CBM prg Studio Version 2.1.0 Beta 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 or VIC20 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.

Bugs fixed in v2.1.0:

• Occasional crash on exit.
• User specified project build order not being used/saved.
• Video ram location wrong in screen editor for VIC20 and C64 projects.
• Help file steals the focus and won’t let you use prg studio until it’s closed.
• D64 image name padded with the wrong character.
• Auto formatting assembly programs.
• Some errors being reported on the wrong or negative line numbers.
• Regions and TODOs getting confused with macros/instructions.

Download: CBM prg Studio v2.1.0 (848)

source: ajordison.co.uk

Some new games (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups: Laxity, Nostalgia and Genesis Project.

Download:

• Future Lock +5 [pal/ntsc] (1358)
• Mail Order Monsters +7DF [ntsc/pal] & EasyFlash (1380)
• Xyphus &DS &Map (1359)
• Swap It +4PF DE [pal/ntsc] (1336)
• Greenrunner +5F [pal/ntsc] (1377)

source: csdb.dk

Directly from the blog of Jordan Mechner:

My Dad (yep, the same guy who composed the music for the original Karateka and Prince of Persia) called from New York to tell me he was doing some spring cleaning and had shipped me a carton of old games and other stuff of mine he’d found in the back of a closet.

The carton arrived yesterday. My jaw dropped when I saw what was inside.

No, I don’t mean the stacks of Spanish Drosoft versions of POP and Karateka (though those are cool too, especially if you have an Amstrad computer with a cassette player). I mean those three little plastic 3.5″ disk boxes nestled among them… which appear to contain the ORIGINAL APPLE II SOURCE CODE OF PRINCE OF PERSIA that I’ve been searching for, off and on, for the past ten years, pestering everyone from Doug Carlston to Danny Gorlin and everyone who ever worked at Broderbund, and finally gave up hope of ever finding.

source: jordanmechner.com

Peter Jørgensen has released a new Beta version of his YM-2149 Tracker for M$ Windows. The sound chip YM-2149 is used in Atari ST/E/Falcon series.

New Function in Beta 12.021:

• Auto portamento.
• Buzzer Vibrato.
• Buzzer portamento.
• Unified frequent list.
• Turn Tone/Wave on-off in vibrato, bend and arpeggio.
• Vibrato Depth.
• Invert Vibrato for synth wave.

Note from the author:

This is just a minor fix, i was when i made the startup up screen, i came to call an old routine, that should been removed (it Can mess up the instrument name).

Download: Ym2149 Tracker 12.021 Beta (Bug fix) (1040)

source: bitmania.de

Autopsy:

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For the correct operation of this computer i have made some repairs. Replacing some capacitors (see photo) and the rearrangement of the pressure arm of the floppy drive.

The fault of the power supply are the voltages. Under load the voltages +12 and +5 is lowered significantly.

from Wikipedia:

Kaypro Corporation, commonly called Kaypro, was an American home/personal computer manufacturer of the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems to develop computers to compete with the then-popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a line of rugged, portable CP/M-based computers sold with an extensive software bundle which supplanted its competitors and quickly became one of the top selling personal computer lines of the early 1980s.

While exceptionally loyal to its original consumer base, Kaypro was slow to adapt to the changing computer market and the advent of IBM PC compatible technology. It faded from the mainstream before the end of the decade and was eventually forced into filing for bankruptcy in 1992.

Kaypro’s first computer, the Kaypro II had a 2.5 MHz Zilog Z80 microprocessor, 64 KB of RAM, dual, single-sided, 191 kB 5¼ inch floppy disk drives, and an 80 column green monochrome 9″ CRT.

Early in the Kaypro’s life, there was a legal dispute with the owner of the Bigboard computer who charged that the Kaypro II main circuit board was an unlicensed copy or clone.

The outer case was constructed of painted aluminum. The computer featured a large detachable keyboard that covered the screen and disk drives when stowed. The Kaypro ran off regular AC mains power and was not equipped with a battery.

The Kaypro IV and later the Kaypro 4 had two double-sided disks. The Kaypro 4 was released in 1984, usually referred to as Kaypro 4 ’84, as opposed to the Kaypro IV released one year earlier and referred to as Kaypro IV ’83.

The Kaypro 10 followed the Kaypro II, and featured a 10 megabyte hard drive and a single 5¼” floppy drive.

source: wikipedia

QR Code Generator for Commodore 64.

The QR Code is invented by the Toyota subsidiary Denso Wave in 1994 to track vehicles during the manufacturing process, the QR Code is one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes.It was designed to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

Download: QR Code Generator (1046)

source: noname.c64.org

This is a new version of the Java SidPlayer (Command line & Gui Interface). This Java applet should work on Mac OSX, Linux and Windoze.

