Slashdot Mirror
Commodore BBSes Return using the Internet.
oldbitcollector writes "Several Commodore 64 enthusiasts have developed a method for putting Commodore BBS sytems on the Internet. Users can "dial" using a standard 64 connected to the Internet or by using a "CG Term" for the PC. Details can be found here."
No VIC-20 support? Darn, and I've even got a tape drive.
Wow! I hope they can port the Apple II to the internet in the same way. This might be the begining of a legacy movement to get older systems no only running but on the WWW in one working format or another. Even if it's just an FTP login or telnet prompt --- Way cool....!!!!
Cool! Let the ASCII wars BEGIN!
Just what the world needs-- more underpowered computers connected to the internet so that we can all DoS *ahem* I mean Slashdot them.
Hip hip Horray!
What's with that period? It makes the headline seem so...threatening, ominous.
I belong to the ______ generation.
One has to wonder about an implimentation for "fringe" computers when the website (http://www.petscii.com/) supports IE but only gives a blank page if opened in Netscape.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
HAH! my 28.8 modem days finally pay off! now I actually can do something that people with broadband can't do. there is nothing like a carrier signal to lift the sprits.
While we're at it why not use that old 33/66 and 14.4.. nostalgia is all great and all, but using archaic technology really doesn't serve much purpose..
MABASPLOOM!
How can this be very useful? The C64 has about 32K of useable RAM and about an 800K floppy... am I missing something, have they come up with larger mass storage systems for the C64 or something?
(This isn't intended as a troll or flamebait... it's a genuine question....)
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
are they "secure" like the old bbs' were?
everyone knows that a bbs attracts conspiratist theorists like flies to fido spread over 5km of freewaysomewhere, on a Big Red Sign:
if(color==blue){speed--;}
....first posting?
Actually it'd be interesting if some of the old databases of messages could be restored.... as BBSs carried local events and interesting conversation.... you know before we knew first hand what trolls and flamers were or would become...
Wow, this brings back memories. I ran a BBS for years, Bladerunner BBS. It started out running on an Osborne Executive (2400 BPS! 2 double-sided quad density drives!) and then was upgraded to an Atari ST (20 MB SCSI HD, 19,200 BPS Telebit Trailblazer!). The amusing thing was that the CPU in the Trailblazer was much faster than the ST itself.
One thing I really miss from those days is the sense of community, and the games. I ran a number of games on my BBS, and it was always a lot of fun watching people interact. Unlike modern online games, anyone could write a test-oriented BBS game if they knew a little BASIC, so there were all sorts of cool games. I remember in particular a drag racing game where you could race, earn money, buy upgrades, and compete against other drivers (i.e. other players on the same BBS). The integration of the game into real-time was fascinating -- most BBS games let you make a limited number of moves a day, so people would play a single session of a game for _weeks_. And there were tons of cool timing tricks, like dialing into the BBS at 11:30 so that you'd have the last move before midnight and then the first game after midnight, which could give you a nice advantage (and leave you vulnerable as everyone else moves after you).
Hey, thanks for the excuse for the flashback. Fun days!
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
And just in case there was any lingering doubt that Slashdot editors might not derive some sort of malignant glee from watching servers go down, now we are posting links to COMMODORE 64s! C'mon, let's be more forthcoming - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, Harnessing the Power of Geeks to Set Protozoan Servers on Fire. BOO-YAH!
who knew?
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
A Commodore 64 BBS is not the same over a high speed connection. I long for the days of my 300 baud modem when I could read the text in real time as it came across my TV screen. It was all down hill after the 1200 baud modems came out.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
Well, they do you know ;)
--
Mad Penguin
Linux with kernel panic...
MadPenguin.org
Soon to come: an internet morse code interface for the internet C64 BBS systems, for those of us who really think those 40 columns by 25 lines and 16 colors are a disgraceful novelty item, not worthy of true purists!!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, old computers don't die ... they just shrink down to a small glowing green dot and disappear.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog: 'and which of these buttons calls your parents to pick you up'
Here's the link in case it gets slashdotted...
last stand bbs minneapolis, mn
Connecting...
