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Unboxing & Assembly BitFixer PETdisk in Kit

September 28th, 2012 No comments
BitFixer PETdisk interface

Gallery:

The PETdisk is a new storage device, made by bitfixer, for the Commodore CBM / PET with an IEEE-488 port.

The system is in two parts. A datassette module that makes it possible to play “data” from a PC soundcard to the CBM / PET and play “data” from the CBM / PET to the PC. The IEEE-488 module has an SD card and a micro processor.

You can use the commands LOAD, SAVE and LOAD “$” to load or store data on the SD card. The device number can be changed with a help of a jumper. The USB cable is used to provide 5VDC from the datassette module to the IEEE-488 module.

For more informations,schematics,documentations and price of the kit please visit the site of the author.

Video demostration:

source: bitfixer.com

Nano/Micro SwinSID – Firmware update (20120524) by Swinkels

September 26th, 2012 No comments

Micro SwinSID (SwinSID88) is a hardware replacement for legendary SID sound chip which was placed in every Commodore C64 computer and other devices.

Firmware update (20120524):

  • This version has only one improvement: fixed audio muting emulation.

Download: Nano/Micro SwinSID - Firmware update (20120524) (2089)

source: forum64.de

Categories: Firmware, News & Rumors, Today

HxC Floppy Emulator: Mac OSx Support *Beta Software*

September 26th, 2012 No comments

The HxC Floppy Drive Emulator is a software and hardware system created by jfdn aka Jeff.

The aim of this project is to replace the floppy disk drive by an electronic device emulating the floppy disk drive (list of supported Computer/Hardware).

There are two differents emulators:

  • A USB version which allows to connect the floppy disk drive interface of the computer to a PC via a USB cable.
  • A SDCARD version which allows to emulate floppy disks which images are stored in a SDCARD.

Release notes for the HxCFloppyEmulator software v2.0.3.0:

  • PRE-RELEASE – IN DEVELOPMENT: HxCFloppyEmulator software v2.0.3.0 (Windows & Mac OS X support !)

Download: HxCFloppyEmulator v2.0.3.0 *BETA* (1113)

source: hxc2001.free.fr

ST-Paint by Peter Jørgensen

September 23rd, 2012 No comments

ST-Paint is a Drawing program that lets you make Atari St picture on Windows based PC.

ST-Paint is still in a beta phase and it’s made by Peter Jørgensen same author of the program: Ym2149 Tracker.

Download:

source: fedepede04.dk

C64 Game: The Lost Caves 1-7 [EF] / Split Personalities +7D 101% …

September 22nd, 2012 No comments

(Italian) Brusaporto Retrocomputing Edizione 2012

September 21st, 2012 No comments

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Categories: Event(s), News & Rumors, Today

Commodore PET 2001-32N

September 20th, 2012 No comments
Commodore PET 2001-32N

Autopsy:

The Commodore PET 2001-N (the N was short for “New”) is a successor to the Commodore PET 2001, it has a bigger keyboard and 32KB dynamic RAM memory. The larger keyboard means that the first cassette drive now has to be an external unit.

from Wikipedia:

The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International. A top-seller in the Canadian and United States educational markets, it was Commodore’s first full-featured computer, and formed the basis for their entire 8-bit product line.

The PET 2001 was announced at the Winter CES in January 1977 and the first 100 units were shipped later that year in October. However, the PET was back-ordered for months and to ease deliveries, early in 1978 Commodore decided to cancel the 4 kB version (also because the user would be left with barely 3 kB of RAM).

Although the machine was fairly successful, there were frequent complaints about the tiny calculator-like keyboard, often referred to as a “chiclet keyboard” because the keys resembled the gum candy. The key tops also tended to rub off easily. Reliability was fairly poor, although that was not atypical of many early microcomputers. Because of the poor keyboard on the PET, external replacement ones quickly appeared.

In 1979, Commodore replaced the original PET 2001 with an improved model known as the 2001-N (the N was short for “New”). The new machine used a standard green-phosphor monitor in place of the light blue in the original 2001. It now had a conventional, full-sized keyboard and no longer sported the built-in cassette recorder. The kernel ROM was upgraded to add support for Commodore’s newly-introduced disk drive line. It was offered in 8kB, 16kB, or 32kB models as the 2001-N8, 2001-N16, and 2001-N32 (the 8kB models were dropped soon after introduction). Finally, Commodore added a machine-language monitor to the kernel ROM that could be accessed by jumping to any memory location with a BRK instruction. It did not include a built-in assembler and required the user to enter hexadecimal numbers for coding.

