Quote from: BigDumbDinosaur on November 10, 2009, 02:13 PM
The question would be: would anyone use it?  Plus, would it be Commodore-specific or be able to accept connections from non-Commodore machines without giving rise to funky display issues?  Also, on what would the software and such be stored?  What about connectivity?  Is anyone still willing to devote a phone line to incoming traffic or would this strictly be a Telnet setup?

It would not break any traffic records for world's busiest site. It would probably only be visited occasionally by die-hards such as ourselves. Your other questions come down to what is available and affordable. Maybe something as simple as a C128 with a disk drive and serial to ethernet adapter to be available online. Dynamic DNS can be used to set up a path to the computer.

-David

Quote from: quarkx on November 10, 2009, 03:39 PM
Its a cool Idea, but let's face it, less and less people even have a land line anymore. I have not had one since 1999, since I got my first Cell phone. If there some way to have it on the web, but only have it accessible by 128, that would be cool.

You can use a Lantronix or similar serial to ethernet device to get it online. That is how some old BBS software was connected to the Internet and able to take incoming "calls" as well as place outgoing "calls". Takes a little effort of reading the instructions to get it set up the first time, but it works very smoothly once configured.

Palm OS?! What the heck!
How embarassing.

Quote from: nikonikoOver on comp.sys.cbm there were a few mentions from October and November that someone had spoken to Allan and confirmed that the device is working and complete, but that arrangements with a distributor in Florida need to be finished before it can go on sale.

Interesting, I think. You see, awhile back, I had emailed him and offered assistance. I've been heavily involved in setting up a business here on the Treasure Coast of Florida. The company has three areas of interest, so my work involves setting up three e-commerce sites. One of them is tech related. We're in beta testing but should be up and online within a few months. I never got an email back. Maybe the email got trapped in a spam filter? Think I should try emailing again?

Offer still stands... david@lauroracorp.com would be the best contact address.

-David

Quote from: PinacoladaPing? Any progress on this BBS?

Life got a bit too busy for me suddenly; maybe when things calm down a bit later this year...

I found a few .bin files lying around my HD that are supposed to be roms for the c128. A few I'm not really sure what they're supposed to be (servant rom maybe). Is there a way of examining them from the PC without having to burn them and install them in the c128? I'm a little new at this side of things.
-David

Thanks for the answers.

Quote from: gklinger2. Its unavailability (legally).

Yes, that's the problem. But what it if there was another choice? Remember there was more than one fast load cartridge for sale in the heydays. Why not a competitor to JiffyDOS? At least it'd have a leg up -- being available.

Hi, a couple questions for those using JiffyDOS (past or present):

1. What are some of the things you like most about it?

2. What are some of the things you dislike about it?

3. Are there any features you wish it included or did better?

Thanks!

QuoteThe plastic case C128D requires the same JiffyDOS chips as the C128 and stand alone 1571.
The metal case C128DCR requires a different 1571D JiffyDOS chip, and also has the C64 and C128 kernals combined in one chip.

Yep, that's what I thought. Thanks for the definitive answer!
-david

Ah, crap. So I'm still missing the C128D binary and the regular 1571 binary. Thank you for the info, and now I know pretty much just what I need. Shame ol' Maurice went downhill on these things.

Thanks,
David

Does the C-128DCR (metal case) require different JiffyDOS chips than a flat 128? Or is it a simple matter of putting in a C128 and 1571 JiffyDOS chip?
I have a set of binaries, and I see a C128 binary and a 1571D binary. I do not see a C128D binary or a regular 1571 binary. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm looking at. How many different sets of JiffyDOS chips are there?

C128, C128D, 1571, 1571D, and 1581?
(I know 1541/1541-II but I don't use those with my 128 so I'm skipping them for now).

Thanks.
David

Quote from: strandedinnzSo far I've just "upgraded" my C128 to the latest 318018-04, 318019-04 and 318020-04 Basic and Kernal ROMs, and I'll do the same for the 1541's, 1571 and 1581.

