There are 11 messages totalling 344 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Star NX1000c printer 2. your mail 3. QLink files 4. Fido/Internet and CBM 5. Q-Link files (3) 6. Text Grabber for GEOS (2) 7. Points of Interest on the NET! 8. Playing c64 games on pc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 03:44:24 -0500 From: Robert Johnson Subject: Re: Star NX1000c printer I haven't used the 1000c in a long time, however my nl-10 (nl-1000) is almost the same from what I remember... If I remember correctly, you should have a bold switch (on the left) a font switch (in the middle) and an online/offline switch on the right. The on/offline switch is used to set the state the printer is in: online means the computer will be able to access it though you will have no access to the other panel switches (like font, form feed if you have that), offline means the computer cannot access the printer and you can change the settings with the other panel switches... bold is just that... boldface printing, the fonts will likely be courier and maybe Sans Serif or something like that... should be LED's to show which mode is currently selected... Other than that, I really haven't much else to tell you... The 1000C is capable of decent graphics printing (in color no less!) but finding ribbons for Star equipment is a nightmare anymore ... Most commercial software will have drivers for the Star 1000C (like FGM, Print Shop, etc. as well as WP's, and GEOS) which will take care of the nitty-gritty :) Denny Springle Accolon@playpen.com Sent Via The Playpen BBS...Washington DC's Premier Online Service ..TELNET: PLAYPEN.COM...MODEM: (703)591-4567 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 07:32:21 -0500 From: Gordon Wilson Subject: Re: your mail On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Steven A Cavanaugh wrote: > Are you talking about Quantum Link?I tried to get on that,but all access > numbers are down. > Quantum-Link or Q-Link was the progenitor of AOL! The people in Vienna, Virginia apparently jump into anything that looks profitable and drop anything that slips a little. For instance, now that there is a challenge to the on-line services, they are jumping into direct internet access providing. Maybe someone at aol knows wher those files are! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gordon Wilson Keyboard Studio voice 217.328.3975 304 N. Maple Street fax 217.328.3983 Suite 203 toll-free 800.821.1197 Urbana, IL 61801 e-mail gwilson@prairienet.org home page http://www.cu-online.com/~gwilson "Music? Computers? Both!? We want to help!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 07:36:21 -0500 From: Gordon Wilson Subject: Re: QLink files On Tue, 23 Jul 1996, Steven A Cavanaugh wrote: > You can still get commodore machines.. > Yes, and pardon me for saying...I can get them for you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gordon Wilson Keyboard Studio voice 217.328.3975 304 N. Maple Street fax 217.328.3983 Suite 203 toll-free 800.821.1197 Urbana, IL 61801 e-mail gwilson@prairienet.org home page http://www.cu-online.com/~gwilson "Music? Computers? Both!? We want to help!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 13:04:42 -0400 From: Michael Bendure Subject: Fido/Internet and CBM > BTW, all, I have resolved that it is impossible to utilize a TCP/IP > protocol in conjunction with a c64 BBS unless the majority of the actual > BBS was written in ML. Considering that is a major headache, I am > choosing to drop the TCP/IP research for now... I may pick it up again > once I have a running system and try and figure out a hardware solution > to the timing problems and irq problems incurred. You know, in a way I'm doing something similar. Although I'm not going to attempt the TCP/IP, I am bringing Internet access to Commodore 64 BBS's. I'm approaching it in a way that allows the PC BBS's to be our gateway. I'm working with a Wildcat BBS sysop that is writting a conversion program that converts Fido and Internet mail to our CommNet format. All we do is connect to the Wildcat BBS, just like we do any other CommNet BBS and pickup our packets. The Wildcat BBS will convert the ASCII or ANSI to PETSCII and compile the packets in our CommNet structure. I went this approach for two reasons. First, the PC BBS can do the conversions at a much faster rate. For us to convert the large packets we transfer everyday, into straight ASCII and a Fido format would take far too long with the sorting we already do. Second, this allows us in CommNet to use the Fido systems as a piggy back for our network. Any CommNet system can connect to any Fido system and still pickup the CommNet subs and email. This will eventually mean that the CommNet systems won't have to deal with LD costs in