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Honestly, the script/hack/automation I'm still most proud of is from around 1983, when I was 12 years old, for my Commodore 64. Back then, all computer communic
by jimt1234 4y ago
Honestly, the script/hack/automation I'm still most proud of is from around 1983, when I was 12 years old, for my Commodore 64. Back then, all computer communications were over the phone line, and in my house, we only had one line, so I spent a lot of late nights, dialing into BBSs, often not going to sleep until the sun came up. Then, I would get in trouble at school for falling asleep in class. So I came up with a little program I called "Simon". I named it after a popular kids game called "Simon Says". It was basically a 1983 version of Selenium. I created instruction files, which would tell the main program (Simon) what to do: the time to dial a BBS, the number to dial, the login info, and then all the commands to send. It did things like download my messages so I could read them the next day. Send messages. But mostly, and kinda shamefully, it was used to pirate games. I had a list of about 10 local BBSs that I would dial every night, and a list of games I was looking for. If Simon found a game on the list, it downloaded the game for me. Then, it would hang up. I even created a hard-hang-up time of 7am, when my mom woke up, because if the computer was still on the line and she needed to use the phone, she would kill me! LOL
I'm still super proud of that because it was so much fun to create. I recall "releasing" the program to a handful of friends, and they all seemed to like it, but it never really went anywhere.
- jasondigitized 4y agoI ran my own BBS on my Commodore 64 for about a year. I was completely hooked and lost a lot of sleep as well. My mother came to me one day and said "You really need to go outside"
- mettamage 4y agoI wish I could give you an award. I’m also happy that HN doesn’t have that feature. So here have this instead: ___________ '._==_==_=_.' .-\: /-. | (|:. |) | '-|:. |-' \::. / '::. .' ) ( _.' '._ jgs `"""""""`
- moonshinefe 4y agothat sounds sweet haha
- edngibson 4y agoWhen you were 12? Wow.
- forinti 4y agoDo tell us more. I suppose you downloaded the games to a floppy; did you have to worry about running out of space?
- actually_a_dog 4y agoXmodem includes a header that specifies the exact file size. So, all you need to do is check that number against the amount of free space on whatever device you're downloading to.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mapster 4y agoVery impressive. I was a xerox of you sans coding skills and entrepreneurship. I recall falling asleep while my C64 and Hess modem were being used my a ‘war dialer’. I did make a friend on a BBS who worked for Bell telephone - so we used UPS each week to ship each other envelopes of double sided floppies stuffed with fun games and utilities. I still get goosebumps when I hear a UPS truck pull open outside my home.