Issue 73
www.commodorefree.com
Free to download magazine dedicated to Commodore computers
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Editor
Nigel Parker
Spell Checking
Peter Badrick
TXT, HTML & eBooks
Paul Davis
D64 Disk Image
Al Jackson
PDF Design
Nigel Parker
Contributors
Commodore Free Readers and Nigel Parker
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Articles are always wanted for the magazine. Contact us for details. We can’t pay you for your efforts but you are safe in the knowledge that you have passed on details that will interest other Commodore enthusiasts.
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Copyright
Copyright © 2013 Commodore Free Magazine
All Rights Reserved.

Contents


Editorial

Leaving the Fold

Here we go again with another issue

Sadly due to other commitments and engagements it would seem for the part time at least I have lost my Co-editor, I would like to thank him for the great work he did trying to tidy up my writing into something comprehendible and hope that he will re-join the fold and see sense.

Interviewed

Right then; down to the business of the magazine, after resisting for so long; I decided to cave in under pressure as so many people emailed me and sent questions; I felt like I was answering the same thing over and over again, a few people suggested they interview me for the magazine; and a few people asked if they could interview me for other magazines! So with all this email to-ing and fro-ing I decided why not and thought I would amalgamated a list of questions from various users to create an interview, the questions were then read to me and the results recorded, then it was just a matter of typing in all that I had said, not an easy job as I couldn’t shut up when I started going.

Its News to Me

So it would seem last issue I made a general mistake by trying to include far too much news into one issue, this was a problem not only trying to create the PDF but also the Webpages; and various other formats and especially trying to fit all the information into the disk image that actually fills 2 disks, it made things hard to read. Although I think the news grouping was a better idea rather than a random hotch potch of articles, this was a suggestion made to me by a reader, and popped up in a couple of forums; so I thought I would give it a go, it does create a problem where news could relate to the 8 bit systems but not the Amiga and may not be general news and so on, anyway; I will try to make this work to the best of my abilities, the question then is what do you think, did the format work out better?

Result

We also have after a very long drawn out process, some of the results from the BASIC programming competition set by Commodore Free. The results were printed online before they could be printed in the magazine, which was a shame, but on the off chance you haven’t seen them, I re printed them in the magazine. I would like to thank Shaun for taking on the role as Judge in the competition and also a big thanks to all the entries. The quality was very high and that made the judging even more difficult, I think we were only expecting a few entries but received more than we expected!

Sadly I can’t offer a prize but at least you know that your entry can be viewed in these pages and of course if you did win you can feel smug that you are a better programmer than everyone else who entered.

Some people were confused about the competition and we received some 5, 10 and 20 line entries to the 2 line competition! Although some were good sadly they had to be rejected. I think if we run this competition again I would use one of the suggestions from a reader and have the competition marked by the readers, so you dear reader could vote for your favourite entry.

That’s about all I can write now as I have writer’s cramp after my interview notes

I am however thinking of a 1 screen basic programming competition as yet the results are sketchy and if I receive enough demand I will take this further but on all formats it’s a Basic code then when your type list fills the screen you need to also think that one line will be for the cursor, If I get enough response I will form a set of rules. Another Idea I had was a basic competition where the code would work on all 8 bit commodore machines!

Thanks for reading

Regards

Nigel (editor)

www.commodorefree.com




General News


Petro’s Website Now Available in English

Hello Commodore friends,

in issue 71 of Commodore Free you mention about Petro’s website, and how it is in German only. That was right, but now it’s also available in English for our international friends. I did a translation so you can choose your language:

http://petros-memoiren-1982-bis-2001.de/Start.html

We also plan to release the book in late 2013 / early 2014 in German language and then in late 2014 in English.

Please see this link for the planned content:

http://petros-memoiren-1982-bis2001.de/english/Petro_eng/Pictures.html#13

Feel free to contact me with questions...

All the Best from Germany

- Patric

Information taken from the Blog

The English website is up!

Today we‘re releasing an English version of this website for all our international friends of Commodore, Amiga and of course, Petro Tyschtschenko. Please note that there are still some minor issues with this website, but you should know we‘re concentrating our main energy on the book. Feel free to contact us and enjoy your Commodore and Amiga computers.

Petro and Patric


SuperByte 2013

Chiptune, Retro Gaming & 8 Bit Arts Weekender

News from the organisers www.superbytefestival.co.uk

SuperByte 2013 – Chiptune, Retro Gaming & 8 Bit Arts Weekender

In September 2012 we hosted SuperByte 2012 – a musical and cultural first for Manchester in the form of an all-day micromusic and retro gaming festival which was one of the largest of its kind in the UK.

On Friday 13th and Saturday 14th of September 2013, the UK and international micromusic community will descend on Jabez Clegg in Manchester for two days of live music, visual arts, retro gaming and more as part of SuperByte 2013 - an event which is looking to be bigger, bolder and bleepier than its 2012 counterpart.

Chiptune (or micromusic as we like to call it) is music which is produced on, or takes inspiration from the sounds of vintage video game hardware or computer systems; using outdated technology to produce mind-blowing audio and visual spectacles which defy the limits of the hardware.

MegaByte, the collective of promoters, artists and DJ’s who hosted SuperByte 2012, have joined forces with seminal ‘net label CalmDownKidder (promoters of Liverpool’s Chipfest events) for 2013’s event which will feature an impressive line-up of UK-based and international micromusicians, visual artists and DJ’s representing the cream of the chiptune and retro-tech scene. The confirmed line-up includes:

8 BIT WEAPON | BROKEN BIT | COMPTROLLER | EAT RABBIT | GWEM | KEFF | MENEO | MIZKAI | NORDLOEF | ORGAN FREEMAN | SABREPULSE | SHIROBON | SKIP CLOUD | TDK | ULTRASYD | WHITELY | HELLOCATFOOD | LASTKNIGHT | JAYSON H | ROSA MENKMAN | SPECTRUM | 8GB + MORE.

Alongside live music and visuals arts from over 30 artists, the event will a retro gaming area, a retro-tech market space, film art exhibitions, workshops and much more to present what we hope will build on the immense success of 2012’s event to become one of the biggest events of its kind in the UK to date.

More than just a music festival, we’re working to create a grass roots community of likeminded people in the North West UK and to provide a platform for networking, the sharing of ideas and skills. While showcasing the work of some of the amazing local and international musicians and artists within the chipmusic community, we’re always working to attract new audiences to this exciting and unique style of music and art and create the ultimate party atmosphere.

Between January and March we raised over £2500 via our Kickstarter campaign which offered early bird tickets and exclusive merchandise to our supporters, setting us well on the way to making the festival a success.

For further information please contact: Adrian Thompson

e: adrian@analoguetrashevents.co.uk

w: www.superbytefestival.co.uk


Douglas C. Engelbart, Inventor Of The Computer Mouse, Dies At 88

Douglas C. Engelbart, a visionary scientist, whose ideas lead to various computer developments sadly died on at his home in Atherton, Calif. He was 88.

In the 1950s Dr. Engelbart suggested working in small groups on computers could speed up development however in these times computers took whole rooms rather than just a desk space.

He saw himself sitting in front of a large computer screen full of different symbols possibly as a result of his work with radar systems

Not only did he think of Networking but he demonstrated text editing, video conferencing, hypertext and windowing.

in 1964 he wondered how to move a cursor on a computer display. The mouse he designed had three buttons, as that’s all he could fit on the design but he envisioned a mouse with 10 buttons Refined by Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre and later used by Apple, Microsoft and Commodore.

His networking ideas later became the application for which the ARPAnet network the forerunner of Internet

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/technology/douglas-c-engelbart-inventor-of-the-computer-mouse-dies-at-88.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0


Commodore Fan Gazette Issue 001 Released

Commodore Fan Gazette is a PDF Commodore magazine produced in Italian. In this edition:

Stronger than ever, Ready Return, Commodore OSvision, Oktalizer

Video games: C64anabalt, Soulless,
C64 16 Kb Cartridge Game Development Competition,
CYBERCON III,
Street Fighter, Street Fighter II, Super Street Fighter II,
The New Challengers and Super Street Fighter II Turbo,
C64 cartridge games,
Cyber culture and Jack Tramiel.

http://www.commodorefangazette.com/download.php


Retrogaming Times Monthly Issue 110 Released

In this English PDF and html magazine about general retro gaming computers containing the following articles:

Console Wars (4), Retro Gaming Sales, Killing Killer Instinct, Torpedo Terror, The Dragon, Apple II Insider - Cubit, More 64! - Pi R Squared, MAME Reviews - Pinball Action, NES'cade - Contra, Maniac Mansion +More!

http://www.retrogamingtimes.com/


tapDancer For Andriod Released

Kicaco has released tapDancer for the Android operating system. With this app you can convert .tap files to audio files. After that you can use your phone to play back the files to your 8-bit computer via an interface cable.

The program can convert the following files: TAP, T64, PRG, UEF, CAS (C64/128/VIC20, ACORN/BBC, MSX, ATARI). And best of all the application is free to download from the Google play store

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.kica.tapdancer


1991 Party

HK, Jetset and Desire are organising the 1991 Party in Hague, the Netherlands on Saturday 16 November 2013. This will be an underground reunion of the demo scene from 20 years ago.

The competitions will be music, pixels, Amiga and C64. You can read all the details on the new web page (Dutch language).

http://www.1991party.com/


BitJam Podcast 174 - Jeroen Tel

In this BitJam podcast music from Jeroen Tel. You can listen to the following music:

Dr. Future feat. Aki Jaervinen - Cybernoid, Xenox - Closing In, Eiz - Hawkeye, Awesome-A - Battle Valley Dark Rises, CZ-Tunes - Intro, Amok - Alternative Fuel, Mitch Van Hayden - Rubicon (Elemental Mix), SunSpire - Agony Medley (Level 3 - Loading Sea - Level 2), Xenox - Invest Intro and Eiz - Supremacy. Total playing time: 44:56.

http://www.bitfellas.org/page.php?100


CommVEx V9 2013 Videos and Pics Posted

The Commodore Vegas Expo v9 2013 was a success last weekend! We had a great crowd, a great variety of presentations, and great exhibits. My thanks to all who came to the show and supported us.

The first of the "official" CommVEx videos has been posted. It is "Kent and Kyle Sullivan talk about Imagery for the C64," and you can find it at

https://blip.tv/episode/6624233

More to come in the future.

Thanks to Shane Monroe of Retrogaming Radio, he created a Google Event for CommVEx. In this age of instant news, any CommVEx attendee could immediately upload his/her photos and video to the Event page for all to see. To see the CommVEx Google Event, go to

https://plus.google.com/events/cvg9tgfpkfbhr8e1mgsatthf4ao

Be aware that there are dozens and dozens of photos and short videos on that page, so loading them may take time.

Because of the success of this year's CommVEx, next year's show is assured. The contract has been signed, and the deposit has been given to the Plaza Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Commodore Vegas Expo v10 2014 is set for July 26-27, the tenth anniversary of CommVEx!

You're all invited!

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group

http://videocam.net.au/fcug


Commodore Free Update

These updates just keep on coming and coming and .........

Another CommVEx v9 2013 video has been uploaded. It is "Shiflet talks about C64 demos," and it can be found at

https://blip.tv/episode/6624638

And the hits keep on hitting. This time it's "Lars Nelson updates us on Amiga today." Go to

https://blip.tv/episode/6625099

The Portland Commodore User Group has posted their photos of the show. Go to

http://www.pdxcug.org/commvex/Commodore_Vegas_Expo_CommVEx_v9_2013_Photos.asp

The backlog of Commodore Vegas v9 2013 videos is being whittled down!

