About TIFCU: The Internet for Commodore Users
The Internet for Commodore C64/128 Users (or Tifcu for short) is a book written specifically for C64/128 owners who want to use their computers on the Internet. It can also be used by *ANYONE* using *ANY* computer platform that can use a terminal program with VT100 or ANSI emulation.
Many other platform users (Windows, Mac, Amiga, etc.) have learned to use Internet features such as telnet, IRC and FTP using this book and have remarked about how much they’ve learned from it. We received so much in the way of comments regarding the book that we added some Review Comments below so you can see what others have to say.
The 3rd Edition book contains 302 numbered pages and spans 18 chapters covering everything from connecting a modem to your Commodore, finding an Internet Provider, what you can do once you’re online, and information about TCP/IP connections. It also includes an extensive glossary, index and resource list.To see all the topics covered in the book we’ve also provided a version of the Table of Contents.
What Others Have Said …
The cosmetics are appealing and the arrangement is professional and very well done. You seem to have covered about everything we need or want to know about weaving through the PC Internet web with our Commodores. The layout of the book will be valuable for quick references while on-line.
I am sure when the “word gets out” it will be the “Bible” for us Commodorites.
… Any (one) getting on (the Internet) with the 64/128 will find this bible on the Internet a must. It takes the mystery out of the Internet and gives you a step by step guide.
MCCC News, July 1997
Every month ten or so people ask me “How do I get on the Internet?” This is actually about 100 questions. Thank God for Gaelyne. Her book simply needed to be written, mainly because now I can point those people with hundreds of questions to an authoritative book with hundreds of answers.
Loadstar Letter #44
I’ve only really read the UNIX parts, but it’s been more help than reading half of the RedHat manual, due to the way it aims at the beginner as well as the advanced. 🙂
The Internet for Commodore C64/128 Users is a brave and broad attempt to put the entire spectrum of our Internet interests into one book, and she does so quite successfully.
… this book has been thoroughly researched and documented. So much of what was a mystery now makes sense to me and I am only scratching the surface.
If you surf the net from a PC, you can find a zillion books to advise you, *but if you own a Commodore, there is only ONE*. In that sense, this book is priceless! The Internet for Commodore C64/128 Users is 323 pages of tightly packed, vital information. I recommend it to you highly.
LUCKY REPORT, May 1997.
Table of Contents
Chapters 1 to 2
Introduction
Dedication
Acknowledgements
About commands shown in this book
Chapter 1: Hardware Basics 1
Hardware Requirements to Access the Internet 1
Modems 1
Interfaces 2
RS-232 Cables 4
Installing Your Modem 4
Step-By-Step Modem Installation instructions: 4
Storage Hardware 5
Disk Drives 6
Virtual Disk Drives 6
Storage Hardware Conflicts 7
Speed-Up Hardware 8
Summary 10
Chapter 2: Terminal and Modem Basics 11
Internet Requirements 11
Internet Ready Commodore Term Programs 11
Protocols and File Transfers 12
Luxury Term Program Features 13
Term Program Set-up 14
Modem Set-up 18
When Things Don't Go as Expected 22
Problems and Solutions Checklist: 23
Dialogue128 Problems 23
Dialogue128 and Mini-modem C-2400 Problems 23