most cases. Since there are so many Fido systems around, a CommNet BBS local to a Fido system can use them as their Hub. The PC BBS's also have access to Internet mail and some can even get a few of the newsgroups. As far as Fido and the Internet goes, we are only interested in the CBM related material. This means we will only be pulling the Fido CBM, CBM_128 and CBM_GEOS as well as Netmail. On the Internet, we only need comp.sys.cbm and the Netmail. This doesn't mean they can't pickup any other Fido echo or Internet newsgroup, just that these are the only ones we really want at this time. I realize this isn't TCP/IP, but it does bring Fido and Internet access to the Commodore BBS's and leaves us free of having to process that information into our format or deal with the protocols that we don't support. Our connections are made just like we do to any other CommNet BBS using Punter protocol to transfer the single packets back and forth. It took all of one day to write the conversions and they work like a champ. We are now looking into the connection procedure which shouldn't take very long either once we get time to sit down and write it. The programmers doing all of this is Dave Smith of Smith Brothers Computers and myself. Once the Wildcat gateway is finished, we will be porting it to a few other IBM BBS's and we will ship the programs to all the CommNet nodes, so they can give it to their local PC BBS to make the connections. We will also make it available to any PC BBS that is interested. . ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 16:12:40 -0500 From: Robert Johnson Subject: Re: Q-Link files Someone asked "Maybe someone at AOL knows where these files are"... The answer to that question is an outstanding YES! They DO know where the files from Q-Link are... they're GONE hehe... I spoke with people at AOL immediately and some time after the sudden disappearance of Q-Link... immediately, they didn't even want to talk about Q-Link... and the Q-Link CS lines were gone already... Some time later I finally was able to discover that all the hardware from Q-Link was "ported" to AOL... more likely story is that AOL was "ported" to Q-Link (hence the closing of areas and DL's and no more uploading allowed, etc.... I figure the "bug" issue was bogus... *I* even offered to go through the library and help find the problems... I was told that they "hired" people to take care of that... two or so months later AOL is going into full swing and Q-Link dissapears... Hmmm... Anyway, to make a long story short(er), Everything on Q-Link was completely wiped. Every last bit of information is gone... even the server software they utilized (which I was interested in to run a scaled down version of Q-Link) I was told was erased.. "no copies remain" if I remember correctly... Many of us in MD made a valiant effort to DL as much software as we could... unfortunately I haven't lived there in 4 years so I really couldn't tell you where it all went... I know about 80 mb of Q-Link files used to be on Fred's Colors 64 HQ board... I can't remember the phone number though... anyone remember that phone number? Other than that it got split up (what we did manage to get, that is) between the individuals who actually did the downloading... I still have about 20 or 30 mb of Q-Link stuff if you tell me what you're looking for I'll see if I have it... Denny Springle Accolon@playpen.com Sent Via The Playpen BBS...Washington DC's Premier Online Service ..TELNET: PLAYPEN.COM...MODEM: (703)591-4567 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 17:46:14 -0400 From: Christopher McLeod Subject: Re: Q-Link files Robert, I have been loking and looking for the disk utility called OmegaQ2. Do you happen to have it or do you knpnow whre I might find it? I would be SO gratefull!!! :-)) That's it for me! Chris McLeod (of the clan MacLeod) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 18:05:45 -0400 From: Christopher McLeod Subject: Text Grabber for GEOS This is a long shot, but does any one out there know of a Text grabber file for GEOS which will convert any LATE version (i.e., OLD) Word Perfect or Word files? In other words, I am trying to convert Word files to C= and back again, while keeping all (or at least MOST) of the formatting. I have converted Word files sucessfully back and forth using a "Rich Text Format" (in Word) but it strips most of the formatting away. It keeps the paragraphs and indents (which is VERY nice!), but I would like to be able to keep headers and footers, bolding and indenting too. Before you come out of the woodwork sauying, "It's never gonna happen!!!" please give it some serious thought. The formatting codes that Word and Word Perfect use are simply that -- codes. GEOS ALSO uses codes. Why can't these codes