Now posted is "Jim Drew and the progress on SuperCard Pro". You can find this episode at

https://blip.tv/episode/6627338

A new video has been posted, too. It's "John Ferrell and floppy disk copying", and it can be found at

https://blip.tv/episode/6627605

and at

http://youtu.be/6xJyvbsdyts

Here's a brief one filmed at CommVEx, "Mike Hill and the progress on video for the Commodore PET." You can find this episode at

https://blip.tv/episode/6628404

and

http://youtu.be/Q_RGbmqMO34


Revival Studios Newsletter: July 2013

New Homebrew Game Releases!

News Posted From Revival Studios press Newsletter

It has been a few months since the last newsletter. That not to say I’ve been sitting still...

Besides the extra work that my daytime job, a new part-time study, preparing for a few modern game-titles and organising a retrogaming fair (www.retroevent.org) I managed to work ahead of schedule on Videopac,ZX81 and Commodore PET as well as laying a bit of groundwork for commodore 16/64 and spectrum development in the future.

Anyways, more about the above later this year. For now let’s look at the news...


[VIDEOPAC / ODYSSEY2] - NEW GAME RELEASE: Mage 2 - The Dark Mirror

One year ago Wizzy started his quest to find his father in Mage: The Enchanted Crystals...

Now his adventure continues in: Mage 2 - The Dark Mirror

Upon combining the crystals at the end of the first game, Wizzy unleashed his father’s spell and opened up a portal to the dark world. Luckily, Wizzy can travel between the two worlds through the use of mirrors. It is up to you to find a way back through the mirrors and merge the two worlds

Release information:
For more information about the game, including:

are available at the game's web page: http://www.revival-studios.com/?page=175

You can order your copy today by replying to this email.


[COMMODORE PET] - NEW GAME RELEASE: Shifted

Shifted is an action puzzle game that requires quick thinking and quick responses.

You have to shift columns up and down to make combinations of gems on the centre row. The higher the combination, the more points you will earn.

How long can you keep shifting?

Game features:

For more information and screens from the game, check out http://cbmpet.revival-studios.com/


[COLECOVISION / SEGA SG-1000] - Astrododge update

Colecovision - All current orders have been shipped, however a few of the preorders have not been accounted for. For anyone interested in the game, there is a batch of games ready to ship. contact me for your copy.

Sega SG-1000 - All orders have been shipped, so there are now only a handful of copies left for this game (it has a limited run of 50 serialised copies). Reply this email if you have not reserved a copy yet and are interested in this game.

MSX/MSX2 - I have a batch of 10 copies ready to be shipped, contact me if you are interested.

For those that haven't preordered/registered their interest yet, now is the time to do so!


[VECTREX] - Small stock of Vectrex games available

Some of you might have noticed I haven't mentioned the Vectrex a lot lately. This is because almost all my Vectra games have been out of stock for a while and I am currently sourcing for new boards and cartridge cases before I can release a new game for the system.

However, there is some good news. During a clean-out of my development room I found a small bag with a few leftover boards for the Vectra. With this I have been able to create a small stock for some of my existing games.

There are now approx. 6-10 of each of the following games available for order:

Vectoblox, V-Hockey, Debris Revisited, Performance VX demo, Colorclash, Shifted

Price per game is: 29 euros + 5 euro S&H

So for those that have been asking about my Vectra games, this is your chance to get a copy!


[TAPE-A-TON] - Combined shipping and discount on all cassette tape orders.

Did you know that if you are buying multiple cassette tape-games you will get a discount as well as combined shipping?

This goes for all tape games for any platform, old and new releases:


[EVENT - Retroevent 2013]

Retro event is a classic gaming event, held in the city of Elst (Gelderland), The Netherlands on October 26th 2013. The fair will host to a wide range of vendors from Holland, Germany and other European countries.

Expect to find great items for all your favourite classic videogame systems like the Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation, Atari,

Colecovision, Intellivision, Commodore, MSX, Sinclair, Neo Geo, various handhelds and more…

However, this event will be much more than just a fair. There will be a museum area and a special section dedicated to homebrew game development, where various homebrew developers, including revival studios, will be showing their stuff and launching new games at the event.

There is also an evening program with lectures, Q&A session with famous commodore game developers and a live performance by 8-bit music legend Jeroen Tel.

Elst is very close to the German border, and the event will have many visitors from different countries in Europe (Germany, Austria, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden) so all international visitors are very welcome!

Please come by and have a chat with myself and the many other visitors, developers and exhibitors at the event!

For more information about the event, visit: http://www.retroevent.org


[TOTAL OVERVIEW OF AVAILABLE GAMES]

For completion, here is an overview of all games that are currently available from revival studios:


[COMING SOON]

Here's a sneak peak of what is coming up.

That's it for now, more news next month!

Kind regards,

Martijn / Revival Studios-


Crazy Cartridge

Frank Buss has begun work on a new hardware project, it’s a cartridge system for retro computers. Allowing you to play cartridge files on relay hardware.

The website says this

The Crazy Cartridge is a system to run programs (for example games, or your own homebrew software) on old video game systems and home computers like the Commodore 64 or the Vectra. Insert the Crazy Cartridge into the retro system, connect it to the USB port of a PC or Mac, then upload your favourite game or your own program and play it on the original hardware. Or save the program on SD-card, to run it on your good old hardware without a connection to a PC or Mac

For more information look here http://www.crazycartridge.org/


C64 News


C64 Point of Sale?

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.600418183336493.1073741827.173240806054235&type=1

I don’t really have any information about this just a link to a Facebook page; where apparently you can see 2 users in “Hilligoss Bakery, Brownsburg, IN” using 2 commodore computers. Now I have no idea if this is genuine as it looks like one machine is displaying some sort of video and isn’t even plugged in, the other system looks plausible, I mean it would be very interesting if these point of sales systems were real and still in use after all this time.


C64 Endings Recieves an Update

The web page c64endings.co.uk has added some more endings of classic Commodore C64 games. The most recent additions to the website are: Chevy Chase (Hi-Tec Software), Karnov (Activision) and Super Gran (Tynesoft).

To read more click on the link

http://www.c64endings.co.uk/


High Voltage SID Collection

HVSC Updates To Number 59

http://www.hvsc.de/

About HVSC

The High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC) is a freeware hobby project which organises Commodore 64 music (also known as SID music) into an archive for both musicians and fans alike. The work on the collection is done completely in the Team and contributors' spare time and is proudly one of the largest and most accurate computer music collections known

There is a brand new update available of the High Voltage SID Collection. This updates now has now more than 43. 856 SIDs in the collection. In this update 747 new SIDs, 315 fixed/better rips, 629 SID credit fixes, 750 SID model/clock infos, 14 tunes identified and 42 tunes moved. You can download the update from the HVSC web page.


COMPUTE's Gazette SID Collection Update

CGSC V1.24

http://www.c64music.co.uk/

The CGSC (Compute's Gazette Sid Collection) has received an update. The COMPUTE!'s SIDplayer was a music system, created by Craig Chamberlain and Harry Bratt, for the Commodore 64. The aim of the Compute's Gazette Sid Collection is to preserve as many of those SIDplayer music files in one location as possible. The current collection contains 12511 MUS, 3707 STR and 4480 WDS files.


Pallino For The C64 Released

http://tnd64.unikat.sk/f_p.html

Pallino is a brand new game for the Commodore C64 made by Roberto Ricioppo.

Pallino

Programming Roberto Ricioppo (Created using Sideways S.E.U.C.K)
Graphics Roberto Ricioppo
Music Roberto Ricioppo
Genre Shoot 'Em Up - SEUCK
Tape Loader Martin Piper, Richard Bayliss

A world of Pool Tables with no holes are being invaded by rogue balls and aliens. Enter one hero to stop them in their way. That is of course, the mean green hero, Pallino. Flob out at those lethal bullets to smash the balls and aliens, but watch out because they like to fight back. Seriously they would :)


Lotek64 Issue 45 Released

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/118322/Lotek64_45.pdf

A new edition of the German PDF magazine Lotek64 is now available. The articles in this edition: Lo*bert, Editorial, News, Videos on the Amiga 500, The Legend of Zelda, Stupid Invaders, LucasArts, Magnetic, Katakis, Commodore Meeting 2013, Ctaegis, Electronic museum in Wien, Chipmusik, SIDologie, Videogame Heroes (11), Interviews: Stefan Meier, René Meyer and James Monkman.

Credits :

Design Lord Lotek of Lotek64 Magazine Staff
Idea Lord Lotek of Lotek64 Magazine Staff
Text Lord Lotek of Lotek64 Magazine Staff, Martinland of Lotek64 Magazine Staff
Concept Lord Lotek of Lotek64 Magazine Staff
Paper Art Martinland of Lotek64 Magazine Staff

Escape from London

http://cbm64novo.co.uk/?page_id=249

Escape from London is a new text adventure for the Commodore 64 made by CBM64novo. In the game you are in the city of London. After 4 or 5 explosions the electrical power fails and there are many wounded. You need to find your family, and escape from London. The game is available as a cassette, diskette or as a deluxe version with a cassette, diskette and a CD.

The Website Says

Escape from London - Text adventure for the Commodore 64.

You are John, working in London, away from your family. Its holiday time and your wife, son and daughter are joining you in the capital for a few days sightseeing. You are on the tube, heading to Euston Station to meet them from the train. The power suddenly turns off and the tube stops in Russell Square Station, nothing to shock you as you are a regular user, but this is different, the station power as gone also. Some lights flicker on the platform. After 5 minutes with no communication from the driver you and fellow passengers start to look around and get worried, after 10 minutes in the dark and the driver being on the platform passengers start to open the doors manually.

A lone figure comes running on to the platform, they are out of breathe, they have just come into the station using the stairs, a 170+ step spiral staircase, they tell you the shocking news:

“London’s lost all power, everywhere, I heard 4 or 5 explosions and then noticed that people down the bottom of the road were falling down. I just ran into the station, but with no power, the lifts are not working and I used the stairs…”

You have to think fast.. Find your family.. Escape from London.........


Schlimeisch Mania

Schlimeisch Mania is a new game written for the Commodore C64. The game was recently released at the Schlimeisch 2013 that met in Fryšták in the Czech Republic. The game has been programmed and developed by Ray, and Factor6 with PCH making the music, graphics and the character set. The game can be played by up to eight people at the same time with the help of the 8 port joystick adapter called the Inception.

The game can be downloaded from here http://www.unreal64.net/downloads/c64/schlimeisch_mania.prg

Here is a picture of the 8 port adaptor and its specifications

http://www.c64.cz/inception/

INCEPTION technical information

8 joystick for commodore 64

Specification

Price 48 EUR, 60 USD


SID Jam

SID JAM is a "Battle of the Bands" style Commodore 64 music player. The player permits the listener to hear two randomly chosen SID's (music files) and then decide which tune is the winner. The current High Voltage Sid Collection has 43116 song so it may take some time to find an overall winner.

http://www.sidjam.com/


GameBase 64 Reorganizer SD

Commodore Free (I received this Email message)

Hi Nigel

I don't know if this is something you'd want to write up or not, but GameBase 64 Reorganizer 3 is out: http://www.obliterator918.com/gamebase-64-reorganizer-sd/

This is useful to anyone with a 1541 Ultimate or one of the sd2iec devices (such as the uIEC/SD).

-Obliterator918

Commodore Free Comment I then went to look at the website and although I haven’t actually used the software, I did copy the information here for you to read!