Is there a place to download the binaries for all these updates? I have a Willem and blank chips, just need the right images.

-David

Quote from: theslownorrisI might like to replace it with a 64C, 1541 II, and one of those "roll your own" 1581s. I find myself really only using c64 mode anyway (I know, I know, curses on my head around here).

The 128D is nice, very nice. I've had one forever and just before I moved in August I picked up another (along with a few more goodies for both). But since it does do 64 mode, and a 1571 functions similar to a 1541 in 64 mode, why get rid of it in the first place? Even if you rarely use the 128 side, and even rarer the Z80, at least that functionality is there should the urge ever take over. With original manuals and lot, it'd fetch a nice price on the market. You might regret getting rid of it, though.

-David

Quote from: adminWell I guess it comes down to when people can attend - suggestions guys ?

The online meetings were a good idea, but I guess we're all trying to play with this idea in what little spare time we have. Back and forth messages like this work for now.

Quote from: adminMoving shortly (within the next couple of weeks)

How's the move coming along?

I probably wouldn't be able to attend very many online meetings, but as long as a transcript is posted I could keep up. I guess maybe I should find a tutorial on how to use VICE. Then with tcpser I could go the emulation route for the time being until I get back home permanently. I guess basic/ml is the route now then.

An optimistic title, but I hope it got your attention. I've been away for awhile and I'm in a lousy situation right now. Long story short my new house is in one county and I'm still working in another. Transfer is on file but may take ... awhile ... so my online time is limited and my Commodore (and Amiga) gear is not with me. Nor are my programming guides. Only programming going on right now is in Visual Studio.

Anyway, I'm shocked that nothing seems to have happened while I have been in limbo. Here's what I remember having been discussed thus far:

Hardware was settled on as a 128 with either two 1571's or a 1581. We were aiming to use 80 column fast mode (2mhz). Vice was the chosen emulator. There'd be no dial up support, only telnet. A Pc would be involved to handle connections and some other custom advanced features. That PC software was to be in .NET and C#. The 128 code was to be done in CA65/CC65.

Since then, we learned CA65/CC65 isn't very 128-friendly. We also learned that VICE isn't quite as good a 128 emulator as it is a 64 emulator. But it seems like it can mostly get the job done. Maybe.

What to do, what to do. First, is there still any interest now that we've learned it won't be as easy as we thought? I'm itching to try out a few things, but I don't see much happening until I get my transfer. My two days home a week will be consumed by family time, leaving very little time for the hobby. I have tried using VICE and it just frustrates me. I'd rather sit at the real thing I guess. With my programming guides scattered all around me. My 128 basic is rusty, and my ML even rustier, but that's all just part of the fun.

Thanks,
-David

Quote from: BrendonThese seem to be coming out of the woodwork, there was another listed recently on ebay (Australia) this week that only went for $10 or 420 but it didn't have the harness.

I don't think any of the ones I saw recently had the harness. Sounds like they're a bit hindered without it.

A short discussion on comp.sys.cbm newsgroups led to one rather interesting individual looking for information on how to set up his Lantronix. He was hung up on the Com Port Redirector section of the manual, which has nothing to do with setting the Lantronix up for a Commodore BBS. So I decided to write up my experience with setting up the Lantronix. I did not have much time to try everything out, so this "guide" may need to be altered as I hear from others who have done this, too. But here it is, in case anybody here has been struggling.

------

Configuring the Lantronix UDS-10/100 to work with a C64/C128 BBS:

Before I dive in, let me start with a quick disclaimer. This procedure is based upon notes I took recently when I received my Lantronix UDS-100. I quickly set it up and tested it out with an old BBS program I had written. The BBS was using 2400 on the standard serial port and I used CGTerm on the PC. It seemed to work fine. I then had to pack everything up because I am in the middle of moving. It's going to be quite awhile before I have a chance to set it up again. So if you find some incomplete portions or (hopefully not) errors, please feel free to point it out. If you have suggestions for better settings than those I chose, speak up and explain to us why so we can all benefit. The goal of writing this down was to help those without an extensive computer background get their Lantronix devices up and running. With that said, here we go!

