💾 Archived View for avfig.com › gemlog › new-year-old-things.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 02:39:45. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
By Jeremiah Stoddard on January 8, 2023
I noticed that the (self-generated) certificate for this server expired a few days ago, so I just generated a new one. That issue could have easily gone unnoticed, since my homemade Gemini client doesn't care. Germinal seemed to pick up the new certificate right away, without even a restart, so that was a nice smooth process.
This year I hope to do some more stuff with older computers and more generally spend less time on the flashy, overcommercialized parts of the Internet. On January 1st (if I recall the date correctly) I set up a shell account with SDF that lets me telnet into a Unix shell with my older computers, whether the Windows 3.1 pentium laptop, the Apple IIe, or one of the others. This lets me do a few extra things those old computers can't do on their own, like browsing SSL-only websites (at all for the Apple IIe, which can't handle SSL, and because I don't actually have the Windows 3.1 machine set up for real Internet) and geminispace.
The SDL account will also allow me to set up some stuff on gopherspace, since I'm too lazy to set up a gopher server on this virtual machine. I still have to overcome enough of the laziness to actually put together some content and gophermaps or whatever, though.
Meanwhile, BBSing from the Windows 3.1 machine has been a blast. I had so much fun with BBSes as a teenager in the 90s, and it's nice to experience that again with a serial "modem" that lets the old machines connect to telnet. (I used the WiFi modem with the HP 200LX and the Apple IIc before getting this latest pentium laptop, which is also a blast, but lacks the color ANSI support that was a part of my BBS experience.) I've been playing "Death Masters," a door game that I have fond memories of (real-life) fights with my brother over, because we would kill each other in in-game fights. Good times.
Well, here's to a new year. Hopefully a less commercial one, in which I shirk my responsibilities of helping prop up the increasingly shaky economy. Best wishes for a happy and prosperous 2023 to you all.