Slashdot Mirror
Surfing With Your Commodore 64
Anonymous Squonk writes: "Computer Workshops Inc. has released a web browser for the Commodore 64! Sure, you have to have a UNIX shell account to use it, but this is the first time I've seen a C64 browse the web with full HTML 1.0 and GIF/JPEG support. I hear that Java and Javascript support is just around the corner..." And Flash! And VRML! Well, maybe not.
The Apple //GS has had TCP/IP and a web browser for a couple of years now. When I submitted a story about these events, Slashdot didn't think it was worth posting - yet, they do for the 64.
For serious retro-computing with the Apple //, check out these sites.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/marinetti
http://sis.gwlink.net/
http://www.btinternet.com/~ewannop/sp.html
http://www.a2central.com/
I recommend Atari servers and Commodore clients to all my customers. Igonre the ideology and use the tool that works best, that's what I say.
Microsoft hates Java because Sun put one over on them with it. Everyone else hates Java because it's a piece of shit. *shrug* It's all the same...
the bbs, of course, was running on a 102, and had a couple of useful files (including one that let you use your pc clone as a disk over the serial port [which was how the 50k 3.5" disk connected anyway]).
hawk, who still has his 102
hawk
hawk
> little bit more attention to improving the C-64 (by adding good disk drives and slots),
>the Apple II would not have become as popular as it did.
that's just plain silly.
The C64 is *much* later than the Apple II. The apple II had achieved it's popularity long before the Vic-20. By the time the 20 had come out, the move away from 8 bits was already underway; it used newer technology to build an old-style machine cheaply.
THe apple was geared for both home and business; the vic-20 and C64 were toys from beginning to end. Popular toys, but thye never had any spirations at other markets.
Also, part of the cost reduction was by removing slots and not having drives. The Vic was *not* a new design; it was a stripped down PET with color. The C64 was a vic with 64k.
hawk
APple used 7 bits for on/off, and the other bit did a half-bit shift to tinker with the color trap. Add that to which bits next to one another were used, and an 8 bit byte produced 7 bits in six possbile colors (though most pattern/color combos didn't exist). This was done with almost no hardware about 10 years before the C64.
hawk
hawk
Oh, man! Where do I start?
How about all the hardware features that went virtually unused by practically everyone, Commodore, included?
There was that REALLY neat synchronous serial port built into the VIA chip that was pulled out the back IO connector.
I was doing C64<>Apple II game ports at the time, and needed to transfer files back and forth. I cobbled together a cable that linked the C64 and the apple game connector and wrote assembly routines that shook hands at either end.
I got transfer speeds of about 50kbaud both ways over that sucker. Not too shabby for 1mhz processors
And how about running fastloader code *in the disk drive*? And diddling the interleave factor when formatting to speed things up even further? Or storing data in unused directory sectors to save space?
Whoa. Getting a woody just thinking about it!
Then there's all the neat things you can do with a vertical blank or scanline interrupt!
Of course, there's the SID chip also..
Oh, gawd! Somebody stop me!
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
You could always buy a copy of VMware, and use it to run Windows 98 or so under Linux, for running MS Internet Exploiter. That's what I do when I need anything Nyetscape/Mozilla can't do.
Sad to say, that's probably your best bet for getting a decent browser under Linux.
I've seen some really annoying flash adverts. You don't want flash...
Especially if you're using the brain-damaged Linux Flash plug-in. It has the nice feature that, when it starts, it grabs the audio device. If it can't get it, it blocks on it, wedging Nyetscape solid until it gets its way.
Having to stop your MP3 player because some site has a Flash ad on it is not the sign of a well-designed system.
As in Incorporated? Didn't anybody tell them that the time to blow your venture capital releasing goofy products with no real revenue potential ended last year?
