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Zee book iz done.

Flack

Entry posted by Flack

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After one final round of grammar checking and typo-correcting, I sent the final copy of my book off to the publisher last night. The first 30 copies should arrive in two weeks, in plenty of time for OVGE. The company warned me several times not to order multiple copies of the book until I had received at least one and okayed the final proof, but unfortunately time is of the essence -- I don't have enough days between now and OVGE for two separate book orders to be shipped. It's a gamble I had to take in order to guarantee having books available at OVGE. I am sure that the minute I open a copy some weird layout error or embarassing typo will jump out at me, but anything like that can be fixed before I place the next order.

 

commodork_front.jpgcommodork_back.jpg

 

The front looks off-center because their cover template includes bleed space around the edges that will be trimmed off during actual printing. If everything goes according to plan, the front will appear centered on the final copies.

 

I am currently building a website for the book which should be online soon. The first copies of the book will debut at OVGE on August 19th, and will be available for sale online probably starting Monday the 21st. The first 30 books will be numbered and signed. And my offer still stands, if anyone living in the 405 area code would like to have their book delivered to their house personally by me, I'd love to do it. A few people have asked to have their copy autographed. I'd be glad to, although I can't imagine it doing anything but lowering the book's value.

 

Let's see, weight loss contest won, book finally finished ... man, I'm knocking down life goals left and right this week.

 

Due to travel costs I'm not going to make it to Vegas this weekend. I had planned on going to attend Defcon, but it's just going to be too expensive right now. At $3 per gallon, it would cost me nearly $500 just in gas to get there, not to mention hotel, food, attendance fees and possibly a hotel. Even if I flew I'm looking at $600 for a round trip ticket plus a rental car. Susan had a deal lined up for us that was going to pay for our tickets and our hotel room, but I drug my feet for too long and blew it. Oh well. Maybe we can go in the fall instead, just for fun.

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SpiceWare

You may find my latest blog entry interesting. It contains a link to a video of a caller on my BBS software for the Commodore. I suspect you've never seen a Commodore BBS do what's in the video.

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Flack

You are right, I did originally miss it. WOW, that's neat! You are also right -- I've never seen (or heard) a C64 BBS like that before! Did you write that software "back in the day", or is it more recent than that? Also, does it require custom software for both the terminal and the BBS, or just the BBS? Either way, that's fantastic!

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SpiceWare

It was written back in the day. I started writing the original BBS on a VIC 20 the fall of 82(junior year). It went online the start of 83 once I finally saved up enough for my first floppy drive. Over time I ported it to the 64 and the 128. In the late 80s I'd started work on an Amiga version that was going to also support background file transfers, but then I discovered the internet at the University of Houston and realized that finishing Amiga-Net would be a waste of time.

 

It required calling the BBS with MusicTerm to get all the extra effects. I supported PETSCII for Commodore users w/out MusicTerm as well just plain ASCII. One of the last revisions added support to send ANSI codes for color and limited graphics for PC callers. I started MusicTerm when I got the 128 and realized I could send the PLAY command over the phone. There's more info in the blog entry. I wish the video showed some of the online games - they took advantage of redefined character sets, sprites and joystick control along with the music. I lived in Corpus Christi when I started the software and one of my best friends ran a BBS on his Atari, so I also built in support in MusicTerm for ATASCII. For that I shrunk the screen to 24 lines, and lost all the colors, but gained the graphic characters that Atari used.

 

There's a group here working on getting it online over the internet using VICE which allows redirecting the modem to a TCP/IP port. Only problem is I used some updated serial port routines and there's a bug in the currect version of VICE that doesn't like them. Spiro Trikaliotis, of the VICE time, has tracked down and fixed it, we're just waiting for version 1.20 to be released.

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