Commodore Free 17/Commodore_Free_Issue_17_2008_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.iv gaylene 1

Text File | 2008-01-01 | 8.1 KB | 270 lines

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Interview with Gaelyne Gasson
 vcsweb.com

Part 1 of 2

COMMODRE FREE Please introduce yourself
to our Readers

GAELYNE GASSON G'day! My name is
Gaelyne Gasson. Some of you might
remember me from Qlink, GEnie or Delphi

I started taking an active part in the
Commodore community in the early 80's
when I first wrote for my local user
group, SACUG (Saginaw Area Commodore
User's Group), and then went on to
write a C= column in BBS Magazine which
lead to writing for Commodore World
magazine.  I also edited CEE64 Alive!
disk magazine and had various stints on
GEnie and Delphi in the chat rooms. I
was also a very active participant in
the Fidonet Commodore echos back in the
day, which is how I met my husband.

CF. Where in the world do you live and
are there many Commodore users?

GG. I live in South Australia, but
lived most of my life in Michigan in
the USA until I came here when I was
about 36 yrs old.  There are only a
handful of actual Commodore users
here, but there's still a lot of folks
we run into who still have their
equipment or tell us how it was their
first computer, always with love and
enthusiasm. Once a Commodore user,
always a Commodore user it seems, if
only in heart and spirit!

CF. How did you become involved in
Computers and Commodore?

GG. When I was in college, I learned
BASIC on a PDP-11 mainframe computer -
back in the day when the 'terminal'
wasn't even a screen - it was a line
terminal, which was basically a roll
of printer paper, and anything you
typed went to the paper. It was very
archaic and hard to use.  If you back-
spaced, it would overstrike what was
typed in prior, making it nearly
impossible to read. Commands were typed
and sent one line at a time.

My first Commodore experience was with
a PET in the computer labs at college.
They were shiny and new, and used a
cassette recorder to LOAD and SAVE
programs. My class spent the day
running virtual Lemonade stands. My
next experience was when friends of
mine had a VIC-20.  I wasn't too into
the games, but they had a word
processing cartridge which I used to
write a diary, and actually bought my
own cassette to keep it on so I could
just  bring it with me whenever I
visited.

A few years later, my brother gave me
his VIC-20, and we had quite a bit of
fun with it, but when we went to our
first Commodore user group half the
group tried to tell us to get an Amiga
and the other half convinced us to try
the C64.  We decided on the 64 because
we could afford it, and it became a
family Christmas gift at a time when
other families were buying Nintendos
for their kids. I felt the Commodore
was better value as not all of us are
game players (I'm certainly not), and I
knew I'd find plenty of things to do
with a computer versus a game machine.

CF. Tell our reader about your Web-
services. Are you a hosting services
user can utilise?

GG. We offer a variety of services
including domain name registration,
free DNS services, Web hosting, & Web
design.  The domain name registration &
DNS services are 'self-service', in
that anyone can make use of these
without any help from us. However, we
are available if anyone needs a helping
hand. We also take pride in helping
people unfamiliar to having a Website
make the best use of it and their
associated Email addresses.

CF. Can people obtain Telnet & dial-up
connections via yourselves?

GG. We don't offer dial-up services at
all these days, and our telnet
connections are only available to
people in the Commodore community. To
distinguish it from a general telnet
account one might get with some other
businesses, we refer to our service as
a 'Homestead PLUS Membership'.

Homestead is our Commodore mailing
list, and I see the PLUS membership as
a way of having a few extra features
that aren't available to most people
with other (non-Commodore) Internet
connections. Membership doesn't
require that you use your Commodore
when logging in, by the way. It's just
we only offer memberships to people
who are part of the Commodore community
(past & present).  Some of the 'extras'
we have on hand are utilities for
converting images and other file
formats to Commodore friendly formats.

CF. Can you explain why a user would
need a Homestead PLUS Membership?

GG. Some of our members like having an
Email address associated with VideoCam
Services/VCSWEB.  Others use it to
convert graphics to various formats,
one member has a Website with details
on using the Wave.  Another member uses
his account for testing his software
that lets you use the Commodore to
browse the Internet. His software
requires a few Unix programs like PERL
on the server side (that's us) and we
have it available and when he's updated
his software it's available to all
members who login using his program.
(Cameron Kaiser's Hyperlink software).

We also have members who use their
Email accounts by logging in to our Web
mail as it's easier for them to have a
consistent Email address even if they
change ISP's frequently.

CF. Can you explain some of the Web-
sites & services you provide I know of
these main ones, are there others?

GG. http://cbm.videocam.net.au This is
the Commodore Homestead Website. The
main page always has any current news
items about what's happening in the
Commodore community while other pages
on the site include the Novaterm
manual, a few articles I've written
such as how to use ICQ (an online chat
system) from a text based system, a
favourite BBS list, an interactive
area where people can add their
favourite various types of software.
http://vcsweb.com/  VCSWEB.com is our
Web Services site where we offer Web
hosting, design, Domain Name
Registration and DNS services.

http://shop.vcsweb.com/index.php?main
 _page=product_info&cPath=24_26
  &products_id=159

Actually a better URL for that is

http://cbm.videocam.net.au/
 centralmarket/

it's much easier to type and remember!

This is our online shopping area. We
sell a variety of other items, and all
Commodore related items are in the
Central Market area.

CF. Can you tell our reader about the
Commodore Market, for example what
products are sold?

GG. We sell new products for the
Commodore. Items include my TIFCU book
in downloadable PDF format, more
Loadstar items than you can shake a
stick at, as well as memberships for
user groups, our Homestead Plus
Memberships, compilation CDs, and even
T-shirts.  The market accepts credit
card payments as well as PayPal and
bank deposit.

There are a few different sellers that
make use of the Market, and we handle
the orders and payments and then send
the orders on to the seller. When they
inform us the item(s) have been sent,
we pay them via PayPal, less a 10%
commission fee.

CF. Do you employ staff and is this
your main source of income?

GG. We're a very small 'Mom & Pop'
organisation.  I'm on disability and
Rod is currently working towards
getting certified as a network
security admin. We don't really earn
much of an income, but our services
help to pay for our servers and our
own Internet connection.

CF. You wrote a book entitled "The
Internet for Commodore C64/128 Users"
the book went out of print but has been
recently re-issued as a PDF please can
you tell our reader about the book?

GG. It was one of the hardest projects
I've ever worked on, but the results
were (and continue to be) very worth-
while.  The book takes the reader
through all the stages of getting
online (back when the only choices
were using a Dial-up system), what to
do online, commands, a bit on etiquette
for Email, newsgroups and IRC (Internet
Relay Chat), and how to configure
various things to work best for you.
It explains how to surf the web using
Lynx, reading  Email with Pine, as well
as discusses a few technologies that
aren't available any longer, such as
Gopher & Web-by-Email.  A great deal of
effort went into writing it, proofing
it, & finally publishing it. We took it
out of print as it simply wasn't
selling after the 3rd year it'd been
available.  About a year ago, we found
the disks which held the master copy &
were able to convert it to PDF format.
We have 2 different types that we
offer.  One is an indexed, searchable
PDF file, and the other is an exact,
page-for-page copy of the original 3rd
edition book.

          CONTINUED IN PART 2