Brett Tabke Blog/Commodore 64 Stuff

by Shawn @ 4:59 pm · filed under Tech Stuff

For the uber geek (hey, that's me), having a blog in your robots.txt is a pretty fun idea.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/robots.txt

It's a nice minimalist approach to content that I personally like. It's like a throwback to .plan or if you want to go even further back the days of C=64 boards (as Brett mentions). I myself ran a C*Base board.

This Commodore talk made me feel nostalgic and I *almost* unpacked my Commodore and CMD hard drive and fired up Dream Park (my old BBS) just to play around with it. But uhm, then I didn't.

Instead, I Googled around to see if there were any references to me and my board on the Internet. And I found some...

Driven Issue #9 (now I just need to find a reader for this thing). I think I had lots of crap in the Propaganda disk mag too, but I can't find that online.

Those days were definitely the most fun I had coding. When computers had limited resources you certainly had to be creative to do things. For example I pretty much rewrote the C*Base software to be 100% memory resident. Leaving enough free memory for variables and other crap, that means the BBS software itself was pruned down to about 35k (that included users, voting, message boards, file upload/downloads, etc.) Or how I ran the board on a Commodore 128 (but in 64 mode) so I could tap the 2Mhz processor of the 128 vs. the 1Mhz processor on the "normal" 64. Ahhhh... the good ol' days.

- Cyborg/F4CG+Avantgarde+Genesis

Update

I found a Commodore 64 emulator for Mac OS X, and loaded up Driven #9. Amazing what a dork I was (am??). Here's one of the pages from my "interview"...

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6 Responses to “Brett Tabke Blog/Commodore 64 Stuff”

ViciousSummer Says:
December 26th, 2005 at 5:23 pm

omg. That is hilarious. I remember your BBS, although at the time I was WAY too cool to know what the hell it was. Do you really still have your Commodore 64?!

Shawn Says:
December 26th, 2005 at 8:21 pm

Yeah, it’s all packed away in a box.

Richard Stringer Says:
January 22nd, 2006 at 3:47 pm

I am curious to know if there is any market for Commodore 64 hardware and all sorts of software.
How about an old Pong game played on TV’s in the 70’s. Anyone ever want to buy them?
Richard

Frank Rondon Says:
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:13 am

If anyone is interested i have a Commodore BBS up and running 24/7 Via Telnet! The best Terminal Software that one can use when connecting to a C64 BBS is Googling for Cgterm, then Telnet using this software to 64VintageRemixBBS.DynDns.org, Since i am still a c64 nut, give this a try you’ll enjoy every minute of it. Cgterm will allow you to view the BBS like u did back in the day of BBS’ing by being able to view the BBS with the Petscii Art and Colored Text on a Commodore BBS.

DemongerX Says:
February 13th, 2009 at 12:28 am

Hey,

I realize this entry is from 2005, but I wondered if you still have your software. Not sure if you are interested or not, but I know there’d be alot of interest in any old mods that you’d made to your bbs or any software you might have from your bbs days. If you’re interested I’d look at the Commodore Scene Database, or csdb. If not, no big deal, I just hate for old software to be lost and not available. Too much has been lost and not databased as it is.

thanx,

DemongerX

chameleon Says:
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:31 am

…long time no see nor hear, shawn! met ya a few times and wanted to say THANX for allowing me to be on your old board, “dream park”! i was (later on) inspired to run my bbs called, “dream factory” (hence, my handle), and enjoyed running it immensely! i ran it on UCBBS 1.3, then later on ran it on C*BASE 3.1, then i started developing a lot of hardware problems and had to downsize it running my special IVORYMOD2/CHAM version for many years until the calls stopped coming in. i really miss running it and now have been getting a LOT of requests to get it back up again! still contemplating it, mind ya!

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