Denial

Pedro Lambrini · Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 3:26 am Post subject:

To continue the OT a little further: I have always had a RAM expansion as did the others I knew who had a Vic. Over here tapes were far more common than carts (and affordable!) and there's a whole slew of tape games that require extra RAM. As the machine was designed from the outset to take extra memory I have never seen it as an 'illegitimate' use of a retro computer - it's always been there! Smile

Back on topic, though: I have just bought an official Vic Modem (1700?) and was wondering if this would have any practical use in future tweeting? Smile

Oh, and for the record, I am extremely proud that the Vic is capable of this feat in only 3.5k! It is a stunning achievement indeed! When does the Facebook plug-in come out? :p
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Schema · Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 3:02 pm Post subject:

I'll be there! It's only an hour from my place.

I see a VIC-1011A in the gizmodo pic and that gives me a few clues as to how it might be working. Will report back after the event.

(I was sort of hoping it would be a C64NIC+ with MasC=eurade adaptor)

gklinger · Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 11:21 pm Post subject:

I figure there's two ways to do this. Write a native VIC-20 Twitter client or use the VIC-20 as a terminal that communicates over RS-232 to a machine running a command line Twitter client/Twitter API. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. My money is on the latter.
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Jeff-20 · Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 2:18 am Post subject:

Isn't that cheating? Laughing

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gklinger · Posted: Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:47 am Post subject:

Schema · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 7:30 pm Post subject:

Well, that was interesting.

As usual for the PC Museum, it was a media frenzy with cameras and guest "celebrities" from the local radio stations. First, my pics:

I got in to try it after the crowd had died down a bit. None of my tweets went through, though.

So it looks like they've got a BASIC client on the VIC talking RS-232 to a PC running...something... to do the actual Twitter connection. Will be interesting to find out what it is exactly.

Also, they've registered http://www.tweetver.com/ which promises to have details "soon".

sydbolton · Vic 20 Poser Joined: 15 Feb 2010 Posts: 13

Sorry your Tweets didn't go through, there is a bug on the other side and once I reset it it went back to normal.

More details on how it works:

TweetVER is two parts. The first is the client software that runs on the vintage computer such as the VIC-20. It communicates through a serial port (since most vintage platforms have serial capabilities) using a simple command structure I created. The VIC is responsible for converting the characters from "PETSCII" to "ASCII" since the TweetVER server software expects standard ASCII (you have to have a standard in one place anyways). The VIC doesn't have an underscore so if you send a "-" in your username, the server software translates it to an underscore.

The VIC client properly masks your password when you type it in (unlike the C64 version).

The server side currently runs on Windows and accesses the Twitter API through C# running on Dot NET. Source code for both will be available next week sometime.

In response to those saying this is "cheating" - I submit that I never once claimed this was a native TCP IP situation on the VIC. I used a small PC "box". To say it's cheating to communicate would be like saying any wireless device that goes through a router is cheating since a router is essentially a computer (usually) running Linux. If I put that code into a box that was connected directly to the VIC nobody would say anything but alas.

The bottom line? We accomplished what we set out to do. A VIC-20 Tweeted and it worked. The VIC was also able to pick up status updates--something the original version never did.

We also accomplished more than I expected - we brought a GREAT DEAL of attention to the beloved VIC-20. People are not just talking about the VIC and Twitter, they are discussing their fond memories of the computer. I believe this would have also brought attention to these forums as the link has been posted in several stories. I know for us, the coverage has resulted in over 60,000 web hits in 4 days, national television coverage, and now over 1667 people following our Twitter account.

Here are some additional photos from the day:

http://www.pcmuseum.ca/galleryview.asp?id=35
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Jeff-20 · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:21 pm Post subject:

I'm so glad a Denial member was there. Thanks for the report, Schema!

6502dude · Posted: Sun Feb 21, 2010 9:43 pm Post subject:

My impresssion of twitter in general is - that it is alot of hype and not much substance.
I really could not care less is somebody just scratched their ass and they wish to tell 100,000 of their mindless "followers".
Is is somewhat sad to see the Vic-20 dragged into this drivel.
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sydbolton · Vic 20 Poser Joined: 15 Feb 2010 Posts: 13