Obliterator918 says on his website

http://www.obliterator918.com/gamebase-64-reorganizer-sd/

Do you have a 1541 Ultimate or a SD2IEC, uIEC/SD, etc.? Want to extract your GameBase 64 collection to an SD card, with an optimized folder structure and file names, quick and easy? GameBase 64 Reorganizer SD is what you need.

Latest version: 3.0.1.1

Download: http://www.obliterator918.com/downloads/GB64ReorganizerSD.zip

For Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8.

GB 64 Reorganizer began as a little utility to extract a Gamebase game archive collection into a folder structure ideal for the 1541 Ultimate. Over time, additional features such as filter support, HVSC SID file inclusion, and support for sd2iec devices has been added. The original title was “GameBase 64 Reorganizer for the 1541 Ultimate,” and this has been changed in version 3 to “GameBase 64 Reorganizer SD.”

In the end, the goal of Reorganizer is to create a folder and file structure ideal for your Commodore 64 mass storage device, whether it be a 1541 Ultimate or one of the many sd2iec devices available, with all (or as many as you have not filtered) of the titles from GameBase 64.

To use this utility, you must have a Gamebase “games” folder with zip files containing the disk/tape images and VERSION.NFO files. This utility requires the VERSION.NFO files within each zip file to create the output directory structure. You do not need to have a complete GB installation or even have the actual GB database itself. This utility only works with the zip files containing the disk/tape images.

Additionally, if you have the High Voltage SID Collection, the SID files for games with SID: entries in the NFO files can also be copied to the output folders for each game.

Finally, if you are using the GameBase64 Front End you can export filters if you want Reorganizer to only include a subset of the games.

Key Features

Note for 1541U-I users: as of this writing, the current official firmware for the older 1541U units (before the Ultimate-II) doesn’t support file viewing. I have made a non-official build of the firmware that does support file viewing as well as SID playback. You can find that here. http://www.obliterator918.com/1541-ultimate-firmware/


Games That Weren't 64 Update

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/

The GTW web page has had a number of updates. The following items have been added Castle Boy, Lemonoids, Shuttle, Starburst, Stratagos, Terravasion and Zuid. Update: Ball, Cosmic Shock Absorber, Cyber Attack, Kid Saviour, Last Ninja V1, Mole Squash, Ski Run, Solaris, Spix, The War of the Dragon and a unknown Educational game.


War Under Sea

Roberto Ricioppo has released a new game for the Commodore C64 using the SEUCK. (shoot 'em up construction kit the game features you as the captain of a warship your mission is to clear the sea from all mutant sea creatures and other enemies.

http://tnd64.unikat.sk/


SEUCK 2013 Competition Results

These are Richards comments about the game and results, you can download all the games and read more about the competition here http://tnd64.unikat.sk/

Richard said

After the final voting phase. We have the final results for which game that has won the competition. The prize for the winner will be prepared and ready by the end of May 2013. The 3 runners up will get a new front end with music added to their game, with no further enhancements. Once all 3 games are ready they will be available to download from this page. The games with the lowest score represents a higher rank. As each game was voted by each user as 1 (1st place) to 11 (11th place).

RANK NAME OF GAME AUTHOR SCORE
1. SHEER EARTH ATTACK GAETANO CHIUMMO 45
2. DODO'S DEEP DOO-DOO (80%) CARL MASON 48
3. REALMS OF MIDGARD ANTHONY BURNS 51
4. ZOMBIE BRAIN EATERS ANDY VAISEY 63
5. SYNERGY ALAN SIMEK 69
6. SPY RIDER ALF YNGVE 74
7. AUFWAERTS (GOING UPWARDS) SONNY TOP (BAMSE) 75
8. AMAZON GOLD INDY JR/FANCA 79
9. DANTE'S DEPT STORE RUBBERLAND STUDIOS 89
10. GOLD QUEST 5 DEMO INFERIOR 92
11. DARKNESS WITHIN PIEVSPIE 109

Congratulations go to Gaetano Chiummo, who has won the SEUCK compo second time running. Also to runners up Carl Mason and Anthony Burns. Commiserations to those of you who didn't quite make it to the top 3 but a huge thank you for your entries. You all are winners. :)


We also asked questions about the SEUCK compo. What did the gamers think of this year's compo. Would they want another compo? Here is what the voters had to say.

I liked the idea of including both SEUCK-versions in one compo. hold on to this! Are some games pre modified (player shoot not moving..?), because that's already ´enhanced´ for me. don´t like that, it´s unfair! - Stefan P

A lots of good games this year! It would have been better if only the basic SEUCK program would have been allowed (no music - no separate intro or end sequence - no pokes). I'm looking forward to next year competition! - Roberta

I didn't like the fact that also demos were allowed, and that creators could add some external code (and sequences) to the games. I hope next compo will be more "SEUCK-based" and that it features full games only. - Aldo Chiummo

Yes, please make another competition. You could suggest a number of topics and people vote for one. Then the games must match that topic (e. g. Christmas related, sheep, space etc.) :) - Christian Siege

Looking forward to next edition!! - Roberto

liked Zombie Brain Eaters, Spy Rider and Synergy the best (in that order). Thanks for everything you do for the C64 community :) - Dink

Great competition and some very original entries, hope there are more events in the future! - Merman

Great competition! thanks, Great music and good games also.- Juan


C16 News


JiffyDOS C16/C116/Plus KERNAL ROM Overlay Image Available

JiffyDOS is a Disk Operating System (DOS) enhancement which gives your VIC-20, C-64, C16, C116, +4, or C-128 the disk access speed it has always needed. A chip-for-chip replacement for the Kernal ROM in your computer and the DOS ROM in your disk drive(s), JiffyDOS achieves amazing levels of performance and compatibility. You need the upgrade in your computer and disk drive to experience the speed boost. You can purchase these files legally from the store in this link, as they are all licensed from the owners.

Price: $8.00

http://store.go4retro.com/jiffydos-c16-c116-plus-kernal-rom-overlay-image/


Adventures In Time 2 Preview

Information from (Sixteen Plus)

Some exciting news. a downloadable and playable quick demo of the long anticipated Adventures in Time 2 Preview for the Plus4 (C16/C116) is available, this demo was released at the Arok 2013 http://arok.intro.hu/ party in Hungary on Sat July 6th, 2013.

You can also download it on plus4world by following http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Adventures_In_Time_2_Preview

The demo so far is a multi-screen adventure. In this preview you will receive infinite lives. Use the arrow keys to move and jump around, You can also turn in mid-air. There are some items to collect but once they are all collected there doesn't seem much more to do remember this is only a demo.

The graphics and sounds are great the fire button doesn’t seem to do anything but I am told this might change when the game is released. I am really looking forward to the final version and expect lots more features to be added.


Botticelli Bilderdisk 38

Erich has recently released a new Botticelli Bilderdisk for the Commodore C16 Plus/4 range of computers. This double-sided diskette release contains pictures in Botticelli format and uses the Magica viewer to display the pictures. The images on the disks are a mix of handmade and digitized pictures.

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Botticelli_Bilderdisk_38


Amiga News


New Articles on Obligement Website

The following articles have been added to the website of the French Amiga/MorphOS magazine Obligement (http://obligement.free.fr) during the last two months :

May/June 2013 news.


AEROS for Pi Beta 3 Available For Registered Users

News from Phoenixkonsole

Yesterday I finished beta 3 of AEROS for Pi (a AROS hosted distribution based on Debain (for now)). Upload for registered users is slowly progressing - will be ready in 2,5 hours (it is 21:23 in Germany)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfgJcJcV7HY

New in the beta 3 are:

Remember you can access everything mentioned above(and more) alternatively with a right click on the black task bar.

I found some applications to be very responsive and some which start instantly, even on a relative slow SD-card. If you know alternatives to some apps feel free to tell me those ; )

All in all AEROS for Pi (even if based on Debian) is already quite lightweight.

Debian + AROS consume in total 68MB of RAM whereas 32MB of it are "reserved for AROS" which again shows 28MB free of 32MB which means in total AEROS need 40MB RAM ; ) Not bad. WICD Network mangaer consumes 11MB of RAM and will be replaced with an better alternative.

Slitax is a good alternative to Debian. The whole Linux part could be loaded into 30MB of RAM. This means everything being loaded to RAM and so no SD-banging.

To make it a bit user-friendly you can now access raspi-config via icon.

With this tool you can expand the partition to the whole free space on your SD-card and configure overscan and other Pi related things.

Linux windows have now the close icon on the left side as AROS apps.

www.aeros-os.org

A new public version will follow next weekend.


Hollywood 5.3 Released & Soon Available Again For Purchase

Airsoft Softwair is happy to announce the immediate availability of Hollywood 5.3. Version 5.3 is a major update which includes several new features as well as important bug fixes. Most new functionality is introduced in the Android version which comes with a fully native Java-based GUI now, supports many new commands from the desktop versions and has hardware-accelerated scaling now. But also the desktop versions of Hollywood have improved with release 5.3.

Here is a brief overview of new features in 5.3:

A complete list of changes can be found in the history section of the documentation.

Hollywood 5.3 is a joint release of Hollywood for both desktop and mobile platforms. Users of the Android version can conveniently update to 5.3 via Google Play https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airsoftsoftwair.hollywood while users of the Amiga and Windows versions can download update archives (35 to 50 MB in size) free of charge from the official Hollywood portal. http://www.hollywood-mal.com/

Please note that Hollywood 5.3 is currently only available for existing customers and cannot be purchased at this time but here is some good news for all people planning to buy Hollywood: Both Hollywood and Hollywood Designer will soon be available for purchase from Airsoft Softwair again.


Writers’ Group Film Corp Announce they have Acquired Amiga Games

LA firm announce that they are to buy Amiga Games and bring slew of classic titles to consoles, phones and tablets

Writers’ Group Film Corp., is a small and little-known LA, California-based entertainment production company, who have announced that it has signed a binding term sheet to acquire Amiga Games.

The latter company licenses classic video game libraries and re-publishes the most popular titles for smartphones, modern game consoles, PCs and tablets.

Leveraging the IP of Amiga Inc., Amiga Games says it builds on the familiar brand and technology (and if you’re not familiar with it, educate yourself on the Commodore PC family now) to create new revenue from publishers’ dormant game libraries.

Amiga Games (the company) gives classic Amiga games – of which there are literally tons – and other old-school titles new life on the gaming platforms of today across big, medium and small screens.

Unfortunately, the names of the games were not revealed, though Amiga Games is said to be able to distribute 300+ gaming titles under existing licensing agreements with a variety of intellectual property owners.

The transaction consists of the acquisition of 100 percent of the common stock in Amiga Games Inc. in exchange for Writers’ Group common stock and cash valued at approximately $500,000.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/07/08/la-firm-to-buy-amiga-games-and-bring-slew-of-classic-titles-to-consoles-phones-and-tablets/?fromcat=insider


Hyperion Entertainment Blog

New AmigaOS Core Developers

Frank Menzel

We are pleased to announce that we have joined the AmigaOS development team. We hope that we are able to contribute some good things to AmigaOS using our skills in coding (Frank) and graphics (Thomas).

The follow is a short description of us and our products.


