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Post by Jeff Ledger on Mar 19, 2006 22:30:42 GMT -5
Path0s appears to have stumbled over some ancient Commodore technology called SpiceNET. Looks to support sprites, music, etc online. This sounds alot like the technology I'm working on in CML. Anyone have any more information on this? Path0s?
Jeff
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path0s
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Post by path0s on Mar 20, 2006 22:46:30 GMT -5
Hey sorry, I didn't see this post till just now.. Sure. What do you need to know?  Basically there's a terminal program that runs in 64 mode that connects to either Net64 or Net128 BBS. The BBS then sends packets of sprite data/charset data/etc.. Then special codes are sent to the terminal to use whatever sprites/charset/etc whenever it's needed like in menus or at prompts. Music on the other hand is done on the fly. The "music" is coded in kind of a musical notation which is just plain text. Some kind of control code combination is sent to the terminal to let it know that musical data is coming down. You can use music anywhere in the BBS.. In a message, in a file description, at prompts, wherever. There is also an autostarting file transfer protocol that's similar to punter and xmodem in one, but it autostarts from the BBS side, and I think it uses a different blocksize. To be honest, it's been a very long time since I've been able to log into a SpiceNet/Musicterm BBS, since neither the terminal nor BBS works with VICE's rs232, and I dont have the room to setup both my 128 and a real 64 at the same time. I have logged into Net128 via a normal C= term (ccgms) but of course you're not able to do any of the cool stuff.. (Which is why I've been spamming everywhere trying to find someone who'll fix the rs232 in the client so it'll work in VICE!) -P |
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Post by Jeff Ledger on Mar 28, 2006 20:44:02 GMT -5
As of tonight, I have a copy of the Spiceware Music Term III working in VICE. I use a combination of things to get this to work. I'm using a patched copy of WinVICE 1.16, (originaly patched for Qlink) and a copy of Jim Brain's TCPSER4J.
I was able to sign into my board at 1200 baud and poke around. Now to start figuring out the protocols that make up the music stuff.
Jeff
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path0s
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Post by path0s on Mar 28, 2006 23:40:04 GMT -5
I still can't get MT-IV to receive data back from tcpser4j. But you are absolutely right, MT-III does in fact work with VICE and tcpser4j. MT-III uses the stock rs232 routines, which is why the baud rate limit is 1200, and not 2400 like in MT-IV. BTW, you don't need to use the patched Vice 1.16, Vice 1.19 works fine as well. Good catch on trying MT-III.. I didn't know I had a copy of that until I went looking around in the old Spice BBS disks in the xfers dirs Unfortunately, I really don't have any clue what's different between 3 and 4, other than 2400 baud support. This should at least let me be able to take some screenshots of SpiceNet BBS in action. I don't think MT-III supports the animated character sets though  There is a sprites file in the MT-III package, so it does look like it supports sprites. BTW Jeff, feel free to post on the other forums that I emailed you too, if you want to On a side note, I emailed the Vice team once again, and once again, got no response. So who knows if and when the rs232 stuff in Vice will ever get fixed -P |
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Post by Jeff Ledger on Mar 29, 2006 9:19:07 GMT -5
I attempted to move several the of the SEQ files from the 64 version of the BBS to my Perl SEQ veiwer I wrote for my own BBS. It looks like one or two fo them have embedded codes which are designed to be picked up by Spiceterm, however the testing was unsuccessful.
Any idea on the nature of the protocol itself?
Jeff
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path0s
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Post by path0s on Mar 29, 2006 18:11:23 GMT -5
Unfortunately, no.. Couple things that come to mind is capturing the io with tcpser4j.. There's also a couple text files on some of the BBS disks that may have some info about it in there.
You could also try posting a message on my forum, Darrell Spice himself drops by regularly to see if anything new has been posted.
-P
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Post by Jeff Ledger on Apr 2, 2006 19:00:55 GMT -5
Thanks to Path0s I was able to capture some TCPSER4j music data from the 128 version of Spice BBS. After some inital looks, it appears that musicterm data is not interactive. The music appears to stream straight down from the BBS, and is translated into 3 voice SID music by the terminal program.
This is good news, and I've been able to reproduce the effect with my own BBS, but for some reason I'm getting some errors in my original captures. I'm starting the process of picking down the newer TCPSER captures to begin figuring out the nature of the protocol.
Jeff
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Post by Golan Klinger on Apr 2, 2006 20:12:23 GMT -5
Is your goal to be able to incorporate some of the SpiceNET features into your BBS software or into CML or what?
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Post by Jeff Ledger on Apr 2, 2006 21:13:33 GMT -5
WooHoo! Got it working perfectly.. If you sign into Temporal Vortex using musicterm 3 (Downloadable: www.petscii.com/mt3.d64 ) use with a later version of VICE or real 64. If you are using VICE, follow the same instructions given for Quantum Link, expect change the server name and port to bbs.petscii.com 6400. Set the terminal for 1200 baud and connect to Temporal Vortex. Once at the main menu, use the hidden command "song1" to play the song. 3 voice sid music straight from the 80's cool beans... OK, I've successfully transfered the correct codes, now to figure out what these codes mean. Jeff |
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Post by Jeff Ledger on Apr 2, 2006 21:24:55 GMT -5
Is your goal to be able to incorporate some of the SpiceNET features into your BBS software or into CML or what?
Actually, with the continued merge of the BBS and CML technologies, SPICE will allow me to do both. As soon as I can reverse engineer the "code" a little more, I should be able to incorporate the music & graphics code into webpages as well as the BBS. Why recreate the wheel?
Jeff
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path0s
Junior Member
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Post by path0s on Apr 3, 2006 4:10:34 GMT -5
<continued plea and whine>
Now if someone would just fix MusicTerm4 so the rs232 would work in VICE (or fix VICE) this would be groovy..
</continued plea and whine>
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Post by Jeff Ledger on Apr 3, 2006 8:40:06 GMT -5
I've noticed some bugs in version 3, that I hope would be fixed in version 4. One such bug appears in some mild garbage characters after one has been connected for a while. This may/may not be a VICE issue, but some testing on the real thing will tell for sure. As soon as I get a few more machines out of my shop, I will have more room to reconnect one of my C= machines. Yes, it would be nice to see VICE support the higher speed routines. (Ie: 2400 baud) but version 3 is at least giving me a platform to begin picking things apart. Jeff |
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Post by Pinacolada on Apr 3, 2006 13:11:03 GMT -5
That sounds so cool! I gotta get over to my friend's house to play around with it. Using an hour of Internet time at the library, right now. And looking for work.  |
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path0s
Junior Member
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Post by path0s on Apr 27, 2006 21:15:57 GMT -5
Just wanted to post a little demo video I put together with MusicTerm 4 and SpiceNet 64 rapidshare.de/files/19102285/Net-64.wmv.htmlSorry about the rapidshare thing.. But hey, it's free, and I only have a 45KB/sec upstream with this cable.. ** Edit: I also mirrored it on megaupload for people having issues with rapidshare: www.megaupload.com/?d=DLKO6L4OThe scrolling looks a little glitchy because of the way VICE updates the screen, and the videocap made it a little more pronounced. But it gives you the basic idea of how it looks. There's quite a bit more stuff not in the demo, just wanted to give an idea of the animation and music stuff. Obviously, screenshots wouldn't of done that justice -P |
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Post by Pinacolada on Apr 30, 2006 15:43:07 GMT -5
Holy crap. I finally got Mplayer working, configured with the proper codec and video out device. This is very cool! More, please! ;D
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There is a sprites file in the MT-III package, so it does look like it supports sprites.