Part One – Plan Ahead

We should spend a couple minutes thinking about what we are hoping to achieve before we start configuring the Lantronix. We need to gather some information that we will need later:

1. By default, a brand new Lantronix is set to use DHCP to obtain an IP address. If you bought a used one, like me, then it has probably already been configured and we need to do a factory reset to make sure we're starting fresh.

2. Using DHCP is not very useful for our purposes, so we are going to want to assign it an IP address. I'm going to use 192.168.1.25 in this example. You will also need to know your gateway address. I'm going to use 192.168.1.1 in this example. Your private network might be using a different subnet. You can check this real quick under Windows XP by clicking Start->Run and typing cmd. In the command prompt box, type ipconfig. It will tell you your XP computer's IP address and also tell you the gateway. To choose an IP address for the Lantronix, simply change the last set of numbers to one that is not used by DHCP in your network. You might need to check your router to find out what IP addresses it is using for DHCP. For example, my router uses 192.168.1.10 thru 192.168.1.20, so 192.168.1.25 is safe to use for the Lantronix.

3. Keep in mind what baud rates your BBS software supports and what baud rates your hardware supports. You will probably only be able to go as high as 2400 unless you use a Swiftlink or Turbo232. With one of those, you could easily obtain 38400 or higher if your BBS software supports those higher rates. The Lantronix supports 300 thru 115200. Also note if your BBS uses numeric responses or full verbose response from a modem.

4. Decide what incoming port you'd like your BBS to use. I've seen 6400 and 23 commonly used. 23 is also what Telnet uses. I'm going to use port 6400 in this example.

Part Two – Serial Logon Setup

As much as I'd like to use the web based setup to configure the Lantronix, I quickly found out some of the settings I needed to change were only available by using the telnet or serial logon. Since my Lantronix was used, I couldn't telnet in. That left me with the Serial Logon as the only method of setting it up. As I discovered, that's probably the easiest and least frustrating way. As long as you're using a good cable. ?

Unplug the Lantronix first. You're going to need a suitable serial cable (not a null modem!) and a terminal program. The serial settings are 9600 baud, 8-bit, no parity, one stop bit, and no flow control. (This cannot be changed, so you will *always* be able to access setup through the serial port.) For the purists at heart, you might want to use your Commodore and a program such as DesTerm to set it up. Just make sure your ASCII translation is set to communicate with a PC, not another Commodore. The rest of us can suffer with HyperTerminal under Windows XP (Start->Programs->Accessories->Communications).

Once you have the serial cable connected, and your terminal program set to connected as well, plug the Lantronix back in. Type three lowercase x characters *within one second* to activate the configuration mode. The manual suggests holding down the x key while you are plugging in the Lantronix. That worked for me.

The very first thing to do is to choose 7, Factory Reset. Now we're ready to start configuring our Lantronix.

Part Three – Server Configuration

This is also known as the Network Configuration. Choose 0, Server configuration, and enter the following settings:

IP Address – 192.168.1.25
Set Gateway IP Address – Choose yes, and then enter 192.168.1.1
Netmask – Number of bits is 8 for 255.255.255.0
Change Telnet configuration password – Yes, this is probably a very good idea. You can assign up to a 4 character password. Note that no password is needed for the serial logon, this only applies to TELNET connections to port 9999, the Lantronix's configuration port.
DHCP Naming – We're not using DHCP, so there's no need to change this.

