I just got an email from "opensource.com highlights." Don't know how I 
got on their list, but it's often interesting. Anyway, I noticed the DOS 
emulators and microcontroller stuff, and since I've been playing with 
both recently it might be something to share.



WEEKLY NEWS

     Top 7 open source terminal emulators for Linux
     Spend a lot of time on the command line? These terminal emulators 
will help make it a better experience.

     How to run DOS programs in Linux
     QEMU and FreeDOS make it easy to run old DOS games and applications.

     How to use an Arduino and Raspberry Pi to turn a fiber optic neural 
network into wall art
     Learn how a machine learning algorithm can produce a beautiful wall 
decoration.

     The origin and evolution of FreeDOS

     Getting started with Logstash

     Learn how to program in Python by building a simple dice game

     U.S. makes renewable energy software open source


I have long been a fan of Atmel AVR microcontroller innovation. Sounds 
like "Microchip has, too, and bought them. Don't know the future of 
Arduino. Playing on Windows ME and QBasic can be fun to dig around 
absolute memory and ports on their Windows Virtual DOS machine. Atmel 
doc "AVR325: High-speed Interface to Host EPP Parallel Port" describes 
how to use DOS Turbo C to make a (almost) printer type receiver from an 
AVR chip. (The simple software is on a CD if anybody cares and can't 
find it). Of course the Arduino USB link is far superior, but breaking 
out of the PC BOX is quite easy now. (Atmel had a paper on the USB link 
long before Arduino happened, too.)

Also to mention the "renewable energy" interest. Fair to say 
California's grow and burn policy will need rethinking.

So Linux is at the very top of a growing computer food chain. Fed from 
data and control interfaces over a growing IT infrastructure. Reliable, 
open source, versatile linux. I'm sure the Systems Administrators out 
there see their responsibility growing accordingly. Meanwhile, us 
putzers are having fun.