VIC20 As Wap Client

Rob Manuel writes "Why not set up your old VIC20 as a WAP client? Who could have believed it possible? But it is, and the boys at geekhaus did it."

lunix

go look at lunix [c64.org] (alternate link [netsurf.de])

lunix - "little unix" - is a multitasking, multiuser unix clone for a bare commodore 64. it does slip, ppp, a tcp/ip stack and has telnet and ftp clients.

oh, and it's open-source. and has cross-development tools.
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You Bastards!

You've finally found a reason for WAP to exist -- to allow old computers to access current information with new light-weight standards. Now I can't say WAP is pointless anymore.

Insane 8-bit activities

Why were the old 8-bit computers such a hive of creativity? The things people did with them back then seem to be much more way-out than the thing people do today - it must be the challenge of owning such a limited machine.

My favourite 8-bit memory was when I was 8 years old. I had an old Sinclair Speccy, with a rubber keyboard, and an insane surfing game that I now can't remember the name of.

The game came with a small surf board that you affixed to the keyboard of the speccy. You then stood on the board, and leaned in various directions. On the bottom of the board were a number of protrusions that pressed the appropriate keys. You could stand and surf away all night long, against your friends, controlling the stick insect guy on the telly, with a tape of the beach boys in the background. It was truly hilarious.

I also remember getting a CD-Rom for the Speccy in about 1990 - ages before I ever saw one on anything else. You plugged your music cd player into the speccy (or more correctly, into the expansion port that plugged into the speccy) & would then choose from about 20 (I think) games. The games loaded in an amazing 20 seconds! I was flabbergasted. I love stuff like this.

Pardon My Ignorance...

...what's a VIC20? I'm quite curious.

But can they do it with a PET?

*WARNING* Aimless old-fogie babbling ahead!

Why, back in my day, we had 8k and cassette storage devices, and we LIKED it! We LOVED it! Sure, you had to burn your own EPROM every now and then, but who didn't back in those days? And who didn't love the POKE command?

Oh, yeah... you can keep your Vic20s and C64s... gimme a Commodore PET any day.

My dad still has a few of these at the old homestead. Got the first one when I was 7 or 8, a real step up from dad's homebuilt computer that used these funky routered wooden cards for storage. I wish I remembered more about that one. Good blinkenlights... impressive when I was 6, anyway.

Oh, sure, we got into Vics and 64s, too... my favorite machine was the Executive 64. That was a class act. Had some Sinclairs, Osbornes, and an Amiga for a little while before settling comfortably into the clone PCs.

But there's nothing quite like the first one... ours was the original 2001, with the chiclet keyboard and the built-in datasette.

Man, I'd love to get my hands on some of those great old PET cases...