One possible idea for curbing the slashdot effect, especially on bandwidth limited websites, would be to have some mechanism whereby when you post such a story about a website that the story submitter could check an option that would allow for "Google" style mirroring of the page(s) to be stored on slashdot for the time that the story is on the homepage. Once the story goes to the archives or just falls off the homepage, then the cached pages are dumped. Just an idea.
Last weekend, I went poking around at the Spring Commodore Expo 2001 in Louisville, Kentucky USA.
:^)
I got a peek at many C-64 and 128's running GEOS, and even better: "Wheels"
That GUI ran another program, a browser called "The Wave" See: http://www.luckyreport.com/expo.html
"Now you can enjoy graphical web browsing on your Commodore 64 or Commodore 128."
http://www.ia4u.net/~maurice/gbrowse/wave.html
http://videocam.net.au/~colinjt/wave.html
Naturally the above code is tight and efficient assembly language.
Most C-64 programs are smaller than the icons above.
The Wave browser is smaller than the banner ad!!!
Alas, few on Slashdot will ever run this kind of code, let alone generate it.
But such code would easily fit in thier Cache!
Joe Torre - X - HardwareEngineer @ Amiga Inc & ZapMedia Amiga, AmigaDE, BeOS, Linuxz, QNX, Rebol, Windoze, ZME: So
Yup, Abacus "Anatomy of the C64" ruled, mainly due to the comment ROM disassembly appendix.
I bought Merlin on July 2nd 1984, and it was the best 37.95 + tax I ever spent. Fun story: about a year and a half later, I was at high school and a teacher wanted to use an Apple IIe to display a timer on the screen so that he could drop things in front of it and take slow-motion movies showing the motion with a time index running on the IIe's screen in the background (for a physics class, I guess?) So I volunteered and then said, "Hm.. I need an assembler." Someone coughed up a pirated program called Big Mac and I dived in. No one was shocked that I knew 6502, but how the heck did I learn Big Mac's line editor so quickly? The secret: it was the same program as Merlin. Glen Bredon was a cross-platform dude.
Oh yeah, as for the timer: the IIe's Green Screen's phosphors were too persistant, so each frame's final digits just looked like blurred eights. Whoops. :-)
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Ahhh, the good old days when there were some programs that were quicker to write than to load from your media. Atleast we weren't saying, "This &%$#ing paper tape broke again", or "Oh &%$@ I spilled my box of cards" :-).
You have to re engineer your abacus is all. Replace all of the beads with Java rings.
What do you mean my java code isn't write once and run ANYWHERE? Geez, now I guess you're going to say it won't work on my Timex Sinclair either.
Man, you have the datassette player? Lucky bastard. I never could afford that. Anyone know where I can get a ROM cart with this on it?
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If you're interested in doing bizzaro stuff with your C64, you might want to check out these links:
:)
LUnix (Fully functioning SLIP-TCP/IP stack for C64)
GeckOS/A65 (Multitasking Unix-ish OS for C64s)
Lemon for a good stockpile of C64 warez.
Bowie J. Poag
Here I sit staring at my unnetworked Atari 800. Finally, I understand why I should have bought a Commodore!
Geeky modern art T-shirts
A complete description of a modern computer in all its complexity would likely fill a bookshelf. Just the latest draft of the ATA specification is about the same thickness, when printed double-sided, as the Apple IIe Technical Reference Manual I got back in 1987, which provided complete schematics, specifications, and even source code for the ROMs (except for the BASIC interpreter, and if Apple hadn't gotten that from M$, it probably would've been published too).
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
First a kid builds a nuclear reactor out of household parts, and now people are making web browsers for the C64.
There are some people with WAY too much free time on their hands, and I salute you.
I gotta get back to working on my Honda CVT entirely out of LEGO now.
The C-64, the VIC-20, (and the Pet before that) are the ancestors of the incomparable Amiga. The graphics chip-set of all of them was designed by the same engineeer, who I believe, is no longer among the living. If Jack Tramiel (Commodore's CEO) had given a little bit more attention to improving the C-64 (by adding good disk drives and slots), the Apple II would not have become as popular as it did. The C-64 had 10 times better graphics capabilities than the Apple II.
