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My wife was given a free IBM (that’s the right price). Not much later a young man, Mark, asked me the now favorite question of all those people sold on IBM, “Why do you prefer Sinclair over IBM?”. After struggling with the IBM for weeks, I knew why. Not being a patient man (you have to be when using an IBM) I said “OK, I’ll show you. First I’ll power up the machine, load in the word processor, exit the word processor, load in the terminal program, exit the terminal program, re-enter the terminal program and stop my watch.” It took 1 minute, 28 seconds. We then retired to my TS2068 setup and did the same sequence again. It took 28 seconds for the TS2068 to do the same thing, one minute less! I told him “I prefer speed!”

One of my friends, Fa Yu, after wrestling with his newly acquired IBM said “IBM is a lousy computer but it makes a great file server!” I noticed the same thing, it seems to be made for file manipulation.

What it does have going for it is speed of file transfer both to and from a hard disk and back and forth down a phone line. Just like the 1TS2068 terminal programs, however, the IBM terminal programs need the RING OF A PHONE to bring them to life in the HOST mode. I was thinking of building some kind of phone line high voltage AC tickler and mentioned this idea to one of our 15 year old members when he came back with a much better idea. Phillip picked up my phone, dialed a number, pressed the hook switch and let it go. A strange tone came out of the receiver. He then hung up the phone and laid back in his chair. The phone rang. I picked up the phone nobody was there! “WHAT?”

He explained the procedure to me. You dial three special numbers followed by the last four numbers of you phone number.

I went into the dinning room and turned on my wife’s IBM, called up her terminal package and put the terminal package into the HOST mode.

I went into my computer room and turned on my TS2068 loaded in MaxCom and picked up the phone. I went through Phillips’s phone procedure. After I put the phone back into the cradle, it rang and the IBM answered! I put MaxCom onto the terminal mode. The IBM started talking to the TS2068! I was able now to upload and download TS2068 files to the IBM. One of the options the IBM gave me was to enter DOS. I did. From my TS2068 I was able to do all the file manipulation I wanted on the IBM located in the dinning room with no one attending it. I could even tell the IBM to print files. All these new things I could now do and I didn’t have to run a single new wire or install any new hardware!

Out of the mouths of babes…

I am now able to move files over the land lines at 2400 baud (later at 14.4kbs) instead of 300 baud! Also, because these files can be compressed at one end and uncompressed at the other, additional precious time and bucks are being saved.