“And will it run on our computers?”
“I…” He hesitated. “I don’t know why not. You might have to do some special formatting or boot from disks.”
“We can create a virtual machine that runs DOS,” Richard said. “DOS will see the processor as an-” He looked at Lincoln. “Intel 8086?” he asked. “Eight-oh-eight-eight? Whatever.”
Dagmar turned to Helmuth and Richard. “See if you can download a copy over a cell modem. Set it up on a computer and see what we can do.”
“Modems are going to be a problem,” Lincoln said. “Modem command strings have evolved in the last few decades. I doubt that any of our modems will be able to communicate using DOS.”
“We’ll find some,” Dagmar said. “And when we find them online, there is UPS. There is FedEx. We will prevail.”
Richard looked with some amusement at his display.
“Did you know,” he said, “that there’s a Usenet topic called alt.comp.DOSRULES?”
“There’s still Usenet?” Lola asked. Lincoln looked at her.
“Sometimes,” he said, “people actually go online to exchange information, instead of to look stuff up, play games, or to advertise themselves.”
Lola took a step back.
“Okay,” she said.
“And furthermore,” Lincoln insisted, “Usenet isn’t a damned dinosaur; it’s extremely robust. It’s not on a single computer somewhere; it’s on millions of computers throughout the world. Just try knocking that out.”
“Okay!” Lola said, more brightly, and made a patting gesture, as if she were calming an agitated but senile patient.
Dagmar smiled. “Will I find posts from Chatsworth on Usenet?” she asked.
“May not be the same Chatsworth,” Lincoln said.
“Do you know what I’m picturing?” Dagmar asked. “I’m picturing old alt-dot-DOS geezer-geeks rocking on their front porches and stamping their canes and talking about the days when bulletin board systems roamed the world.”
She heard the room’s printer start, and then Ismet rose slowly to his feet and walked to where the printer sat on its table.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Just taking care of business,” he said.
He took some papers out of the printer, then took scissors and carefully trimmed them. He limped to the wall beneath Ataturk’s portrait and picked up the hammer and tacks that waited there.
Below Ataturk’s blue-eyed glare, below the trophies from earlier demonstrations, Ismet nailed a pashmina scarf, a greeting card, and photographs of Judy and Tuna. Judy’s picture had been taken from her own Web site, and Tuna’s image had been pulled from one of the team’s unedited videos, and it showed him in Istanbul at the first demo, with a shopping bag and a bouquet of brilliant flowers.
Dagmar’s heart rose into her throat as she saw Ismet’s dogged act of devotion, as she saw the photos of the two lost members of the Lincoln Brigade. She remembered with a stab of guilt that she had planned a memorial for Judy and Tuna for that afternoon, but that the events of the day had been allowed to overtake it.
She rose from her chair.
“We’ll get on with our experiments in a minute,” she said. “But right now, I think we should take a few minutes to remember our lost friends.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dan the DOS Man says:
The best place to find a dos-compatible modem is in an antique store. Not necessarily a store that sells antiques, though you can find them there, but a genuinely old shop with a modem they’ve had no reason to change in years. Say the store sends a few credit card checks every day, you don’t need an up-to-date modem for that.
You can offer them a free new modem. They may be agreeable to the swap. Of course you can always give them money.
Briana says:
How do I configure a modem for DOS?
Dan the DOS Man says:
What program are you using the modem for in dos? That program should have a setup program for the modem. If it is an internal modem, you may have to go into BIOS and disable the com port that you will be using for the modem.
Dos-capable modems DO NOT USE DRIVERS. If you have a Winmodem you’re out of luck. To test: if the modem is on com2, go to dos and type atdt5551212›com2. You might get lucky and hear the modem dial.
Use a hayes compatible modem if you can. Do not use a usb cable as dos doesn’t have that many drivers available. Like, none.
Its best to get an external modem. Most internal modems made now are software based and won’t work with dos. Many dos programs can’t detect com3 and com4.
By the way, be careful if you have a PS2 mouse. An internal hardware modem on com1 or 2 would sometimes conflict with a PS2 mouse. A PS2 mouse is on irq 12, which is okay, but it uses the same serial paths as com1 and com2 to connect to the pci buss. So be wary.
Briana says:
Thnx.
Dan the DOS Man says:
We prefer complete sentences on this bulletin board, Briana. And no slang derived from inferior and incomplete forms of communication such as text messaging.
Briana says:
I totally respect your old-school ethic, boss. Many thanks.
Dagmar contemplated the contents of the bulletin board on her handheld and saved them. She nodded to the RAF guard outside the building-her satellite phone had decided not to work under a roof-and then climbed the stair back to the ops room.
“You know,” she said, entering, “DOS is actually kind of cool.”
Helmuth glanced up briefly from his workstation.
“We’re going to make it cooler,” he said.
Helmuth and Richard had gotten their virtual MS-DOS machine working inside Richard’s computer the previous evening. But none of the modems in the room were compatible with DOS, so everyone had left the ops room except Lloyd, who was left behind to monitor any new uploads or other developments on the Brigade’s various Web pages. He would be relieved about midnight by Lola, who would in turn be relieved by Richard.
Dagmar and their RAF guards had helped Ismet up the stairs to his apartment. His bruises had widened and deepened since the morning, and he looked worse than ever, his face a Rorschach nightmare of purple and yellow and white.
She offered to help Ismet bathe, but he declined. Instead he lay on his sofa, propped up on pillows, while Dagmar sat crosslegged on the floor by his side.
“Can I get you something to eat?” she asked.
“Possibly soup,” he said. “I don’t have much of an appetite.”
“Would you like anything to drink?”
“Tea. Any kind.”
She found Turkish tea and a soup can labeled YOURT CORBASI in the cabinet. Apparently Ismet had brought food supplies across the island from the Turkish side. She poured the soup into a pot and examined it, finding only rice and yogurt and spices-nothing that would be hard for bruised lips and loose teeth to chew-and it smelled faintly appetizing, though with the peculiar heavy aroma common to canned soups.
Ismet came to the dining table to eat. He handled his spoon with care, trying not to splash liquid on the gauze bandages that wrapped two fingers of his right hand.
Watching him was painful. Dagmar wanted to take the spoon herself and feed him, except that she knew he was the kind of man who wouldn’t appreciate being spoon-fed. Instead she sat at the kitchen table as a host of anxieties warred in her nerves. She kept a towel in her lap in case he spilled something.
The previous evening she’d had the sense that he would fly today to his death. Instead he’d been saved from that fate by a savage beating, and she felt a strange gratitude to whatever brutal Cypriot cops had rescued Ismet from a deadlier peril. She would have him at least till the bruises faded-and she knew she needed him badly, needed some anchor in this mire of treachery and mendacity, the hopeful, hopeless revolution that had at its heart a misplaced piece of code.