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Finally: Broadband for the Commodore 64
GP writes "Now even die-hard Commodore 64 users are able to enjoy the benefits of broadband Internet connectivity. A newly announced Ethernet card together with the Contiki operating system lets you surf the web, send e-mail, host web sites with the built-in web server, and soon even play LAN games on your good old Commodore 64! All this with a computer that is old enough to drink."
It means the Commadore was released more then 21 years ago, which is that age at which its legal to drink alcohol in the US. I believe the original release was in 1982.
Then you haven't configured the thing properly. I used a 386DX-20 as a firewall for a cable modem for a couple of years and it had no problem with >1024kbps.
Well, in some countries there is a minimum age to purchase alcohol. In the US, its 21. According to: http://oldcomputers.net/c64.html the commodore was released Jan, 1982. Making it 21 years old, or, old enough to drink.
(Anonymous non-karma w***e posting.)
13.09.2003: Retro Replay and RR-Net available
In time with the announced date, the new production run of the Retro Replay is finished. Compared to the old cartridges, only cosmetic changes have been made: The most significant change is the colour: Blue instead of black. After many requests by users, the jumpers are now mounted straight, not to the side. To ensure proper mounting in our new cases, the mounting hole has been moved and changed in diameter to perfectly fit the transparent cases.
At the same time, the networking card RR-Net is going on sale. The card is plugged to the expansion port of the Retro Replay, and allows connecting the C64 to an intranet. Although the operating system Contiki is freeware, we have an agreement with the author Adam Dunkels: He gets paid for every RR-Net unit that's sold. Contiki is an operating system that offers many features in very small space: A TCP/IP stack, a web browser, a webserver, a VNC-client and of course a graphical user interface. It is included on a 5,25 inch disk for the C64. To make use of all features of Contiki, an intranet with router should be available.
As an introductory offer, there's a network-bundle. It contains:
# Retro Replay
# RR-Net with Contiki
# transparent case
# worldwide shipment
together for only 100,- EUR!
Please use the contact form for your order. Unfortunately, our domain ami.ga does not work at the moment, because the republic of Gabon is currently migrating their internet connection from satellite to undersea cable. Even with our server in Germany, both the website and email addresses are affected, but the contact form works reliably!
I think that question depends on whether the C64 had DMA or not. If yes, then it would have a chance in hell of doing burst transmissions that could flood a 10BaseT line. If no, then why the **** are people wasting time on this?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I think that question depends on whether the C64 had DMA or not.
.. wheeeee) would blank the screen to make sure nothing interrupted the CPU and upset the timing.
Kinda. All the chips (video, sound, etc.) had direct access to the memory. But they all have to take turns, when the video chip was reading from memory, the CPU couldn't and would pause. Some of the turbo-loaders (heh, load 64k in 15 seconds from floppy
Point of order, Mr. Chairman...
Modems measure speed in Kilobits, computer RAM is measured in KiloBytes, so a computer with 64K of RAM contains ~64,000 Bytes or 512,000 bits.
A 56K modem downloads (at a theoretical maximum) 56,000 bits per second.
Simple math reveals that with 512,000 bits of RAM, at 56,000 bps it will take 9.1 seconds to fill it's RAM capacity.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
No. It can't.
Not much, I would think.
The C64 has a 1MHz 6510 8-bit CPU. The memory bus is also 1MHz. Moreover, the fastest instruction on the 6510 (which is a 6502 derivative) is two clocks. Thus, at four clocks per byte (two to read, two to write), the fastest data transfer rate you could conceivably get is 0.25 MBytes/second (in reality, it would be rather slower as the LDA and STA instructions take more than two clocks, but I don't have the timing chart in front of me).
The C64 does have DMA, but it's dedicated to video access and refresh and can't be redirected. Moreover, these DMA cycles completely take over the bus for 40 clocks every eight video lines. So your packet writes will likely hiccup from time to time. (Presumably they have big silos on the NIC.)
Even if the NIC did DMA itself, it would have to get out of video's way every eight lines, which means you couldn't flood the line indefinitely. Also, the C-64 has a mere -- surprise! -- 64K of RAM. At 1MByte/sec, you'd run out of RAM in 0.065536 seconds.
Schwab
C-64 Early Adopter
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I loved the C64, and 20 years later I still know some of the ROM routine addresses by heart (like the obvious $ffd2); but when I got down to studying the 1541 it was a revelation, I got the feeling for the first time there was code in there so clever I couldn't have written it myself. I was about 17 at the time, and it convinced me that I could actually learn something in CS. Ah, memories :)