I am fascinated by the early history of the microcomputer. Does anybody out there still remember the Rockwell AIM-65 computer, a single board 6502 machine with a 20-character LED readout, a keyboard and a calculator roll-printer all attached to the board?
"I've seen a C64 browse the web with full HTML 1.0"
No way! FULL HTML 1.0 support? Way to bring the C64 into the early 1990s! Where's my copy of Netscape Mosaic 0.9.2?
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Cool. I can turn my $2000 PC into a disk drive for my 20 year old piece of shit Commodore 64. Sign me up baby! Will this work on the Vic-20?
To answer your sarcastic question, yes it works for the Vic-20 also. The 1541 drive uses a serial interface that was present on most of the 8-bit Commodore machines. So you could use the same drive on the 128, PET, VIC, and so on.
As far as the general attitude of "why the hell don't you work on something more important?", I think people that still hack old machines are like people that still restore classic cars - they do it because they can. People who want to do stuff like port a Web browser to a machine that has no practical purpose are like people who climb mountains for no reason other than to say they did. Don't knock it - someday you'll be pining for the old days, too.
-J
Most people still hacking at C64's use a cable that goes from the printer port on a PC to the drive cable on the 64. It's called an x1541 cable. You run a small bit of software on your PC, and then your C64 thinks your PC is a disk drive. The PC program lets you load and save image files of 1541 disks. So you could pull down a bunch of disk images from the 'net to your PC's drive, and your C64 would treat them as floppy disks in the 8 drive or 9 drive or whatever. It's pretty cool, especially considering about a million of those tiny little SS/SD disk images could be downloaded in seconds on a 56K modem...
-Jon
is a store where I can buy a Cassette Tape with this program on it and I'm on my way!
Someone you trust is one of us.
From the site...
It must not be compared with a PC which just runs a bit faster after an upgrade. A P300 only runs about 3 times faster than a P100. A SuperCPU-C64 runs 20 times faster than a stock C64!
Wow!! That's amazing! If these guys are as good at making CPUs as they are at math, then we're in for some fun......;)
nlh
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
After I was done I skimmed around in my (dusted) software archive and stumbled across NovaTerm; a completely modular build terminal program for the C64 which offered anything you'd need. You need one side of a 5.25" disk for it (it will take up aprox. 80%) and the other side can be used as a datadisk. Because it was modular its functions expanded; right up to full ZModem support.
Taken that into consideration and the total size of the ppp stack in the Linux kernel I must admit not being very impressed by this project. I'm sure that if the novaterm developers we're still at it there would be a lynx style Internet access for the C64 ages ago. Maybe it could even evolve into full blown graphical support, who knows.
Basicly; this looks nice but I'm sure the C64 can do much more.
This has got to be the moral equivalent of impressing Real Surfer Dudes by hanging ten off one of those dinky 2 ft styrofoam dog paddle boards (like I used in the kiddie pools.)
"Provided by the management for your protection."
On hearing this news I have reluctantly decided to abandon my C64 port of Mozilla.
And how 'bout a Shockwave player for Linux, huh?
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
story submitter could check an option that would allow for "Google" style mirroring of the page(s)
A very frequent suggestion. Here's how to implement it: When you're submitting a story that links to a low-monthly-bandwidth web site, insert www.google.com/search?q=cache: right after the http:// in the URL. That way, viewers get a Google cached version with a link at the top to the most current version.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Guess I'll have to go and find one from somewhere - maybe some museum will have one :)
In fact, a museum does have one, but they are saying totally wrong things about them.
It makes me wonder who payed for that exhibit cough! Intel cough!.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That's pathetic, my Commodore 64 will end up having java support but not my classic amigas.... god damn it I knew I shouldn't have switched when the amiga 500 came out.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
One more client web developers have to support.