Part Four – Channel 1 Configuration

Moving on, back at the main menu, choose 1, Channel 1 configuration. The settings are as follows:

Baudrate – Enter the highest value your BBS software and hardware combination will support. You might need to lower this later if you notice garbled characters and other classic signs of speed problems.
I/F Mode – 4C (RS-232C, 8-bit, no parity, 1 stop bit)
Flow – If you're using a low baudrate, 2400 or less, this can be set to 00 (none). For higher rates with a Swiftlink or Turbo232, you'll probably want Hardware CTS/RTS handshaking, which is 02. The other option is XON/XOFF, which is 01. You can try Hardware first, then XON/XOFF, and finally none if you run into trouble.
 Port Number – 6400
Connect Mode – D6 for full verbose with echo, C6 for full verbose without echo, D7 for numeric responses.
Remote IP Address – Leave as 0's
Remote Port – Leave as 0
DisConnMode – 80
FlushMode – F7 (if you have trouble try 77 and then 00)
DisConnTime – This is an inactivity timeout. The Lantronix will drop the connection if there is no activity within this time limit. Enter the time in minutes:seconds if you so desire. Enter 00:00 to disable. 5:00 (five minutes) of inactivity is a decent choice.
SendChar 1 – 0
SendChar 2 – 0

Part Five – Security Settings

Back at the main menu, you can choose 6 to change security settings. This is entirely up to you, but I chose to change a few:

Disable ECHO Ports – Yes to disable port 7 (echo port)
Enable Enhanced Password – You can set this to Yes to allow up to 16 character password for Telnet setup instead of 4.

Part Six – Save and Test

Back at the main menu, choose 9 to save the new settings and exit. Unplug the Lantronix and connect it to your Commodore. Plug the Lantronix back in and fire up your BBS software. Go to your PC and give it a try! Use CGTerm and try to connect to 192.168.1.25 port 6400 and see how it works. If we've done this correctly, it should work just fine.

Part Seven – Open the Port on the Router

Now we are ready to open the port on the router and direct BBS traffic to the Lantronix. The steps for this will vary quite a bit depending upon what kind of router you have. I'm using a Linksys WRT54G, so this example uses that.

Go to Applications and Gaming. We should be looking at the Port Range Forward screen. Edit the first line as such:

Application – BBS
Start – 6400
End – 6400
Protocol – TCP
IP Address – 192.168.1.25
Enable – Checked

What this does is forward incoming traffic to port 6400 to the Lantronix device. If we did not set this up, you would only be able to connect to your BBS from your private network. The firewall would block access to the outside world.

Part Eight – Spreading the Word

While you are in the router, take a look to find out what your current public IP address is. On the Linksys WRT54G, click on the Status page and look for IP Address. Have a friend try using CGTerm to connect to this address at port 6400. He or she should be directed to the Lantronix and connected to your BBS.

You're now ready to look into a DNS service to use a friendly name for your BBS, such as EndofTime.net. If your IP address is static, meaning it never changes, you could just advertise your public IP address. If it does change, such as a DSL connection, then you might want to look into a Dynamic DNS service. I have not looked into this myself, so I cannot advise much more.

Part Nine – A Cool Extra Feature

Now that your Lantronix is set up, you can also use your Commodore to "dial out" on the Internet to other Commodore BBS's. Fire up your favorite terminal program. Type in ATDTx.x.x.x,pppp where x.x.x.x is the address of a BBS and pppp is the port number. For example, ATDTbbs.excalibursstone.com,6400 . The Lantronix will then attempt to make a connection and voila! You're connected, just like the good old days.




I hope this guide has helped. All these settings were taken straight from the Lantronix UDS-10/100 manual. If you have a question about what a specific setting does, please look it up in Chapter 5.

-David Nelson
dnelsonfl at yahoo dot com

Yeah, some of those Willem programmers on Ebay are questionnable. They seem to be based on those 3.1, PCB3B, or Enhanced schematics. And those are the ones with problems programming EPROMS. Best to pay a little extra and get the 4.1 from the source.