CONNECTED TO A CENTIPEDE BBS SYSTEM!
HIT RETURN
the amount of time people are willing to waste on totally useless crap is amazing
omg you have one disk of a 2 disk game for download AND YOU WON'T PUT IN THE OTHER DISK FUCK YOU&^!)!L:Q210__+2134
NO CARRIER
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Whatever happened to that Wayne guy who wrote the WWIV BBS system (and got the k-rad distinction of being user "1@1")? Quite humbling to the arrogant intellectual bastard in me when I consider that I used e-mail on a BBS system for a couple years, and thought it was "neat" that I could get replies weeks later from people that were 8 or 9 bounces away from me. And not once did it occur to me "What if all those BBS boxes were -always- connected to each other?"
I didn't pay attention to politics until my country started to scare me. Recently.
10 PRINT "FUCK"
20 PRINT "YOU"
30 GOTO 10
END
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
It's really kinda sad.
I'm all for nostalgia in some minor way but when do you let it rest? I wonder how many guys are out there praising this move who, the day after they got their x86, were trashing the C=64?
I still own a working Amiga but even I've come to the point that I'm asking myself; what for? It was great in the day but the day's over. Stop playing Trade Wars and play some MOH so I have another newb I can kick in the nuts...
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
And cannot even remotely be offtopic.
If your reaction to a topic is WHAT THE FUCK that is wholly on topic.
Please mod up accordingly (and answer, too); thx.
I can't wait until someone writes an emulated version of Q-Link that I can connect to over the Internet. Even better, AOL should open-source the old 8-bit code. Hey, if it works for Netscape/Mozilla, it can work for Q-Link!
I am Jack's witty signature line
(And there're a lot of old BBSes available through telnet, though I dunno about C64-based ones.)
Been using sigs for 20 years. Nothing funny left to say.
Heres something that might give you a c64 flash back.
:) :)
;)
GOOGOOACKACKBADBAD
Punter
Xmodem-1K and Ymodem-1K
300 Baud modems you pluged your sound into.
Sixpack (s2g), Arj, Lha
4 pixel wide 80 column display on a 40 column terminal
4 color ansi (And of course Petascii)
Burping Number 5.
Dual Sid, playing Skate or Die, Sids rule
Speedload Cartridges, (My fav the Snapshot)
GEOS and Quantumlink
Peek and Poke
Compiled Basic
Atari 2600 joysticks
Am I missing anything else? Other than almost every BBS being written in compiled basic, some where written in C. The Amiga where BBS's compiled in C was the rave. Moving on UP. I remember before I got my Amiga, I upgraded to a C128 so I could do real 80 column ANSI, for almost a year during school, I had at least a real ANSI term, DesTerm I recall, even had real zmodem.
Rusty and Eddies!
Ok, I should stop now before I go on about moving to PC playing Tradewars on WWIV BBS's and Galaciticom (Before they turned into ISP software.)
The BBS scene has turned into the IRC scene, now it seems to be the IM scene. Blogs are there too, but I was blogging before it was blogs, so Im blogged out. (Or is Slashdot a BLOG?)
"Know your roots!"
AT&F&C1&D2
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
I cut my BBSing teeth on boards pulled from that very BBS listing in TC. Used to wait excitedly for the "Big BBS List" to come out every now and then. :)
It's a [insert old computer here] on a terminal server... one user at a time, just like the good ol' days.
Remember when the PCers were running multiple copies of their software under Desqview, for a multiline system on one machine? I wonder if you could accomplish the same thing with multiple instances of [insert old computer here] running on your favorite modern OS? Probably lots of file locking (or lack thereof) problems to overcome, though.
I ran a board for years--taught me a lot, especially about modems and serial communications, and is not a hell of a lot different from my job now, except that I get paid and the modems have gotten a lot faster.
