuck with OpenBSD base as much as I could. The big difference is I was on a Laptop, used OpenBSD with wireless.

I can say I enjoyed this more than OCC 3, but only due to one thing, the 4:3 display the R51e has. I realized I really do not care for these wide displays.

I chalk that up to the fact 4:3 was all I used for the first 25 years of programming. I did not encounter these wide screen monitors until I got a T61p for my work PC around 14 or so years ago.

But going forward, I can see myself using the R51e in this mode every so often to keep some of my sanity :)

Thanks (merci) to Solene for started these so many years ago!

PROS:

• csh(1) - see below
• Since no GUI type applications, I noticed hardly any speed difference between the R51e and a much more modern system.

CONS:

• csh(1) - see below
• I will really miss reading my daily comics.
• There were times I missed the full experience of the GUI WEB. I believe browsers like Firefox are the only reason I need to run a GUI.

Day 8: Saturday, July 20, 2024

• Last day of OCC 4.
• Nothing much, just re-visited nn(1) to see if I could get it going. But I will only mention nn(1) again if I have success :)
• I think I understand Gopher, the big question, do I want to use it ?
• It will be a lot of work to convert my Bicycling Page to gemini. Will wait for bad weather to start.

Day 7: Friday, July 19, 2024

• Reading news about Croudstrike, yet another reason to use Old Computers :)
• Finally nice weather, got outside without facing a sun like in the movie Pitch Black "The Chronicles of Riddick".

Day 6: Thursday, July 18, 2024

• Since nn(1) was a fail, I decided to try trn(1). Maybe that is what I used ages ago for USENET(?). I got trn(1) working and it connects fine. It does not resemble what I thought I used, but close. I still think it was nn(1), will investigate later.
• Outside of that, a quiet day.

Day 5: Wednesday, July 17, 2024

• My tech support from yesterday continued on today. Funny listening to how frustrated a user with little tech knowledge gets when dealing with the help desk, and how flustered the tech people gets.
• My relative is a Finance Person, so only knows excel, email and Oracle ERP, he was upset that Windows on his new PC from work was 'not the same', that includes icon placement. For this I blame Microsoft. He even pasted a screen print into an excel spreadsheet for email to the tech people.
• I think tech support needs better training on how to deal with users that have no clue how to fully run windows. Or better stated, people who use windows as a dumb terminal for only ERP, excel, email and browsing.
• But this episode only confirmed my hate for Microsoft Windows. Maids knew how bad windows where a century ago before Microsoft existed, many use to say "I do not do Windows" on interviews :)
• The good news, this "support office" is now closed. Issues finally resolved.
• From the not try this at home dept. I upgraded the HDD on my T420 a few months ago. So as I was using the R51e for OCC, I decided to upgrade the R51e HDD to use the old T420 disk. Well, I pulled it out and guess what, the "new" drive will not fit, plus I dropped one of the small screws on the floor. The rug is of a color that once something drops on it, you will never find it. Luckly I had bought a Thinkpad Extra Screw Kit and it has a screw that fit exactly. All good, but the moral is never do this at night when you are exhausted.

Day 4: Tuesday, July 16, 2024

• Odd day today, a relative was here for tech support on his work laptop, the old laptop 'broke', so he need to get a new one active. The tech people where he works seems to be "weak" when it comes to external monitors and net issues. So he is here in case he needs help with tech support. Plus his tech support stated his internet at home was causing the issue, weird.
• Fixed some backup scripts to work on this old system, now I can back it up :)

Day 3: Monday, July 15, 2024

• I gave up on nn(1), revisited it and there is a config issue with it. It can only see Eternal September specific groups. Seems it has issues with sites that need an ID and Password when using tls.
• Just a lazy day, a bit of nethack was about it.

Day 2: Sunday, July 14, 2024

• I guess it is true what the say about muscle memory. Over the years, I have gotten so use to the new functions of vim(1), I thought vi(1) would drive me crazy. Well, my ancient muscle memory came back, and using vi(1) was not bad. I still miss some functionality of vim(1), but I can get by quite well without it.
• When I used nn(1) yesterday, I posted and replied to group "eternal-september.test". Today I received an email from each post that states this was sent because I posted to a test group, the emails contained the full post, odd.
• I should learn gopher. Maybe I will dig into that sometime this week.
• Not much else today, I formalized my csh(1) history setup. I will put this on sdf.org and gitlab after this challenge. Once there I will add the link to this document.

Day 1: Saturday, July 13, 2024

• Got screen(1) installed and setup. I had wanted to use it because tmux did not exist back then.
• After a few hours, I really see no difference between tmux(1) and screen(1). Since tmux(1) is in base, I went back to tmux because on OpenBSD, it is best base whenever possible.
• This did not take long, tried nn(1) but went back to tin(1). nn(1) does not seem work anywhere near to what I remember back then. I am even wondering if what I used was nn(1), I am fairly sure it is what I used.
• Rest of the day was watching the rain, email, chatting, minor source changes and looking to see what it would take to convert my bicycling WEB page to Gemini.
• Fixed git(1)/gpg(1) signing, that was failing on this system. But, later on pinentry broke with git/gpg again. I do not understand why the gnupg people hate simple pharaphrase prompts, but need an abortion like pinentry. Anyway, I found a work around. Kill gpg-agent, sign a file with 'gpg -ab', then do a git commit. This is nuts.

csh(1)

Notes about using the original csh(1) instead of a more modern shell. What follows deals with the original BSD csh(1), not tcsh(1).

On my first UNIX at work, we were setup with csh(1). I hated it, later on as the systems were upgraded, we were moved to ksh(1), and the universe became well again. I brought this up because I have had used csh in the past, so I did remember a little bit about it.

But I ended up a tcsh(1) user because of Coherent OS. tcsh(1) on Coherent was the only shell available that had "real" tab completion and could use arrow keys. But on OpenBSD I use ksh(1) because it is in base.

So here are pros/cons about using the original csh(1):

• con: no arrow keys
• con: no "tab" completion for commands, you do have "esc" completion for files.
• con: no real command line editing. To edit a specific command line, you use a non-standard and simple type sed(1) regular expression syntax.
• con: when you need to work fast, csh(1) can break your train of thought. But I think once you build muscle memory, maybe it will get better. In a way I kind of doubt it. For example, if you need to edit an old command, you need to be conscience of what you are doing.
• neither: you get to really like aliases.
• neither: character '!' becomes your best friend.
• pro: great for your memory. If you think you need memory exercises, use csh :)
• pro: tiny
• pro: after using it for a while, I can say you may actually like it. But there is a lot to learn to get productive. If back then we had search engines we have now, I may have stuck with csh(1).
• pro: If someone never saw csh(1) and is watching you use it for command line editing, they may think you are l33t instead of an "old has been" :)

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$Id: occ_4.gmi,v 1.23 2025/11/29 15:21:10 jmccue Exp $