These days we can connect almost all of our digital devices wirelessly to some form of
connection, whether it's 3G, 4G, Wifi, or whatever you care to use.
The data for this very video could be passing through your head right this minute.
But rewind just a couple of decades and the scene was very different.
Cables were king and the internet was new.
Rewind another decade and the internet as we know it, is no where to be found.
Instead we either dabbled digitally alone, or huddled together in Bulletin Board Systems;
seeking like-minded human connection at 2am in the morning from our trusty 2,400 baud
modems hooked directly into the phone line.
Well, forget all of that, because it's time to combine the best of all these worlds.
Enter WiFi64 from Shareware Plus.
Developed and designed by Urko Eyuzal.
Inside this box is something of wonder and mystique.
You can see the Wifi logo in the lower left corner, right next to a Commodore 64 expansion
connector.
I don't need to explain any more, you already know what this does.
So let's plug it in... baby.
Now to facilitate a WiFi connection, we're going to need an appropriate program.
This stuff isn't built into the Commodore 64's ROM you know.
I'm using a digital tape deck to load up this particular application, mainly because I'm
from the UK, and tape decks - even in digital form - feel more homely, than those fangled
disk drives.
Ahhhh, a terminal interface.
What a lovely feeling.
This is CCGMS version 6 by Craig Smith, with mods by Alwyz.
It's the splendid tool which will bring life to our WiFi64.
The process is pretty simple.
Add the SSID of the network.
Enter the password, use the command atc1 to connection, and Bob is your frickin' Uncle.
We have WiFi connection.
I feel there should be a more dramatic sequence to illustrate this.
That works.
Now, you may be thinking this is some kind of Witchcraft or Wizardcraft, but fear not,
having made his own version called the RetroNet, which I'll be featuring in a separate video,
Dr. A from the Back Office Show is on hand to explain
the gubbins.
Now let's explore.
Handily, with the WiFi64, is a deck of BBS Top Trumps.
So by typing the command ATDT, along with the BBS address and port number, we can connect
to all kinds of excitement.
Clearly, this isn't how we'd have connected in the past.
Back then a BBS would have its own number (or set of numbers) which we'd dial using
a modem, hopefully obtaining a connection - if it wasn't engaged - whereby we could
then go about our pre-internet affairs.
Now, these archaic boards simply have their own web addresses, which can be connected
to using a Telnet protocol, and are then re-directed through to the Bulletin Board hardware often
using a virtual modem to interface the two.
It's the same experience as old, just without the expensive phone bills.
But it's the reason why many bulletin boards will still ask for your phone number upon
registration.
We can choose to connect up in either graphics or ANSI mode.
Most boards will supply graphics, but otherwise we'll get a text interface, but it's still
pleasant none the less.
I managed to hook up my 64 to a BBS a couple of times in the 90s, and it was an incredibly
exciting experience.
Just to know you were connecting with other people, at any time of day, without leaving
the house was incredible.
I felt like a god damn hacker, stealing glimmers of information that the rest of the world
were blissfully unaware of.
I mean, usually it was that Sebastian from Morocco had lost his cat, or perhaps a short
work of fiction from Malcolm in Florida, but it was still bloomin' exciting regardless.
These cards are now a year or so old, so some of these boards have since closed down.
Which is a shame.
Piece by piece the past disappears.
But others are fully operational.
I signed up to quite a few boards here and there, before rooting around for snippets
of information, or interesting files to download.
You can even grab segments of code into a buffer and save them for later, like these
sound effect programs.
But, by far the best BBS was Commodore Image, run by X-TEC.
Here, we have a wealth of information, lotteries, messages, games and even movies.
Ohhhh, yes.
Well, I say movies.
Although, I did dig up one entitled Atari vs. Commodore.
You can see the full version of that on my extra channel, otherwise we'd be here all
night.
If you somehow get bored of the film selection, then games might be your ticket.
Most are text based.
We've got simulations where you speak to a therapist.
A quiz which determines if you're addicted to computers, which apparently, I somewhat
am.
A graphical lazer game in the style of snake, which is monumentally hard with the 64's directional
arrows, given you only have two keys for four tasks.
There were also tonnes of door and adventure games, along with some beta titles, which
seemed to crash the whole system.
Anyway, before we get too bogged down in the world of Bulletin boards.
This video was about the WiFi on the trusty old Commodore 64, so let's get back to that
briefly.
One of the great things about the WiFi64 is that, even after powering everything down,
the adaptor will remember your WiFi details.
So next time you boot up your trusty 64, you're ready to connect to where-ever you please,
without hassle.
I love it when a piece of hardware or software pops up which drags a machine almost 4 decades
old, into our current age.
The initiative, scope and excitement of the people behind these creations is infectious,
and it makes me want to do, THINGS with my Commodore all over again.
Things such as logging onto Twitter using a client such as Bread Box 64.
Unfortunately recent Twitter API changes mean it doesn't work anymore.
So how about browsing the actual World Wide Web or accessing email using something like
the Contiki operating system?
Well, Contiki is better suited for cartridge port devices like the RR-Net, TFE and ETH64.
But there are still more options and more programs we can look at in the future.
For now, it doesn't matter, we've got this 64 hooked up to Wi-Fi, and I'm more than happy
with exploring the wealth of Bulletin Board Systems still running.
There's no doubt that connecting your Commodore 64 up to the internet opens up a whole new
world of old.
Thanks for watching.