Desterm Upload Problems 23
General Modem/Terminal Problems and Solutions: 24
Summary 28
Chapters 3 to 5
Chapter 3: Finding an Internet Provider 29
Getting Connected 29
SLIP and PPP Accounts 29
Menus or UNIX? 29
How to Ask for an Account 30
Types of Internet Providers 30
Colleges and Universities 30
Free-Nets 31
Commercial Online Services 31
Commercial Internet Providers 31
Bulletin Board Systems or BBS's 32
Getting Online Without Going Broke 32
Annual or Monthly Fees 32
BBS Subscription fees 32
Time Charges 33
By the Bite (er, Byte) 33
Combination Charges 33
Unlimited Access for a set rate. 33
Customer Service Considerations 33
Where to Find Internet Providers 34
Personal Observations 34
Summary 35
Chapter 4: Signing Up 36
Before Calling the Internet Provider 36
UserID 36
Password 36
Term Program Preparation 37
Capture Buffer 37
Connecting to the Internet Provider 37
Online The First Time: What to Expect 37
Menu's and Questions You May See 38
Questions About Your Computer 38
Service Related Options 39
Subscribing to the Service 40
Accessing Your New Account 41
Menu Accounts 41
UNIX Shell Accounts 42
Summary 43
Chapter 5: UNIX Shell Account Basics 44
What is UNIX? 44
UNIX Beginnings 45
Stuff You Need To Know About UNIX 46
Case Sensitivity 46
File Name Length 46
Spaces in UNIX File Names 46
Wildcards 46
Commands Can Have Switches 47
UNIX Commands 47
Viewing Your Directory Space 47
Moving to Another Directory 48
Copying and Moving Files 50
Deleting Files 51
Creating and Removing Directories 52
Transferring Files 52
Help With UNIX Commands 53
Reading Text Online 53
Getting Out of a Program 54
History Repeats Itself 55
Changing Your Password 55
Logging Off The System 55
UNIX Command List 55
More UNIX To Come 57
Summary
Chapters 6 to 8
Chapter 6: Welcome to the Internet 58
Internet Utilities 58
Email 58
Usenet Newsgroups 58
IRC 58
Talk and Ytalk 58
Msend 58
FTP 59
Archie 59
Gopher 59
Veronica 59
WWW 59
Telnet 59
Rlogin 59
Ping 59
Finger 59
Relationships 60
Summary 60
Chapter 7: Email 61
Communicating With Others 61
Email Headers 62
Sample Email Header: 62
Sending Email 63
Experimenting With Email 63
Sending Email From a Bulletin Board System 64
Sending Email From an Online Service To An Internet
Address 64
Sending Mail From the Internet to Other Online
Services 64
Sending Email From a UNIX System 65
An Overview of Pine 65
Pine Commands 67
An Overview of Elm 68
Elm Commands 69
Message Folders 71
Adding a Text File to a Message 71
Changing Your Preferences 72
Signatures 72
Bounced Mail 72
Emoticons and Shorthand 73
When You Don't Have an Internet Account 74
Summary 74
Chapter 8: Text Editor Commands 75
Pico 75
Pico Commands 75
Vi 76
Vi - Enter Text Insertion mode 76
Vi - Cursor Movement: 76
Vi - Text Modification 77
Vi - File Operations 78
EMACS 79
EMACS - Cursor Positioning 79
EMACS - Text Modification 79
EMACS - Search and Replace 80
EMACS - File / Window / Buffer Operations 80
EMACS - Miscellaneous 80
Chapters 9 to 12
Chapter 9: Newsgroups 81
What are Newsgroups? 81
Anatomy of a Newsgroup Article 81
Who Controls the News? 84
How Do Newsgroups Work? 84
Moderated Newsgroups 85
Usenet Newsgroup Naming Conventions 85
Other Usenet Groups 86
Newsreaders 86
Threading 86
Crossposting 87
Follow-ups 87
Subscriptions 87
The .NEWSRC File 88
Reading the News 88
rn and trn 89
nn 89
tin 89
Pine 90
Downloading Newsgroup Articles 91
Alternative Ways to Get News 92
NNTP-SERVER 92
News via Email 93
News via WWW 93
Deja Newstm 93
AltaVista 94
Another Alternative 94
The Good, The Bad and the FAQs 94
