Hey Team, Thank you for the wonderful information. I will research Portable Computer Magazine for Barcode programs through the Internet Archive and look for good examples.
Believe it or not, I got into these machines and bought the 100 and 200 models because I wanted to see the design and styling of these machines firsthand. I have an idea to write a sci-fi novel of a civilization that goes into space using older systems mainly because they're everywhere, more rugged, and easier to troubleshoot. I was thinking that I could add an Easter egg to the book when done: a mini text adventure encoded on the border of chapter header pages disguised as art. Only those curious enough would try to read the codes and find the lines of code, which would work on the machines used in the book. I grew up fiddling with old PCs people were throwing out years ago and learning how to use them by trial and error. My first machine was a 286 clone that I used to learn BASIC and started reading programs. Since I found it difficult to locate viable barcode programs, I thought I'd email your team to see if it was ever implemented versus theoretical. I figured, in space reams of barcodes books are more resilient than cassettes as a backup given electromagnetic forces. ________________________________ From: M100 <[email protected]> on behalf of B 9 <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, July 5, 2024 11:59 AM To: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [M100] [m100] Odd Topic - barcode storage Hey JS, welcome to Model T computing! Greg is right, it was Portable Computer Magazine that printed the barcode listings, according to https://www.ordersomewherechaos.com/rosso/fetish/m102/web100/docs/kyocera-faq.html#b13 . Just out of curiosity, why did you get both a 100 and 200? Are you trying to catch them all? If so, you've got at least three more to go (from Kyocera, NEC, and Olivetti). —b9 P.S. Since you're just starting out, please forgive me for making one recommendation from personal experience: these machines lose the contents of their memory when you look at them funny, so backup often, either over a serial port<https://youtu.be/H0xx9cOe97s> or with a REX expansion. On Fri, Jun 21, 2024 at 2:51 PM J S <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hey everyone, I had a question. And it might already be solved but I don't see an answer on how to do it. I'm a recent owner of both an 100 and a 200 model machines. I also have a barcode pen. I've seen lots of information about using it for data entry and business type applications but I have not seen any information on a way to use it to load lines of programming. Back in the old magazines you could get the printout of a BASIC program and type them in. I had read a long time ago about the possibility of converting those programs to lines of barcodes that could make programs easier to enter, albeit line by line. The idea would be that you would load a program that would let you scan those barcodes one by one and save it to a data file. That file, when closed could be renamed as the BA file and ran normally. Any help or ideas would be appreciated