EntwicklerX:

We are currently working full time, self-employed, developing our games on multiple platforms (AmigaOS, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Xbox Indies) as EntwicklerX. For about 10 years we have worked together on various software projects in our spare time. The focus in the last 5-6 years was to earn some money with the small bonus that it has allowed both of us to live from it (not enough for a Ferrari but enough to have fun at work). A strict separation between design and programming logic helped us build our products in an effective way with our limited time. While Frank takes care of programming, Thomas builds the graphics. Our subsystem is so sophisticated that Thomas can create and test Layouts without the help of Frank and Frank can use this directly in his code. This saves a lot of time and nerves. Before this, Frank had to compile every time if Thomas wanted to move a graphic a few pixels.

Our Amiga platform AmiBoing is used to bring an online connection to our games for high scores and achievements and it is also used for distributing our games. With more than 200 Users we can say this is the leading online gaming community on the Amiga platform.


Thomas:

I care about what the user sees, how users interact with a game, paint graphics, create the levels and take care of our website. I have invested a lot of time into understanding how to create themes for AmigaOS and am still learning. The seamless design of an operating system is very important to me and I hope to play a part in this within AmigaOS.


Frank:

I try to bring Thomas’ graphics to life and love to get the maximum out of AmigaOS using any available techniques to optimize (e.g. compositing). In our projects, I take care of all the programming. Together with Thomas, I am working on the game play and new game ideas. I can do my part in helping the Amiga in all areas of coding and to help current developers.


We are a Team:

Even with the split of responsibilities we will usually work as a team because ideas and their implementation always occur together. We look forward to working with the existing developers and also contributing to any interesting discussions. We will do our best but please note that we are only human and have a finite amount of time to work on everything. Give us time to understand how things work within the developer team.

Best regards and let us say thank you for adding us to the list of AmigaOS core developers,

Thomas “Imagodespira” Claus and Frank “Goos McGuile” Menzel.

Some Links:


OS4 OpenLinux

http://www.os4online.com/

OS4 OpenLinux is a new web page that wants to combine the Amiga OS and Linux. The web page made a special Linux distribution based on Ubuntu and Debian for the Amiga user. OS4 OpenLinux can be downloaded or purchased on USB. The web page will also work together with hardware partners to bring new Amiga / PC hardware.


BoingsWorld Issue 41 Released

A new episode of BoingsWorld's (German language) is now available. You can listen to the following articles: More A1200 Packages available, AresOne 2k13, Amiga 550, Amy the Dream, A604n, Indivison AGA Mk2, IComp 100 MBit, FlashKick 1200, Amiga-/Atari ST: MiST, MorphOS 3.2, ApolloFix, AmigaOS 4: WLAN Driver, AmigaOS 4 Netbook, Geit@Home #2 2013 and MorphOS W-LAN.

http://boingsworld.de/


Amiga Future Issue 103 Released

A new edition of the English and German Amiga (paper) magazine Amiga Future has been released. In this edition: Editorial, News, Previews: Alien Breed 3D, Odamex, Reviews: Thylacine Clone, Giga-Lo-Mania, The Incredible Adventures Of Moebius Goatlizard, International Karate, FreeSynd, Nicky Booom, Nicky 2, Amiten Software Compilation, D1X-Rebirth, Netsurf 3, Cinnamon, Jack, Amiga Forever 2013, Amiga Forever Essentials, C64 Forever 2013, Icaros Desktop, MorphOS 3.2, Audio-CD PaulaAgnusDenise. Special: Klassische Besinnungen (10) Mick Tinker/Index Information/Access Innovation, Sonstiges: Interview Cloanto, AmigaOS 4 Entwicklertreffen, Programming with AmigaOS4 (1), GUI-Programs with PortablE.

http://www.amigafuture.de/viewtopic.php?t=33866


Amiga Forum Issue 5 Released

http://suga.se/amigaforum/index.html

Amiga Forum is a Swedish (printed) magazine for Amiga users. In this edition of the magazine we have : News: SAPPHIRE, MorphOS Nordic, SUGA and Amiga Forum. Articles: Envoy - Network Support for the classic Amiga, BBS for beginners, browser test AmigaOS 4, Fastest Amiga with G5 and MorphOS. SUGA meeting and Retro Gaming.


Sirena Player V2.20

Sirena Player is a music player for AmigaOS and MorphOS. The program can play the following music files mp3, wav and mod files .

Changes in this version:

For more information check out the website here http://www.morguesoft.eu/


KaPooka - AmigaOS

KaPooka is a logic or if you prefer puzzle game for AmigaOS (SDL). In the game you must try to move the red balls to the exit. You have to push the green balls out of the way to make a way through to the exit. However you can only push a ball when there is an empty space behind it. the game can be played via the keyboard, mouse or joystick.

You can download the game from here http://www1.datafilehost.com/d/2b671c3d


AmigaAmp 3.10

Download via AmiUpdate or from http://www.amigaamp.de/

Features

Amiga OS4 native

AmigaAMP 3 is completely AmigaOS4 native giving you the performance you'd expect from a fast PowerPC system. In addition to MPEG audio and AIFF/WAVE support it can play FLAC as well. OGG support is in the works. AHI compatible.

PowerUP and WarpUP Compatible

As well as the 68k decoder AmigaAMP 2 comes with two PPC native decoding engines one for PowerUP and one for WarpUP. Both engines feature high quality real-time decoding of Layer2 and Layer3 streams, graphic equalizer settings and full visualisation.

On a PPC604e-200 you can play two 128kbps Layer3 streams with equalizer switched on and crossfade between the two without taking much CPU load! The real-time analysers will continue to run smoothly without any latency problems at all.

Light my Fire

WarpUP compatible AHI Compatible

AmigaAMP uses the widespread AHI Audio System at device access level. You can use it with any AHI compatible soundcard as well as with the original Amiga audio chipset. AHI compatible

Current Features (v3.10)


Multimillionaire DJ Calvin Harris Started His Music Career With The Amiga

Apparently the DJ “Calvin Harris” started his music career on the supremely elegant Amiga computer.

Its reported the 29-year-old had made £30million this year alone and made him one of the richest celebrities under 30 in the world,

Read the rest of the story linked below:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/music/5036456/story-of-dj-calvin-harris-rise-to-fame-and-fortune.html#ixzz2aSwUT9R8

You can should you so with Purchase Calvin Harris albums on iTunes or Amazon, apparently the remixes sound Amiga like in form

https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/calvin-harris/id201955086

http://www.amazon.com/Calvin-Harris/e/B00197I6EK


Ami Jackpot V1.11

The rather addictive slot machines or one arm bandit that adorns modern casinos and bingo halls is now available for the Amiga computer system, although many version sexist this one has been programmed with Hollywood. At least you won’t lose any real money (unlike the casinos version)

Improvements from this new version:

Available to download to AmigaOS4 in: www.morguesoft.info


Interview with A-Eon's Trevor Dickinson

The magazine Obligement has recently published an interview with Trevor Dickinson, Director of A-EON Technology.

In the interview Trevor speaks about the A-EON company, the assessment of the whole AmigaOne X1000 adventure and new projects like Cyrus, AmigaOS 4 netbook, LibreOffice amongst other Amiga related items.

Link : http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwdickinson2_en.php


FFmpeg v2.0 and FFmpegGUI v3.1 Released

A new release of FFmpeg v2.0 for the AmigaOS4 has been uploaded to OS4Depot. http://www.os4depot.net/ Featuring several new filters and includes an AltiVec enabled version.

Also FFmpegGUI v3.1 has been released to support FFmpeg v2.0. It supports additional codecs/formats, has enhanced padding and cropping, and includes expanded setup files to take advantage of FFmpeg’s filter capability.

Read more to see a more complete list of enhancement and changes.

FFmpeg v2.0 changes:

Support for FTP URLs, Opus audio, WebP images, and an enormous range of new video and audio filters, including 3D side-by-side to anaglyph, audio equalizer and more. The full list can be seen in the Changelog file included with the program.

FFmpegGUI v3.1 changes:


Bounty to Port DTP Software Scribus to AmigaOS 4

An on-going issue with the mass acceptance of AmigaOS 4 is the lack of high end modern professional software applications. The Amiga's software library is impressively large but most of the applications have not been updated or modernized. Some end users have paid for updates to software that have never come or have incomplete versions. A wealth of software exists in the open source world that uses the Qt framework. Qt is a cross-platform complete development framework with tools designed to streamline the creation of stunning native applications and amazing user interfaces for desktop, embedded and mobile platforms. Industry-Leading Application Development with One Framework Qt's cross-platform full framework and tools enables developers to target various desktop, embedded, mobile and real-time operating systems with one code base. Qt brings freedom to the developer saving development time, adding efficiency and ultimately shortening time to market.

One such powerful software package that uses the Qt Framework is Scribus. DiscreetFX has setup a bounty to get Scribus ported to AmigaOS 4.

http://discreetfx.com/Scribus.html

This modern powerful and easy to use Desktop Publishing software will help fill a needed gap in AmigaOS 4 software suite. DiscreetFX has placed $1000 in the bounty to get it started and will add $100 per month for the next 12 months to keep development interest going. This is a pay for performance bounty meaning bounty payouts can be given before bounty is complete in four instalments. If you can prove you have completed 25% of the work then 25% of the bounty will be paid to you. Completed 50% of the work get 50% of the bounty and so on. After 12 months if no coder has contributed code to the Scribus Bounty it will self-destruct.

We are impressed with Qt and invision it bringing many modern powerful productivity titles to AmigaOS 4. Scribus can be one of the first but certainly not the last. This bounty is also available to MorphOS coders but more work would be required since MorphOS does not have a port of the QT framework.

Qt Framework for AmigaOS 4: http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtamigaosnative/

Qt applications already ported to AmigaOS 4: http://os4depot.net/index.php?function=search&tool=simple

Qt Product Information: http://qt.digia.com/Product/

Scribus Product Information: http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus


Classic Amiga Games Coming to Android via Google Play

http://www.polygon.com/2013/7/23/4548626/classic-amiga-games-coming-to-android-via-google-play

Amiga Games, Inc. will publish its classic games for Android devices beginning this holiday, the parent company “Writers' Group Film Corp” announced today.

Amiga Games, which has released ports of many 16-bit Amiga computer titles to modern consoles and mobile devices, has been approved by Google to launch its games through the Google Play online marketplace.

"Android is the fastest growing platform on the planet and we're excited to be in Google's marketplace," said CEO of Writers' Group Film Corp Eric Mitchell. "These developments will further strengthen our competitive advantage in the gaming marketplace. AGI's classic titles focus on delivering a quality retro-gaming experience for the consumer, so I am very optimistic about our new distribution arrangements."


Hyperion Entertainment Blog

This is a copy of the Development News posted on the Hyperion website

HDAudio driver is complete!

Posted by Lyle Hazelwood on July 15, 2013

I am happy to announce the release of the finished HDAudio driver for the AmigaOne X1000!

The driver now supports recording as well as playback. It also now supports S/PDIF optical output.

There have been questions about whether full “32 bit” audio really makes a difference. I’d like to dig a little deeper to better understand the technical specifications.

There are two primary factors that contribute to the quality of a digital sound recording. One is resolution, or how many bits per sample, and the other is sample rate, commonly 44100 or 48000 samples per second.

As you look at the waveform of a sound recording, these two numbers determine the vertical and horizontal resolution of the wave.

I’ll begin with the “bit width” or vertical resolution.

The original Amiga’s sound output supported four channels at eight bits of resolution. Eight bits means there are two hundred and fifty six possible vertical “steps” that can be used as the wave is generated. Now we spread those steps across a -2 volt to +2 volt span and we get 0.015625 volts per step.