What's a Spam? 94
What's a Troll? 95
Flaming 95
Netiquette 96
Things You May Find in Articles 97
Emoticons and Shorthand 97
Binaries 97
ROT13 98
Using the Kill File 98
Tin Commands 98
Tin Start-up Options 99
Input Editing Commands 99
Newsgroup, Thread and Article Selection Commands 99
Group Index and Article Commands 101
Thread Listing 102
When Viewing Articles 102
Summary 103
Chapter 10: Telnet and Other Utilities 104
Telnet 104
Rlogin 107
Ping 107
Finger 108
Summary 108
Chapter 11: FTP and Archie 109
What is FTP? 109
How Do We Use FTP? 110
Changing Directories 111
Viewing a Directory 111
Binary Files 112
Getting Files 112
Putting (Uploading) Files 114
FTP via Menu 114
Getting Files (Menu Style) 115
NCFTP 115
What is NCFTP? 115
Getting Files Using NCFTP 116
FTP/NCFTP Commands 117
Other Uses for FTP 118
FTP Sites 118
Archie 119
What is Archie? 119
Accessing Archie 119
Archie by Telnet 119
Archie Servers 121
Using Archie From Your Service 122
Summary 122
Chapter 12: World Wide Web 123
How WWW Pages Are Viewed 123
Universal Resource Locator 124
Using Lynx via Telnet 124
Viewing a WWW Page 125
Going to Other Sites 125
Navigating and Seeing Your Cursor Movements 126
Using Lynx 127
Saving Information 127
Graphics 127
Downloading Other Files 129
WWW Downloaded File Problems 129
Filling Out Forms 129
Frames 131
Image-Maps 132
Using the Lynx Bookmark 132
Searching a Web Page for a Key Word Using Lynx 133
Configuring Lynx 133
Description of Lynx Options 134
Using WWW Search Engines 137
General Search Rules 138
Browsing Your Home Directory With Lynx 139
Lynx Commands 141
Getting Around in a Document: 141
Other Commands 141
Commodore Related Web Pages 143
Summary 143
Chapters 13 to 16
Chapter 13: Gopher 144
Gopher Overview 144
Gopher Menu's 144
Gopher Bookmarks 145
Veronica 145
Gopher Commands 147
Navigating 147
Bookmarks 148
Other Commands 148
Summary 148
Chapter 14: IRC Internet Relay Chat 149
Communicating With Others 149
IRC Basics 149
Starting IRC 149
Configuration Changes 150
Typing IRC Commands 151
Pausing Text Output 151
Your Nickname 151
New User Status 152
Going Invisible 152
IRC Command History 152
Finding and Joining Channels 153
IRC Conversations and Commands 154
Leaving a Channel Without Leaving Other Channels 155
Who is That Person 155
Who's in a Specific Channel 156
Channel Operators 156
Actions 156
Ignorance is Bliss: How to Ignore in IRC 157
What is Flooding? 158
Getting Kicked Out and Banned 158
Away and Signing Off 159
Sending and Receiving Private Messages 160
Sending A Private Message 160
Replying to a Private Message 160
Private Channels 161
Query Mode 161
What are CTCP and DCC? 161
DCC 162
File Transfers 162
DCC Chat 163
Keeping Track of DCC Connections 164
IRC General Hints and Tips 164
Delays 164
Non-English IRC Channels 165
Joining an Invitation-only channel 165
Seeing the Whole Channel Name 165
Newbie Vultures 165
IRC Networks and Servers 166
Changing Servers 166
IRC Server List 167
IRC Commands 168
Useful Control-keys for Editing 169
Commodore IRC Channels 169
Other Ways to Communicate 169
Talk and Ytalk 169
Msend 170
Summary 170
Chapter 15: Advanced Email 171
Reading Email and Newsgroups Offline 171
Text 171
Email 171
Newsgroups 173
Offline Mail Readers 173
UQWK 179
Mailing Lists 184
Finding Mailing lists to join? 185
Mail List Etiquette 187
Commodore Mail Lists 187
Accessing Internet Utilities Through Email 189
General Mail Servers 189
Using the Mail Server at RTFM.MIT.EDU 190
Gopher by Email 193
Gophermail Servers 193
Gopher Sites 193
Newsgroups by Email 194
Alternate Gopher Hosts for Newsgroups 195
Posting to Newsgroups Through Email 195
Searching Usenet Newsgroups 196
WWW by Email 196
WWW Mail Servers 196
Using WWW Search Engines 198
FTP by Email 199
FTPMail Servers 200
FTPmail Server Commands 200
Archie by Email 202
Archie Mail Servers 203
Archie Mail Server Commands 203
Internet via Email Mailing List 204
Summary 204
Chapter 16: Changing Your Environment 205
Changing Your Environment: BBS Systems 205
Changing Your Environment: Online Services 205
Changing Your Environment: UNIX 206
Finding What Type of UNIX Shell You Have 206
Making Immediate Changes 206
Making Your Changes Permanent 207
Resetting After Making Permanent Changes 208
Creating and Using Script Files 209
Sample Script for C-Shell and TSCH Users: 210
Sample Script for Bourne, Korn and Bash Shell Users 210
Using Aliases to Make Quick Shortcuts 212
C-shell and TSCH Alias Examples 212
Korn and Bash Shell Alias Examples 212
File Permissions 214
Changing File Permissions 216
Editing Configuration Files 217
Why Change a Configuration File? 217
Commented Lines and Remarks 218
Yes/No True/False On/Off 218
Lynx Configure File 218
Lynx Configuration Items You May Want to Change 219
The MIME.TYPES File 222
Editing the .NEWSRC File 223
Editing the .IRCRC File 224
Explanation of .IRCRC Commands 225
Finger Files 227
Foreground and Background: Multi-Tasking 227
Summary 229
Chapters 17 to Appendices
Chapter 17: Dealing with Files 230
File Transfers 230
Downloading Files 230
Uploading Files 231
File Transfer Problems 231
Archives 232
Commodore Archives 232
Other Platform Archives 233
UNIX Archives 234
Using Your Shell Account for Other Platform
Archives 235
Other Types of Files 236
Viewing GIF Pictures 236
Viewing Problems 237
Viewing Other Graphic Files 237
Trouble Shooting 237
FTP File Problems 237
World Wide Web File Problems 238
Press D for Download 238
Text Files 238
Commodore PETASCII, MS-DOS and UNIX 238
Files Through Email 241
UUencodes 242
Decoding UUencoded Files Online 242
Decoding UUencoded Files Offline 242
Creating and Sending UUencoded Files Online 243
Creating and Sending UUencoded Files Offline 244
Novaterm 9.6 245
UUXFER 245
ACE UUencode 245
MIME Files 246
Decoding MIME Files Online 246
Decoding MIME Files Offline 247
Creating and Sending MIME Files Online 248
Email File Problems 249
W3mail UUencode Problems 250
Files Through Newsgroups 250
Summary 251
Chapter 18: TCP/IP Connections 252
TCP/IP 252
What's a TCP/IP Stack? 253
SLIP and PPP Connections 254
SLIP (or PPP) Set Up 254
Connecting Your C= to the Internet 256
Clients and Servers 257
What client application programs do we need? 257
Will I need new hardware? 258
What's available right now? 258
What's in the works? 259
Summary 259
Appendix 1: Glossary 260
Appendix 2: Internet and UNIX Commands 277
Appendix 3: Key Equivalents 279
Appendix 4: Source List 280
Online Services and Internet Providers 280
Free-Nets 281
Commodore Resources, Commercial 286
Click Here Software 286
CMD 286
Dave's Term 128 286
GoDot 287
HART Cartridge 287
IPort 287
Novaterm v9.6 287
RAMDrive, BBGRam 287
VideoCam Services 288
Commodore Resources, On the Net 289
RS232 Interfaces 291
DATA Pump UART Interface 291
Internet Resources 291
Commodore FTP Sites List 291
COMP.SYS.CBM FAQ files 292
Jim Brain's Commodore LISTSERV 292
TIFCU Mailing List 292
Novaterm Mailing List 292
Commodor Mailing List 292
Virtual Internet C= User's Group 292
Commodore WWW Search Utility 292
Finding Updated Information 292
Index 293
About the Author 302