dan 💾It’s a nice day. Work is in a hurry-up-and-wait phase. Let’s try getting AppleTalk running over barbed wire again!
#LiveLaughLocalTalk
#GlobalTalk
#RetroComputing
#LiveLaughLocalTalk
#GlobalTalk
#RetroComputing
This time round I’ve hacked a phone cable in half and soldered alligator clips to the other sides so we get a decent connection to the fence. #LiveLaughLocalTalk #GlobalTalk #RetroComputing
IT WORKS! AppleTalk over barbed wire fence is a go! :D
#LiveLaughLocalTalk
#GlobalTalk
#RetroComputing
And a video, if you’re into that sort of thing. Apologies for the squawking UPS.
Random_Seed 
💾 🇿🇦@billgoats the patient is alive! It’s not copper so I wonder how far it can go.
@Random_Seed That's a question for another time, when I've got better electricity options. But there are entire parts of London where the phone cables are still aluminum not copper, so it can probably stretch a decent distance.
@billgoats say what? Aluminium is not as great a conductor as copper. Based on the size of the wire and voltage range, it’s not hard to calculate how far it can go. Then is likely possible to build a repeater. Imagine a 5km AppleTalk link 😂
Linker3000CCA: Copper coated aluminium.
You see a lot of cheap network patch cables and solid core reels on eBay, somewhere mentioning in the description that they're CCA.
Avoid for any lead or runs over a few metres - or buy the decent, copper-only stuff.
@linker3000 @billgoats CCA is the worst. Solid copper core only. I think BG is referring to BT infrastructure that was constructed of aluminium (likely an alloy).
@Random_Seed @linker3000 Yeah, Rotherhithe was notorious for its impossibly bad broadband. Not sure if they've laid fibre yet or not.
Dreaming of dad jazz.Evidently the old barbed wire telephones of the 1890s could at least go a few miles from what accounts I've read.
@michaelcoyote @billgoats yes, agreed. In most instances the sheep and goat hair accumulated over years proved effective at preventing corrosion.
in ♥️ with PDA (and 🐧)@billgoats at first look I thought at the machines are powerered by an electric fence
@inlovewithpda if only! That’d make the whole setup a lot more workable than the 7 minutes I get out of the small old UPS here.
vga256@billgoats *patiently awaits the infosec.exchange cabal to arrive with critical insights*
* "leaving your barbed wire exposed like that is a security risk"
* "open pasture architecture like this is why my job is more difficult than it needs to be"
* "localtalk is known not to scale beyond three furlongs why even do this"
* "leaving your barbed wire exposed like that is a security risk"
* "open pasture architecture like this is why my job is more difficult than it needs to be"
* "localtalk is known not to scale beyond three furlongs why even do this"
@vga256 Just wait until I manage to get it onto GlobalTalk and turn my barbed wire fence into a worldwide security risk 💁
@billgoats we're courting disaster! we need a globaltalk policy framework to keep bad actors like you out of the network!
@vga256 aNyBoDy could just clip on and print to the various ImageWriters! AnYbOdY!!!!
@billgoats THIS is exactly the kind of rogue imprinting that spells doom!
Ember is so tired of people. 
@billgoats looks more usable than matrix tbh
Cefiar@billgoats Congrats! You will find it probably works better if each node is near the ends of a length of wire. Basically avoiding stubs and signal reflections from the unterminated ends.
FWIW: If you have 4 wires on the fence, you can do 10Base-T the same way. As long as you stay under the length limitations, you have a good chance of making it work.
FWIW: If you have 4 wires on the fence, you can do 10Base-T the same way. As long as you stay under the length limitations, you have a good chance of making it work.
Miguel Arroz@billgoats That is awesome! 😄 I wasn't actually expecting it to work due to all the signal reflections on the wires, but maybe they are so long that the reflections don't get back with enough power to cause problems. Excellent! 😁
@arroz I didn't get a chance to actually test speeds or rubustness or anything, because the UPS dies way too quickly... something to discover another time, when I've got a long extension cable, or something!
@billgoats Too bad those laptops don't have working batteries any more! 😄 But still awesome! Next step, Bolo over barbed wire.
@arroz I know... I've occasionally toyed with the idea of rebuilding the 1400’s battery, but always end up a bit overwhelmed when it comes to actually ordering replacement cells... there are so many ever-so-slightly-different cell sizes and types :S
@billgoats Yeah, and it's something that, if gone wrong, has the potential to burn down your place. Batteries and CRTs are the two things I keep away from, since I don't know what I'm doing well enough.
Geert Uytterhoeven@billgoats What's next? Single-Pair Ethernet over barbed wire?
@geert Hehe, no reason somebody couldn't try…;)
Tony Wells
Wyte Lyon@billgoats This is incredible and you should feel incredible for it :D
@wytelyon Hehe, something like that 😜
Luo Binghe baculum truther@billgoats very curious what kind of interference you'd get from an itchy cow
@Betty They're in the other field, thankfully 🐮
stevenray@billgoats amazing.
@stevenray What a time to be alive ;)
Red_Shirt_no2
Irenes (many)
Misty@misty the future is now 😜
kira :3@billgoats i first learned about barbed wire coms like one week ago and now I see this, what a fedi turn of events
@chrisisgr8 the infrastructure we didn’t know we needed, hiding in plain sight!