At the time of the Amiga’s introduction, that was a pretty fair sound playback. But only 256 steps is not as “high fidelity” as we might like. As a comparison, Compact Disk Audio is reproduced at 16 bits per sample. This makes for a big improvement in resolution. 16 bits offers us 65536 possible “steps” to spread across the -2 volt to +2 volt range. Now the step size is 0.0000610351562 volts per “step” of vertical resolution. So 16 bit audio is a HUGE increase in accuracy.

Getting back to our driver, AHIPrefs offers both 16 Bit HiFi and 32 bit HiFi modes. But I’ll bet that neither of those modes gives exactly what you might expect. As AHI mixes lots of different sounds together, possibly each sound with its own volume and pan settings, it can be useful to have more resolution available to work with. Here’s the clue: ALL AHI modes that say “HiFi” are sending 32 bit data out to the sound device! The “16? and “32? only describe what goes IN to the AHI mix routines. if it says HiFi, you WILL get 32 bit output to your card!

Or will you? In truth, while AHI is making its calculations using 32 bit registers and 32 bit math, it only promises 24 bits of accuracy. Is this anything to be concerned about? Not at all. I’ll tell you why. 24 bit samples will resolve to a “step size” of 0.0000002384185 volts per step. Wow! That is about one quarter of a microvolt. Those with an electronics background can probably tell you, that attempts to accurately work at those levels are just ridiculous. We have reached an accuracy that is beyond the ability of our amplifiers and speakers to reproduce. Put simply, 24 bits is the reasonable limit of current technology, or at least affordable technology.

So our 32 bit samples are flying out of AHI and in to the HDAudio codec. While the ”container” is 32 bits wide, even the “high definition audio codec” that we have in the AmigaOne X1000 only resolves the top 24 bits. So it seems that in the end, both AHI and HDaudio agree that 24 bits is the reasonable limit for now.

And how about sample rate or the “horizontal” resolution?

How rapidly a sound is sampled and played back can also have a BIG impact on sound quality. It all starts with the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem or more commonly the Nyquist theorem. It’s pretty simple. As you record an audio signal, you must sample at at least twice the frequency of the highest pitch being recorded. Any sound that is higher than half the sampling frequency will be converted to noise and nasty noise at that.

So how high do we need? It is generally held that human hearing range is from 20 Hz (cycles per second) up to 20000 Hz. So any frequency above 40000 should be great right? Well Yes and No.

One simple problem is that we still must filter out all sound above half the sample frequency, and most frequency dependent volume controls (graphic equalizers) work with gradual slopes. There is no “hard cutoff” at a certain frequency, so we need a bit of headroom.

But there is another reason. As a high frequency sound approaches the Nyquist rate, we are only sampling about once per half-cycle. While this will reproduce the frequency of the original, it will do it at a bare minimum of accuracy. In other words, as frequencies get higher, they get less detail.

So what does it really matter?

Audio CDs play back at 44100 Hz. Not bad at all.

Television/DVD audio is usually at 48000 Hz. Nice.

With the HDAudio chip in the X1000 we support both of those frequencies.

We also support 88200, 96000, 176400, and 192000.

So we can double or quadruple the sample rates of common media!

At first, I really thought it was all a numbers game, but when developing the driver, I can actually hear the noise decrease noticeably as the playback rates went up!

And that is where I’ll leave off. This was enough of a lesson for one day. I am very happy that I could contribute to the completion of this driver. And the chance to “raise the bar” regarding sound capability was really very nice icing on the cake.

Like many of us, I have been using Amigas for a long time. Today, right here in front of me is an Amiga that supports high definition audio, a modern high performance video card. It uses standard, off the shelf keyboard, mouse, monitor and many USB accessories as well. Most of these we unheard of in the classic days. But with all the new and shiny, it is still AmigaOS to the core.


AmigaRemix

AmigaRemix web page lets you listen to your favourite Amiga music remixes. However during the last few weeks the website has added the following Amiga music mixes :

Pushover (Main Titlescreen Loop), Stardust Memories Dancemix, Elysium, De Die Hards, Golden Axe (Remix), Sidepanther (Childhood memories remix), Doodlebug Remix 2010 v3.0 and Cannon Fodder.

To hear more head to the following URL http://www.amigaremix.com/


YAM 2.8P1 Released

YAM (Yet Another Mailer) is an email client for the AmigaOS. Recent Changes in this version include : Updated translations: Czech, Greek, Swedish, French, Spanish, Italian and Turkish. Improvements: BetterString.mcc, ADDRLOAD, Drafts folder management and many other small errors are removed. New: WRITEIDENTITY ARexx command.

http://yam.ch/


TOD

TOD simulates a game of Tetris experienced under the influence of drugs. The game can be played with the joystick or the keyboard. The game will start as a normal Tetris game, but as time goes by you start to lose track of what's happening on the screen. If you play with two players you can send your opponent garbage or a dose of hallucinogens.

The game can be downloaded from here

http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=game/puzzle/tod.lha

Here is part of the game description

TOD(TM) simulates a game of TETRIS(R) experienced under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. Officially, TOD stands for Tetanus On Drugs, but it also is German for "death."

Errrm like Far out MAN!


AmigaOne X1000 First Contact Latest Batch

Amiga Kit said

“We are pleased to confirm that the third consumer batch of AmigaOne X1000 "First Contact" has started to arrive with us this week from Varisys.

We ask all remaining outstanding customers who have registered interest with us to Checkout here in order to not miss out. Thank you for your patience whilst the new batch was being manufactured and quality tested.

Important: Some customer email addresses have since expired or bounced back when we have tried to contact, please make contact with us if you have not received an email. We will try emailing twice before removing you from the list.

There will be some new driver updates installed on the latest systems as software development has been on-going in the meantime.”

www.amigakit.com/x1000


aMiGa=PoWeR Issue 51 Released

Issue 51 of aMiGa=PoWeR is available.

Articles : Interview with David Pleasance...

Reviews : Ask Me Up, Frogatto, AOrganiser, Gribouillis, HxC, USB-DB9 Retronic Design Adaptor...

Tutorials : HTML coding, Installation of WB3.1 on a Minimig...

and many other articles, all in full colour !

aMiGa=PoWeR is a French newspaper issued by AFLE (French association). Created in 1998, aMiGa=PoWeR became thanks to the experience of AFLE (created in 1994), the 1st French-speaking Amiga newspaper. Entirely laser printed, aMiGa=PoWeR is distributed around the world

http://amigapower.free.fr/ap51.html


Lenard Roach: Bringing Fiction Back to the Commodore

http://lenardroach.com/Home.php

Computers, both now and then, are usually written about either in the ways of programming the machine or about the history of the machine either of the model or the company that manufactured, or produced, hardware or software. Very few, if any, fictional articles or stories are written starring the computer, not like it was in the beginning when computers were starting to make the rounds in homes around the world. Mostly nowadays it's just information only.

One middle aged man from the Midwest wishes to reverse the tide again and once more bring computers, and the Commodore in particular, back into the fictional field. His name is Lenard Roach.

Lenard, a stand-up comedian from the late 70s to early 80s, started writing fiction on his Commodore back in 1989 using the techniques learned from screen writing expert Syd Field. Since then, Lenard has gone on to writing stories, skits, and plays on a regular basis, but his greatest aspiration has been to use his Commodore computer, which sits quaintly in his Kansas City home.

Lenard's interest in making the Commodore the forefront of fiction again came with the surprising success of his 1996 short story, "Raiders at Midnight," which was about two cats raiding the desktop where a Commodore resided and tearing up the stand in the process of exploring the machine. Lenard wrote the story in an espionage style format which intrigued many readers of the "Ryte Bytes" Commodore newsletter, the monthly publication of the now defunct Commodore Users Group of Kansas City. This sparked the story to be reprinted in several Commodore newsletters throughout the United States over the course of the next several months.

The surprising success of this story sparked the interest of Lenard in such a way that he proceeded, back then, to write a tongue in cheek, left handed story simply based on the on/off switch found on every computer device in the detention centre where he worked as a custodian. This story, entitled "Advertisement For OFF," was posted on the bulletin board of Lenard's job and was quickly circulated throughout several complexes in the local government, sparking a few chuckles and a couple of "attaboys" from appreciative readers; some readers took his article seriously and began shutting off the monitors on the computers to save the government money in electrical fees.

Lenard has watched as computers like the Commodore slowly became less of a fictional interest and more of a "what can it do for me" mentality basis by users. Computers today do to not work with their users anymore but they do more of telling the user what to do and what not to do. Commodore showed the greatest possibility of a strong man/machine relationship than any of the computers of any era. To access a computer's DOS is no longer done by the at-home, run-of-the-mill user, but is left more to be done by the IT engineers who basically have sucked the soul out of the computer just to turn a profit. This was not done maliciously or even intentionally; it was just the way computing went as it crossed into the threshold of the 21st century.

So why, with over a decade past the 2000 year mark, does one think that drama can once again be put into the soul of the Commodore, a machine that supposedly lost its first place in the world over twenty years ago? Lenard thinks that out of all the computers in existence, both present and future, Commodore still possesses a soul; a soul of chips and resistors, yes, but a soul nonetheless. Lenard hopes to reach a new generation of users and readers of all the hope and glory that made computing the commodity that it is today. It seems that the drama and fun is in the finished product; let's put the drama back into the use of the machine.

With all this talk of bringing fiction back to the Commodore, are there any ideas brewing in the head of this fifty year old comedian? The answer to that question can be found in two treasure troves: One is the already published Commodore works of Lenard Roach, and the second can be found only in a paradigm format on the Commodore desktop of the old man. However, with some grace, Lenard was willing to share with readers of Commodore Free what is going on so far.

“Run/Stop-Restore” – Lenard’s first ever book, solely printed and published on a Commodore machine, contains a combination of stories, data, and software reviews that were found in the pages of both “Ryte Bytes” and “The Secret Organization of Commodore Users” newsletters over the span of five years from 1995 to 2000. Here you get to taste what Lenard was trying to reach; the Commodore market with more than just history and data. “Run/Stop-Restore” is a potpourri of Commodore fun and information for readers of all ages. This book only resides in the hands of very few people in its original form, but thanks to computer advances, a .PDF copy of this manuscript exists now on Lenard’s website (lenardroach.com) and through Tim’s Tech Shop of Missouri. If you want to see what publishing on a Commodore would look like, then please plan on purchasing the .PDF copy of the book.

“Run/Stop-Restore: 10th Anniversary Edition”

Why a re-release of the first copy? Well, for starters, this is not an exact replica of “Run/Stop-Restore,” but an updated version with stories added as well as stories taken out. According to Lenard, only 60% of the first book resides in the second edition, which makes “Run/Stop-Restore: 10th Anniversary Edition” its own separate animal; more of a “son of “ than a 100% reprint. This book is much more accessible to the general public with dealers being amazon.com, authorhourse.com, lenardroach.com, and your favourite book dealer. “Run/Stop-Restore: 10th Anniversary Edition” should also be available on e-book at your local online dealer.

“A Post Holiday Commodore Mystery” – This story only saw partial daylight in the pages of “The Secret Organization of Commodore Users” newsletter as it was being published in sections by Lenard as each part was completed. In this little tale, it is late February and Santa Claus comes knocking on the door of the apartment where Captain L resides. His reindeer have been stolen and the jolly representation of the holidays is looking for help from the Commodore using Captain. A quick search on Q-Link shows that the reindeer are up for slaughter to the highest bidder, so it is a race against time to find the missing animals and bring them back to the North Pole before they end up deer jerky in someone’s refrigerator. Lenard adds twists and turns to the story as it unfolds and he has to keep track of all the data on his trusty portable Commodore SX-64. Will the Captain find the reindeer in time? The only way to find out is to get busy and knock on Lenard’s website and tell him to get cracking and get back onto the GeoWrite and finish it! Kids will love the references to Santa and adults will love the mystery and intrigue that unfolds as the story progresses. This story was a favourite during the short history of “The Secret Organization of Commodore Users” existence.

