Question for Bobby Binder re: VCP
 

Hi Bobby- I need some assistance with your site and thought I would post this on Net54 in case others are having a similar problem.

Nearly every time I type in the last name of a player and hit the search button, I get directed to a page that begins with Jordan Marsh & Co. and includes various CdV's and cabinet cards. And I can't get the information I need on the player since it won't take me there.

Could you or any other readers please explain what is causing this? Thank you

Barry - stop typing in players who only appeared in the Jordan Marsh & Co. set.

:)

So simple, yet so profound.;)

Barry - what's the name?

Well I typed in Ty Cobb the other day, and Chris Von Der Ahe today, to name two. And there have been others. And I always end up with the same page.

(and I've passed you in number of posts, 781 to 779)

You typed "Cobb" into the last name field, or "Ty Cobb"?

Sorry about the post count - I've been swamped at work the last week or so. I'll have to pull some all-nighters to get things back to the way they should be.

Matt- you and I are 2 and 3 in terms of number of posts, with Leon holding an insurmountable lead. And I know nobody cares.:)

I've tried several different ways. Sometimes I simply type a "C" then an "o" until Cobb's name comes to the top, then click it and hit search.

Other times I will type in the full name "Ty Cobb" and then hit search. It doesn't matter. Everything takes me back to that same page.

There are some ways I have been able to get in, but I have to be creative. Clearly something isn't connecting. Maybe Bobby needs to feed all those mice on all those treadmills more cheese, but that may not be the answer.

Barry - what browser are you using? (you can get the version # from going to the Help->About tab at the top of the Window) I just tested it with the latest version of both IE and Firefix and it's working correctly...

I have no idea...if you tell me the choices something might ring a bell.

I just called my wife and she thinks it's Windows Explorer. Does that make any sense?

At the top right of your Browser window there should be either a menu item that says "Help" or a button with an image of a question mark on it. If you click that, one of the last options on the menu will be "About YourBrowserName Here" if you then click that menu option, it will open a window showing what version of the browser you are running.

I added that I think it's Windows Explorer after your last post. Is that it?

That could be it, but knowing the version is important. If the instructions above weren't useful, try this - hit Alt & H (at the same time) then release and press A. It should open up a dialog box with the version info.

I tried and it didn't.:(

I think you are going to lose me Matt.

Barry - what do you click on to start your Browser each day?

Matt- I don't even know what a browser is. I just turn my computer on in the morning and it starts working. How it does it is beyond me. Please remember you handle computers professionally and I know virtually nothing about them... but I do appreciate your help.

The browser is the application you use to get to Net54baseball and any other sites you visit. It has a navigation bar at the top where you type the site URL (e.g. http://www.net54baseball.com) and a large display window to display the page at that URL.

I have a homepage with lots of icons on it. There is one for Net54. I double click it and like magic, Net54 appears. I have no idea how or why I get there, but I do get there. If a browser gets me there unfortunately I don't know what it is. Is it possible my browser is Adobe? When I hit the alt H and then the A, an icon for Adobe flashed.

Matt,

He's using a Commodore 64. Does it matter what browser it's running?

:D

I wonder if you are using AOL - if so, it's come up on the board in the past that VCP doesn't play nicely with AOL.

The first programs I wrote were for a Commodore 64 :)

I guess there is a joke in Commodore 64 but it went over my head.:(

Matt- I don't have an AOL account; can it still be an AOL browser? Also please note that Bobby's site worked fine for me for a few years. Only in the last month or so has this happened. At this point it's too difficult for me to use the site at all.

Commodore 64 was one of the first personal computers - 20+ years ago.

When you executed the Alt-H and then A command earlier, was Net54 open? If not, make sure net54 is open and then try it. It sounds like someone created a Windows desktop shortcut for you to Net54 that opens your browser and loads Net54. My guess is that you're using an older browser and perhaps VCP made some site changes recently that aren't supported by that old browser so you'd need to upgrade your browser to get it working again.

Yes, my wife set up all these short cuts for me, and my computer is really old. I should get a new one but I resist. Do you think the fact it is old is part of the problem? And I tried the ALT H A on Net54 several times and nothing at all happened.

I don't think you need a new computer - perhaps just have your wife upgrade your browser.

Thanks Matt. Maybe when Bobby comes on he can corroborate that.

I think we have at least confirmed that it is Barry that needs to feed his little mice a bit more cheese (or is it tofu?).

My mice get a half wheel of brie each day.;)

in this economy?

Sorry Barry. Small joke at your expense. Commodore 64 was one of the first personal computers introduced back in early 1982. The 27+ year break is pretty incredible. Today, just about any cell phone, or even your average car, has more computing power than the Commodore 64 did. But at $599, we all thought it was pretty amazing.

