Commodore 128 Alive! Newsletter
June 2006
Wow! I'd never have thought when I had the idea to start this forum that it'd take off so quickly & so well.

I had actually mocked this up some time ago, but never bothered to make it 'live' figuring that there probably wouldn't be that much interest - most Commodore users seem to be C64  worshippers. However, looks like I've been proved wrong. The board is getting a couple of new users per day & most new users are contributing. There's been well over 250 messages & we're still less than three weeks old. Quite an accomplishment I reckon.

File areas are doing well also - we have in excess of 650 downloads available, I have a lot more to add & members are uploading regularly too - with a bit of luck, we'll ultimately have the largest collection of Commodore 128 software available anywhere. Once it reaches a decent level, I'll start making the collection available via CD ROM (I doubt there's enough stuff out there to need a DVD for, but you never know.....). Downloads are doing well, at last count over 200 files have been downloaded.

The forum software we're using is PunBB, a small & fairly fast distribution that is easily 'modded', in fact there are quite a few mods installed to our forum that add certain things & help to improve the overall experience for members & visitors. One of the integrated mods tracks the board against other PunBB boards, you can see how we're doing by following this link. The stats aren't live, but are updated every day around 6pm AEST.

Speaking of timezones, seems we have a problem with organising a weekly chat, looks like our users are rather spread out across tyhe planet & we also clash with the C64 IRC chat. Some suggestions around time probably wouldn't help.

Topically, the board is doing very well with a large selection of items that are generating a decent amount of replies. The risk was always there that the forums would bog, but fortunately this doesn't seem to be happening - there's a few posters that are doing some pretty major contributions to the message areas - thanks guys, keep up the good work!

We're currently running one coding comp that has another month & a half to run, creating music demos for the 128 - no submissions yet, but plenty of time to get your entry in. Once this one finishes, we'll move on to something else, I have a few ideas, but obviously I'll go with suggestions from the members as well as to what they'd like to see coding-wise. Along the same lines, we're in embyonic stage of discussing a new, modern BBS package fotr the 128, some great suggestions coming in - hopefully we can keep the energy up & actually start development soon(ish). We need volunteers! Check out the thread in the 128 programmers forum.

Some stats for the board up to today :

Members :    38
Posts :          258
Topics :        78
Files :           691
Downloads : 258
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