“Untitled”

This work, still in paradigm format, follows the adventure of Steve Vector, all around globe trotter and fun seeker, but he also has a secret mission – to smuggle Bibles and other literature into lands unfriendly to the gospel. On a stopover in mainland China, Vector is caught by the police and challenged that he is bringing propaganda into the country to subvert the government. The only thing Steve possesses is five, blue collared 3.5” Commodore DSDD disks. Can Steve recover the disks and get them into the hands of the Chinese underground church before the police can access the data, which would incriminate Steve and make him a permanent prisoner of China? This is a must read when finished, so follow Lenard’s website for developments on this and other things he is working on, both Commodore and non-Commodore.

As just shown here in the few above paragraphs, there is still hope and life left in getting more material starring the Commodore computer out to the public; what can you do to bring Commodore fun back to the forefront?



Interview with Commodore Free Editor

By Commodore Free Readers and Nigel Parker

Nigel editor www.commodorefree.com

“I normally don’t do these things (although yes I have had a couple for other magazines) and can’t see why anyone would have the slightest interest in me; however as so many people emailed me with questions and still do, both about me and the magazine! I decided I would hopefully put the records straight, answer all the questions at once about Commodore Free and add a little insider information that I may never have shared before“

These questions have been pieced together from all the ones I received, they were arranged into some sort of loose order and then were read out to me, my responses were recorded and typed up, some of the questions order was altered to help with better the flow of the interview and of course depending on my answers some of the questions were moved in order.

To anyone who did ask me question, thanks for taking the time to write in! and I hope if I didn’t personally answerer your question you find the information you require within this text. Although I am sure I did answer all the questions asked of me and emailed, but just in case...................

Shaun Bebbington – Nigel Parker – Alan Bairstow

Q. When you interview people for Commodore Free you start with an all-about you question; so to continue the tradition within commodore free, can you please introduce yourself to your own readers

Well ok you all know that I am called Nigel and edit this very magazine Commodore Free, I live in the U.K. and I have a let’s say fondness or affection for Commodore computers, this all stems back to when I used to read about computers in the newsagent (I bet we all did this didn’t we?), I used to buy various magazine and look at the pictures, and droll over the text (although that could have been the other way around now I think about it) I always wanted to own a computer for myself. Then out of the blue A friend of my fathers had purchased a VIC 20 computer; so me and dad went to see the machine and if it could be related (in some vague way)to school work, and help with my spelling and maths (ha ha of course it failed to do this on both counts)

Most people said in those times if you didn’t own a computer you would be missing out, and not helping the child’s schooling progress, and as a consequence of course your child’s learning would suffer, maybe, but I just remember the games!

We went to my father’s friend’s house where he had setup the machine (hooked it up to a television and plugged in the tape drive), my father’s friend attempted to load a game but failed miserably, then I took over and I still remember the day just like it was yesterday, we loaded Blitz and played it for some time until I managed to land the plane and the little man got out and waved.

I know the game has been done to death now, but back then it was and I still think is a great game!

We then loaded some sort of database and that was enough to convince my farther that this was indeed a good machine to own, so come Christmas time the machine would be sent to Farther Christmas and then delivered under the tree for me to open up.

In the mean time I had access to a type writer and retyped up every game listing from magazines, (even none commodore listings) of course I didn’t have all the character set the Vic had at my disposal but I think it impressed my father that I was so dedicated to work so hard retyping out magazine pages.

10 print"heart"
20 print cursor down
30 print "hello"

Once Christmas arrived, I spent hours on the machine, typing in all the listings from the manual and then wishing I had a disk drive as tape was to slow. I FINNALY managing to get “merry Christmas” to play from basic, and thought it was a good achievement, although I think from memory I didn’t manage that until new year’s day! the disk drive of course came later, as did my progression to the Commodore 64 and then onto the Amiga 500 and finally I purchased an Amiga 4000 (although I was very disappointed with the Amiga 4000 as it wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, I really wanted a 3000 but by the time I had saved enough money the 3000 was out of production and as rare as hens teeth, of course the 4000 was basically Commodore trying to sell anything to stay afloat)

Q. So you still use the Vic and I know you use the Commodore 64 what about the Amiga

Well my experimentations with the VIC as a programmer led to a conclusion (I am not going to be a programmer as I am quite rubbish) I seemed to be good at problem solving but not actually coding anything, so I tried art on the computer and found I was rubbish at that, then music and wasn’t too hot on that either, the music followed me to the c64 and I learned about music in games and Editors or I guess people call them tracker style programs, I think the first one I played with was something like Wee music by Tony Crowther, the trackers all seemed complex at the time especially to a classically trained pianist (yep that was me) I preferred to see the dots and the tails, I dabbled with Midi on the C64 but this all really took off with the Amiga 500 and a program called Drt`s kcs level 3 I think it was ported to the Amiga as it wasn’t very Amiga friendly, I found the Atari version here http://tamw.atari-users.net/omega.htm which looks very similar, bet it was out on the Atari then ported to the Amiga

Also a video of the software loading on an Amiga 3000 in less than 1 minute here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OSfv1q8XqI

then I purchased an add-on called the copyist that let you write manuscript it was a very clever system as the data was copied into memory from one program to another, as they all multi tasked you could easily dabble from one system to the next, adding notes on a music stave then edit the timings manually under Drt`s

Drt`s also had a programming language where you could do things like (printed here in English)

Every middle c if it’s a snare drum and the note after it is a base drum then change the volume by 20%

Not the best example but you get the idea

It was very comprehensive and powerful for its day, heck it still is! I remember I went to a music shop and they wanted £1000 to train me how to use the system, of course I didn’t have that much money at the time and I just dabbled and basically trained myself slowly over time, with limited success I didn’t really find anyone who used this part of the software. The program seemed to fit how I liked to work it seemed very intuitive to me anyway, I did produce some music however it wasn’t really designed for others to listen to, more experiments in the programming language than anything else, after some persuasion I did release some tapes for sale a couple of my tunes were played on the radio and I managed to sell over 500 copies! I was quite shocked!

I remember seeing a write up where they said the music was repetitive and boring, maybe so I don’t think that was too harsh a review of my music at the time I think they gave me 6 out of 10 , as time passed I gathered more and more synthesisers to midi up and had quite an array of equipment and mixing desks, now I just play with Cubase on the PC where everything is virtual, I hate it but don’t have the space to devote to all that equipment. I also miss being able to dabble and twist knobs and sliders, ok I can virtually do it but it’s not the same is it?

I still plan on one day hooking up 16 x Commodore 64 systems via midi to create a performance SID system,

Yes I really loved Drt`s software

Anyway to answer the question then, as I seem to have strayed; yes I use the C64 and the Vic although the Amiga has been shelved recently, again it’s all to do with space and lack of time to devote to all these systems, as well as working and being a farther, something has to be put on hold.

Q. So why create Commodore Free what drove you to create a free magazine

Ah an easy question for a change.

Well I was goggling and looking for others who loved Commodore machines, I was then quite shocked to see that other people were still using the machines and I wasn’t as I had suspected the only person who still loved these “old systems”, this must have been about 17 years ago when I had my PC connected to the internet for the first time via a modem! I thought I was the only person who stilled loved the VIC the c64 and of course the Amiga.

So as the shelf bought Magazines had slowly dwindled out for these systems and the support and number of companies selling products moved to other areas I carried on using the machines.

I then found a website Run by Allan Bairstow called “Commodore Scene” it’s here or it was here the last time I looked http://www.commodorescene.org.uk this was a paid for printed magazine about Commodore well more realistically more about the Commodore 64 and 128 than anything else, I wrote a few articles that appeared in the magazine but slowly members died off and so did the magazine, soon it closed although a final issue was planned but to this day was never finished, Pity I think we should do a final Commodore Scene issue as a gesture, I did try to arrange this with Allan but nothing ever came of it, I think a final issue designed solely in GeoPublish and printed out on a colour laser or as a PDF would have been very cool. At the time I thought that many users would still want a magazine, maybe Free to read was the way to go, so I started work on a very poor issue 1 of the magazine and setup a website it started growing and many people emailed to say they wanted more, so with a small team of helpers it is what it is now (if that makes sense) it may not be well written and contains many typos but it’s from the heart and hey its Free! I think I started back in 2007

Here is Alan’s official Comments taken from Commodore Scene website

1995 ~ 2002 - Computer Scene (as it was originally called) was first produced by Richard Bowen in May 1995 when all the commercial magazines were leaving (or had already left) the newsstands. It was a dark time for the Commodore 64 and people needed somewhere to go for all the information and innovations that were still around for our beloved computers. Richard originally wanted the magazine to be monthly, which it was for a time. This soon became unworkable as the magazine grew from its original 16 black and white photocopied pages to the full colour cover, professionally printed and bound magazine that it is today.

Q. How many readers do you have

Well it all grew quickly, I think mainly thanks to people like Robert Bernado who spread the word and even printed out issues for various clubs he visited, I regularly started to receive over two thousand downloads these are unique and of the PDF version, now of course we have various other versions of the magazine like the text and D64 image where you can actually read the whole magazine on a Commodore 64 if you desire! I also know of clubs that print out the magazine and distribute it for free at meetings, then of course people copy the text and relay this on various forums so the real number of actual readers is unknown.

Q. Producing the magazine must take a large amount of your time how do you cope

Yes I sometimes wonder why I bother, but it does as you say take up a large amount of time, I maybe spend 30 minutes per day on the issue then a couple of hours at the weekend, collecting text sometimes even spellchecking the issue although this is rare, Ha ha

Q. can I ask about the copyright and the issues with the early editions of the magazine

If you must! Yes issues 1 to 3 were removed for copyright issues, I did borrow some text without permission, although that was resolved quickly but I soon started receiving emails from companies and solicitors claiming they owned to rights to various images and stills even though I had screen dumped them from Vice! They claimed as they owned the copyright to the games they owned the images, heck I even had an email supposedly coming from Microsoft saying they own the images of the windows system you know the top right of all applications and I couldn’t use these.

I managed to trace a lot of the emails with the help from an ISP and they all seemed to come from one area, although not one person! with the help and advice of a solicitor I decided to stop spreading these issues and start again as a blank canvas, we contacted the ISP from where the emails were coming or seemed to be coming and then everything quietened down again, (i.e. the emails stopped) I still have a few people moaning about things, but so far not solicitors letters, at the time I wanted to just pack the whole thing in, I know now that some of these emails came from Commodore users themselves you know so called “elite” users Who didn’t like the magazine as it wasn’t techy enough or aimed at casual users and not die hard programmers . Still you can’t please everyone!

Q. is the magazine produced on commodore machines

Ahh Not entirely, although some text could be written on the Commodore using Geos, some in Notepad on the PC it’s a mish mash, depends where I am and what I am doing (for example now I am on my phone pecking out letters while listening to the interview as an mp3)

It would be possible to produce the magazine on the C64 with Geopublish especially as a patch went round where you could output postscript and colour JPG files Pity this wasn’t officially released as It would have sold more CMD products, not that there is a mass market for such things anymore. I like Geos, I could bore you with a long story about how I came to see GEOS and use the c64 to produce a church magazine

Q. go on then tell us

Man you really want to know this?