Am I the only one curious why the submitter used a freaking definition for the C-64. I mean, I realize it's a tad past their prime, but come on...
Oldbitcollector: I know it seems like every one in here is young and ignorant, but do you really think we're 15?
I can understand a Sinclair definition a little more, maybe, but a C-64?
It used a single sided 3.5" floppy exactly like the double sided ones we have for PCs now.
Was I the ONLY kid on the block who had one of those drives?
Back in the old days I bragged about having a combined storage of 1.5 megabytes online! lol. Man, now I have 2 terabytes on 2 networked PCs...
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Actually, it's a very secure system to go on the internet with, for one thing: even the smallest Windows virus won't fit in 32K.
Not quite true. One counterexample: Win32.Driller, a memory-resident virus which is 8K in size.
The coolest voice ever.
i'm tired of RTS and simms games. gimme the oldschool platform games. turrican, lionheart, leander, shadow of the beast, dragon spirit, r-type, agony, project-x, battle squadron, stormlord, gods, lemmings, speedball ii brutal deluxe, etc. etc. etc.
shit man i could go on all day!
i'm tired of fucking RTS and simms games and all the fucking polygon lame-ass bullshit they make these days! gimme fucking sprites and nice hand-crafted graphics! the old days were more fucking fun!
...getting their asses kicked by a lone 286! w00t!
We've been running a Commodore like BBS program on a BSD box for a number of years. It's called The Shack and you can get to it by just a CLICK!
It's been a fun project and we hope to continue it's development whenever spare time is available.
Dear Sir, Go die you gui loving hippy with your sidecart expansion and AREXX! Regards, C64 user.
Does this mean I can play Hack & Slash again? At least this time around I don't have to worry about whether the ultra-fast 14400 line is available...
-JemThe new days SUCK
Face it, computer gaming is for virgin dweebs and hax0r wannabes.
Put your time to better use; ESPECIALLY YOU mister c64 phr3@k; you've got a wife and kids for god's sake!
Have some fucking dignity, wouldja?
DO YOU SEE A BLOOD RED SWORD?
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
It's been done. 2002. Just not up now, unless it is running at another address somewhere.
But I haven't heard of any earlier Apple IIs being accessible via Telnet, and not any `GBBS "Pro"' systems.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
"Lots of uses". Yeah, right.
And who the hell wants to browse the web on a 14.4 modem?
I, too, loved Citadels. Something about the no nonesense approach, just text messages will all those lovely, lovely ROOMS to explore. You can, of course, still find them around today. Whether they have the same feel/flavor is an entirely different subject, of course. Check out the Uncensored! BBS at uncensored.citadel.org. It is running Citadel/UX on a Linux system so you can still feel proud to check it out, even if you're too young to have experienced BBSing the first time around.
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
Here's an example of an underrated +5 insightful post: DUDE! THIS IS SWEET! Seriously though, this has some nice implications... just think of all the fun we can have, and now at broadband speed! No more pre-14.4 speeds for me!
Learn something new.
...forums packed with charged conversations such as:
"Mmmm... jello"
"Jellllllloooooo"
"I like jellolololololololo"
No thanks.
Are you kidding? They're probably still USING that code.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Having writen BBS programs for the Vic20. C64 and C128 (Actually same program evolved as I switched systems.. Also ported to Dos and would have gone to Linux but the BBS died on Dos as the phone company ripped out the wires to my phone line and offered to charge me to fix there own mistake.
Intrestingly enough I wasn't supprised to discovere I had no callers. I was only supprised as to WHY)
If the trick is handled all on the PC side (and I expect it is) then it dosen't matter.
If they are doing it the way I think
(Commodore userport to RS232 to null modem to PC sereal (rs232) then PC forwards to telnet etc...) this should also work on the Vic20.
For that matter it should also work for CP/M, Apple II, TSR-80. Pritty much any old BBS.
Dos BBSes can be done on the same Linux or Windows box that provides the Internet access making it much easier.