Sales of the newer machines were strong, and Commodore then introduced the models to Europe. The result was the CBM 3000 series (‘CBM’ standing for Commodore Business Machines), which included the 3008, 3016 and 3032 models. Like the 2001-N-8, the 3008 was quickly dropped. The change to CBM occurred because of a trademark dispute with Philips over the PET name.

source: wikipedia

C64 Game: Knight’n'Grail 2 Preview 2 + / ALF in the Color Caves +D

September 16th, 2012 No comments

Nightfall Retro Collection Virtual Tour

September 16th, 2012 24 comments

Nightfall Retro Gallery

Photo Gallery update of my Retro Collection / Retro Trash

Clicking on the photo will download the highest resolution version available (10708 x 5137).

Updates of the Nightfall Retro Collection:

You can see my Retro collection with a Virtual Tour, we hope one day to be able to expose my things to the public.

Many thanks to Andrea Schillani and Freddy Anselmo for the photos and graphic support.

Categories: Event(s), News & Rumors, Today

CBM prg Studio v2.5.1 released

September 14th, 2012 No comments

CBM prg Studio Version 2.5.0 is released. There are a lot of new features in this version. I’d really appreciate it if you report any bugs you find or have any suggestions/comments.

CBM prg Studio allows you to type a BASIC or Machine Code program in using a nice Windows environment and convert it to a ‘.prg’ file which you can run on an emulator, or even a real C64 / VIC20 or PET if you’re feeling brave and have the right kit.

CBM prg Studio is the result of merging C64PrgGen and VIC20PrgGen. Adding new features and fixing bugs in two apps which were 95% similar was a bit of a nightmare so merging them made sense.

It was also a good opportunity for a face lift and to add some new features, such as:

  • Programs are project based, meaning all related source files, sprite files etc. are kept in one place and multiple source files can be linked more easily.
  • Tabbed MDI.
  • Syntax highlighting.

What CBM prg Studio isn’t is a front-end for tok64, cbmcnvrt, bastext or any other tokeniser / detokeniser / assembler. It’s all been written completely from scratch.

New features:

  • Some of the IDE’s colours can be changed (background, tab strip, selected and non-selected windows).
  • Menu to control open windows.
  • Warnings if invalid BASIC jump (goto, gosub etc.) destinations are detected.
  • ZPOpt directive added.

Bugs fixed:

  • Added ‘missing’ colours to VIC 20′s screen designer.
  • Default project location not being saved if the target machine was not changed.
  • Assembler not assembling mixed case text directive strings properly.
  • Dark and light gray colours were switched.
  • Opening a project after a project had already been opened would use ‘my documents’ rather than the project directory.
  • Incbin failed when used screen designer files.
  • No colours were visible when starting the screen designer without loading a previous file.
  • CTRL+Z not scrolling to changed text.
  • * not recognised for current address.
  • Local labels not recognised in certain circumstances.
  • Generation/import of prgs > 65k for C128 programs would fail.
  • Missing BASIC 7 ‘RLUM’ keyword.

Download: CBM prg Studio v2.5.1 (1006)

source: ajordison.co.uk

Manosoft C64SD Infinity v2.0 Blue version soon on Stock

September 14th, 2012 No comments
Manosoft C64SD v2.0 Blue version

Gallery:

This is the preview of the Manosoft C64SD Infinity v2.0 Blue version. This version will be soon available for sale.

Here the full review of the Manosoft C64SD Infinity v2.0.

source: manosoft.it

Categories: Hardware, News & Rumors, Today

Donation: Apple Power Mac G4 (MDD / M8570)

September 9th, 2012 No comments
Apple Power Mac G4 (MDD / M8570)

Autopsy:

from Wikipedia:

The Power Mac G4 was a series of personal computers that was designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple between 1999 and 2004.