Ok really quickly then, I heard of this system called GEOS, and my dad and I drove to London we went to a computer exhibition and saw them selling it, this was the first time the system had been introduced in to the UK, we sat with the sales man as he demo'd the system and my dad was so impressed he bought it with a few add ons that they were selling at the time, basically whatever they were selling we would have bought,

I am not sure what they company selling the product was, but I think it was just a distributer of GEOS and not Berkley themselves, we hooked up the system and created our boot disks and were away, my dad used it to create the church magazine for a while although he soon left it and bought a postscript printer and a PC! I like the look of GEOS and the way it’s all laid out, completely impractical now, but I still think it looks nice, I also like the GEM OS on the Atari but that’s not something I should say in a Commodore Magazine; so I will remove this during editing! (whoops looks like I forgot to do this)

I usually arrange my Windows PC to look like geos you know all tiled, wonder if there is a Geos Pc theme Ha bet there is you know!

Q. So you say Commodore Free took over from Commodore Scene was Alan in favour of this

Well via the internet I chatted with Alan and we met a number of times along with other regulars like Shaun Bebbington, Andrew Fisher and Chris Snowden from www.commodore16.com we even found out that TMR (Jason Kelk) lives close to Alan and TMR ran a short coding workshop for us but decided we were all very poor programmers, although Shaun and Andrew are competent.

Anyway I asked Alan would there be a problem with me issuing a Free magazine as it would in effect kill off Commodore Scene, he said he didn’t have a problem with it, and so Commodore Free was born, or dragged its life force into existence!

Q. Someone mentioned you used to sell Commodore computers what was that all about

Yes true. I worked for a company called Silica they were based in Sidcup Kent, they decided to expand and setup about 33 stores about the U.K. one was planned for Manchester, I went along to the interview process along with thousands of other hopefuls, must have impressed them as I got the job , the gent interviewing me I think he was called Michael was the HR director he said they hadn’t met anyone who owned an Amiga 4000, he made the mistake of asking me about the features, so for 1 hour solid I bestowed the virtues of intuition and multitasking and the various memory and bus architectures of the Amiga 4000 on him and why commodore had failed to deliver a killer machine, poor guy, after an hour I stopped taking and thought to myself that I over did it, he handed me the job on the spot!

The “store” itself was situated on the third floor of Debenhams in Market street Manchester just across from the toy isle, Debenhams wanted to get into computer hardware and software but didn’t want to risk it themselves, so they rented out the space commonly known as a concession, Silica paid a small amount of rent and a percentage of each sale went to the store something like 5 or 6 %. The store flourished and I was made Manager for a while, I was looking after about 7 staff, they also sold PC and gaming equipment, I have fond memories of this, sadly I remember one of the directors telling me Commodore had files for bankruptcy or chapter 11 and they were going under! I think I lasted another year then left, Silica ploughed all its money into PC`s but they never arrived from the company in Germany ad so too they were in trouble and closed.

(Ben Vost Amiga format editor did a tour of Manchester, posing as a student You can read his comments here)

Quote from Silica: "Babylon 5, [seaQuest] DSV, they're all done on the Amiga..."

http://cd.textfiles.com/amigaformat/aformat-17-19970808/-Look_here_1st!-/AF_on_the_web/Websites/BenVost/writing/undercover.html

Silica were the U.K. importers of Commodore I think I am right in saying, the exclusive importers of Commodore, they would go under the name PRODIS OR SDL not sure what PRODIS stood for but SDL was Silica Distribution Limited.

For the job training all staff went to head office in London and stayed in a hotel, then we went to a couple of the running stores, I went to Tottenham court road and learned about networking Pc systems together, (erm I was supposed to be an Amiga specialist, I guess knowledge is a good thing as I look after pc networks for a living now) the manager took me to a customers were we upgraded 10 machines from windows 3 to windows 3.11 for workgroups, and had them all sharing and printing out documents it was shall we say enlightening.

This actually fuelled my interest more in computers and as I said today I work as a support engineer I look after about 250 users and 28 servers for a large manufacturing company near where I live, it’s a far cry from Commodore

Silica gave me some really nice memories, I met my wife in Debenhams for example and I saw the Sega Saturn before release and the Sony PlayStation not the mention the Cd32 with the FMV module, man I could have sold hundreds of these FMV modules had Silica been able to get their hands on them, the Cd 32 was a nice idea but the competition was just to fierce, we all now know what went on inside Commodore, after the c64 and then the Amiga 500 it never relay got back on track .

Q. why still use Commodore

Ok let me say this that...

I am not a true Commodore fan per say, we used the Commodore pets at collage and I wanted one of these and still do, as mine recently bit the dust and went to silicon heaven, the VIC is very cool and so is the C64 I have a couple of Commodore 16 machines but Commodore were way off track when they released these machines, although to be fair it’s a very competent system, the Amiga 500 was great so was the 1200 but the Amiga 600 (I do won one) what was the thinking in this, and, well you could go on about all the failed systems and the fact the Amiga 4000 didn’t have a DPS or the triple A chipset, also some of the niggles with the C64 like the really slow disk access times and the various bugs and glitches.

The thing is, all these items brings back happy memories and you don’t get these feeling with new systems, even now when I moved my Geos setup, it took 3 days to get it all working, as the SCPU refused to power on and the Ramlink wouldn’t show any memory, I wouldn’t have bought everything they released.

But I am a VIC and C64 fan I love these machines over everything else.

Q. just as we finish up then what are your fondest Commodore memories

Wow that’s a good question,

Well I have to say the first time I saw the Vic 20 playing Blitz , I still have my original Vic and the Blitz game and yes they do still work,

Hmmm in no particular order then and just as things come to mind well

Loading screens and loading music

I thought this was truly amazing the first titles I saw the tape drive stop then the screen went blank and then music would play and the tape started again, then slowly an image appeared on screen wow how can this be, it’s doing 2 things at once, heck it still impresses me now I know how it’s all done!

Oh also with the loading screens I love watching things like the nova load as the timer goes down and also where you here the machine whistle and scream as its loading a lot of Jeff minter releases would do this , heck I still load games off tape yep I know I am sad!

Sid music

way to many tunes to list, but you must have recorded them onto tape to play in your dads car like I used to, or even carry around on a Walkman, some of these were/ARE just amazing pieces of coding and musicianship

Geos and word processing and being able to print from a C64 to a postscript file or printer!

The Christmas my C64 arrived

The Amiga 500 at my birthday

Drt`s

spending hours on Drt`s music system,

heck the list goes on, even now like meeting fellow commodore users, being interviewed for a magazine I produce myself ha ha let’s leave this now I am going all nostalgic

Q. Finally then do you have any comments you would like to add

Well of course thanks for reading, but what I do need is text for the magazine, share something with other, if that’s technical or a review or a memory they are all welcome contact me as all the content seems to come from myself apart from news items I get emailed, it’s getting harder to find interesting text to add to the magazine


Review: Multicart 64

By Commodore Free

I recently received a Multicart64 from Charles Gutman of 8-Bit Designs, and thought I would share with you the experiences both of the ordering process and of the device itself.

The device has these 63 built in these programs on a single ROM

Alien Sidestep, Astroblitz, Attack of the Mutant Camels, C64 Diagnostic, Calc Result, CCS Mon, Centipede, Checkers, Close Encounters, Cosmic Life, Dance Fantasy, Diagnostic C64, Dot Gobbler, Dot Gobbler 2, Facemaker, Falconian Invaders, Financial Advisor, Fraction Fever, Frog Master, Frogger, Graf64, Gridrunner, Hop Along Counting, Jaw Breaker, Juke Box, Kids on Keys, Kindercomp, Laser Zone, Magic Mon, Mario’s Brewery, Memory Manor, Minnesota Fats Pool Challenger, Moondust, Mr Cool, Mt TNT, Number Nabber Shape Grabber, Omega Race, Pac Man, Pipes, Pitfall, Princes and Frog, Retro Ball, Save New York, Sea Speller, Song Maker, Space Action, Space Ricoshay, Spitball, Stix, Super Smash, Tank Wars, The Fourth Sarcophagus, The Mutant Spiders, The Pit, Threshold, Trashman, TSI Cycles, TSI Maze Man, Turbo Maze, Tyler's Dungeon, Ultrex Quadro Maze, Up and Addem, and Up for Grabs.

As for the quality of the programmes; well it’s fair to say they are varied some are quite poor others less so; also I think some of the programs were released on disk only so you will of course need a disk drive to save any work (once all the play testing is over) as for the copyright to these applications I can’t comment, however the process of ordering the device went a little like this.

There are 3 options to choose from

Multicart options & prices

I chose option A firstly its cheaper and second I couldn’t see myself changing the Rom at any point in the future so now I needed to contact Charles:

You can contact Charles by email at charlesgutman(at)gmail.com. and Payments are to be made by postal money order or by PayPal, I chose PayPal as its quick and traceable, just in case something went wrong mid transit, but I have purchased a number of items from Charles, they have all arrived as described been of good quality and were very speedily delivered with good emails telling me about the whole process .

Charles says that International orders are to be made by PayPal only. And he doesn’t want credit cards through PayPal, just direct bank transfers.

Of course for the observant amongst our readers you will notice that The Multicart 64 is based on Fotios' FB-Jumbocart1, the prototype of which was seen at the Commodore Vegas Expo in 2007. Fotios and Charles have worked on this together project together to get the device out to the market.

Although Charles seems to be the butt end of some in commodore jokes, from my virtual meetings with him he seems honourable and a nice guy. So Once I had ordered and received a confirmation from Charles to say the item was despatched, it was just a case of waiting a few days for my postman to arrive, the package was delivered in about 7 days to the U.K. and I didn’t suffer any extra charges from the customs men, so I have to assume Charles had taken care of these details when packaging the item, it was neatly packed in a Jiffy bag with the customs form/label attached.

I opened the package, I just ordered the circuit board and so I received just the circuit board, not too much of a problem as cases are readily available, in a boring afternoon I could order one and create a nice front for the device, also I wouldn’t have to do any cutting out of the case as the device has no switches or extruding parts, so maybe it’s more like 10 minutes than an afternoons work, I suppose it depends on if you are paid by the hour or by the part!

I did however find a problem, I was hoping the device had some form of rest switch; maybe an external switch (although putting the cartridge into a case would have taken more work) you see as the cartridge is inserted and the c64 and powered on, you are presented with a menu to select the program, you select which program you want to load, then the application runs and you have no other option but to power off your c64 and power it back on; so you can run something else, this I feel needs addressing, otherwise the cartridge is mass produced and is professionally manufactured

I seemed to have an issue with this cartridge in 2 of my commodore 64 machines, you see the joystick and I tried 2 just in case didn’t seem to want to move left, moving right and firing were ok, no problem but I couldn’t move left except for some rare random moments, I wondered if this was a PAL machine problem or some sort of reset issue on the Joystick; so I followed this problem up with Charles,

Charles Comments Charles informed me he had had problems with some of the cartridges in that the joysticks wouldn’t move left, the fix however is to have the joystick removed then load the game and then plug in the joystick, so it must be some sort of reset issue with the joystick

Performance

Using the device is simple you use the keys F1 and F3 to move forward and back between the games (the name of the game and its number appear on the screen) pressing f7 runs the game. Once you have finished playing with the game you have to reset your machine.

