Hey all,

Finally setup the old C64 with a modem emulator, and figured I'd try dialing a few BBS'.

CCGMS works great for Petscii boards, but I want to dial ANSI boards as well, so am searching for a working 80-column ANSI terminal for the C64.

I tried using StrikeTerm 2014, but get a weird error - it dials ANSI boards seemingly okay, but after drawing about four lines of art properly, it compleletly garbles the rest of the page, rendering the board unuseable.

This seems to be a problem across all Board Software, I tried some Synchronet Boards, Mystic, and my own board, which is Enigma1/2.

Has anyone gotten ANSI boards to work on their C64? Thanks.

--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.12-beta (linux; x64; 12.22.0)
* Origin: Stolas' Libray (21:3/118)

On 02 May 2021, tonic said the following...

Hey all,

Finally setup the old C64 with a modem emulator, and figured I'd try dialing a few BBS'.

CCGMS works great for Petscii boards, but I want to dial ANSI boards as well, so am searching for a working 80-column ANSI terminal for the C64.

I tried using StrikeTerm 2014, but get a weird error - it dials ANSI boards seemingly okay, but after drawing about four lines of art
properly, it compleletly garbles the rest of the page, rendering the
board unuseable.

This seems to be a problem across all Board Software, I tried some Synchronet Boards, Mystic, and my own board, which is Enigma1/2.

Has anyone gotten ANSI boards to work on their C64? Thanks.

--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.12-beta (linux; x64; 12.22.0)
* Origin: Stolas' Libray (21:3/118)

There is a version of CCGMS which has ANSI mode. I have it in my file library on my Image BBS wn4.duckdns.org:3000 It is in the C64 Telecom library of the Utilities and Telecom Sig. Not sure how well it works but it is a start, I
also believe Novaterm had a ANSI setup with 80 column but I know I didn't
like it at all back in the day.. Give us a call and grab it as a download and see how it works for you...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Windows/32)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (21:4/131)

Finally setup the old C64 with a modem emulator, and figured I'd try dialing a few BBS'.

Woot

I tried using StrikeTerm 2014, but get a weird error - it dials ANSI boards seemingly okay, but after drawing about four lines of art properly, it compleletly garbles the rest of the page, rendering the board unuseable.

I've been known to be wrong, but that sounds like a handshaking overflow kind of problem. Are you using the C64's bog standard serial ports? They're not terribly good, only capable of ~1200... Either that or its not keeping up with the rendering, used to have a rendering issue on IIgs' at higher speeds. Wonder if you can slow down the transfer speed from modem to C64...

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: We know where you live, we're coming round to get you (21:3/101)

Re: Dialing ANSI boards on Commodore 64
By: tonic to All on Sun May 02 2021 02:47 pm

Has anyone gotten ANSI boards to work on their C64? Thanks.

Synchronet supports PETSCII too: vert.synchro.net:64
--
digital man

Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #82:
Telix = Commercial MS-DOS and Windows communications/terminal program
Norco, CA WX: 55.0øF, 85.0% humidity, 0 mph E wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (21:1/183)

I've been known to be wrong, but that sounds like a handshaking
overflow kind of problem. Are you using the C64's bog standard serial
ports? They're not terribly good, only capable of ~1200... Either
that or its not keeping up with the rendering, used to have a
rendering issue on IIgs' at higher speeds. Wonder if you can slow
down the transfer speed from modem to C64...

I was wondering that too. I found with my wifi modem using with Z80 SBCs,
it was too fast receiving and became all garbled. The solution was to add
a small delay between receives.. i think the command was:

ATS44=1

that added a 1 millisecond pause between bytes and everything just
worked. That's with Bo Zimmerman's ZiModem firmware.

Not sure if this will work for the OP or not, but it's worth a try :)

Andrew

--
|03Andrew Pamment |08(|11apam|08)
|13Happy|10Land |14v2.0|08!|07


--- Talisman v0.20-dev (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: HappyLand v2.0 - telnet://happylandbbs.com:11892/ (21:1/182)

Re: Dialing ANSI boards on Commodore 64
By: Digital Man to tonic on Mon May 03 2021 12:13 am

Has anyone gotten ANSI boards to work on their C64? Thanks.

Try using Novaterm You can find it here:

http://www.kludgesoft.com/c64/nt10.html

---
þ Synchronet þ Havens BBS havens.synchro.net
* Origin: fsxNet FTN<>QWK Gateway (21:4/10)

Thanks everyone - such a simple solution I failed to even consider it.

It was as simple as lowering the Baud Rate of my terminal down to 9600, then the picture showed up correctly. You're recieving this message from my commodore right now!

~tonic

--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.12-beta (linux; x64; 12.22.0)
* Origin: Stolas' Libray (21:3/118)

On Monday, May 3rd tonic muttered...

Thanks everyone - such a simple solution I failed to even consider it.
It was as simple as lowering the Baud Rate of my terminal down to 9600, then the picture showed up correctly. You're recieving this message from my commodore right now!