I don't actually exist.
I used to run an Apple ][ BBS, I wonder if I could do the same - and if I'd actually get any traffic. Any takers?
Is not a new thing.
Jay | http://oldos.org
I remember my C=64 with fondness. I should, I paid $495 or so...
There was a guy I found who was building 1 meg of RAM expansion slots, I thought I was on top of the world. And when i got my 3.5" 1.44 Mb floppy drive I almost peed my pants.
I forget the program, but I set up my C=64 to be a BBS for the real estate office I worked in. You could NOT tell you weren't on a PC (286/386) of the period.
I wrote my first book on that machine, printed it out on a Star printer, and published it.
And there WERE a few BBSs around with more than one phone line, not to mention a national BBS I think called Q-Link(?). I took courses on that big BBS up in Virginia(?) with a dozen other peolple on line. And who could forget "Windy City BBS"?
I've got a PET 2001. Way to leave me and my legions in the dust.
The coolest voice ever.
I connected a 286 to the internet, and also a Mac LC II. Both of these could only access text pages, such as provided by the National Weather Service. If you went to a site such as yahoo.com, you essentially got turned away, as your postage-stamp sized processor was detected, as well as your tiny motherboard. Really. The NWS didn't care, so you got your text. Found out that you needed some power on your end to get snappy downloads, and if you didn't have it, then you wound up with something like 26 bytes per second, if that. Both of those boxes hard drives had to be prepared on later-model machines so they could get on the internet. Installing the software was nearly impossible on them. Used MS-DOS/Arachne 1.70 on the 286, and Mac OS 7.5.3 on the Mac LC II.
ACHTUNG!
--------
Das machine is nicht fur gerfingerpoken und mittengrabben.
Ist easy schnappen der Sprinngwerk, blowenfusen und
poppencorken mit spitzensparken.
Ist nicht fur gewerken by das Dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken
sightseeren keepen hands in das Pockets.
Relaxen und watch das blinkenlights...
http://www.textfiles.com/100/actung.hum
Hehe. %-) First saw that back in '74 at a datacenter with an IBM 360/30 (though I know it goes back further).
Commodore was unbelievably stupid, and made some things harder for programmers. For example, the C-64 and C-128 computers both had a software-emulated UART chip, instead of a real one (to save money, as I understand it, about $5), limiting the baud rate to how fast the computer could process code in what was called a "non-maskable interrupt". The C-64 allowed a max of 1200 baud. The C-128, because it could run at double the clock speed of the C-64 ("Fast Mode", or about 2Mhz), could in theory run at 2400 baud, but you had to write your own version of the UART emulator using well-optimized machine language. Faster connection speeds were out of the question.
As the author of a few C-64 programs (e.g., "Prototerm"), I can't tell you how many times I wanted to drive to West Chester, and strangle someone. Nowadays, of course, I periodically get the urge to strangle a person or two in Redmond. Fortunately, it's too long a drive.
Nothing every changes, just the names and faces.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
READY
LOAD "HTTP://WWW./PETSCII.COM/",8,1
HTTP 404 SITE NOT FOUND
READY
so anyway, I just had to add this little bit to get aroung the lameness filter. So, how's that Internet thing doing?
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
...they better be limiting the throughput to 300baud. Good old days when you could read "in real time" ie. you could read as fast as the data came through the modem - no need for this scroll bar bullshit.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I've been waiting for Commodore BBSes to return to the net for a long time.
The thing I liked the most about Commodore BBSes was the color and graphics. Every BBS had little custom color schemes and graphical flourishes here and there. And, of course, the phreakers' boards had the most flamboyant designs. With the popularity of ASCII art today, you can just imagine what Commodore users could accomplish with PETSCII, and what Atari users could accomplish with ATASCII now that you mention it.
Color64 and C-net boards had a charm that was hard to match.
I used to dream of snow each morning as I had to carry my parents to work over blistering lava, after which I had to lick the lava clean of whatever I left behind...