Were you the person who purchased a 1581 from the seller in Europe, and the chip arrived DOA? I was watching that auction and then I saw that message on the comp.sys.cbm newsgroup. That's when I decided enough, I'd do it myself. lol My Willem is packed up for our big move. It'll get unpacked by the end of September.

Stay tuned.
-David

Quote from: strandedinnzWhat would be the legality of doing a scan and OCR of it and posting it here ?

I'm not sure about the legality, but I can speak for interest: very interested!

-David

Quote from: strandedinnzThose Willem devices, they only cost about AU$120 don't they ?  Seen some on ebay and was wondering about getting one.

I'm not sure about the price conversion. The one I just purchased cost me about $90 USD, for a Willem 4.1 with a voltage modification to properly program NMOS EPROMs. For what I had in mind (the rom for the 128, and rom upgrades for the 1571/1581), this particular model was the ideal choice. Oh, I also had to buy a power supply for it, and that cost $8 from Jameco (electronics parts distributor). It arrived today (as did the power supply)! Awesome. And the software was downloaded from the website.

I started by looking on Ebay, since the prices were reasonably cheap. I noticed right away on Ebay that there appeared to be different models. I then went to www.willem.org and tried to match up the Ebay pictures with the models, so I could read more about them. There was the 3.1, 3.1 ATH, 4.0, 4.1, 4.5, PCB3B, Enhanced, and EZo!! Most of the Ebay models did NOT match up. They looked nothing like the "real" ones, so I became suspicious and very confused. I learned 3.1 and PCB3B are mostly the same, and you sometimes have to fiddle with them to get it to work properly. Worse, many people on the forum there declared these revisions "worthless" for programming EPROMS. Exactly what I wanted to do. The Ehanced was just another variation of one of those two. Not good. The 4.5 was specialized, also not really meant for what I wanted to do. So that left me with 4.0 and 4.1, which 4.1 is the newer revision. After giving myself a real headache figuring all that out, I decided to just spend a little extra for peace of mind and buy it from the source. Having learned all this, I strongly recommend against buying one off of Ebay. I'd hate to see somebody get frustrated because they ended up with the wrong board revision that wouldn't serve their needs.

It'll be several weeks (maybe a month?) before my relocation is finished and I can settle down to have a play with my projects. First test will be upgrading the rom on my 1571 and 1581's. That should get me familiar with the Willem and its software. I also picked up an EPROM blanker in case I make a mistake and need to start over. I'll let you know how easy or hard it turns out to be.

Quote from: strandedinnzOh yes, got a good book here electronics projects for the C64 C128... will post about it in a new thread :-)

Yes, saw that with great interest.

-David

Quote from: plbyrdI'm afraid I'm not down with coding it by hand.  My major interest in this project was doing something useful with CC65 as my excuse for learning old-skool C.

Coding by hand is very old school. These days, we never really have a chance to roll up our sleeves and start cranking out assembly because of how complicated the OS's have gotten.

I do recall seeing Abascus Super C, which was a C compiler for the C64/C128. One was on Ebay not too long ago. That might be worth taking a look at if C is still the main focus.

Basic compiled with something like Abascus's Basic 128 compiler is the easy solution, and still a worthy challenge. Or a mixture of assembly and compiled basic might be the winner, since the serial communications might need to be hand-tweaked for speed.

-David

Saw it ended already. I was intending to bid but got my times mixed up. Anyway I was surprised it went so low; the last couple I saw (out of the uK I think) went for $100+ USD! Insane.

While we're on the subject, what with the thread on comp.sys.cbm about the fellow intending to make a new C64/C128 diagnostics cartridge, are they useful?

-David

So we go to plan B and code by hand? I recall reading someplace that coding by hand was the most efficient method, although time consuming. There is perhaps also the option of writing it in basic and using a compiler (Abascus 128?) . Too bad, because I liked the idea of using C.

-David