That's awesome (and I'm a bit jelly)



--
|08 â–  |12NuSkooler |06// |12Xibalba |08- |07"|06The place of fear|07"
|08 â–  |03xibalba|08.|03l33t|08.|03codes |08(|0344510|08/|03telnet|08, |0344511|08/|03ssh|08)
|08 â–  |03ENiGMA 1/2 WHQ |08| |03Phenom |08| |0367 |08| |03iMPURE |08| |03ACiDic
--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.12-beta (linux; x64; 14.15.4)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (21:1/121)

tonic wrote to apam <=-

Thanks everyone - such a simple solution I failed to even consider it.

It was as simple as lowering the Baud Rate of my terminal down to 9600, then the picture showed up correctly. You're recieving this message
from my commodore right now!

Wow. I can't get my C64 to go above 9600 BPS. StrikeTerm doesn't support
that for my WifiModem (even though the modem has hardware flow control and supports much higher speeds).


... If you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast.
=== MultiMail/Linux v0.52
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Win32
* Origin: Diamond Mine Online BBS 21:1/194 bbs.dmine.net:24 (21:1/194)

Wow. I can't get my C64 to go above 9600 BPS. StrikeTerm doesn't support that for my WifiModem (even though the modem has hardware flow control and supports much higher speeds).

I'm surprised you can get above ~1200 if you're using the regular 64 ports. The C64 doesn't have a hardware serial port controller.. its relying on the CPU as far as I can gather.

Commodore International omitted the 6551 from the popular VIC-20, C64, and C128 home computers. Instead, these systems implemented a bit-banging UART via KERNAL routines. This RS-232 implementation was not reliable over 1200 bit/s (see errata comments in the 6526 article), forcing some programmers of terminal programs to write carefully calibrated custom serial routines. The popular terminal program NovaTerm was able to achieve 4800 bit/s on the C64, and DesTerm achieved 9600 bit/s on the C128. Several other terminal programs achieved 2400 bit/s. Novaterm 9.6 on a Commodore 64 or 128 can achieve a maximum rate of 9600 bit/s on the user port, using an EZ-232 interface, designed by Jim Brain.

There's a number of carts that supply a more "normal" serial port to achieve up to 38.4k though. For someone that doesn't own one, and only had one briefly, I gave it to another C64 dude. I think I've been over exposed to them. :P

Spec


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: We know where you live, we're coming round to get you (21:3/101)

... If you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast. ===

Hmmm another reminds me of....

The young woman that's just married an old rich
guy, hoping to get rich quick. On their wedding
night, he comes to bed wearing a condom, ear
plugs and nose plugs.

She says, "the condom I understand what are the
nose and earplugs for..."

He replies, "If there's two things I can't stand,
its the smell of burning rubber and sound of a
woman screaming."

Ahh so wrong.... chuckle...


*** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
--- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
* Origin: We know where you live, we're coming round to get you (21:3/101)

So here's the full scoop after a couple days of testing - can't remember if I said what modem emulator I was using, but I'm using the SwiftLink emulation/chip on the Ultimate 2 Cartridge, which doesn't use the user port.

After finding the flow control settings in the advanced section of Striketerm, and setting it to software with a Flow Tolerance of 110, You can pretty reliably dial boards with a Baud up to 19200 - while SwiftLink allows up to 38400, it gets pretty inconsistent. Going slower doesn't solve the consistency issue.

Synchronet boards work the best, and I don't use much Mystic to comment on that.

Tragically, my own board, which runs Engima 1/2, is the worst, I only got it to work once, and I'm not sure how, as it fails in a very strange way. Too slow and the art will draw, but it'll never show the login menu. Speed it up and the login works! I can enter my information and login, but anything after that will "draw" fine, but not let me progress.

My suspicion is that enigma draws twice, once for the art, then layers over interactables on top - menus, pauses, info, etc. The thing I can't figure out is why it can draw the login art, and then the login fields fine - but no other menu works after it.

Not sure what else I can do to make it work. Final note, if you don't have an Ultimate 2 for your commodore, I highly recommend one.



--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.12-beta (linux; x64; 12.22.0)
* Origin: Stolas' Libray (21:3/118)

On 05 May 2021, Spectre said the following...

I'm surprised you can get above ~1200 if you're using the regular 64 ports. The C64 doesn't have a hardware serial port controller.. its relying on the CPU as far as I can gather.

Actually the 64 does 2400 very well.. I ran my Image BBS back in the day at 2400 with no issues at all.. Anything over 2400 was a no go, so the Swiftlink was created and that allowed for speeds up to and including 38.4k I currently run my Image BBS (in emulation as I don't want to destroy my real stuff) at 38.4k via a emulated Swiftlink..

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Windows/32)
* Origin: The Wrong Number Family Of BBS' - Wrong Number ][ (21:4/131)

Has anyone gotten ANSI boards to work on their C64? Thanks.

Synchronet supports PETSCII too: vert.synchro.net:64
digital man

Thanks; I didn;t know there was a node specific for this. I'll set my Syncterm and dial in - wicked cool, digital man. I heard that it supported petscii - but I wanna go SEE it. Very cool..



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/05/03 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS bbs>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (21:2/150)