Sure the C64 is great, but my hostname at work says it all... -- i.wish.my.vic20.had.more.than.fivek.com
Maybe you should've gotten the 16K expansion module? I still have one laying around here...
There was the TRS-80 Model I (my first computer!) - 4K, and a Z-80. It wasn't really a business computer -- that was the much more pricey Model II, which I think ran
Then there was the Tandy Color Computer Model I - Much later and with a 6809 and entirely incompatible with the original Trash-80s.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Umm... NeXT was the very first platform to have a world wide web client...
s creensnap2_24c.gif
http://www.w3.org/History/1994/WWW/Journals/CACM/
Sure the C64 is great, but my hostname at work says it all... -- i.wish.my.vic20.had.more.than.fivek.com
I've seen a card that lets you add IDE to a C-64, is that good enough?
He's differentiating between the Color Computer (CoCo) (a TRS-80) and the TRS-80 model 1... another TRS-80 model.
One was aimed at the home computing market, the other was a "business machine" (with accompanying price tag)
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
So, uh, what was that you were saying about not trying to fake old-school cool???
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
There was no difference between a CoCo and a Model 1?
uh....
In some ways, sure... but not so in others. The TRS-80 series (Mod 1, etc) were a different class than the CoCo. No chicklet keyboards on the Mod series, for starters...
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Of course, it's a neat idea, but with what computers are going for today, I wonder what I could reasonably use it for. (Don't believe me, go to ebay and search for "IBM Thin Client") Personally, a web server would be better. It would then be really useful for various embedded applications. I could put one in a robotic lawnmower or my refrigerator. I even have an old children's book lying about that details the building of a robot that interfaces with the C64 - in other words, it's dead easy.
Oh, and ahem.... "Could you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these?"
Gotta go. I've got to make some hard copies with my snazzy thermal-transfer printer.
I've gone nuts with Photoshoppery
Strange enough, I guess that's possible:
"Some of LNG's key features (unordered)...
* A simple web server (experimental)"
Here's a link for the SuperCPU the article mentions. For the hyperlink-wary, you can find it at http://www.cmdweb.de/scpu.htm. It plugs into your C64 or C128 and boosts it from 1MHz to a whopping 20 MHz, and lets your Commodore support up to 16MB of RAM.
This is not a Fugazi
Huh? There are actually people who still have one? What's next? DVD players for the Vic-20, Media editors for the Coco and a Web server for the TRS-80 (mod 1, natch!)????
Yeah, right.
Meanwhile, back in the present, I've probably spent more than a thousand bucks on software and PC documentation over the last 10 years without ever getting anything that resembles a complete description of the hardware.
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Too true. It's not really that much harder to code a sizeable project in Assembly, if you have a bit of discipline about it. The hardest thing is defining your data structures and sticking to them. You build the "language" as you need it in the form of purpose-built subroutines. I just got finished doing a 12,000 line project for an embedded controller. I socially engineered the manufacturer into giving me a few hooks -- which added about 2 pages to the firmware source code I'm told -- and then supplemented their well-designed but miserably slow BASIC variant with blazingly fast background Assembly. Now this gizmo which can only execute 100 lines or so of BASIC per second is weighing and sorting 150 pieces per minute, doing true weight conversions at 60Hz (the firmware only manages 10Hz due to the use of floating-point math) and doing accurate 60Hz timing which BASIC cannot do.
As one of the engineers said after seeing the video, "Well, I guess you've been telling us this was possible since 1995."
This controller uses a 20 MHz 80186. Its replacement introduced last year uses a 40MHz 80386DX, and my code still runs an order of magnitude faster on the old hardware than BASIC code does on the new board. Another thing I told them back in 1995 -- you may spend a lot of time to write software, but you only have to write it once. When you up the CPU specification it increases the cost of every unit you produce.
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Only 9 comments and the site is already slashdotted.
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