ShadowM's Commodore 64 Pages (last updated 2013-06-09)

1541 Ultimate with Ethernet

MMC Replay with RR-Net

I enjoy using and programming the Commodore 64 (one of the early home computers, for those of you who weren't there), and have a good collection of hardware and software. I'm mainly interested in operating systems and compilers, especially GEOS.

If you want, you can email me (shadowm at lyonlabs dot org).

I'm hosting a Q-Link server, and have made a complete copy of the source code available to anyone who wants it.

The big topic of interest these days is Ethernet cards for the Commodore 64. On the right (click) are photos of my machines with 1541 Ultimate and MMC Replay cards mounted (in that second picture, there's a Retro Replay/RR-Net laying on top of the machine as well). I also own a 64NIC+ and one of Fotios' FB-NET cards.

In April 2010, I released geoLink, which is an IRC client for GEOS that uses one of these cards. See the page for documentation and source code.

But the big problem with all of the CS8900A-based cards is that it's necessary to have a TCP/IP stack running on the Commodore, which is really quite a stretch, in terms of both speed and memory. A newer generation of cards is beginning to appear, based on the WIZnet W5100, which has an on-board network stack. The best of the batch so far seems to be the Flyer, which implements networking as I/O commands sent to device #7. I have one of these, and accomplished more with it in the first few days than I did with a CS8900A-based card in the first month. If you don't have one yet, you need one; it makes the CS8900A cards obsolete. There are even IRC and Telnet clients for it... in fact, there's a version of the IRC client for PET machines! I gave a presentation (PDF) about this card at ECCC 2012.

Jonno Downes has released Kipper BASIC and BASIC on Bails, which let you write networked programs for your Commodore 64 in BASIC. It currently only supports RR-Net compatible (CS8900A-based) network cards. I've put up a page about these projects with disk images, API docs, and a copy of the presentation I gave at ECCC 2010.

Here's what you can find here: