A few months ago, Susan Sackett (one more of the wonderful people here at ComCom) approached me, (virtually of course) and asked me to write a profile/history of myself and my history of commodore computing. It all started in 1990 . . . a little (long?) while ago when you look at it. I was at the library, looking for a book on programming, as I was just 'getting into' my new computer. Well, the computer was a 1986, but I wasn't really into the technical side of things.

Anyway, the book was 'Stupendous Games for Your Commodore 64.' It looked exciting, and it was full of games with names like 'Astro-Blaster' and 'Super-Droids.' These games promised to be full of sound and colour. The only problem: they took so long to type in! Well, after sitting at the keyboard for five or six hours, I finally finished typing one in. I printed the lines out, and checked them against the book's copy, just like it said to do. Then came the magic RUN command.

Syntax Error.

OK. I checked the line, and it was correct. What gives? What kind of computer manufacturer would be so stupid as to make a computer that was not IBM XT compatible?

---The Age of Enlightenment---
Well, as you can see with my last encounter with Commodore paraphernalia, it wasn't very successful. I was kind of, well, PC oriented. When we arrived at 1994, I still was, but it was soon to change.

After discovering the wonderful worlds of Gopher and email in 1993, I had graduated to surfing the WWW via a local freenet connection. It was fantastic! I could get games and utilities and even books, and it was amazing! One day, I stumbled onto a page of emulators. The first one I saw was 'Colem- ColecoVision right on your PC!' I just had to get it. Within 30 minutes I was playing Smurfs and space invaders. My favorite old games! Never mind that I had them both on a fully functional unit downstairs, this used my computer! Well, later on that day, I proceeded to download almost every emulator on the site. And then, I hit it - C64S.

I must have downloaded 10 megs of disk images over the next couple of days, dying to try out every game available. (Of course, we know now that's probably an impossible dream) I was hooked. One week later I went to the neighborhood thrift store, and came back with an original C-64, a 1541, and about 200 blank disks. I built my own X1541 cable, copied every game I could find, and was really, truly, liking every moment.

Shortly thereafter, I started reading comp.sys.cbm, occasionally submitting my two cents. Three months later, I was on a real PPP connection with a real ISP, and that opened the possibilities even further. I got mIRC, and started chatting in #c-64. (No, if you're wondering, it wasn't productive, and most of the time was spent hurling insults at others in the room. Maybe they've cleaned up their act, but I can't know for sure. In any case, I've found ComCom, but that's a different paragraph.)

After about a year in that loop of reading, and chatting, and reading, I decided to do something productive. I had heard of a thing called a 'webring.' It was just a set of buttons on your web page. If you click on the next or previous buttons, it accesses the webring server computer, which then moves you to the next (or previous) page with that set of buttons. I decided to start the Commodore Ring because there was such a vast bank of commodore knowledge, and nothing to bring it together. The ring was put on hiatus until I had the time to do it . . . so nothing happened until August 96. (Yes, I realize we just skipped about eight months, but seriously, nothing happened. :-)

At first, progress was slow. Two or three members a week signed on, until I posted an article on comp.sys.cbm. Within three days, I had more than 50 submissions to the commodore ring. Unfortunately, I only admitted 10 or 11, because the rest were pages of links, or sometimes nothing at all. I know now, though, the power of a news group. :-)

Everything progresses nicely until January. Then, the worst possible occurs. The webring server crashes. Incidentally, the people over at freenet, who happened to be hosting my page, reorganized the directory structure. It all happened when I was away from my computer for a month because of exams. I came back to ruins. I had an overflowing mailbox (eight or nine hundred messages). Almost all were angry or confused members of the ring. Even though the webring server had been returned back on- line, my page was nowhere to be found. The users thought I had abandoned them. After about one and a half months of a solid repair job, things seemed to go back to normal. I was gaining members instead of losing them, I had some snazzy new graphics, it was great. It was about this time that Susan submitted her page to me. As it turned out, there was a problem, and it couldn't be accepted, but IHC Computers and Squeaky Sam's, she and Chuck's business (correct me if I'm wrong) was readily accepted.*

Around this time I also was sent a commodore 128 and a great 2002 monitor from a nice man in New Jersey, and I bought an Amiga 500 from a thrift store for $5. I have Susan and Chuck to thank for my workbench disks and monitor cable, and mouse, and now my new workbench manuals as I've upgraded. Thanks! (BTW, your money is in the mail.)

Susan invited me to speak/write one night for a ComCom conference. I stayed, and had great time talking with some great people. A couple of weeks later, Susan told me about SupportHelp, and I got myself a membership on Delphi. It's great . . . and now, I get to talk to everybody on ComCom. I can't come that often anymore, because of other priorities, but it's nice to be able to walk into a room and have people say Hello and talk for a while, and I wish I could do it more often. :-)

Well, in conclusion, the Commodore Ring celebrated its first birthday this August, and now we have more than a hundred members and a hundred pages of informative and hopefully interesting commodore material to feast your eyes upon. If you're interested in the commodore ring, check it out from the link below, or write me. I'll look forward to seeing your page!