Hi people
First of all, excuse me for my low english level, I'm still learning it, so it's going to be common find gramatical mistakes on my posts.

Well, let's start with my first post.

Recently I purchased a 64nic+ ethernet card for my c64. I just wanted to use it with my sd2iec from nkc electronics. (this one -> http://store.nkcelectronics.com/sd2iec-boar2.html )

First thing I tested was contiki. At first, with the ethernet card, there was included a 5 1/4 disk with contiki and some nice internet apps for use with the the 64nic+. Now the disk isn't included, but there is a .d64 file with all the files, downloadable from here -> ftp://n2dvm.com/Commodore/Programs/c64nic.d64 . I've tested it several times, and it doesn't works. The loading stops with this message: "starting config.prg", after finishing loading the desktop, and the red led from the sd2iec starts blinking. I load contiki with the load"contiki",8 command, because if I type load"*",8,1 nothing happens.

I also tested another "version" of contiki, with a custom config creator (here -> http://contiki.cbm8bit.com/) but the disks I get from there (after configure the network paramethers) doesn't include contiki, only some internet apps that, when I load them, doesn't seems to work. I always get the message "hostname not found". I also have tested the 3 versions for the 3 differents ethernet card: none of them include any contiki files.

Finally, today I wanted to test geos with geo link(this one -> http://lyonlabs.org/commodore/...k-1.01.d64) and now the problems are quite similar. I start it with the command load":*",8,1 (and also load"*",8,1, but, after a few seconds, there appears the next message: "please insert a disk with desktop 1.5 or higher" and, again, the red led of the sd2iec starts blinking.

The firmware installed on the sd2iec its the last one:0.10.3

Also, I've fully formated the sd card to see what happens, and nothing changed.

With this sd2iec card I'm able to load a lot of .d64 games, so it seems that it works.

Does anyone know what happens? maybe its an incompatibility issue.

thanks for your help.

Makinavaja

Hi Makinavaja and welcome to the forum, sorry for late reply!

The problem you are experiencing is because Contiki, GEOS and many other programs (and games) use their own disk loaders, sometimes also known as "disk turbo" or "fast loader", etc. These "loaders" are actually small programs that execute inside the Commodore 1541 Diskdrive. The problem with sd2iec and other devices based on the 1541-III project is that they do not fully emulate a 1541 (which has its own processor, memory and kernel).

To run this kind of programs you need a device that fully emulates 1541, such as the 1541-Ultimate Cartridge, or even better: a REAL C=1541 Diskdrive

uIEC runs the same firmware and there's a few folks on uIEC-users@googlegroups.com that have used it on GEOS and with Contiki. I'd recommend scanning the forum/mailing list and possible joining.

Jim