Would you benefit from file manager on your Kobo reader?

[Ken Maltby]

"Byte" makes me think of Jerry Pournelle's unfair dissing of my QX-10 and its Valdocs "OS".

Then there is Gordon R Dickson's "Wolfling", that sorta makes "TechniSol's" point, at least as to the value of knowing the underlining technology.

Luck;
Ken

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I don't know if anyone remembers reading a short story by Isaac Asimov called The Fun They Had but it strikes me as becoming more fact than fiction and a lot faster than Doc Asimov would have predicted.

http://users.aber.ac.uk/dgc/funtheyhad.html

Regards,
David

I wish! The adoption of Social Engineering as the major function of our education system and the advent of the enforcer group "the Teacher's Union", makes me long for an efficient AI based education system for our progeny.

Luck;
Ken

[moffattm]

Originally Posted by DNSB

There were all the hobbyist run BBS systems and long distance phone bills that were unbelievable.

I used to run a BBS on my Atari ST back in the late 80's and I remember making toll calls from New Zealand to other boards in the US in order to download games for my users to play, at NZ$3 a minute. I ran up a bill of about $1200 over a couple of months, fortunately I was single and care-free at the time and so a lot of my income went into my hobby.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by moffattm

I used to run a BBS on my Atari ST back in the late 80's and I remember making toll calls from New Zealand to other boards in the US in order to download games for my users to play, at NZ$3 a minute. I ran up a bill of about $1200 over a couple of months, fortunately I was single and care-free at the time and so a lot of my income went into my hobby.

I started my BBS on a CP/M S-100 bus machine with a PMMI modem in 1980 -- 600 bps, moved it to a clone of the Big Board from JLS computers with an added SASI interface for a 10MB hard drive and finally to a series of IBM clones running OS/2. The software went from CBBS to Maximus/2 with a few detours in between. In the detours, I learned more than I actually wanted to know about programming in BDS C for CP/M and Pascal for DOS. I got involved in Fidonet which cut down my LD phone bills but added to my stress -- herding cats at its finest. I finally shut the BBS down in 2002 as the tech support side which paid the bills for the BBS was being less and less used and the public side was down to 1-3 callers per day -- the 604 BBS list was down to less than 15 systems listed from it's peak of over 2000 systems when it was last published.

Very fond memories of people such as Ward Christensen, Randy Seuss, Steve Vinokuroff, Scott Dudley, Joe Frankiewicz. I'd better stop here as the list keeps getting longer.

Regards,
David

[moffattm]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I started my BBS on a CP/M S-100 bus machine with a PMMI modem in 1980 -- 600 bps, moved it to a clone of the Big Board from JLS computers with an added SASI interface for a 10MB hard drive and finally to a series of IBM clones running OS/2. The software went from CBBS to Maximus/2 with a few detours in between. In the detours, I learned more than I actually wanted to know about programming in BDS C for CP/M and Pascal for DOS. I got involved in Fidonet which cut down my LD phone bills but added to my stress -- herding cats at its finest. I finally shut the BBS down in 2002 as the tech support side which paid the bills for the BBS was being less and less used and the public side was down to 1-3 callers per day -- the 604 BBS list was down to less than 15 systems listed from it's peak of over 2000 systems when it was last published.

Very fond memories of people such as Ward Christensen, Randy Seuss, Steve Vinokuroff, Scott Dudley, Joe Frankiewicz. I'd better stop here as the list keeps getting longer.

Regards,
David

It sounds like you were a lot more into BBS's than me!

I recognise Ward Christensen's name, not because of his work with CBBS but rather for the XMODEM protocol. I implemented a version of XMODEM for Primos in the late 80's to help me transfer files to client's computers (prior to that we would send tapes around the country).

[BobC]

Originally Posted by moffattm

It sounds like you were a lot more into BBS's than me!

I recognise Ward Christensen's name, not because of his work with CBBS but rather for the XMODEM protocol. I implemented a version of XMODEM for Primos in the late 80's to help me transfer files to client's computers (prior to that we would send tapes around the country).

Ah - XMODEM , I did an implementation of that in 8080 assembler for a CP/M machine we had at work as part of a terminal program to let me access bulletin boards at 300Bd. Reverse engineering the CBIOS so I could get at the serial port was the most interesting bit. It got me into the need to understand the low level stuff that most folk won't have heard of like floppy drive skew tables for mapping physical to logical sectors on a FDD.

BobC

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by moffattm

It sounds like you were a lot more into BBS's than me!

I recognise Ward Christensen's name, not because of his work with CBBS but rather for the XMODEM protocol. I implemented a version of XMODEM for Primos in the late 80's to help me transfer files to client's computers (prior to that we would send tapes around the country).

Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss were the authors of CBSS, Steve Vinokuroff ran one of the first BBS systems in Vancouver (Vancouver CBBS/RCPM) with a multiline version using MP/M. Scott Dudley was responsible for the Maximus BBS package of which I used the OS/2 version. Joe Frankiewicsz was with US Robotics and I spent quite a bit of time chatting with him during the various beta programs. I was very happy when USR went to flash memory though there was a certain joy in having little packages delivered through the mail slot that downloading a flash update couldn't match.

I did enjoy being involved with BBS systems and 'met' quite a few people I enjoyed knowing through the years.

Regards,
David

[theonna]

It seems we getting closer and closer to people who could benefit from file manger being equal to people who feel like they don't need it...

Originally Posted by theonna

It seems we getting closer and closer to people who could benefit from file manger being equal to people who feel like they don't need it...

It must be all of the talk about old computers: it's making people nostalgic.

[rexxmagnus]

I definitely want a file browser. I bought an Aura HD to read technical docs as A4 is fairly readable at full page size, but the lack of file management on the device means that the hundreds of documents I have are all in the same 'pile', and given that I don't know the titles of the individual files, the search is useless for me.

I have messaged Kobo numerous times and they say that they are looking into the possibility of adding a file browser. Eight months later and it's still not materialised.

[PeterT]

@rexx: You might want to look in to the alternate readers people have made available for the Kobo's; CoolReader and KoReader I think...

[Ken Maltby]

You lose nothing of the official Kobo software when you add the alternative readers, in fact they are usually launched from the Kobo interface just as if they were another book.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=226456

Both CoolReader and Koreader use File Managers and both can be set to read "hidden" files and folders. That way you can hide your library from Kobo's processing and database. I keep ~ 7000 ebooks on an external uSD card in my AuraHD 3.1.1.

Luck;
Ken

[rexxmagnus]

Thanks! I was completely unaware that you could install software like that on the Kobo readers. I'll check it out!

[t_chip]

Originally Posted by Ken Maltby

You lose nothing of the official Kobo software when you add the alternative readers, in fact they are usually launched from the Kobo interface just as if they were another book.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=226456

Both CoolReader and Koreader use File Managers and both can be set to read "hidden" files and folders. That way you can hide your library from Kobo's processing and database. I keep ~ 7000 ebooks on an external uSD card in my AuraHD 3.1.1.

Luck;
Ken

I would like a browser similar to the Android application ES File Explorer Pro that allows you to browse files on a network attached drive and copy them to the Kobo via wifi for the convenience of not having to connect to a computer. I will check out CoolReader and Koreader to see if they can do that or only browse locally.

[Ken Maltby]

Both the Coolreader port and KOReader include an OPDS feature. Your NAS may already provide the server to make such a connection. KOReader also has "Cloud" and FTP support, as well as calibre interfacing tools.

Luck;
Ken