Meshtastic 64 – A meshtastic radio for the Commodore 64 (64jim64.blogspot.com)

Pretty cool. I wish Meshtastic had more focus on routing and a way to safely do store & fwd. It’s difficult to actually mesh well with it. I run a few solar powered higher altitude nodes and provide reasonable coverage but I’ve observed many messages never reach their destination.

In case you didn't know what Meshtastic [0] is: Meshtastic® is a project that enables you to use inexpensive LoRa radios as a long range off-grid communication platform in areas without existing or reliable communications infrastructure.

[0]: https://meshtastic.org/

Cool! We made https://www.robots-everywhere.com/cellsol/ in 2020 but I think Meshtastic is further along. However, ours can run on an atmel328.

We also respect and forward Meshtastic and DisasterRadio packets, but there is currently no reciprocity. What can be done about it?

It pains me to mention this but I don't think it's responsible not to: https://github.com/meshtastic/firmware/issues/4030

At time of writing (2025-09-27, plus or minus a timezone), there does not appear to be any serious attempt to secure application-layer message contents. (At least, not yet)

My hope is that this cool new radio link option will still gain traction and grow and develop without painting itself into a corner, security-wise.

To wit- security hints on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model have improved substantially since my last readthrough.

Jeri Ellsworth posted that she has her Minitel on Meshtastic: https://bsky.app/profile/jeriellsworth.bsky.social/post/3lzj...

What frequency is the one that you can buy?

Is there an assembly application planned or will it be basic for now?

Nice, Jeff Geerling / Adrian Black mashup needed

Thanks! This is my project. Happy to answer any questions.

Oh man, I have all my retro consoles, but the C64 and 128 were the only gear my parents sold out from under me. I should be happy it’s not taking up space in a closet but stuff like this makes me miss it dearly.

I built a Meshtastic and found a few nodes but made 0 contacts. Gave up after a few weeks. The community seems to be more interested in talking about it and showing pictures of their gear as opposed to actually doing anything with it.

It’s like a way less fun ham radio.

I spy Trader Joe's balsamic vinegar?

This was really fun to play with at VCF Midwest. It makes me curious to see it working with other vintage computers.

Here's a demo video I made of my meshtastic 64 project: https://youtu.be/7gDmBlTKk90