Vintage fun: Prodding AI agents using retro hardware just because you can
'It helps me stretch what I can do in the current age of AI coding, and keeps my curiosity alive'
An AWS developer advocate has repurposed antique hardware to interact with modern AI technology in a seemingly pointless but educational endeavor. Darko Mesaroš connected a teletype to a command-line interface to demonstrate the capabilities of interacting with AI agents using retro hardware. The project involved AWS Kiro, a Command Line Interface (CLI) and agentic coding service, which required several components to work.
Mesaroš used a Hayes modem emulation to handle the serial connection and Agent Client Protocol (ACP) to work with Kiro. The biggest challenge was getting the Kiro CLI to work on a teletype, as it wasn't designed for a teleprinter capable of 30 characters per second. To overcome this, a simple Rust application was created to format Kiro's output into a format that a teletype could handle.
While the project may not have practical applications, it provides valuable insights into how AI coding assistants work and how vintage hardware can still be useful in the current age of technology.
Written by urgent.news from The Register Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
