BBS program for the VIC?
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- Vic 20 Drifter
- Posts: 27
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- Website: https://www.sentry.org
- Location: Australia
- Occupation: Retired
Re: BBS program for the VIC?
Update ... progress speeds up
I'm back home and have just finished entering and debugging the first two parts of the BBS's online adventure game: "Secret of Bastow Manor". Part 3 is entered but needs debugging to find syntax errors and other copy typing errors. Part 3, when solved, promises Part 4 is "under development" which I'm beginning to suspect that means that I never got around to converting it to run on the BBS. I've contacted the author here in Australia to see if I can get the missing part 4.
Regardless, the BBS should be ready for download in the next 7-10 days, electrons permitting.
I'm back home and have just finished entering and debugging the first two parts of the BBS's online adventure game: "Secret of Bastow Manor". Part 3 is entered but needs debugging to find syntax errors and other copy typing errors. Part 3, when solved, promises Part 4 is "under development" which I'm beginning to suspect that means that I never got around to converting it to run on the BBS. I've contacted the author here in Australia to see if I can get the missing part 4.
Regardless, the BBS should be ready for download in the next 7-10 days, electrons permitting.
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- Vic 20 Drifter
- Posts: 27
- Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2018 6:32 am
- Website: https://www.sentry.org
- Location: Australia
- Occupation: Retired
Re: BBS program for the VIC?
UPDATE: The VIC-20 SENTRY BBS is now available
Yep, that was a quick 7-10 days ... always under-promise and over-deliver
See https://www.sentry.org/ for downloads and history.
Yep, that was a quick 7-10 days ... always under-promise and over-deliver
See https://www.sentry.org/ for downloads and history.
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- Vic 20 Drifter
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Re: BBS program for the VIC?
Thanks to Orion, I now have a tape image of the full VIC-20 Secret of Bastow Manor ... so that means I will have to convert part 4 for the BBS to complete the adventure
This is likely to take a little while, but I'll update y'all here when it's done.
This is likely to take a little while, but I'll update y'all here when it's done.
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- Vic 20 Drifter
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Re: BBS program for the VIC?
As luck would have it, after making the disk image available I have now found a syntax error in the "sentry adv" program in the d64 disk image. Line 78 is missing a colon.
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- Vic 20 Drifter
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Re: BBS program for the VIC?
There is a new 23 May 2018 download of the Programs which includes:
- updated README_BBS.TXT
- "sentry adv" syntax error fixed
- "sentry adv3" modified to load part 4
- "sentry adv4" added to complete the adventure
That's all folks .... I hope.
- updated README_BBS.TXT
- "sentry adv" syntax error fixed
- "sentry adv3" modified to load part 4
- "sentry adv4" added to complete the adventure
That's all folks .... I hope.
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- Vic 20 Amateur
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- Website: http://bbs.centronian.ca
- Location: Victoria BC
Re: BBS program for the VIC?
Trevoz, great work getting this finished! I'm going to try and get a system up and running.
Just to clarify, the BBS only does 300 baud and works on an unexpanded VIC20?
Just to clarify, the BBS only does 300 baud and works on an unexpanded VIC20?
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- Vic 20 Drifter
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Re: BBS program for the VIC?
Yes, it ran at 300 baud over the user port on an unexpanded VIC-20 originally... I think an unexpanded VIC-20 should still be OK. It doesn't matter if more memory is added though as towards the end of its life it had a Commodore 8K memory expander cartridge to which I'd added the missing memory chips to get it up to 16K
Re: BBS program for the VIC?
Well I finally had a few minutes tonight and decided to load this up in vice. I did have it crash once while trying to erase something in the sysop menu. But, was able to type run at the prompt and keep going. I do have a few questions on this program.
1. Has anyone had luck running this on bare metal?
If so could you connect to it online?
2. If the program crashes while online will it reset itself? Also will the user still have control of the vic. Could be dangerous if a user could start typing in commands.
3. How well do d81 files work on the vic 20 via sd2iec. Was thinking a d81 file would have more room for messages and such.
Thanks for any answers.
1. Has anyone had luck running this on bare metal?
If so could you connect to it online?
2. If the program crashes while online will it reset itself? Also will the user still have control of the vic. Could be dangerous if a user could start typing in commands.
3. How well do d81 files work on the vic 20 via sd2iec. Was thinking a d81 file would have more room for messages and such.
Thanks for any answers.
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- Vic 20 Newbie
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Re: BBS program for the VIC?
anyone else notice that both archives are missing adv4? I thought it was mentioned that the archive was updated to include it?
Re: BBS program for the VIC?
No I never noticed that. Started playing around with it and stopped because I had questions. But they never got answered.
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- Vic 20 Drifter
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Re: BBS program for the VIC?
In the years that I ran it, it never crashed. In fact I never experienced any crashes until I used a PC. That said, unless the program is running, no output from the modem will be processed.
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- Vic 20 Drifter
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Re: BBS program for the VIC?
Part 4 of the Secret of Bastow Manor is supposed to be in the final .d64 file. I certainly added it because I played the adventure to the end a few times to ensure there were no syntax errors.lucidphreak wrote: ↑Fri Nov 15, 2019 5:13 pm anyone else notice that both archives are missing adv4? I thought it was mentioned that the archive was updated to include it?
I'm currently compiling VICE on my FreeBSD computer to check... it will take a while (it's a 2011 Mac mini running FreeBSD). If it is missing I'll check my backups of which I have several showing the BBS files.
Re: BBS program for the VIC?
Sweet. Always wanted to run this.
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- Vic 20 Drifter
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Re: BBS program for the VIC?
OK, I have found the problem. The files were originally named manor, manor1, manor2, manor3. When I transferred them to the BBS disk image as "sentry adv", "sentry adv2", "sentry adv3" well, yes, "sentry adv3" is actually "sentry adv4". Somewhat of a mess.
I am currently straightening it out but unfortunately the final compilation was done on a Mac mini computer in another state and to which I currently do not have access to check for backups. So, I'm having to use older files (the 22 May disk image), fix some syntax errors and add part 4 of the adventure. This is complicated by:
1) fumbling around with the keyboard layout in FreeBSD (gtk3). The "insert" key is actually the "delete" key;
2) I'm rusty on how to complete the adventure after 3 years and
3) I'm currently stuck trying to change the case of the characters from lowercase back to uppercase because otherwise I cannot delete the files and save them back to the disk image after editing.
I will get there in the end.
I did discover that it will not run on the unexpanded VIC-20. It probably needs at least the 3K expander for some machine code I added for custom commands, but to get going I'm using a fully expanded system which works.
I am currently straightening it out but unfortunately the final compilation was done on a Mac mini computer in another state and to which I currently do not have access to check for backups. So, I'm having to use older files (the 22 May disk image), fix some syntax errors and add part 4 of the adventure. This is complicated by:
1) fumbling around with the keyboard layout in FreeBSD (gtk3). The "insert" key is actually the "delete" key;
2) I'm rusty on how to complete the adventure after 3 years and
3) I'm currently stuck trying to change the case of the characters from lowercase back to uppercase because otherwise I cannot delete the files and save them back to the disk image after editing.
I will get there in the end.
I did discover that it will not run on the unexpanded VIC-20. It probably needs at least the 3K expander for some machine code I added for custom commands, but to get going I'm using a fully expanded system which works.
Re: BBS program for the VIC?
If you're trying to move files between Unix and a disk image you might find my cbm-shell useful
https://cbmshell.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
https://cbmshell.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html