I've got the Assembler cartridge! But I can't remember the entry point to run it. Back to read data, poke data looping. :(
So how's that any different from threads packed with stuff like:
- *BSD is dying
- beowulf clusters natalie portman statues from soviet russia
- GNAA ascii logos and membership signup text
- first post / you fail it
- penis bird
- trolls (the real trolls, the ones who pretend to argue/debate/discourse, and just waste your time)
and so on...
Not to mention a really fucked-up moderation system.
And besides, those ANSI (or color ASCII gfx depending on the platform) were pretty damn sweet. Maybe it's just me, but the who GUI thing hasn't even done anything for me. Last GUI that I liked at all was Amiga OS 3.0...
Yeah..
First BBS I logged into was a DYM BBS.. I was too young to log in and I lied.
It didn't work out.
Then I logged into the Forth BBS in SanFransisco. Your command prompt was actually in forth.
The way forth works is you can add commands so the BBS fuctions were just new commands. I think they locked off the programming features (makes sense but I never tried to edit the BBS so I don't know).
I remeber the ongoing story of Murphy Law of folly forth. I just folowed the story as it progressed. "Folow the yellow diod"...
(Being an impressionable kid I actually refered to going to the bathroom as "dumping my buffers" for a while. As in "I gotta go dump my buffers" while dancing the "gotta go to da bathroom" dance)
Later I had access to some RCP/M and RBBS bbses. The downloads section was just dropping you to a secured prompt.. (think restricted Unix shell where you can't do much) run xmodem filename.ext and then download the files you wanted.
I always thought of Commodore BBSes as limited but secure. Oh boy I had everyone and there brother trying to prove that wasn't the case. Nobody ever hacked into my BBS but I knew it had nothing to do with Commodore.
It was that I wrote the program and every time someone TRIED to hack in I changed the code.
(Staying one step ahead is the ONLY way).
There were three reasons people tried to hack my BBS.
1. I once called it uncrashable. I never did that again once it went into a crash recrash loop.
2. I was sereous about the no cuss words policy (that went away when I hit 18. Mommy might not approve)
3. I ran my BBS on a Commodore 128.
Actually worse than that MY software tried to addapt to the user and often failed.
So I had people hacking my BBS who thought I had an Apple II, a TRS 80, a PC and any number of platforms people didn't like.
I also had one guy yell at me becouse his 300 baud modem connected to my 1200 baud as a 300 baud.
(Some 300 baud modems let you go faster but the other side has to have the same kind of modem and support the hack. I didn't)
And then there was the guy who accused me of stealing his BBS look.
(His was a brand new BBS and I know my BBS changed it's apperence at least twice while he was online just to accomidate his poking and proding)
But that was the worst of it.
However when I want to remember the good old days I log into my Linux box and go into the command line.
Then I smile.
Then I type the old forth BBS commands and they don't work.
I don't actually exist.
...my very first introduction to local Commodore BBS's was shortly after I purchased a Datalink 2400 internal modem for my Apple IIGS.
One of my dad's coworker friends ran a board called "The Ivory Tower", and passed the info along to me. Let me tell ya, up until that time, I had no idea how my life was going to change. I miss the small community feel of old BBS's like "The Ivory Tower".
I remember also the frustration of hearing those blasted 'busy' signals when trying to call up a popular board. As I made my way around the various BBS's of Knoxville, TN, I came across "The Volunteer BBS" -- it was one of my favorite hang-outs -- it was a PC based BBS, but they had great online games like Millway's Casino and Tradewars 2002. With the Internet being so global, it's getting harder to find such cozy little places to hang out anymore.
Bring back Millway's Casino!
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
...is a 2 meg Flash animation that mimics letters slowly appearing on a green screen at 300 baud.
W E L C O M E
T O
T H E
C O M M O D O R E
P I R A T E 'S D E N
1> Warez 2>Chat 3>BBS System
>?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
http://www.petitiononline.com/wfa89wyu/petition-si gn.html?
