Ultimate Nerdgasm: Getting my Amiga 1000 online
Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 10:42 pm
Amiga Love has had a few articles on getting various Commodore machines back online and into the BBS world. From C64s to Amiga 500s (et al) as well as the terminal programs we use; PETSCII capable (i, ii) in case you're trying to hit an C64 BBS from your Amiga or ANSI capable, like A-Talk III, for most other boards. There are a lot of options out there, and the BBS scene is vastly smaller than back in the day, but it's not dead by any stretch. Oh no, dear reader, it is not dead. (I see four lights!) If anything, the interest in this form of socializing and connecting seems to be growing lately as hardware options become easier to build and less expensive to source.
Tonight, I finally got my Amiga 1000 online for the first time ever and connected to some of my favorite BBSes. And oh my god, have you ever seen a more beautiful sight? I doubt it. Well, at least not for about 30 years, give or take. Here's what I used to accomplish this pièce de résistance.
And since I already had everything in the list except for the gender changer, once I got it today in the mail it took me all of one minute to hook everything up and get to BBSing.
Damn the 1000's keyboard feels good when you type. They never made another keyboard feel this good. Happy BBSing!
Tonight, I finally got my Amiga 1000 online for the first time ever and connected to some of my favorite BBSes. And oh my god, have you ever seen a more beautiful sight? I doubt it. Well, at least not for about 30 years, give or take. Here's what I used to accomplish this pièce de résistance.
- Amiga 1000 with 1MB of total chip & fast RAM. It could probably be done with less, but guaranteed no issues.
- Paul Rickards wifi modem with 1MB of total chip & fast RAM. It could probably be done with far less (maybe .5MB), but this guaranteed no issues. Also required the use of a serial port gender changer, due to the Amiga 1000's port.
- Kickstart 1.3 disk (it's an Amiga 1000 after all)
- 64Door terminal program to connect to Particles BBS and Centronian BBS (there are lots of other active C64 boards, too), both PETSCII capable board that are run off actual C64s. You can connect to them in ANSI but it's not as pretty.
- A-Talk III simply my favorite ANSI terminal program, for hitting non-C64 boards. It requires that you load Workbench (1.3 in my case) to run from there. Or a hard drive. I ain't got no hard drive on my 1000. Old school, yo!
And since I already had everything in the list except for the gender changer, once I got it today in the mail it took me all of one minute to hook everything up and get to BBSing.
Damn the 1000's keyboard feels good when you type. They never made another keyboard feel this good. Happy BBSing!