They used the PowerPC G4 (PPC74xx) series of microprocessors. They were heralded by Apple to be the first personal supercomputers, reaching speeds of 4 to 20 Gigaflops. They were both the last Macintoshes to boot natively into Classic Mac OS and the first to boot exclusively into Mac OS X.

The original Apple Power Mac G4, code name “Yikes!”, was introduced at the Seybold conference in San Francisco on August 31, 1999, with 400 MHz, 450 MHz and 500 MHz configurations available. In October 1999, Apple was forced to postpone the 500 MHz because of poor yield of the 500 MHz chips. In response, Apple “speed dumped” the processor speed in each configuration by 50 MHz but caused some controversy by not decreasing the price of the machines.

Another generation of Apple Power Mac G4s were introduced on August 13, 2002, featuring both a new Xserve-derived DDR motherboard architecture and a new case design, known as “Mirrored Drive Doors” (MDD). All models were available in dual processor configurations running at 867 MHz, 1 GHz or 1.25 GHz. As with the Xserves, the PowerPC 7455 CPU used does not have a DDR frontside bus, meaning the CPU could only use at most 50% of the new system’s theoretical memory bandwidth, providing no improvement over previous models. The rest was available to the graphics card and I/O systems. A dual processor 1.25 GHz model would be the last Power Mac G4 the company offered to the public after the announcement of the new Power Mac G5, introduced in June 2003.

source: wikipedia

SNK Neo Geo Universe Bios v3.1 by Razoola released

September 7th, 2012 1 comment

SNK Neo Geo Universe Bios v3.1 released.

The UNIVERSE BIOS is for owners of MVS or AES hardware that want an easy way to change country region or between Arcade or Console mode on boot.

Also included are other features that are not possible using the standard MVS bios.

source: unibios.free.fr

Categories: Hardware, News & Rumors, Today

Attitude Diskmagazine #13 released

September 7th, 2012 No comments

Attitude is a disk magazine for the Commodore 64 computer. This edition is written in collaboration with the joint forces of Triad and Oxyron.

We hope you enjoy this issue as much as you did the previous ones!

Download: Attitude Diskmagazine #13 (1133)

source: noname.c64.org

CBM FileBrowser v1.4 by NBLA000

September 6th, 2012 No comments

This program works as a program launcher for Commodore machines. Even if it was originally intended for a device with sd2iec firmware, it works also with any CBM drive (without sd2iec functions of course).

It is a multi-system version derived from the discontinued sd2brwse v.0.6 by Hannu Nuotio (fork() of sdbrowse v.0.7)

The Vic-20 Mega-Cart Installer is based on sys.asm sources of mega-tools by Daniel Kahlin, sort routine by Michael Kircher.

Current supported machines:

  • C64.
  • C64DTV.
  • Vic-20 unexpanded.
  • Vic-20 +3K RAM.
  • Vic-20 +8K RAM or plus (for FE3 use this version)
  • Vic-20 with Mega-Cart.
  • C16 / C116 / Plus4.
  • C128 in 64 mode.

Changelog:

  • v.0.1 – 01-Sep-2009 (Start of project, C64/C64DTV only)
  • v.0.2 – 21-Oct-2009 (First working version for Vic-20 +8K RAM)
  • v.0.3 – 06-Jan-2010 (Added memory config auto-detection for Vic-20 selected program)
  • v.0.4 – 19-Jan-2010 (Added support for Vic-20 with Mega-Cart and manual start mode)
  • v.0.5 – 10-Feb-2010 (Added support for Vic-20 unexpanded and Vic-20 +3K RAM)
  • v.1.0 – 05-Mar-2010 (First public version, minor issues fixed, C64 and Vic-20 supported)
  • v.1.1 – 22-Jun-2010 (Added support for D41 and DNP file images, sd2iec firmware v.0.9.0 or higher required)
  • v.1.2 – 09-Oct-2010 (Added SJLOAD speed-up option to the manual mode of the Mega-cart version)
  • v.1.3 – 31-May-2012 (Added support for C16/C116/Plus4, Sort directories, cosmetic changes)
  • v.1.4 – 19-Jul-2012 (Added JIFFYDTV speed-up support for C64-DTV, Clear screen before RUN)

Download: CBM FileBrowser v1.4 (1407)

source: vic20.it/cbmfilebrowser