1 ?"FUCK":?"YOU":GOTO 1 RUN Of course, it would be oh so much more fun to have the program rewrite itself mid-run using the dynamic keyboard method.
"What use is power to the Keeps of Balance?" -Disnt of Nightmare LpMud
Only if there is an online interactive ZORK
Is there anyone else out there who remembers playing World War III on Commodore BBS's? I'd love to play that game again. It was so simple, but who could resist the joy of nuking your buddie's country?
The C64 brings back fond memories to me, also. It was my first computer. I started with the BASIC, then spent days and weeks trying to figure out that assembly language stuff... Good fun.
:)
The Commodore was such a fun computer, you could really get into its guts. Today I look at kids playing with their computers, and it seems like all their knowledge is superficial. If they're really good, they can edit the registry or make their own web page.
Are today's computers more boring, or does it just seem that way because I'm older now? Do you think anyone in the future will try to create a windows XP emulator just for the heck of it? Does anyone actually miss windows NT?
(Of course, linux is still fun
Qxe4
My parents got an Apple ][+ with a 300 baud modem when I was in third grade, back in 1982. I remember the "Cracked" screens with the phone numbers for the BBSs of the pirates who had cracked the games I was playing (Drol, Snack Attack, Taipan, Escape to Atlantis). I also found local 'boards' where I would read what everyone who had logged on before me had posted in the various 'rooms' that I was interested in and I would reply appropriately. I can't remember downloading any warez, though early pr0n was available on CompuServe and my friend John and I racked up an inexcusably large bill after 'downloading' all night. My best friend Jason and I convinced our parents to buy us Mac 512s in 1985, when we were in 7th grade. Jason's parents moved during junior high and he got a second phone line installed and started running a BBS on a Mac Plus he'd picked up for the purpose.
I remember me and the other geeks who logged on (and who spent time redialing when somebody else was tying up the single phone line) pushing the BBS software Jason was running to the limit; the big hit was being able to fuck with the text display and simulate "animation" by forcing the page of text you were reading to refresh by issuing different backslashes in the text posts. Dumb shit that would take over your text display until it played itself out, but which was amusing nervertheless.
It's an awesome idea to transmorgify the internet to a C64 BBS, but just imagine a website that tracks either realtime (i.e.. http://npds-tracker.continuity.cx:3680) or better yet just lists possible BBSs and lets people with the old school hardware break it out and dial up to phone numbers that might or might not be busy. There's nothing quite like the end user experience of old BBS software whatever the OS it ran on; I propose the excitement is better created by setting up real BBSs on original hardware as a better alternative to trying to connect old, old boxes to the internet. I for one would consider the thankless process of getting an additional phone line to set up a dial-up BBS on my trusty Mac Plus (formerly a Mac 512 before my roommate pour a beer through it when I cut him off on Tetris) with a HD20 and a 33.6 modem should the demand be there (and methinks it probably isn't).
Wouldn't it best be experienced as it was originally experienced?
End of Line
Hello,
:o-
I wrote a BBS program for Linux, that tries to be Retro like, ASCII color and 40 column text, but no IBM style >128 text. Its been running via telnet for the past 3 years at: 'velvet.ath.cx'
slate
tHe sHacK! bBS (telnet://velvet.ath.cx)
... and I should know, for I run a modern day BBS (see .sig below). Have a look at this BBS software suite and you will see that the world does indeed have a great open source BBS suite that runs on both Windows and *nix. Telnet has done away with dialing in, and also does away with long distance charges. If you look at this page , you will see that there are quite a few Synchronet systems in existence with new systems coming online and connecting into DOVE-Net almost weekly. (DOVE-Net is the QWK message network that is supported and run by the author of Synchronet). Also, thanks to telnet doing away with long distance charges, we have many large inter-bbs message and game networks today. (Of course, good old FidoNet is still around, too, with most nodes interchanging mail via telnet these days).
