Some time ago, someone, either on this forum or another one, posted a link to a page with a rather ingenious little hack that allowed you to turn an old defunct notebook computer into what was essentially an LCD dumb termiinal, requiring a minimum of overhead.
If I recall correctly, it was presented as basically a .COM program (only a dozen lines or so) that lived on a floppy with a basic DOS kernel and a short AUTOEXEC.BAT. You popped the disc in, turened it on, and once it POSTed, you had yourself a serial dumbterm using the notebook’s keyboard, RS-232 port, and LCD. There was no messing around with any of the higher functions, and it required only the bare minimum needed to load up the basic DOS kernel.
If anyone happened to see that and bookmark it, or if they could point me in the right direction towards the website and/or article in question, I would much appreciate it.
I haven’t seen the page, but it shouldn’t be hard to make a boot floppy like that with freely available software (or an old DOS boot disk if you have one handy). Freedos (freedos.org) should run any old DOS terminal software. MS DOS Kermit columbia.edu/kermit/mskermit.html from Columbia University is a very solid serial terminal. Telix was another excellent work, though it is shareware.
Hope it helps.
[edit]
It appears the download for Kermit is broken. The NFB has download links nfbnet.org/download/modems.htm MSVIBM.ZIP (main program) and MSKERMIT.PCH (a text patch file with instructions inside).
The autoexec.bat file should be very straight forward.
