4 ms·

Does the C64 have TCP/IP capabilities?

Diederich 10y ago
The original version? Not even close. (: TCP/IP was a thing when the C64 came out, but it was one of many competing networking standards, and it wasn't even the favorite to win.
- bduerst 10y ago
  Fascinating - what was favored to win at the time?
  - empath75 10y ago
    ipx maybe?
  - GordonS 10y ago
    If I recall correctly, IPX and NetBUI? were the ones you saw most often back then
  - Diederich 10y ago
    IPX and NetBIOS (which MSFT called NetBUI) were introduced after the C64 came out. I would say DECnet phase IV or IBM's SNA were the biggest contenders, along with X.25.
    - eumoria 10y ago
      whatever happened to IPX
    - skissane 10y ago
      IPX is a modification of the Xerox Network Systems (XNS). XNS is c. 1977 whereas the Commodore 64 was released in 1982. In the early 1980s, networking was such a young technology there was little commercial value in following standards. Even when you based your product on pre-existing technology (like Novell did), you changed it in incompatible ways. I think if Commodore had wanted to do a LAN, they probably would have built something proprietary similar to Acorn's Econet, which also ran on 6502 systems. But, I think the primary focus of Commodore was on the home market, and most people would only buy one microcomputer, and if they had two sharing floppies was sufficient as a LAN. Acorn by contrast was more focused on the education market, where the value of networking was much more obvious, and schools were willing to pay for it.
retSava 10y ago
In a way, oh yeah :) https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki/tree/master/platform/c64 https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki/tree/master/platform/c...
- amiga-workbench 10y ago
  http://mos6581.com/pictures/commodore-64/fsf.jpg http://mos6581.com/pictures/commodore-64/fsf.jpg It works surprisingly well, I've got it setup at the office.
Annatar 10y ago
No, but there is RR-Net, http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/RR-Net/ http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/RR-Net/, Turbo Chameleon+, http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm, and 64NIC+: http://www.go4retro.com/products/64nic/ http://www.go4retro.com/products/64nic/. Thanks to the forethought of the Commodore's engineers who envisioned the Commodore64 as the center of the smart-connected home, or sound studio, or industrial controller, lots of ultramodern hardware has been designed for it. Hardware that wasn't even science fiction when the C=64 came out. And all because C=64 is infinitely programmable, with his user and expansion ports. Unbelievably versatile computer, even by today's standards.
white-flame 10y ago
It has (pretty bad) RS232 routines in ROM, which bit-bang across some of its GPIOs (of which there are 10 or so on the User Port). Other than that, it has its serial peripheral bus, used mostly for printers & disk drives. There were also device sharing & custom networking hubs which sit on that bus. The ROMs supported a notion of general byte streams and could do simple redirection. It had that stream support for tape, keyboard, screen, RS232, and "device on the serial bus" built-in. Obviously, newer 3rd party hardware can support Wifi/Ethernet in various forms, and software can drive IP over existing links (like SLIP over RS232 adapters). Oh, it also had a few hardware serial shift lines intended for the serial peripheral bus, but those never got used for that purpose (until the C128) and mostly sit unused.

The original version? Not even close. (: TCP/IP was a thing when the C64 came out, but it was one of many competing networking standards, and it wasn't even the favorite to win.

bduerst 10y ago
Fascinating - what was favored to win at the time?
- empath75 10y ago
  ipx maybe?
- GordonS 10y ago
  If I recall correctly, IPX and NetBUI? were the ones you saw most often back then
- Diederich 10y ago
  IPX and NetBIOS (which MSFT called NetBUI) were introduced after the C64 came out. I would say DECnet phase IV or IBM's SNA were the biggest contenders, along with X.25.
  - eumoria 10y ago
    whatever happened to IPX
  - skissane 10y ago
    IPX is a modification of the Xerox Network Systems (XNS). XNS is c. 1977 whereas the Commodore 64 was released in 1982. In the early 1980s, networking was such a young technology there was little commercial value in following standards. Even when you based your product on pre-existing technology (like Novell did), you changed it in incompatible ways. I think if Commodore had wanted to do a LAN, they probably would have built something proprietary similar to Acorn's Econet, which also ran on 6502 systems. But, I think the primary focus of Commodore was on the home market, and most people would only buy one microcomputer, and if they had two sharing floppies was sufficient as a LAN. Acorn by contrast was more focused on the education market, where the value of networking was much more obvious, and schools were willing to pay for it.

retSava 10y ago

In a way, oh yeah :) https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki/tree/master/platform/c64 https://github.com/contiki-os/contiki/tree/master/platform/c...

amiga-workbench 10y ago
http://mos6581.com/pictures/commodore-64/fsf.jpg http://mos6581.com/pictures/commodore-64/fsf.jpg It works surprisingly well, I've got it setup at the office.

Annatar 10y ago

No, but there is RR-Net, http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/RR-Net/ http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/RR-Net/, Turbo Chameleon+, http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm, and 64NIC+: http://www.go4retro.com/products/64nic/ http://www.go4retro.com/products/64nic/. Thanks to the forethought of the Commodore's engineers who envisioned the Commodore64 as the center of the smart-connected home, or sound studio, or industrial controller, lots of ultramodern hardware has been designed for it. Hardware that wasn't even science fiction when the C=64 came out. And all because C=64 is infinitely programmable, with his user and expansion ports. Unbelievably versatile computer, even by today's standards.

white-flame 10y ago

It has (pretty bad) RS232 routines in ROM, which bit-bang across some of its GPIOs (of which there are 10 or so on the User Port). Other than that, it has its serial peripheral bus, used mostly for printers & disk drives. There were also device sharing & custom networking hubs which sit on that bus. The ROMs supported a notion of general byte streams and could do simple redirection. It had that stream support for tape, keyboard, screen, RS232, and "device on the serial bus" built-in. Obviously, newer 3rd party hardware can support Wifi/Ethernet in various forms, and software can drive IP over existing links (like SLIP over RS232 adapters). Oh, it also had a few hardware serial shift lines intended for the serial peripheral bus, but those never got used for that purpose (until the C128) and mostly sit unused.