Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

VIC20 As Wap Client

Posted by Hemos on from the a-good-use-for-that-machine dept.

Rob Manuel writes "Why not set up your old VIC20 as a WAP client? Who could have believed it possible? But it is, and the boys at geekhaus did it."

10 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. lunix by Phexro · · Score: 3

    go look at lunix (alternate link)

    lunix - "little unix" - is a multitasking, multiuser unix clone for a bare commodore 64. it does slip, ppp, a tcp/ip stack and has telnet and ftp clients.

    oh, and it's open-source. and has cross-development tools.
    --

  2. *yawn* , so what... by aiken_d · · Score: 2

    ...I'm not going to be impressed until they get a Commodore PET to run WAP. Now *there's* a portable system for you, Arnold.

    -b

    --
    If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
  3. You Bastards! by Kris_J · · Score: 4

    You've finally found a reason for WAP to exist -- to allow old computers to access current information with new light-weight standards. Now I can't say WAP is pointless anymore.

  4. Apple IIs too by Anne+Marie · · Score: 2

    Check out wap.org. Coincidence, or is something waiting in the wings?...

    --
    -- Anne Marie
  5. Re:Pardon My Ignorance... by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 2
    If you're serious, the Commodore VIC 20 was one of the first cheap personal home computers in the 80s.

    There was a series of them, most based on the MOS 6502 processor or variations, and costing All these old boxes were the same basic form factor; it was an oversized keyboard with the computer stuffed in it, compact, and hooked to your TV as a monitor (whough Apples often had monitors, damn preppies).

    These were the first generation home computers, the first that you could buy from a store and get working without a soldering iron. Many a geek hitting 20's and 30's fondly remember these. Old, slow, (.5 MHz in case of C64) and low RAM (64K address space on the 6502, most had less, and even if you had 64K RAM, the OS has to be somewhere). But they were new. K3wl before most current script kiddies were allowed to cross the street. Cutting edge for the time. You'll find many more people loving these than the PCjr, which cost over 3x the price and had better capabilities.

    Nostalgia being what it is, people want to do things with these first toys of yore. Remember the excitement of your first program work, your first sound from the SID chip, first Screen Blanking Interval sprite movenet. I had my "Mapping the C64" book for years, may not have thrown it out yet. RIP Commodore.

  6. The Vic and Cyberpunk by NEW22 · · Score: 2

    I remember in the Cyberpunk RPG by R. Talsorian, the cheapest cyberdeck was a Radio Shack deck of some sort. One time, I made a character who basically had no cash, and couldn't afford even the cheapest deck, so we invented one with worse stats and I dubbed it "The Vic 2020".....

    Yeah, so it was a bad joke....

    Heh....

  7. Re:Pardon My Ignorance... by MrEfficient · · Score: 2
    Ah, the Vic20, my first computer. An incredibly useful device that allowed you to create an endless loop which scrolled your name across the screen. If you were unusually talented, you could make a bird fly from one corner of the screen to another. Since it had no hard drive, it had to be left on in order to save your program, and after a few hours the power converter could double as a hot plate.

    Actually, it was pretty cool at the time. I remember spending hours typing in a program from Compute's Gazette just to play some crappy little text based race car game. You kids and your ./configure, make, make install. Why, in my day we typed in our programs line by line. Who needs install programs anyway. Ah, the good old days.

    --
    Check out AbiWord.
  8. Insane 8-bit activities by Kiss+the+Blade · · Score: 3
    Why were the old 8-bit computers such a hive of creativity? The things people did with them back then seem to be much more way-out than the thing people do today - it must be the challenge of owning such a limited machine.

    My favourite 8-bit memory was when I was 8 years old. I had an old Sinclair Speccy, with a rubber keyboard, and an insane surfing game that I now can't remember the name of.

    The game came with a small surf board that you affixed to the keyboard of the speccy. You then stood on the board, and leaned in various directions. On the bottom of the board were a number of protrusions that pressed the appropriate keys. You could stand and surf away all night long, against your friends, controlling the stick insect guy on the telly, with a tape of the beach boys in the background. It was truly hilarious.

    I also remember getting a CD-Rom for the Speccy in about 1990 - ages before I ever saw one on anything else. You plugged your music cd player into the speccy (or more correctly, into the expansion port that plugged into the speccy) & would then choose from about 20 (I think) games. The games loaded in an amazing 20 seconds! I was flabbergasted. I love stuff like this.

    --

    KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
    There is no

  9. Pardon My Ignorance... by cacahuete · · Score: 4

    ...what's a VIC20? I'm quite curious.

    --

    "Game over man! Game over!!"

  10. But can they do it with a PET? by GooseKirk · · Score: 3

    *WARNING* Aimless old-fogie babbling ahead!

    Why, back in my day, we had 8k and cassette storage devices, and we LIKED it! We LOVED it! Sure, you had to burn your own EPROM every now and then, but who didn't back in those days? And who didn't love the POKE command?

    Oh, yeah... you can keep your Vic20s and C64s... gimme a Commodore PET any day.

    My dad still has a few of these at the old homestead. Got the first one when I was 7 or 8, a real step up from dad's homebuilt computer that used these funky routered wooden cards for storage. I wish I remembered more about that one. Good blinkenlights... impressive when I was 6, anyway.

    Oh, sure, we got into Vics and 64s, too... my favorite machine was the Executive 64. That was a class act. Had some Sinclairs, Osbornes, and an Amiga for a little while before settling comfortably into the clone PCs.

    But there's nothing quite like the first one... ours was the original 2001, with the chiclet keyboard and the built-in datasette.

    Man, I'd love to get my hands on some of those great old PET cases...