be converted back and forth? Again, we could have the conversion occur between GEOS and an OLDER version of WP or Word. Those two programs could do their own conversions to and from the CURRENT version of their software. This ability would prove MOST helpful to me for doing work at home. :-) Thanks in advance for all of you help!! Chris McLeod (of the clan MacLeod) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 20:12:42 -0500 From: Robert Johnson Subject: Re: Q-Link files Chris, I believe you can find Omega-Q II at anonymous FTP site: ccnga.uwaterloo.ca If not there try ftp.funet.fi... I know it is in one of these two places in Disk Utilities (/64utils/DISK for example) the path to the cbm files on both of these ftp sites is: /pub/cbm. If you can't get it by FTP for some reason, let me know and I will uuencode it in mail for you. Denny Springle Accolon@playpen.com Sent Via The Playpen BBS...Washington DC's Premier Online Service ..TELNET: PLAYPEN.COM...MODEM: (703)591-4567 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 21:23:00 -0500 From: Robert Johnson Subject: Points of Interest on the NET! Well, I found a couple interesting places on the web tonight... quite a few actually... here are a couple... Remember that 128 someone said was telnetable... well I found it... it is called Zelch 128 BBS, the telnet address is 147.26.162.107 (taz.cs.swt.edu)... login as: zelch. Unfortunately, the BBS is apparently temporarily down for some reason?? In any case... keep checking back there... Another interesting site I found was for the A65 Computer and operating system... a C64 compatible pre-emptive operating system on a (relatively) c64 compatible computer (basically a modified 64) with support for IEEE and serial and parralel drives... unfortunately my connection is a little buggy, so I've asked the owner to upload the information and source to an FTP site... I'll let you knwo what he says... the web page is: http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~fachat/csa/ Also, for those interested in checking out BBS systems for the C64, (until mine is finshed anyway haha)... check out C-Net 64 DS2. I lost the page address, but you can likely email him and he'll send you the information (that's what I did :>) at mbendure@infinet.com There were about 50 links on the main page altogether... do a search at yoohoo.com (on the web) with the search phrase "Commdore computer"... Unfortunately, as I said, my connection to the web is buggy so I only got through the first few of them without problems... the funny part is it's a local telco problem... nothing to do with my ISP's or anything :( Oh well... anyone have any other intereting sites they've come across? Denny Springle accolon@playpen.com Sent Via The Playpen BBS...Washington DC's Premier Online Service ..TELNET: PLAYPEN.COM...MODEM: (703)591-4567 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 21:30:49 PST From: Steven A Cavanaugh Subject: Re: Playing c64 games on pc I had a similare question of that nature,but I can't rermember whoo answered it.Ask around alot and you will get a response.. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jul 1996 20:21:54 -0700 From: Michael Weathers Subject: Re: Text Grabber for GEOS do you have the original Geos-Disks 64/128 Berkeley had a text grabber on these disks! if you havent send me a address & I will help you out! On Sun, 28 Jul 1996, Christopher McLeod wrote: > This is a long shot, but does any one out there know of a Text grabber > file for GEOS which will convert any LATE version (i.e., OLD) Word Perfect > or Word files? > > In other words, I am trying to convert Word files to C= and back again, > while keeping all (or at least MOST) of the formatting. > > I have converted Word files sucessfully back and forth using a "Rich Text > Format" (in Word) but it strips most of the formatting away. It keeps the > paragraphs and indents (which is VERY nice!), but I would like to be able > to keep headers and footers, bolding and indenting too. > > Before you come out of the woodwork sauying, "It's never gonna happen!!!" > please give it some serious thought. The formatting codes that Word and > Word Perfect use are simply that -- codes. GEOS ALSO uses codes. Why > can't these codes be converted back and forth? > Again, we could have the conversion occur between GEOS and an OLDER > version of WP or Word. Those two programs could do their own conversions > to and from the CURRENT version of their software. > > This ability would prove MOST helpful to me for doing work at home. :-) > > Thanks in advance for all of you help!! > > Chris McLeod (of the clan MacLeod) > ------------------------------ End of COMMODOR Digest - 27 Jul 1996 to 28 Jul 1996 *************************************************** =END=