{"slug": "vintage-fun-prodding-ai-agents-using-retro-hardware-just-because-you-can", "title": "Vintage fun: Prodding AI agents using retro hardware just because you can", "summary": "AWS developer advocate Darko Mesaroš connected a DECwriter teletype and other vintage hardware to AWS Kiro, an agentic coding CLI, using a WiModem232 Hayes-modem emulator for the serial link and Agent Client Protocol (ACP) plus a small Rust application to convert Kiro's output for a teleprinter running at 30 characters per second. Mesaroš told The Register the setup is portable to any ACP-capable assistant, saying \"I could easily plug in Claude Code or Codex,\" though he noted the link has no packet retries and no buffering, with the serial device itself the bottleneck. The project required Rust, containers and ACP knowledge, and Mesaroš published the repository.", "body_md": "# Vintage fun: Prodding AI agents using retro hardware just because you can\n\n[The Register](https://www.theregister.com)\n\n'It helps me stretch what I can do in the current age of AI coding, and keeps my curiosity alive'\n\nFrom the department of \"pointless but still cool\" comes word of some kit being repurposed as a terminal for AI agents.\n\nAWS developer advocate Darko Mesaroš has [connected a teletype](https://rup12.net/posts/how-i-talk-to-kiro-via-dumb-terminal/) to a modern command-line interface to revel in the delight of interacting with today's AI technology via a combination of a DECwriter and fanfold paper, or the display and keyboard of a computer whose heyday ended 40 years ago.\n\nMesaroš' project involved [AWS Kiro](https://kiro.dev/), a Command Line Interface (CLI) and agentic coding service. We would, however, contend that this is more about seeing what retro hardware can be made to do.\n\nTwo problems needed solving: getting data to and from the teletype, and formatting the output to work on a piece of kit from another era of computing. He used Hayes modem emulation to deal with the serial connection, and Agent Client Protocol (ACP) for working with Kiro.\n\nMesaroš used a WiModem232 for the former. The device emulates a standard Hayes-compatible modem and, according to Mesaroš, \"Folks initially used this to connect Commodore 64s to BBSes in the modern era\" (he started his computing journey with a Commodore 64). The latter, getting the Kiro CLI to work on a Teletype, was a little more complicated. Kiro's CLI isn't really suitable for a teleprinter capable of 30 characters per second, after all.\n\nA simple Rust application took Kiro's output (obtained via ACP) and turned it into something that a teletype, or dumb terminal, could handle.\n\nAs we said, seemingly pointless, but making it work required knowledge of Rust, competence with containers, an understanding of ACP, and more than a little creative thinking. So, while one might argue it is pointless from a technical perspective, it is wonderfully educational otherwise.\n\nThe repository is available and focuses on Kiro for obvious reasons (Mesaroš is an AWS developer advocate after all), but in a chat with The Register, Mesaroš said the concept was portable. He said, \"Any coding assistant or any harness that supports ACP, this should work, right? I built it for Kiro, but it uses the standard ACP protocol, so I could easily plug in [Claude](https://www.machinebrief.com/glossary/claude) Code or Codex. Anything that basically can serve as an ACP server should be perfectly fine.\n\n\"Blessed be the standards, right?\"\n\nThere might be some issues. \"The biggest problem with this thing is that it doesn't really handle packet drops at all,\" he explained. \"Like, if you drop packets, they're just gone. There're no retries. It's just spitting information out.\"\n\nAnd then there is buffering. Or the lack of it. Mesaroš said, \"There's actually no buffering happening here. Literally, it just comes down through the fire hose through this serial device, and the bottleneck itself is the serial device.\"\n\nMesaroš had toyed with using the GPIO pins on a Raspberry Pi, but settled on the serial device instead, since everything worked \"out of the box.\" \"It's kind of cheating,\" he admitted, \"but it's also kind of good.\"\n\nMesaroš collects vintage hardware, with a stash that ranges from home computers made by Commodore and Sinclair, to a 1974 Data General Eclipse minicomputer and a plethora of Sun hardware. And, of course, an old Decwriter. He is also a dab hand with the soldering iron, having learned the skills to keep old hardware operational. Unlike today's equipment. \"I have this big peeve over modern computers, where you just can't fix them,\" he said, \"and it feels like such a waste of resources that when my MacBook dies I just have to drill a hole through it so nobody steals my data, and throw it away.\"\n\nAs for Kiro-TTY – or accessing a coding assistant or agent over serial using a decades-old device – he wrote on his blog, \"This absolutely serves no purpose.\"\n\nHowever, it did provide a novel way of working out how the ACP protocol worked. Perhaps not so usefully, it also taught the developer how to debug serial connectivity.\n\n\"And in general it helps me stretch what I can do in the current age of AI coding, and keeps my curiosity alive.\"\n\nThe destination might be pointless from a modern perspective, but the journey getting there is anything but. ®\n\nGet AI news in your inbox\n\nDaily digest of what matters in AI.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/vintage-fun-prodding-ai-agents-using-retro-hardware-just-because-you-can", "canonical_source": "https://www.machinebrief.com/news/vintage-fun-prodding-ai-agents-using-retro-hardware-just-bec-hyvq", "published_at": "2026-11-02 11:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-11-02 11:22:38.406305+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-tools", "agent-protocols", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Darko Mesaroš", "AWS", "AWS Kiro", "Agent Client Protocol", "WiModem232", "The Register", "Claude Code", "Codex"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/vintage-fun-prodding-ai-agents-using-retro-hardware-just-because-you-can", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/vintage-fun-prodding-ai-agents-using-retro-hardware-just-because-you-can.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/vintage-fun-prodding-ai-agents-using-retro-hardware-just-because-you-can.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/vintage-fun-prodding-ai-agents-using-retro-hardware-just-because-you-can.jsonld"}}