I can't believe it. Someone actually recorded the fact that these things existed. Ok, I believe that. What got me was that one of my very first contributions to the net is there: Fantasy Roleplaying BBS (FRPBBS). I wrote that for the C64 and it was my first real "thing" if you know what I mean.
:)
It lead more-or-less on a straight road to writing GemStone I, ][ and III, and thus the company I now run. But to see someone record that FRPBBS existed, brings a tear to my eye.
Yeah... we all have slashdot now... but I was flaming back in the day when 1 user online was the max and THATS THE WAY WE LIKED IT! (smile)
David Whatley
Several folks have mentioned that they miss that 'sense of community' that BBSs brought - well it's not like you can't get that sort of community anymore. There are still plenty of BBSs out there that _do_ have an active community of users. OSUNY ssh://osuny.co.uk is one of them. BBSs are still your friend. :)
Users can "dial" using a standard 64 connected to the Internet
:-)
I guess Internet-connected 64's are considered "standard" among geeks. Personally, I don't even have a clue on how to do it, and don't really care since I have no longer got a C64 either.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Both you and the parent poster obviously don't have any actual experience with the machines. I ran a bulletin board on a C-64 using a 2400 baud modem for years. Further more, the local computer shop ran a massive multi-user bulletin board a couple years later and all the computers in the store were hooked to it. The Amigas were connected at 56k and worked flawlessly as such.
Does anyone remember a game called,
:..
"The Game of Life"?
Also, there was a program that when run, would make the 1541 belch out a tune.
I was a very cool!
I miss my C-64 days.
Ahh.. new comers to the computer scene in the last couple of years... let me tell you a tell when I used to charm the pants of Violet at the Inn...
You're new to Slashdot, aren't you?
And you all thought that the C64's days were numbered! Nyah nyah nyah, I got ya kinda, I got ya kinda! Now I just need to learn how to connect my breadbox up to the ethernet. Might be interesting, considering the thing was developed when you still called a modem a "Mo-Dem."
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
The "step further" a.k.a. "C=1" ( c64upgra.de/c-one/ ) ... jebus!
sys 64738
Ah.. my youthful days as a "Commie". I remember them fondly. Calling the local BBSes and leaving anonymous posts calling this one person a very unkind name.
:)
And Phoneman! What a program! Wardialer and Terminal all in one! Even Red and Blue box tones!
Ok.. I melted the wax of my nostalga. Gonna go back to my Amiga BBS now..
---- You have been programmed by the Illuminati to not see the word ""!
Let me know when someone does it on a Spectrum 48K. :-)
Right, and the discussion HERE is so much better isn't it? Like 3000 posts saying "First Post!", "Hot Grits" and other associated nonsense is somehow better? Slashdot has the heaviest moderation system I've ever seen--no BBS was ever that bad.
Get over yourselves Slashdot.
And for what it's worth, BBSing is alive and well on the internet. Synchronet (www.synchro.net), Citadel/UX (www.citadel.org) and even MysticBBS (www.mysticbbs.com) all have thriving communities. And yes, we all talk about you behind your backs.
The next big MMORPG.....
Lemonade Stand!
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
As a longtime user of 8-bit PCs back in the day (Video 7 modems, anyone?), 300 baud was perfect for the old systems. Why? Easy.
**300 baud is the speed you can read at when receiving text from a BBS! ***
The 110 was too slow, the 1200 was great for games (LORD, Trade Wars/Yankee Trader anyone?), but you kept having to hit PAUSE to read posts! This was a big deal, since back then a 2-5 page post (remember, 40 columns!) was pretty common. Especially if you had a heated message board discussion or a PBMB RPG (play by message board role playing game).
It was a much different world when e-mail only worked on the BBS you had your account on.
-Markvs
46. The Hobo smiles, his eyes glaze over, and he burps. "Beware the man who has lived longer than the Wasteland."
The holes didn't need to be rectangular. You just had to use a hole puncher to punch a half circle where the rectangle would be.