Download here the latest updated version of the Java SidPlayer.

source: jsidplay2.sourceforge.net

Some new games (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups: Laxity – Onslaught, Hokuto Force, Alpha Flight and Technische Maschinenfabrik.

Download:

• Hell Racer + Bonus (1348)
• Hell Racer +4 [pal/ntsc] (1389)
• Hell Racer +4D [pal/ntsc] (1357)
• Hard Drivin +4D (1376)
• Market Forces +D +Pic (1409)
• Redrunner +5M [pal/ntsc] (1322)

source: csdb.dk

Autopsy:

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from Wikipedia:

The VIC-20 (Germany: VC-20; Japan: VIC-1001) is an 8-bit home computer which was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore’s first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units.

The VIC-20 was intended to be more economical than the PET computer. It was equipped with only 5 kB of RAM (of this, only 3583 bytes were available to the BASIC programmer) and used the same MOS 6502 CPU as the PET. The VIC-20′s video chip, the MOS Technology VIC, was a general-purpose color video chip designed by Al Charpentier in 1977 and intended for use in inexpensive display terminals and game consoles, but Commodore could not find a market for the chip.

As the Apple II gained momentum with the advent of VisiCalc in 1979, Jack Tramiel wanted a product that would compete in the same segment, to be presented at the January 1980 CES. For this reason Chuck Peddle and Bill Seiler started to design a computer named TOI (The Other Intellect).

source: wikipedia

You can see the individual devices by clicking the link below.

• Sharp MZ-80 P3 (Dot Printer)
• Sharp MZ-80 FD (Double Floppy Disk)
• Sharp MZ-80 I/O (Interface Unit)
• Sharp MZ-80K

Autopsy:

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I have removed two polyester capacitors (filter) before they explode.

This is a dot matrix printer produced by Sharp for Personal microcomputer System MZ-80 Series. The Sharp MZ-80 P3 must be connected to the Sharp MZ-80 I/O (Interface Unit) to be utilized. This printer has been built by Epson and later rebranded by Sharp.

Autopsy:

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I have removed two polyester capacitors (filter) before they explode.

Floppy Disk Drive for Personal microcomputer System MZ-80 Series. Each floppy disk can contain 143k of data for a total of 286K. The Floppy Disk Drive must be connected to the Sharp MZ-80 I/O (Interface Unit) to be utilized.

The 8bit computers multiscene party reports. See also the Forver 8bit party homepage for more informations and download.

Download:

• Zx spectrum entries (1606)
• Commodore 64 entries (1586)
• Atari entries (1558)
• Amstrad cpc entries (1514)

source: forever.zeroteam.sk

Autopsy:

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I have removed two polyester capacitor (filter) that are exploded after a few seconds.

This is a I/O Extension device to connect bus-line signals being output from MZ-80K to peripheral units such as dot printer, floppy disk, colour display and so on.

Autopsy:

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from Wikipedia:

The Sharp MZ is a series of personal computers sold in Japan and Europe (particularly Germany and Great Britain) by Sharp beginning in 1978.

Although commonly believed to stand for “Microcomputer Z80″, the term MZ actually has its roots in the MZ-40K, a home computer kit produced by Sharp in 1978 which was based on Fujitsu’s 4-bit MB8843 processor and provided a simple hexadecimal keypad for input. This was soon followed by the MZ-80K, K2, C, and K2E, all of which were based on 8-bit LH0080A Sharp CPU (compatible to Zilog Z80A) with an alphanumeric keyboard.

The Sharp MZ80K was one of the popular early consumer-level microcomputers, with an architecture based on the Zilog Z80 8-bit microprocessor. It was introduced into Europe in 1979. The machine had 48KB of RAM, 32KB of which was available for user programs (the actual figure was dependent on the memory configuration and the system languages being used).

It could run a variety of high-level languages including BASIC, Pascal and FORTRAN, which had to be loaded into RAM before any programming could be undertaken. It could also be programmed directly in assembly code or machine code. The machine had an inbuilt monochrome display and a cassette tape drive. The display, keyboard and cassette drive lifted on hinges to expose the motherboard and circuitry underneath. Graphics capability was primitive, with only preset shapes and icons being available and no native hi-res capability.

This was not unusual for a late-1970s vintage microcomputer. The main drawback, however, of the MZ-80K was the non-standard keyboard, which was difficult to use.

The MZ-80K sold well in Europe despite its high price (it retailed at over £500 in 1980), and a large range of software was available, including some Japanese arcade games. It was superseded in 1982 by the MZ-80A machine.

source: wikipedia