CommodoreServer.com is a pretty cool online disk image storage system for the Commodore 64. The problem is their documentation seems mostly out-of-date and more importantly seems to assume you have one of their Comet Internet Modems, which, as far as I can tell, is no longer obtainable. All that being said here is my attempt at an updated version of getting your C64 connected to CommodoreServer.com.
Get your C64 on the Internet
There are many ways to do this, some of them I may get in later posts, but not today. I personally use a WiModem, which is a pretty awesome product, but these instructions should work for any User Port based solution.
Create and Setup your CommodoreServer.com Account
The account creation page is here. Once your account is created you will need to choose your “Remote Login” and “Remote Access PIN” on the My Account page. Remember these two things for later steps.
Get the V-1541 Disk Image
Latest version can be found here. Put the disk in your C64. Lots of routes to make this happen depending on your hardware. Going forward I assume the V-1541 disk is Drive 8. If it isn’t substitute your drive number for the 8 going forward.
Connecting
On your C64 type (substituting USERNAME with your “Remote Login” and XXXX with your “Remote Access PIN”):
LOAD "V-1541",8,1 SYS 49152 NEW OPEN2,2,2 PRINT#2,"ATDTCOMMODORESERVER.COM:1541" CLOSE2 LOAD "@USERNAME,XXXX",2
Getting Started
The easiest way to interact with all the features of CommodoreServer.com is to load the CSMenu application. To do so type the following:
LOAD "CSMENU",2 RUN
Commands
You can also use commands to interact with CommodoreServer.com. Here is a brief primer, from their documentation, on the commands supported by V-1541.
Wrapping Up
That is about it, not hard to do once you know that you need to manually connect to the server after starting up V-1541. I am not proud of how long it took me to figure this out on my own. In order to speed this process up I actually saved the last 4 commands above in a BASIC program, so I can simply load and run it without remembering the exact commands (and my username/pin). The one thing I don’t have working yet is getting the 38k baud driver working, which would drastically speed things up. The WiModem support 38k speeds, so it should be possible, but I haven’t take the time to figure out how to do it. UPDATE: There is an how-to article on how to get connected at 38k, found here, but I still couldn’t manage to get it working.
References
- Original CommodoreServer.com documentation: Get V-1541
- CBMSTUFF Support Forums: Commodore V-1541 instructions
If you run CCGMS change the baud save with at&w command.
I’m going to try this with the command you invoked for atdt.
Returns “load error” on the last line, LOAD “@USERNAME,XXXX”,2
I will have to take a look. Thanks.
I was able to get it working. What modem are you using, that error is typically what you get with the ATDT command doesn’t actually connect to the server. On the WiModem it displays “Connected: server.com” on its little display. Not sure how to check with other modems.