Commodore Vic 20 Modem

[chairmonkey4406]

Would a modem still work in this day and age? I don't know how it works or anything. Does it log you into a central server ( I mean used to) or does it directyl connect you to another VIC? It would be great if it just directly connected to another VIC for e-mail. Thanks.

[Max-T]

Modems certainly can still work in this age of broadband wonder. Whether your particular unit works or not is a simple matter of testing.

 

Yes, you could dial up another VIC or other computer that has its own modem "listening" for an incoming call... I may be showing my age here, but long before there was online gaming via the Internet, we used to use modems to log into BBSes (Bulletin Board Services) to play text-based games. And some of them were pretty fun too.

 

I never owned a modem for my C64 (my first modem was a Hayes 2400-baud model to go with my first DOS-based computer). But all analog modems work on a similar principle -- audible MODulation and dEModulation. Basically, they convert the digital bitstream into an audio format suitable for transferring over plain old telephone wires. Same kind of thing as in cassette players for your Commodore, or the Supercharger for the Atari 2600. (Digital modems are way different -- don't confuse them).

 

Odds are your VIC modem still does work. Problem is, it will likely be difficult to find systems which you can still access. I haven't used a BBS since about 1994 when I first got Internet access as a frosh in college. But I'm sure there are at least a couple you could log in to. You'd have to ask around about that.

 

But bottom line, analog modems are still being used by quite a few people (99% of people who don't have cable/DSL/Tx/fiber access to the internet use analog modems -- what you hear on commercials as "dial-up"). Maybe someone has even retro-engineered an AOL-type or other software for the Commodore systems. Again, have to ask around. But, as originally intended, your VIC 20 modem was designed to connect to a single external computer, whether it be someone else's personal VIC, or a BBS like I described with multi-user capabilities.

 

Wish I could be more help, and sorry if I have confused you in any way. Please feel free to PM me if your questions aren't answered by the other users here. I don't claim any special knowledge, but I did own a Commodore, did use a modem for years, and am happy to help.

 

Max

[Ze_ro]

Yes, modems still work... The only problem is that finding a BBS in this day and age will be very difficult. Back in the days, you'd dial up a phone number (usually a local phone number, although these days you might have to settle for long distance), and that person's computer would be running BBS software that would serve up information... downloads, newsgroups, email, door games, and so on (keep in mind that some of this wasn't in the same form as it is today). Back then, there was something called "FIDOnet"... basically, at a specific time (preferably a time when no one was likely to login to the BBS, say 4:00am), the BBS would call up another BBS and exchange information... FIDOnet was a fairly large collection of such BBS's, and you could actually use it to get information from fairly far away, as your messages would gradually propagate throughout the entire network.

 

Of course, the internet has made BBS's obsolete, so most of them have closed down. Near the end of the BBS days, some of them could even act as portals to the internet, allowing you to run Lynx to view webpages, or Pine to use modern email and such... this is where dial-up ISP's came about. An actual internet connection back then was far too expensive for your house, so the BBS SysOp might buy a connection, and then charge a fee for you to login and use it.

 

Keep in mind that even if you are able to find a BBS, it's usefulness will likely be very limited (ie, anything you find there could have been found using a PC much faster, even if the BBS has access to the internet). You'll be using an extremely slow connection. 300 baud seemed to be popular in the day... you'll almost surely be able to read faster than the information is displayed. I'm not sure if they made a 1200 baud modem for the VIC, but even that will seem excessively slow compared to today's connection speeds. In fact, there were a good deal of BBS's that would impose a minimum speed, since slow users were just wasting their time. If you find a BBS, it might reject your connection if you try to connect at anything less than 14,400 or 28,800 kps (although since BBS's are so unpopular, they might just be happy that anyone at all dialed in).

 

I actually find it somewhat sad that a good 10 years of BBS history has been mostly forgotten... no one seems to remember that there WERE means of communication via computers even before the internet and TCP/IP networking became popular. People are amazed by MMORPG games because they never had the chance to play door games like Trade Wars.

 

--Zero

[Max-T]

Anyone remember Barren Realms Elite? I had all of my friends and I on one BBS, the "bad guys" were on another, they were cheating, just like everyone does in modern online games, there was trash-talking, threats bandied about, and it was all in ASCII.

 

God love the BBS age. Then I remember the hell that was trying to get a Doom deathmatch going, mano-a-mano, or as it were, modem-on-modem. We spent literally weeks trying to make that work. And online gaming has been all downhill from there.

 

Or maybe I'm just too old. That's probably it. But, uh, anyone know of a good BRE game going these days???

[SteveW]

There were also on-line services out there, well before the internet came around. Prodigy, GEnie, America Online, CompuServe. I never got around to getting a modem and signing up for an online service back then. I always wanted to try out the voice e-mail service from The Source. A flyer came with my TI Home Computer for it. If you had your Voice Synthesizer plugged in, you could have your computer read your e-mail to you! And back then, you got real messages, not the constant barrage of spam we have to deal with nowadays. That would have been so sweet.

[Raijin Z]

The only time I've ever called a BBS was to download a firmware update for a modem when I didn't have ISP internet access. Hooray for long distance net. =_=