November 29, 2020

        Today I decided I was having such a good time with SDF that I'd go
ahead and sign up for ARPA - as troublesome as the source of that name is
with me, haha. One of the main things I was hoping to accomplish now was the
ability to SCP files directly onto the server, which would be extremely
useful for a project I have planned in the near-future. Unfortunately, it
would seem that there is no current SSH client for DOS that is compatible
with the version of OpenSSH that SDF employs - this is a huge shame, and it
is my hope that maybe this is a problem that can be rectified - maybe another
future project? Hopefully not one for me, haha.

        Anyway, my telnet client doesn't support Zmodem transfers, so I
thought that was basically game over for uploadings things from my DOS
machines. Not so! Digging around in the documentation, it turns out there's
also support for X and Ymodem transfers, which works wonderfully - I managed
to successfully SCP a test file from my modern Linux Mint machine to my home
folder, and then download it via Ymodem to this DOS machine, and then send a
different file back the other way. It's not as fast or as nice as SCP, but it
is still a pretty good solution. Certainly better than emailing myself, haha.

        Back in business, I figured it was a good time to start working on
today's log - this time written from my DOS machine with a word processor of
my choosing, and simply uploaded to my phlog folder at whatever moment was
most convenient for me. Yeah, well, turns out I forgot I don't actually have
any word processors on this machine except for MSDOS Editor 2.0. It's not
terrible, especially for rudimentary programming or messing with .cfg files,
but it leaves a lot to be desired. No word wrap, limited mouse support, and
it isn't exactly an attractive UI. Okay, I know I'm mostly using it just for
screwing around with .bat files and writing specifically text-only Gopher
pages, but if I wanted something as stripped down as PICO I'd just use PICO!

        Anyway that's what I've spent quite a bit of today doing - playing
around with different word processors and text editors trying to find that
balance between bare-boned simplicity and overkill - offering more than
Editor 2.0 but without going full-blown WordPerfect 6.0. I feel like I've
been through nearly every editor on the SIMTEL archives at this point, and
I'm about to give in and just install MS Word 4.0 (also holy crap why does
a word processor require *3* 720kb floppy disks?) or something else along
those lines. So far the best lightweight option for DOS that I've found has
been...PICO. Since I'm incredibly stubborn and refuse to just accept that
maybe I should just use PICO, clearly the best option for my needs, I did
today's log using Editor 2.0 at the last minute. Gonna probs log off once
I get this uploaded, the holiday extended weekend is over and it is back to
work in the morning.


-Prokyonid