Starting the New Year Right

Today's a company holiday (odd, but ok), so I figured what better way to start the New Year than to see if my Commodore 64 still works? I bought it in mid-1986, so it's almost 25 years old, and it's been over seven years since I posted My C-64 Rides Again. Since then the monitor I used with my C-64 died, but my dad shipped me his old RBG monitor.

Would everything work? Could I access the Internet with it? The answer: YES. As you can see above, I have a C-64c, with a 1541c disk drive. I even have a 1351 mouse, but I decided not to use it. I found the Contiki OS 5 1/4 floppy that shipped with the NIC I bought for the C-64 in 2003. I was able to LOAD "*",8,1 and get Contiki OS running.

At right you can see a visit to the Bejtlich.net Web site using the Contiki OS Web browser. Remember this is a 25 year old computer running a 7 year old Web browser.

I'd like to try to get a copy of the newest Contiki OS on 5 1/4 floppy to see what improvements have happened in the last 7 years. For example, the Web browser didn't render Google at all. I also couldn't get the Telnet client to run. For all I know that part of the disk could be bad. The Web browser sort of worked, but it was very fragile (unlike the modern Contiki OS version, which is Internet-facing).

This was a fun test of this old gear. I've got my original 1200 baud modem (upgrade from a 300 baud) as well, and it still works. I'm not sure it's going to like the Verizon land line in my lab. I also need terminal software for it. That would be another fun trip down memory lane to get the C-64 working with the old modem.

At left is a screen shot of the Web server in action, but I think even accessing this page killed it.

I consider it ironic that I took these photos with a 2+ year old Blackberry, which has hundreds of times the computing power and capabilities of this setup in probably 1/100th the volume.

Happy New Year!
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Assembly and OS Threads at Slashdot

Slashdot has covered two interesting topics recently: Learning Computer Science via Assembly Language and Building Your Own Operating System. I learned of two online books to assist with these topics: PC Assembly Language and Programming from the Ground Up.

If you want to run UNIX on your Commodore 64, try LUnix.

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My C-64 Rides Again



Thanks to a RR-Net kit, my Commodore 64 is now on the Internet. I browsed taosecurity.com using the Contiki Web browser and I served Web pages sing the Contiki Web server. It's slow, but really amazing to think a machine that hasn't been used in 13 years is now on the Internet! There's also a version of VNC which I haven't tried yet.



I still need to try downloading software and getting it to the C-64. The RR-Net package arrived with a 5 1/4 floppy containing Contiki.



Update: The Web server doesn't seem too stable. Twice I've left the box running in the basement only to find Contiki exited several hours later. Oh well, that's why I run FreeBSD.

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While reading a Slashdot story on a Curses library (.pdf) version of GTK (The Gimp Toolkit) called Cursed GTK, I found a link to Contiki, a "highly portable, modern, open source, Internet-enabled operating system and desktop environment for very constrained systems, such as 8-bit homecomputers like the Commodore 64." You can access Ethernet using this special NIC. Can it get better? Oh yes. You can access a Commodore 64 remotely using a special version of VNC called CTK VNC by visiting this site. Above is a screenshot of the page when I used the Java VNC client. Not only was this site offering remote VNC access, it was also serving up web pages!

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Bring New Life to Your Commodore 64

My dad recently shipped my old Commodore 64 to me and I'm trying to figure out how best to use it. It would be fun to run a BBS accessible via telnet, like these. My Commodore 64, 1541 disk drive, Capetronic 1200 baud modem, and RS-232 serial interface all work, but I need software for the C-64. There are plenty of games that run on emulators, but how do I get software from the archives onto the C-64?

Assuming the C-64 has no terminal software available, my best bet appears to be to use Star Commander on a PC running MS-DOS. I'll connect the PC to the 1541 disk drive using a special cable (probably the XA1541). I'll use Star Commander to write Commodore software like EBBS to a floppy in the 1541. Once the software is available to the C-64, I can try setting up a BBS like that run by Leif Bloomquist. Using these instructions, I could even access telnet services from the C-64! Here's another option called BBSLink that forwards incoming telnet connections to a Windows box to the COM port, where the C-64 listens. Maybe I'll connect the C-64 to my packet radio TNC, and really go retro.

I also found these how-to's to be helpful in figuring out this process, and an incredible amount of original documentation is online. Because Star Commander works only in a true MS-DOS environment, I started looking at what could be done in DOS. Would you believe people are running DOS-based web servers?

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Email Sent from Amateur Radio Network to Internet and Back

Today I visited the Ham Radio Outlet in Woodbridge, VA and bought a Kantronics KPC-3+, pictured above. This little beauty is a "Terminal Node Controller" (TNC) and it lets my HTX-202 2 meter radio (pictured next) talk to the "packet radio" network around the world.

Combine this equipment with an amateur radio license and you're ready to go! (I earned my Technician class license in 2001.)

I cabled my laptop to the KPC-3+, and cabled the KPC-3+ to my HTX-202. Next I used the Windows Hyper Terminal program to communicate with the KPC-3+. I told the TNC to connect to W4OVH, which is a geographically nearby packet node operated by the Ole Virginia Hams Amateur Radio Club. From there I hopped to a node which offers mail relay to Internet space from the packet network. I composed a message, shown partially below:

I received the message on my Thunderbird Windows XP Internet email client:

I replied to the message on my XP box and got the reply back through the packet radio network:

I think that's cool! Amateur radio operators can send email to each other without the use of the Internet. It's just like the old BBS days in the 1980s, and especially relevant in emergencies today. (The VA Digital Emergency Network operates using packet radio.) My HTX-202 rig supports data transfer at 1200 baud, which is what I used with my Commodore 64 back in the day. Monday night I plan to attend a meeting of the amateur radio operators in my area and learn what else I can do with this technology.

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