Cottonwood BBS

[wiskow]

After searching in vain for any dial-up Commodore BBS's that are still in operation and discovering, sadly, that there don't appear to be any left, I decided to bring mine back from the ashes...

So dust off your Commodore computer and modem, and call:

Cottonwood BBS
An authentic dial-up Commodore BBS
Running on Ivory BBS v3.3 software
Commodore 64 computer, Commodore 1670 modem,
Four 1541 disk drives.
Operating at 300/1200 baud, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Featuring sub-boards (message area), file transfers, text files, and a voting booth!
Plus... Real Commodore color and graphics, in all their immaculate glory!
(951) 571-2003
Located in Moreno Valley, California

Come and get a taste of what once was, and now is again! Cottonwood BBS is dedicated to faithful users of ALL computers manufactured by Commodore Business Machines.

-Andrew (aka Balzabaar - SysOp)

[ral-clan]

Come and get a taste of what once was, and now is again! Cottonwood BBS is dedicated to faithful users of ALL computers manufactured by Commodore Business Machines.

-Andrew (aka Balzabaar - SysOp)

Ahhh! Words like SysOP, 300 baud, Ivory....bring back such sweet memories!

Unfortunately it's a little far for me to be calling (I live in Ontario), but I might try one day just for fun.

[wiskow]

Ahhh! Words like SysOP, 300 baud, Ivory....bring back such sweet memories!

Unfortunately it's a little far for me to be calling (I live in Ontario), but I might try one day just for fun.

I'm not sure if VoIP is available in your area... I've just returned to the U.S. after living in Japan for the past several years, and I've just recently "discovered" this exciting technology. Basically, if you don't already know, a VoIP line is a phone line that is connected through a Telephone Adapter to your cable or DSL modem instead of from a traditional telephone line. I recently switched to VoIP, and now I get two phone lines for the price that I was paying for one traditional line, plus I get unlimited free calling anywhere in the U.S. and Canada, whereas before only local calls were free. The other "neat" thing is that you can set up your line with any area code... So say I had just moved to California from New York, and a lot of New Yorkers called me, I could set up a phone number with a New York area code, even though I'm living in California. The drawback there is that anyone in California who had a traditional phone line would be paying long distance charges to New York to call me. You can check http://www.callvantage.att.com to see if the same service I'm using is available where you live. If not, there's probably another company providing VoIP service. With AT&T's Callvantage, you can set up your line for "Fax and Modem Service" for better line quality when using a Fax machine or modem (although they say voice quality is reduced... but I haven't noticed any difference).

Hope this helps!

-Andrew

[ral-clan]

Cottonwood BBS
Plus... Real Commodore color and graphics, in all their immaculate glory!

I wonder how these colour and graphics would appear on my VIC using an 40/80 column board. Obviously I would get no colours, but I assume I would get PETSCII characters. Not sure if the 80-column board will display RVS characters either.

I assume you are not using something like the old DARKSTAR bbs system, where the terminal program could interpret screen colour codes, commodore cursor codes, and all sorts of PETSCII graphics. I would need a DarkStar terminal for that, of which there isn't one for VIC.

But I remember those DarkStar BBS's. They were always full of pirated software, but boy were they colourful and full of graphics!

[6502dude]

I have called the BBS numerous times and consistently receive random garbage characters at prompts. At 1200 bps, these occur about one character per second. Login has not been possible. At 300bps there are fewer junk characters but echo back of some characters sent does not occur (missing data sent).

I am using C128 and Rixon R212A modem. I verifed my set up as okay by calling 3 other phone line based BBS systems.

Hope this helps to trouble shoot.

[wiskow]

I have called the BBS numerous times and consistently receive random garbage characters at prompts. At 1200 bps, these occur about one character per second. Login has not been possible. At 300bps there are fewer junk characters but echo back of some characters sent does not occur (missing data sent).

I am using C128 and Rixon R212A modem. I verifed my set up as okay by calling 3 other phone line based BBS systems.

Hope this helps to trouble shoot.

Thanks for your feedback... This may be intermittent line noise caused by my current setup. I'll try adjusting things later today to see if there's any improvement.

You know... line noise was an issue "back in the day", and I'm surprised that the quality of telephone lines has not improved over the years... Instead, it appears that only the equipment that "talks" over those old lines has improved...

