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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."
For some reason he fails to use any HTML, HEAD, or BODY tags in his pages. I suspect ignorance, not malice. As usual.
Actually, IIRC the 1541 was single-sided, single-density, around 160kb of storage.
But yes, there are various different expansions available, including hard drives and more memory. There were various 3rd-party options, and now someone has developed a way to hook up an IDE drive to a C64. It also can be used to access CF cards.
I believe that apps had to support the memory upgrade peripherals. I seem to recall them being fairly popular with GEOS users.
800k?! You must be thinking Amiga.
The 1541 held a massive 170kB (per side; disk had to be flipped manually) and transfered data at a blazing 400 bytes per second.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
(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.
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.
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.
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.
I take it you never heard of Textfiles.com.
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
That BoycotBBS is no longer at that adress. Google has a link to "http://boycot.no-ip.com/boycotbbs" but it's not working anyway. So I guess BotcotBBS is dead.
:)
For a goot Old School BBS, you could always try : it's been running for 18-19 years now. You can connect using telnet or phone lines, just like in the old days. This BBS fulfilled by computer addiction when I went offline (not enough money) for 6 months, 2 years ago. Glad it's still there, just in case.
All Hail Discordia. Hail Eris. Fnord.
It's actually 64 K of RAM about 51 k of it usable. Most Commodore BBSs swap in and out the various sub-programs as needed.
and about an 800K floppy
Most BBS sysops have a hard drive or large RAM drive such as the CMD Hard Drive or RAMLink I started with floppies (which the 5.25" drives were 170 k and the more expensive 3.5" were 800k) but you can only run a text based board (and not a networked one) on such limited capacity.
(This isn't intended as a troll or flamebait... it's a genuine question....)
Of all the 8-bit followings the Commodore 64 has been one of the most active and innovative over the two decades since the computer was first produced.
One girl genius is taking the 64 a step further.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
...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.
Damn straight.
I still have a couple of SFDs in my basement. 4,133 blocks free each, a hair over a meg. My 8050, bless it's soul, blew up in the early nineties. (8050 - two side-by-side single-sided SFDs in a 4040 chassis).
I also have a couple of 4040 chassis lying around intact (except for repairs -- they work), and one which was stuffed full of single-speed Sony CD-ROMs many many moons ago.
For the parent, The 1541 had 664 blocks free, or about 170K of usable storage. Unless you chose to use track 18 (the directory, track 40 on the SFD/8050), in which case you could eke out a little more disk space.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
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.
Imbezol is right! I was co-sysop of an Amiga BBS that could easily clip along at 56K *WHILE* doing housekeeping (or logged in on the main console). Sometimes, we'd even be playing games while someone was logged in.
As for the C64, you COULD go faster than 2400 (about a hair over 2660 bps, IIRC) using "Bob's Term Pro", which allowed you to tweak the timing values. However, not many BBSs/modems used such weird timings, so 2400 was about it. Later, a hardware solution that came in a cartridge form (which was just the UART that CBM left out) allowed 14.4Kbps.
And as for those who say "Why?" - you're all missing the point. We had to start somewhere, and it's nice to know that we can go back and visit once in a while. Besides, where's the real "hacker spirit" that is supposed to pervade slashdot?
One of the linked articles (PETscii.com) had a listing of TelBBSes, running on various platforms (mostly C64/128s, but there was an Atari, and some Apple II and Commodore-based BBSes emulated on Windows, Linux, and (!) Amiga.
Funny thing is, those BBSes probably can't scale, but a C64 running Contiki (actually, it was before the web and VNC servers were added to Contiki, but it was the same technology) doesn't melt when the web server that's SERVING DYNAMIC PAGES, the TWO VNC servers, and the RealAudio server gets slashdotted. Funny, how the DSL modem comes MUCH closer to melting than the C64 when under a /.ing...