Getting to Work on TFC v4n+: Planning to plan
I am deeming this project “TFC v4n+” for the following reasons:
- This is really the 4th full iteration of The Fone Company, the previous being:
- Version 1: 1988-1989 (learning it)
- Version 2: 1989-1991 (I actually have a disc labeled “TFC ][” (that’s how we spelt it then because we re radical, dude.) which was also Color 64 v128 but wasn’t much different.
- Version 3: 1991-end of 1992 Supra 128 version.
- Version 4: Now.
- n for “Network”
- + for the ton of mods going into it.
There is a great scene in Office Space where the two Bobs sit down with Peter. On the dry-erase board on the wall is the term “Planning to Plan”.
Best movie ever. Change my mind.
In this process I have 2 goals:
- Create a new Color 64 BBS for 2019 with all of the mods I had used in the past and some I recently learned about and do it the right way with proper documentation.
- Keep the current BBS up as long as possible during the development.
Of course I could do all of the work on VICE but it is a royal pain in the ass working with disk images. They simply don’t give you the real feel of using the actual hardware. There are too many issues with them.
Desert-Fox (again, awesome) at Oasis sent me an archive of 76 D64 images. I searched through them and selected all of the mods I want to add to the system. It took me 3 days to comb through all of the disks and pick out mods I have and I wanted to add.
In all there are 73 mods I wanted to add to the system. Yeah. I was pretty surprised by that number myself. Instead of rushing in head-first I tried to plan it a bit better by breaking them down to the order everything went in the BBS (kinda, up until the main prompt). Here is my spreadsheet:
It is organized by reach then by function. Lt.K mods first, system mods next, moving stuff around next to see how small our overlays are and how much room we have to work with.
I know you’re asking, “where does the Network stuff come in?” That’s later. For now we are making TFC into a BBS for 2019.