-Andrew

[ral-clan]

You know... line noise was an issue "back in the day", and I'm surprised that the quality of telephone lines has not improved over the years... Instead, it appears that only the equipment that "talks" over those old lines has improved...

-Andrew

With the use now of data-compression to send the audio packets, I wouldn't be surprised if artifacts actually cause new problems for a modem. I certainly can hear tons of compression artifacts when talking on a cell phone (a burbling sound in some cases). Really awful sound!

[gklinger]

I'm not sure if VoIP is available in your area...

Actually, Canada leads the world in the availability of VOIP services. In Ontario VOIP is offered by Bell, Rogers, Vonage and Primus as well as a number of smaller providers. As a result, competition is stiff and prices are very competitive. Come to think of it, there's no technical reason why a Canadian couldn't sign up for VOIP from a U.S. provider. That's the whole point of VOIP.

[wiskow]

I'm not sure if VoIP is available in your area...

Actually, Canada leads the world in the availability of VOIP services. In Ontario VOIP is offered by Bell, Rogers, Vonage and Primus as well as a number of smaller providers. As a result, competition is stiff and prices are very competitive. Come to think of it, there's no technical reason why a Canadian couldn't sign up for VOIP from a U.S. provider. That's the whole point of VOIP.

Have you had any experience in using a modem on a VoIP line? I know that's a bit backwards, but that's what I'm dealing with now... I seem to be having some problems with line noise on my Commodore, and I've been told it's because of the VoIP line, but I'm not entirely convinced that that's the case. First of all, my VoIP line #2, which I have set up for the BBS only, is configured with "Fax and Modem Support" turned on. With that on, the documentation states:
If you turn Fax and Modem Support on, a portion of your available data bandwidth will be reserved exclusively for data support.

It goes on to say:
Fax and Modem Support works with most commonly used fax machines as well as some other data services, including
- analog modems, including those embedded in consumer electronic devices
- personal video recorders (such as TiVO)

So according to this, with this "mode" enabled, it *should* work just fine.

Okay, second point... I've hooked up my laptop with built-in modem to the same line, called out to a BBS, and I don't seem to get any line noise at all... And the modem in my laptop is 56K bps, compared to the 1200 baud in my Commodore, so if there was a line noise problem, wouldn't it be significantly worse at the higher speed?

And third point... I only tested the modem briefly on a traditional line before switching to VoIP, but I think I was having some line noise issues before the switch.

So... with all these points put together, it seems to me that the problem is not with the line at all, but rather with the modem. So would getting a new modem help? Any thoughts?

-Andrew

[gklinger]

Sorry, I don't have any experience using a modem over a VOIP line. I wonder if newer, higher speed modems have more robust error-correcting protocols that allow them to function properly over VOIP lines whereas older modems can't. What kind of modem are you using? Are you using a C= specific dir-con modem or a modern modem with an RS-232 interface?

[wiskow]

Sorry, I don't have any experience using a modem over a VOIP line. I wonder if newer, higher speed modems have more robust error-correcting protocols that allow them to function properly over VOIP lines whereas older modems can't. What kind of modem are you using? Are you using a C= specific dir-con modem or a modern modem with an RS-232 interface?

I'm using the Commodore 1670 modem (1200 baud - direct connect to user port).

The issue of error correction was pointed out to me on another forum... I'm currently trying to aquire a Turbo232 cartridge-port interface, and a 2400 baud modem with V.42 error correction. I just hope it works!!!

[d0c]

so how do you connect to this bbs with an rr-net?

[wiskow]

so how do you connect to this bbs with an rr-net?

Not sure... What's an "rr-net" ???

[gklinger]

so how do you connect to this bbs with an rr-net?

Unfortunately, you can't[*] but that's kind of the point. This is an old school dial-up BBS and is not accessible via telnet. You could attach a modem to your Commodore and you'd be good to go.

[*] You could by telneting to an outdial and using it to dial into the BBS but I'm going to assume you don't have access to an outdial in the 951 area code. If you do, you're in luck and if you could share it, lots of folks would be pleased.

[wiskow]

[*] You could by telneting to an outdial and using it to dial into the BBS but I'm going to assume you don't have access to an outdial in the 951 area code. If you do, you're in luck and if you could share it, lots of folks would be pleased.

I wouldn't even know where to begin to look for an outdial... Care to offer any hints?

-Andrew