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Streaming RealAudio From a Commodore 64

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the you'll-be-stone-dead-in-a-moment dept.

An anonymous reader submits: "This just came in on comp.sys.cbm and I think it will be of general interest here at Slashdot as well. Two Commodore hackers, Adam Dunkels and Peter Eliasson, have built an Ethernet card for their C64 and have connected one to the Internet. But they aren't 'just' running a TCP/IP stack and a web server on it - they are also running a RealAudio server which streams audio from the C64's cassette player and apparently, it sounds awful! They have the full source code avaliable and pictures of the C64 server."

16 of 332 comments (clear)

  1. Look, you can *see* it being slashdotted! by ianpatt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Currently active TCP connections

  2. A note for youngsters.. by tuxzone · · Score: 5, Funny

    A note for youngsters... The C64 is not a fancy new 64 bit machine, it is an 8 bit machine (vintage 1982) with 64Kbyte memory.

    1. Re:A note for youngsters.. by Big+Dogs+Cock · · Score: 4, Funny

      Bollocks. The BBC micro - now that was a class BASIC interpreter (if there's such a thing). Plus a nice assembler as well. Indexed indirect addressing - that takes me back.

      I suppose the ultimate achievement would be to get a web server running on a ZX81 (probably need 16K RAM pack plus obligatory duct tape to keep it on). You could have two cassette recorders in a RAID 1 configuration.

      --
      "Under the iron bridge, we fist" - The Smiths, Still Ill
    2. Re:A note for youngsters.. by mosch · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah, everybody knows the Ti-99/4A is the new Texas Instruments graphing calculator. DUH!

  3. Listen... by soulsteal · · Score: 5, Funny

    and you might hear the crackle of a flaming C64...

  4. To paraphrase RFK (or Shaw): by Ezubaric · · Score: 5, Funny

    Some people see things as they are and say why. I see things that never were and say why not.

    Then again, some people say "why not," get drunk, and and hook a piece of crap up to the internet.

    $50 bucks to the first person that builds a C64 emulator out of legos that streams video of a coffeepot and runs BSD.

    --

    ----------
    I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
  5. A new computing first! by Dynedain · · Score: 3, Funny

    This is definately going to be the first time a Commodore 64 has been /.ed, and will probably set the record for how long it takes to get /.ed.

    Of course, rebooting a C64 is pretty fast.

    --
    I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
  6. Hrm... by autopr0n · · Score: 5, Funny

    I bet that ethernet card probably has more CPU power then the rest of the machine.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  7. well duh! by binarybum · · Score: 5, Funny


    C'mon now, Real Audio(TM) always sounds awful. This isn't news!

    --
    ôó
  8. Saying It For The Sake Of It by Peridriga · · Score: 4, Funny


    I don't even believe a Beuowolf cluster of these could survive serving streaming media to /.

  9. How long... by MisterBlister · · Score: 3, Funny

    Until they get slapped with a lawsuit from Real due to using their streaming format without permission? .. Sigh!

  10. This is great news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe Jon Katz's friend, Junis can now send us live streaming audio from Afghanistan using his Commodore! That is, if he can spare the bandwidth and disk space that he uses to download all those DivX ;-) movies.

  11. Re:Hey now! by radja · · Score: 3, Funny

    how about a C64 port of bnetd ?

    //rdj

    --

    No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
    --Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
  12. Re:Powerful peripherals by vidarh · · Score: 5, Funny
    Actually, the 6502 is close enough to the 6510 that your C64 most likely will keep running if you exchange the two. The difference is primarily 8 extra IO lines on the 6510. On the C64 some of those were, I believe (but it's been about 15 years :-) used to access the tapedeck.

    For an even more extreme example of extra CPU's (though not necessarily much more powerful, and two of them not in use :-), I at one point had an Amiga 2000 with a 68000 CPU. I got a used 68020 accelerator board for it. In addition it had one of those PC cards that let you run DOS in a window, with an 8086, and an 286 accelerator for it. To top it off my SCSI card had a Z80 on it.

    But one CPU is missing....

    Guess what is used as a keyboard controller on many of the Amigas? An embedded version of the 6510, running at 2MHz and with onboard RAM and ROM..

    So to sum it up, the CPUs in use: 68020, 286, Z-80 and some chip with an 6510 core. Now that's multiprocessing :-)

  13. Hmmm. C64 vs. NT4 by mrselfdestrukt · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is it just me or does that little C64 perform better than a NT server running IIS?
    I'm sure it will stay up for longer as well...
    Let's count the security holes...
    This is really funny!
    Then again: The OS on my mobile phone is more reliable than NT.
    Oh, ok, we are talking about the C64 right? Wow, it's smaller than a NT server! Oops, here I go again.

    --
    "I used to have that really cool,funny sig ,but it got stolen."
  14. C64: cooking with BASIC by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well if you want to cook a C64, there is a BASIC command that may do it:

    WARNING: Use of this is at your own risk! May destroy hardware! Not recommended for any machine you'd like to keep! I WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE WHATSOEVER

    POKE 53270, PEEK(53270) OR 32

    I did it and I could feel heat coming up from the keyboard and a smell like thermal paste overheating or something.

    I turned it off very quickly and it did survive.

    It was responsive and with a normal display right until I cut the power.

    Some C64 docs say bit 5 of register 53270 is the reset bit for the VIC controller.

    Some just say, ominously:

    "ALWAYS SET THIS BIT TO 0!"

    Why a reset bit would cause an overheat is beyond me. Anyone have a clue? I'd really like to know what is so bad about setting that bit. I was hoping it would just be a reset bit.

    --
    Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!