[TUHS] Historical Usenet maps

[Mary Ann Horton Gmail <mah@mhorton.net>]

Thanks to everyone who came to the celebration in Seattle!

If you missed it and want your own copy of historical (old) Usenet maps, 
you can download it now.

I have updated the PDF online to include everything that was in the 
display copy. The full copy is at http://www.stargatemuseum.org/maps/ .  
ThisPDF  is intended to be printed, because most of the pages are in 
landscape.

     Mary Ann

On 7/9/19 9:28 AM, Mary Ann Horton Gmail wrote:
> I've succeeded in copying the files from floppy. Thanks to everyone 
> for the great suggestions!
>
> I used a USB-to-serial adapter, combined with PuTTY and the usual 
> serial tools (DB-9 to DB-25 adapter, gender changer, and null modem). 
> I even dug out my AT&T PC 6300 MS DOS manual for details on writing 
> BAT files (although the main script had a bad habit of exiting after 
> the first file got copied). I wound up calling a 3 line script 
> separately for each file to be copied over, and using PuTTY's 
> scrolling history to save the files.
>
> I've collected these and other old Usenet maps here:
>
> http://www.stargatemuseum.org/maps/
>
> I hope to display these (and hand out a few copies!) in Seattle this 
> week.
>
> Does anyone have anything put together that can easily do the "leroy" 
> thing described here:
>
> http://www.stargatemuseum.org/maps/032383.GRF.txt
>
> and produce the graphical map it contains?
>
>     Mary Ann
>
> On 6/23/19 4:10 PM, Mary Ann Horton Gmail wrote:
>> Hunting around through my ancient stuff today, I ran across a 5.25" 
>> floppy drive labeled as having old Usenet maps. These may have 
>> historical interest.
>>
>> First off, I don't recognize the handwriting on the disk. It's not 
>> mine. Does anyone recognize it? (pic attached)
>>
>> I dug out my AT&T 6300 (XT clone) from the garage and booted it up. 
>> The floppy reads just fine. It has files with .MAP extension, which 
>> are ASCII Usenet maps from 1980 to 1984, and some .BBM files which 
>> are ASCII Usenet backbone maps up to 1987.
>>
>> There is also a file whose extension is .GRF from 1983 which claims 
>> to be a graphical Usenet map.  Does anyone have any idea what GRF is 
>> or what this map might be? I recall Brian Reid having a plotter-based 
>> Usenet geographic map in 84 or 85.
>>
>> I'd like to copy these files off for posterity. They read on DOS just 
>> fine. Is there a current best practice for copying off files? I would 
>> have guessed I'd need a to use the serial port, but my old PC has DOS 
>> 2.11 (not much serial copying software on it) and I don't have 
>> anything live with a serial port anymore. And it might not help with 
>> the GRF file.
>>
>> I took some photos of the screen with the earliest maps (the ones 
>> that fit on one screen.) So it's an option to type things in, at 
>> least for the early ASCII ones.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>     Mary Ann
>>
>>