How old are you??? :D

I was the Buyer of Electronics for G. Fox in Hartford, CT (May Company in Cleveland, Straus in Akron, and O'Neils in Youngstown were our sister stores back then) when that came out. We had trouble getting delivery on them for a long time.

I've also had to stop using VCP for a while.

Paypal, Bobby and I don't "play nice" together, I guess. (That, and I'm very stubborn.)

It's a little inconvenient, but I'll make do.

That's a blast from the past - did the Commodore 64 become obsolete before May Company went out of business?

Barry,

Which search by are you using? Sounds like the keyword, try using the search by "players last name" and tell me the results you are getting. It is the second field down from the top.

If you are using AOL it should not bother searches you would have log in problems because of the ever changing IP addresses.

Hi Bobby- thanks for coming on. As you know I have been using your site for a few years without any trouble, so this is something new. I always go to the field that asks for the player's last name, and I type it in. Once the full name is in the box, I hit search and it just takes me to the same page every time, the one that starts with Jordan & Co. and continues through Joseph Halls and other assorted 19th century sets. It's happened to me so many times that I've pretty much given up using it. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

A thought - are you clicking the search button associated with the "Last Name" field, or the one at the bottom of the page?

Each field has it's own search button and you have to click the one associated with the field you're typing into.

It seems like you might be clicking the search under the "Card Type" field, which by default takes you to a list of cabinet card types.

Sorry for the delay in my postings but you are 6 hours ahead of me. Maybe it is better if you call me 310-447-4884 and we can go over it on the phone.

Matt- you're on to something. I was clicking the search button at the bottom, and for a reason. There was always a drop down menu on the page that was blocking the button next to the second field.

So now I typed in Ty Cobb in the second field, but the program is automatically typing Ty Cobb into the field above, and when I hit the search button in the second field I get a red message "no such search found (I'm paraphrasing)." And if I manually erase the Ty Cobb in the first field and then click the second, I get the same problem and the name pops up in the first field on its own.

Don't know if that was clear but bottom line is it still doesn't work.

Barry - try typing just Cobb into the last name field; it may open a list (or two) where you should select "Cobb, Ty."

I have done that. I think I'll give Bobby a call in a little while.

I just got off the phone with Bobby and he walked me through it. I don't know what I'm doing differently but it works. Thanks Bobby and Matt for your help, and sorry to take up other people's time...I've got to go now and feed my mice some more cheese. I think I'll try Jarlsberg today.

First, I'm glad Barry has gotten beyond Jordan Marsh & Co.

Next, let us all praise what a great thing the Commodore 64 was. I had one. Still have it. Once in a while I think of getting it out. That little pc did quite a bit with a small amount of memory. It was always fun chasing through the disk sectoring and copying protection efforts.

Me too! I used to make little animations...I once made the Griswold Family Truckster rolling along the highway. I made a little penguin that would waddle across the screen. And I spent many thousands of hours typing in code from Compute's Gazette Magazine. I loved my C64!

It was very easy hacking C64 disk games...not so easy hacking the cartridge games. I used to love playing Castle Wolfenstein and Lode Runner...also the Epyx Summer Games was a favorite.

I liked Silent Service, Dnieper River Line (I think that's what it was), Pirates was fun... and somewhere I got something that I think was called Campaign Manager. It simulated running around in the 50 states, fundraising, campaigning, doing ads, in a presidential election. No fancy graphics, but the game seemed fairly well thought out.

And I enjoyed the Avalon Hill games of Midway and B-1 Bomber. There was a 3rd game about nuclear war that they did, your country was a little grid, each round you could build a missile site, a nuclear sub, strategic bombers, or eventually ABMs. It was very simple, yet interesting. I rewrote the code for B-1 Bomber and created what I called "Backfire Bomber" with a Soviet bomber coming in toward New York or Washington, it was easy to do using the B-1 Bomber framework.

I recall one of the early safeguards to slow hacking was to have several "delete"s after the name of a file. So the filename might be FOX, which would then be F-O-X-deletekey-deletekey-deletekey , and with that if someone tried to list the files on a disk the FOX file wouldn't show up on the screen at all... But, if you had a printer (seldom attached to a gamer's C-64) you could print the directory and see F-O-X-deletekey-deletekey-deletekey , it was low technology piracy protection. Those rascals.

I never had a printer...I was still a kid, and $200+ for something I wasn't really going to use much just wasn't in the budget.

C64
 

I loved my C64, it was the last time I actually knew how to program. Favorite game - Ultima 3
Frank - I had that election game too, had forgotten all about it.