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With a BME280 module and a DS3231 or DS1307 RTC module is possible to equip your C64 with a real time clock and a termometer barometer

You can take a look to this link…shortly I update this post to show how to build it

To be continue …

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I have bough this excellent device from RetroInnovations
In this guide, I’will try to explain the easy and fast way to connect to a BBS or a telnet server or use your c64 as a web server.

The heart of the cartridge is Crystal CS8900a 10 megabit Ethernet interface processor. The interface emulates the RR-NET solution as well as the NET64 and TFE systems.
In addition to Ethernet capabilities, the system also includes an on board ROM socket that can be loaded with up to 16 cartridge images. With the appropriate ROM, the 64NIC+ can autoboot and load your favorite games and utilities via TCP/IP, no disk drive required.
As you can see in the picture above, you will notice on the left side of the cartridge 4 switch.

Follow are the description of these switch starting from top to down (near c64 expansion port) position:

• Register Configuration
  • Up –> RR-NET (most used configuration)
  • Down –> TFE The Final Ethernet
• EPROM ON/OFF
  • Up –> EPROM socket disabled
  • Down –> EPROM socket enabled
• C64/C128 mode ( up to 256kB ROMs )
  • Up –> c128
  • Down –> c64
• Select IO area
  • Up –> IO1
  • Down –> IO2

In the top left corner of the cartridge you notice a small 16 position rotary switch, this can be used (with an appropriately programmed EPROM) to select 1 of 16 ROM images.

How to connnect

Connect a RJ45 cable to the ethernet socket then using ie sd2iec device, load and run a program like KipperTerm64 .
The network configuration will take place automatically in the presence of DHCP (which is the most common situation). Otherwise, youhave to set manually the IP, netmask, gateway and DNS server.
After network is configured, press F1 key and enter a telnet or BBS domain. A good example of 80 column telnet server is telehack.com port 23.
Then a question is asked about the encoding to be used:

• VT100
• PETSCII
• ANSI

If we want to use UN * X machines, the protocol to be used is VT100, while if we connect to BBS dedicated to Commodore computers, we choose PETSCII. Telehack.com uses VT100.

An example of BBS server is afterelife.dynu.com port 6400 encoding PETSCII. To download or upload files, after staring download/upload from ie BBS, press F1 then chose to download (F1) or upload (F3) a file. KipperTerm use Xmodem as file tranfer protocol.

By installing a telnet server (telnetd) on a machine on your local network you can connect to it and “control” i.e x64 PC by your little 8bit C64.

For more resouces about 64NIC+ visit this link

Adding programs to EEPROM

As you have read before, you can put 16k cartridge programs or games in an EEPROM. You can use 64Kb eprom like 27C512 28pins or 256kb eeprom like 27C020 32pins (default).

You can put up to 16x16kb commodore64 compatible .crt images in a 256kb (2Mbit) EEPROM. You can use .bin images and put all in one file using for example HxD or you can use this tools Games Cart Creator (unfortunately not compatible with windows 10)

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To be continue …