I've been dabbling for a while with a C64 BBS setup. I've experimented with Image3, C*BASE, C-NET and Color64. Even the recently updated ones
are super fickle on old hardware -- if you are fortunate to have a CMD FD-4000, so much easier -- but support varies across BBS software for modems, and SD2IEC devices have limited REL file support, etc.
Lots of boards use WINVICE for C64 emulation - so much simpler. Totally get it. But I wanted to run a BBS *on* a C64. Nostalgia is rearely practical.
I was getting getting random freezes with SD-based storage, Swiftlink incompatibilities, and both my 1541's shit the bed - who knows,
maybe it's just my 40 year old C64.
So I finally whipped out my Ultimate C64 Elite (FPGA based C64 - quite incredible). Sure it's technically hardware emulation, but *feels* great. I loaded up Tao's "C*Base 3.3.8+ 2024 (C/BBS 11)" which is specifically adapted for the U64. Grabbed it from CSDb.
And it just worked. Screaming at U64's 48mhz turbo mode, the
wireless modem answers, BBS loads, etc. U64 comes built in with 2
emulated drives (e.g. 1581's) and a softiec, so storage is not really a problem.
Haven't got much further, going to need a ton of customization and testing, but I'm super pumped at the progress!
What a cool project, I hope you keep at it and make it something super special. Would love to see it in action (both as a caller and the
sysop side) - Would you do a video of it?
Does the C64 BBS have echomail capability? If so we could get it on
tqwNet and have it's own node number. That'd be super cool.
I've been dabbling for a while with a C64 BBS setup. I've experimented with Image3, C*BASE, C-NET and Color64. Even the recently updated ones
are super fickle on old hardware -- if you are fortunate to have a CMD FD-4000, so much easier -- but support varies across BBS software for modems, and SD2IEC devices have limited REL file support, etc.
That said, IMAGE and C-NET (maybe even C*BASE) seem to have some sort of add-on propietary echo networking functions. I wonder if that could be used to import/export to the FTN standard...? That would be DOPE
Good to hear you got it running well.. I ran both Image 1.2 and 3.0 on
a U64 for a while, I had no issues with REL file support or the Turbo
232 running, I had the T232 hooked up to a PC using BBS Server (at
first the built in modem was not available, but when it became
available their were issues until recently). As much as I would love
to make Image fully U64 compatible, there is just to many issues still
with the swiftlink emulation of the U64. REL support has no issues
with a uIEC/SD by Jim Brain, it works out of the box, I only ran a
command to turn off the p00 and s00 extentions and used the proper PRG
and SEQ etc. The only issues you will have with SDIEC's is they are basically huge 1541's and when the directories start getting long, the
drive access times drop tremendously as the file is searched from top
to bottom in the directory...
The Image network is not FTN compatible. If anyone remembers Frank
from SCINet he was going to write a go between to do just that take
the FTN packages and convert them to something Image could read, and
vice versa.. Only issue with FTN networks and the C64 unless you are
running at U64 at 48mhz you will find the message packages are just to
large to process. Running on a Lt Kernal system the Machine is running
at 1mhz. The HD is fast but the machine is not. When I was running the
NISSA network back in the early 90's as Administrator, we had a break
down of one of the legs of the network (Back then the network ran from
BBS to BBS not a HUB style network like we have now) and I got a 600+
block file of message base posts. That is equal to just about a full
1541 disk which is 330k it took 32 hours to process the file thus
rendering the BBS useless as the BBS processes live and not in the background. I have had times when I would get 5 meg message packages
in Fido and on my PC it takes seconds to process it with Mystic. Even
at 48mhz that would take probably a couple of hours to process.
Bucko, you are literlly my go-to resource for all things C64 BBS related, and I appreciate the support you've given me on Discord :)
How do you turn off the p00/s00 extensions? I tried exporting Image3
files to SD via DirMaster, and used "Bulk Rename Utility" app (WIN) and couldn't get Image past some of the config screens. I'd love to use
Image3 as it's pretty actively supported. I'm using Jim Brain's uIEC/SD device now -- it was my birthday present, along with a RetroTink!
Yeah, that's a huge blocker for sure. I guess if you are running a C64 BBS, it makes sense things aren't going to work that way. Small
storage, even if it's an emulated 1581, and no multi-tasking. Even if you set a max number of messages per echo, the processing would be problematic.
How is NISSA running these days?
| Sysop: | smooth0401 |
|---|---|
| Location: | New Providence, NJ |
| Users: | 6 |
| Nodes: | 4 (0 / 4) |
| Uptime: | 106:09:37 |
| Calls: | 87 |
| Files: | 301 |
| D/L today: |
2 files (1,548K bytes) |
| Messages: | 41,272 |