The UPS went to recycle.
By next week I'll have a cell phone with 15G/mo hot spot. Then I can get apps besides Arduino IDE using apt-get. Lucky me that the Arduino IDE does have a download.
I have a version of my serial keyword match routine (sketch sends chars 1 at a time, as they arrive on serial) that links the keyword list in EEPROM instead of like the 2016 version where you run one sketch with your new word list to generate source for the sketch that uses the word list. This one is easier but the list is limited to 1020 chars where the older one can be many K --- but both are limited to 255 words max.
I've got the initial check links and link as needed part done, very happy that's through. The example will be a user interpreter, it's good for that. Next is the serial ring base code, each chip will read and maybe pass messages on and act on those it has matching words for, there's a months old thread where I posted the idea, I think that it will make splitting cooperative tasks across chips.