If Q-Link could be resurrected...

what would you want it to provide?
What would you do with it?
What kind of interface would you want?
Would it be commerical or free?
What are some of the technical challenges you can think of?
Do you have the technical knowledge to help rebuild it, and would you want
to?

dream some dreams...

|what would you want it to provide?

A text interface.

|What would you do with it?

Post messages to Usenet.

|What kind of interface would you want?

C-128 keyboard.

|Would it be commerical or free?

Twenty bucks a month, payable in advance for two years at a pop.

|What are some of the technical challenges you can think of?

Petascii sounds like a nice medium for the body of the messages.

|Do you have the technical knowledge to help rebuild it, and would you
|want to?

We have to start from square one, and do it differently.

Multi-user chat
File Downloads  (Commodore .d64)
Message areas


Same.


Pet Interface, requiring a real 64.


free (They charged enough for it in the 80's)


Rebuilding from scratch


One of my pet projects.  --Working on it---
Now, If I just had a clone to run my business so I could spend more time
with it.

Jeff (Aka Oldbitcollector)






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what is q-link ??

AOL when it was worth paying for. :-D








want

Q-Link was a online service that allowed you to use your C= 64 or C= 128
to chat with people all over the USA and Canada.

It also had newsgroups and you could message people and buy things
online and even chat with some of the people who made Commodores and the
games.

It was a neat service, they charged a fee of about $10 a month, they had
'extras' that cost you so much a minute, not sure how much it was?

Here is a neat webpage that talks about Q-link,
 http://www.**--****.com/ 

Visit my spam help pages here-
 http://www.**--****.com/ 

"Jeff Ledger" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM > wrote in



 

If AOL revived Q-Link, yeah FREE. To bad, that AOL won't do that so whoever 
revives Q-Link will have to charge a certain amount to pay for the expenses 
that can't be simply omitted like someone volunteering to watch the system 
and sit on his {*filter*}eating popcorn and watching movies. I refer to 
replacement power supplies and those costs. Money need to come from 
somewhere.

I think the way most of us handle online communication today would require
at least one major change.
I would want some way to hook up via Broadband that doesn't cripple my C64
for anything else.

This may sound like an absurd idea,  but is there any way to make a Compact
flash, or PCMCIA  adapter that sits on the USER port of commodore machine?
One that could handle accessing a WiFi card?

While I might be interested in accessing a revived  Q-link, I'm certainly
not going to want to do so over a phone line.

This device would really bring the service into a new era, and could also be
VERY useful for any Commodore fanatic since it would basically act like a
modem.

Another consideration that could offset startup costs, would be to create a
server that was actually a number of internet based PC's. Everyone who can
sit a PC on broadband connection could run a server application that would
make that machine part of a larger virtual computer server.

Let's face it, the modern PC is probably several times more powerful that
Q-Link's original VAX server.







---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system ( http://www.**--****.com/ ).
Version: 6.0.543 / Virus Database: 337 - Release Date: 11/21/2003

Build it, and we will come!

On Wed, 26 Nov 2003 18:46:48 -0800, "microman" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >
typed:


Everything AOL has except for the bombing, crashes, random disconnects,
flood of spams, and all those pop up ads.


Probably nothing.  Assuming I can get Q-Link up, I doubt there are
enough C64/128 users in the world to justify the cost of running online
service and have number of phone number in several cities.


No.  AOL today is what came out of Q-Link and look how it came.  A new
version every year, doesn't always work with most current Windows*, and
is so bloated they no longer offer AOL on floppy disk.

*Back when Win ME was new, AOL crashed and bombed a lot and didn't go
away until the next major AOL revision came out.  By then we got Win XP.
-- 
space for rent.
To reply, change digi.mon to tds.net

Steve Bell wrote ...


Without quoting Steve's message fully, I will make a comment or two.  Best
that I recall, the original Q-Link ran on a few Unix machines, that would
have been considered to be mainframes in that day.  And I think storage
capacity was about 200 gigabytes.  Today a single multi-gigahertz desktop
could probably match the processing and storage capacity of the original
Q-Link.

The complicated part would be connecting the necessary modem banks and/or
internet connections (in my humble opinion).

This assumes reverse engineering an original Q-Link disk well enough to
write new server-side software to interact with it correctly.

As for connecting with emulators, I think this might require a lot of work
by the VICE team.  As I understand it, VICE is the best emulator for games
and demos, but leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to
telecommunications.

Best regards,

Sam Gillett aka Mars Probe @ Starship Intrepid 1-972-221-4088

Impmon wrote ...


Yea, and I get the impression that Microsoft doesn't like AOL very much.
AOL crashing on each new version of Windows could be intentional.  A lot of
us use Windows for one reason or another.  But, we don't have to like
*everything* about it.

Best regards,

Sam Gillett aka Mars Probe @ Starship Intrepid 1-972-221-4088

Somehow I knew my post would get several responses.  I'm so amazed with the
stories on slashdot.org about groups of hobbyists building amazing things.
I fully believe the technical talent to build a q-link server and the
interface software exists within this newsgroup.  It's the recurring cost of
maintaining the server(s) and the time commitments that I believe are the
biggest challenges.

I think it would have to start small, with someone's personal PC at home
serving up say 4 to 8 telnet clients at a time.  And when the demand got
bigger, someone else would have to put their PC online and link it to double
the number of users online.  Just getting that to work would probably spur a
lot more interest.  Build a hut before you build the whole village.

For now, comp.sys.cbm = 21st century q-link :)

-Jeff

* Make it availabe via the internet  (that way you won't have to deal with
crating localized connection methods or irate people with huge LD phone
charges).
* Make it compatible with a stock 64 (with necessary PPP modem drivers or 
TFE or RRnet cartridge)
* The impoortant parts would be the file exchange, chat, news postings and
discussion groups, and then if there is enoughh code to fit it in - on-line
games.
* Original Q interface is ok, text/PETASCII, custom char-sets is preferred
(1mghz limits the graphics potential - throughput and rendering)
* If it's commerecial cost should be reasonable ($5 a month?)  We aren't
talking endless services possibilities here - don't price like the big
guys.
* The toughest challenge is the connection code for a 64k C64 with room for
modules (especially if accessing through a dial-up ISP via modem).

Do you?