The only advantage to making a rectangular hole is to fool your friends into thinking you could afford double-sided disks.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
My 9600 baud modem is long dead - and good riddance, I say.
I have no desire to relive the BBS heyday when there are some many new projects that need attention...
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
a 33Mhz system with a 14.4 modem actually has a lot of uses. It'd make a decent (but very low bandwith) home firewall
Great idea... as long as you are not paying for the electricity. Compare the monthly cost of running a 486-ish system to a modern, $20 hardware router and you talking about a difference of several hundred dollars over several years.
Da Blog
Kids of the next generation should have a chance to know what it was like.
He's NOT right about the Amiga. High resolutions/color combinations will KILL your connection speed on the old A500/2000. Please read my reply post with a decent reference from a knowledgeable user.
I NEVER said that you couldn't do 56K on the Amiga. I said you had difficulty maintaining 14.4K whilst doing it in 640X400X16 interlaced. THAT is a fact, not fiction.
Now I ask you, how often did you use that hires mode? Probably not very - interlaced graphics suck at TV refresh rates. This explains why most people never saw this as a problem or even knew about it.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I'm not satisfied until someone puts up a AA BBS system with Empire!, perhaps the greatest game ever known and I can slaughter you all with my empire of 99999 serfs!
My IP address is "banned"? *whimper*
Where are you coming from? I had a lot of "hack attempts" (though unsuccessful :) and I went on an IP banning spree. :/
It was just simple, that's why it was popular.
.5 Mhz . At the time I would have loved to have a 10 Mhz processor, IBM XT's were selling for 5000 dollars and were about 4.5 Mhz. And the IBM's had a maximum memory limit of a megabyte, which was like a lot of memory in those days. But the IBM's were monotone graphics and had a single voice sound output.. Besides nobody would ever use one to play videogames until FM sound cards and EGA graphics were introduced. But by that time everyone had Amiga's and Atari ST's..
What I didn't like about it at the time was that to access any hardware in it, you had to flip bits in memory, (poke/peek), they were so efficient with rom they chose not to include subroutines for accessing sound and graphics in a user friendly way, like on the Atari's. But you did have more memory to work with, and the sound was better than the dinky Atari's which had nothing but square waveforms to screw with.
The C64 used a 6502, which is said to have been a RISC processor, it was to be used as a I/O controller, but in the C64 it was made to be a cevtral processing unit. In the Apple IIgs the 6502 was used as a I/O controller at 10 Mhz. In the C64 it ran at about
It wasn't until the PC's had windows, and VGA graphics, with soundblasters, that everything switched.. And people started jumping platforms to get the PC.. I got my first PC when In was already in college, about 9 years ago. I had come from a dieing Amiga 3000 with 50 meg HD and 6 megs of ram.
But I think about the days of the C64, about all of the wierd and interesting stuff, and how it was so much fun to experiment with. Like to play with the SID based synthesizer, and to use paint programs.. I once took apart an Atari Joystick, took the IC card with the bubble buttons, and wrote a program in basic to record and playback drum sounds, using the joystick input to record the button presses.. It would have been better to have something like a Simmons drum for input, but they cost thousands of dollars, and MIDI hadn't even been invented yet. I'm sure if I had had some electronics experience, I would have made my own drum kit and used the C64 as a sequencer. The thing that is bizarre about the C64's is that some musicians still use it as a sequencer.. MIDI data doesn't require a whole lot of space so you could still use a C64 to controll a keyboard setup and drum machines..
Anyhow..
PS- Did anyone have that program for the C64 floppy drive that plays "Daisy" by rattling the disk heads?
Just say no to license servers!!
T-Online, a big German ISP (*.dip.t-dialin.net); you might be blocking lots of German users, but I should be studying anyway :)
Yeah, mass blocking isn't a great thing... I have lifted the block on *.t-dialin.net since the logs are showing less hits from your ISP lately. If you're still interested: telnet://bitbucket.homedns.org