Now I haven’t play tested every single item on the device, and only used a Bare Commodore for testing, as I didn’t have the time to do every combination of setup for the review, I have run many of the games, and so spent hours playing with the device;

and apart from the joystick problem that is resolvable (ensure its unplugged before you start a game) haven’t had any further issues. The device has also been used on Commodore 128 machines and indeed Charles demos the device using a Commodore 128

The device will live or die with the quality of the titles, as some are quite old, it could be hard to justify the expense, however if these are games you enjoy playing then think of all the time you save by having them instantly available at the touch of a power button, You could also buy the socketed version and burn your own ROMS .

You could question the copyright of the device, but I suspect most companies wouldn’t have issues, If however this was a Jeff minter all in one device with every game on a single device I would be “telling” you to buy it and Jeff also says “there are no legal hassles” when you download any of his older games, as it is I would ask you to research the programs the device has installed and see if you feel you “have to have it”

YouTube video of the device at work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd5KZte2p_Q

Another question has to be asked; how will this cartridge fair up with the easy flash cartridge that can be purchased from here

http://store.go4retro.com/easyflash-3/

EasyFlash 3 offers a number of features:


Commodore Free One Liners Competition

VIC Results

Commodore Free Comment Sadly Shaun posted these on the web before I had chance to announce them in the magazine, I know many of you were, let’s say curious about what happened to the competition and I would like to apologise for the incredibly long delay, that looks bad on Commodore Free. Anyway if you haven’t seen the emails Shaun posted on most forums before I printed the write up here is the information and the text about the entries


Hi all,

Firstly, my apologies to all who have been waiting these results. The draft results are in - I say drafts as there might be some typos in the text. But the results will not change.

All of the VIC-20 specific entries are here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g2cuutxwhpspfmw/CF-VIC-20-Entries.zip

and the draft results are here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/shzgh9ez9bi4a3q/VIC-20-Entries.pdf

You may share these links with your VIC-20 friends if you wish. The full article (with overall winners etc...) will be featured in Commodore FREE soon.

Well done to Steve McRea for an excellent entry.

By the way: the delay in these results must not reflect badly on Nigel or Commodore Free. It is entirely my fault.

Enjoy, Shuan.


Commodore VIC-20-Specific Entries

Below are all of the results for all of the Commodore VIC-20 entries into the Commodore FREE One Liners competition 2013. There are other entries that will, by design or accident, work with the VIC; these are listed in the 'All format' entries. Please accept my apologies for the extreme lateness of these results. This must not reflect badly on Nigel Parker or Commodore FREE as the fault is entirely at my door. All ratings out of five (minimum one star).


Bird.prg (Musical Bird)

Author: Michael Kircher

Notes: Inspired by a classic animation included in the VIC-20 User Guide.

A nice program that has a Bird flying diagonally down the screen whilst playing a short tune.

Type: One-liner

Originality: *

Although this was obviously taken from the user guide, the tune is a nice addition.

Technical: **

Uses a data block for the music, plenty of FOR/NEXT loops, all in one line. Nice use of the colon to add in delays to the routine.

Documentation: *

The documentation included is the listing in text format. Nothing else is included.

Fun rating: **

Quite a nice piece of nostalgia

Overall: **

This entry improves on an example from the user guide whilst playing a short tune. A pretty good effort for one line of BASIC 2. This is the overall runner-up for the VIC-20.

Listing

Screenshot


Miniscroll

Author: Witzo

Notes: Scrolly text simulator. Scrolling in one line, manipulating the screen size to one row. This is a little buggy due to some slightly skewed logic, but a reasonable attempt at implementing a scrolly text.

Type: Two-liner

Originality: *

Scrolly texts are fun, and plenty of examples were given originally. Nice use of the VIC chip to manipulate the size of the screen.

Documentation: *

A read me note is included on the disk image. Not much information is given.

Technical: **

Could have been done better with a some more understanding of the host hardware and BASIC 2, although there is obviously some preliminary knowledge of how the host video chip works.

Fun rating: *

Scrolly texts something that many programmers learn to do early on when learning 8-bit machine. This one is just a bit buggy.

Overall: *

A good first attempt by a fairly novice programmer. It's good to see the earlier (3 lines) code to see how it evolved. Listing (note: A$ string variable is padded with four spaces to begin with):

Listing

Screenshot


Diver VIC

Author: Jeffrey Daniels

Notes: A vertically scrolling game.

Type: Two-liner

Manoeuvre the craft through left and right to avoid the obstacles in its' path. You need Jedi skills sometimes to react quickly enough. Nice and fast implementation, but not greatly playable.

Originality: *

Good use of programming, but hardly original.

Documentation: *

No instructions really, just a brief explanation of the game.

Technical: **

A nice way to read the user's keyboard interactions.

Fun rating: *

Perhaps a little too quick to be playable.

Overall: *

A nice quick game, though lacking some originality. Here is the listing (note: REVS ON < sign in the listing is CRTL+7 as I could not find a windows font that displays this character):

Listing

Screenshot


VIC Maze

Author: Steve McCrea

Notes: A maze game.

Each level will randomly generate a static screen maze in which you must guide a man (represented by the Commodore PI sign) from the left of the screen to the right. Once you reach the right, it will generate another maze. The keys are ZX for left and right, OK for up and down and P to obliterate the wall in front of you (if the maze is impossible to complete, starting off with zero bombs with one added for each new level, as the more levels you play, the more likely an impossible maze is generated.

Type: Two-liner

Originality: ***

Quite an original use of BASIC to make a playable mini-game.

Documentation: ***

Good documentation included in a text file, explaining somewhat the process used as well as what each variable is doing.

Technical: ****

Very good use of programming, with the rough equivalent to a C-style 'while' loop in Commodore BASIC by using the old FOR A=-1 TO 0 trick. And of course, if you're using line 0 to GOTO, you do not need to specify this line number in VIC-20 BASIC.

Fun rating: ***

Actually quite playable, although you may lose track of the number of bombs that you have remaining as this is only shown during each maze update (once you have completed the last one).

Overall: ***

Good use of BASIC, good documentation and a fun mini game. This is the overall winner for the VIC-20.

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Commodore Free One Liners Competition

C128 Results

Hi all,

Firstly, my apologies to all who have been waiting these results.

The draft results are in - I say drafts as there might be some typos in the text. But the results will not change. All of the C128 specific entries are here:

Here's the updated docs for the One Liners compo:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ge8hn54olkjh44/CF-C128-Entries.zip

and the draft results are here

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1ta1bet7zynok1/C128-Entries.pdf

and the draft results are here:

That should now be all C128 specific entries, so it looks like one of the Lightfoot entries is going to win. Good work!

And here is the archive of files

Kind regards, Shaun.


Commodore 128 Specific Entries

Below are all of the results for all of the Commodore 128 entries into the Commodore FREE One Liners competition 2013. There are other entries that will, by design o accident, work with the C128; these are listed in the 'All format' entries. Please accept my apologies for the extreme lateness of these results. This must not reflect badly on Nigel Parker or Commodore FREE as the fault is entirely at my door. All ratings out of five (minimum one star).


Confetti OL

Author: WTE

Notes: For 40 Columns mode.

This is a simple animation that looks like colourful confetti, inspired by a mini demo (or “micro demo”) Konfetti which is available on WTE's blog at blog.c128.net/?s=konfetti. This is re-factored for this competition and was downwardly compatible for the C16. This is the genuine one-liner version. The two-liner edition is below.

Type: One-liner

Originality: **

A fairly nice animation, taking advantage of the way that the C128 screen is handled.

Technical: **

Pretty tidy use of BASIC 7. Some more obfuscation from the two-liner edition, so it is a few clicks quicker.

Documentation: ***

WTE has documented all of his programs really well, in this case referencing the original for you to peruse.

Fun rating: **

Pretty nice to watch.

Overall: **

A nice colourful PETSCII demo.

Listing

Screenshot


Confetti TL

Author: WTE

Notes: For 40 Columns mode.

This is a simple animation that looks like colourful confetti, inspired by a mini demo (or “micro demo”) Konfett which is available on WTE's blog at blog.c128.net/?s=konfetti. This is re-factored for this competition and was downwardly compatible for the C16. This is available as a genuine one-liner.

Type: Two-liner

Originality: **

A fairly nice animation, taking advantage of the way that the C128 screen is handled.

Technical: **

Pretty tidy use of BASIC 7. Opts for 'for/next' rather than 'while' loops.

Documentation: ***

WTE has documented all of his programs really well, in this case referencing the original for you to peruse.

Fun rating: **

Pretty nice to watch.

Overall: **

A nice colourful PETSCII demo

Listing

Screenshot


Primes OL

Author: Hydrophilic/WTE

Notes: For 40/80 Columns mode.

An interesting problem for all programmers is working out prime numbers, ie, an integer number that is only divisible evenly by one or itself. So, seven is a prime number and nine is not (because nine can be divided evenly into one, three and itself). This negates rounding errors with Commodore BASIC to work out each prime number in a sequence from the smallest true prime number.

Type: One-liner

Originality: **

Others are credited with this, with the bulk of the maths and logic done by Hydrophilic.

Technical: **

Works around the problems with number of type INT in Commodore BASIC to work out the next prime number in the sequence.

Documentation: ***

Good list of credits and sources listed.

Fun rating: **

Something quite interesting for mathematicians, so it's fun if you like maths.

Overall: ***

A good team effort

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Screenshot


Lame Game

Author: Robert Willie

Notes: For 40 Columns mode. This is a simple 'avoid-em-up' type game, requiring joystick movements left or right. A sprite is drawn to the bottom of the screen, and the task is to avoid the stars, which are scrolled downwards which uses the way the C128 BASIC writes a new line to the screen; essentially, it will 'insert' a line and push those below one row down. The score is updated for each row of stars navigated, increasing by three points.

Type: Two-liner

Originality: **

Similar to the Skiing type games, but turned on its head. Some nice use of the enhanced BASIC 7 instructions, including sprite and joystick handling.

Technical: **

Sticks within the limits of BASIC without digging beneath the surface. Takes advantage of how the C128 Kernal writes to the screen (ie, it will insert a line of text rather than over-writing as the text that is there).

Documentation: **

This game includes a back-story as well as some information about how the game works.

Fun rating: **

Not bad, but a bit slow. Can be sped up using an emulator.

Overall: **

Not as lame as the game title suggests

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Lab 128

Author: Lightfoot

Notes: Another random maze generator for 40 columns mode It is a maze program with a difference from others: firstly, it uses the bitmap mode of the C128, and secondly, it generates one that can potentially be solved.

Type: Two-liner

Originality: ***

A good idea, taking advantage (or as is suggested in the notes, misuses) some of the C128's commands, including entering the machine code monitor to somehow return to BASIC.

Technical: ****

Although the notes state that this is not pure basic, it still uses all of the in-built functionality of the 128.

Documentation: ****

A good explanation of everything that's happening.

Fun rating: **

Like other maze generators, can be hypnotic to watch. Good to see the solving algorithm in action.

Overall: ***

A great improvement on the classic random maze generator, making use of the in-built features of the 128

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Screenshot


Byte Me 128

Author: Lightfoot

Notes: A two-player Snake game for 40 columns Mode Take on a human opponent in this version of the classic Snake game.

Type: One-liner

Originality: ***

This is quite a nice idea to bring a playable game into a single line of BASIC 7.

Technical: ***

Nicely done, accepting all eight directions without a problem. Would also make a good Etch-a-sketch simulator.

Documentation: ****

The accompanying text is very clearly written with a good amount of detail.

Fun rating: ***

A pretty good mini-game, although head-on crashes favour one player over the other.

Overall: ***

A fun mini-game for those competitive types out there. The code could be recycled into an Etch-a-Sketch simulator

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Screenshot