from 1541 Ultimate homepage:

Finally, you might think! An update on the 1541U-II… As time is going fast, the moment that all the hardware parts for the 1541U-II will be ready is drawing near. It all was not too easy, but things are going now the way they should.

The major difficulty showed to be the plastic case. Finally I have found a contractor who is willing to make the plastic case exactly as I wanted it, for a reasonable price. Unfortunately, the mould for plastic injection is quite expensive; in fact about double of what I expected initially, based on an unrealistic quote that I got a few months ago. Because of the large interest in the 1541U-II, I decided to just continue with it, and leave the selling price of the total product intact.

Earlier this week, I received the first pictures of the first try-outs of the injection mould tool. The result shows a little problem in the design, with the planned material (ABS). Due to the thick and sturdy plastic constuction on the inside, sink marks are visible on the outside.

The manufacturer has tried to run the case with a different material (PA), which looks a lot better. However, due to different shrinkage characteristics, the mould tool needs to be adapted to adjust for the difference in material. (You can see this, that the matte version does not close perfectly…) They will do this, but it will take one week extra before the cases are ready. The final color won’t be black (unless I am getting a lot of angry E-mails now.. ;-), but light cream color, to match the C64C better.

Read more…

Thanks to My Brother for the Photo.

Cartridges (also known as expansion modules) are freely exchangeable ROM libraries that provide additional content without providing additional functionality. These cartridges are plugged into a slot near the battery compartment in order to introduce new software libraries.

Word and game lists are of differing lengths depending upon the cartridge and the word lists in models marketed for different languages reflect the language marketed for. Separate word lists also exist for regional variants such as the American and British English versions.

The word list used in each of the regional models reflects the recommendations of educators in each country. The English, French, German and Italian versions were all created by a team of non-specialists, in TI’s plant near Antibes, France, under the watchful eye of Larry Brantingham who had patented the underlying technology.

source: wikipedia speaknspell.co.uk

The date is final: 1-3 October 2010 in The Netherlands.

Party location is near Eindhoven Airport which has several low cost airlines like the ryanairs and wizzairs and there’s also a trainstation nearby, which is easy to reach coming from Eindhoven.

source: c64.sk noname.c64.org

Spreadsheet with intuitive interface, powerful calculation engine, graphics generator, color themes, and much more.

source: plus4world.powweb.com

Some new Games for VIC-20

• The Improbable War. A turn based strategy game with “fog of war” elements and a retro-futuristic theme.
• Ten Ten Again. A variation on the game Ten Ten.

source: Denial (The Commodore VIC-20 forum)

This converter converts a truecolor Jpeg/Bitmap picture to three seperate c64 hires bitmaps which when flicked together fuse the colors together tocreate a rendition of the original image.

History:

25/01/10

• Speedup of approximately 20-30%
• Extra ‘Heavy filter’ implemented.

23/01/10

• Added Luma only conversion option.  This ignores the color content of the image and converts according to brightness.
• Linux Version.

21/01/10

• Major bug fix. some brightness check flags were toggled incorrectly for each 8×8 or 8×2 block resulting in close colors being filtered out and replaced by bad luma combos.
• Added ‘ass lace mode’ to standard non fli mode + (non super flicker reduction).
• Added weaker dither (dither 1). Default of dither 1 in previous versions is now ‘dither 2′.
• Optimisation of conversion routines. Now runs slightly faster.

Read more…

Autopsy:

source: rwapsoftware.co.uk

I have bricked my fonera and now the power light comes on but the fonera reboot cycling. I cannot access the web gui /ssh or telnet through redboot. Serial Connection fix all  my problems.

Gallery:

source: dd-wrt.com

This converter converts a truecolor Jpeg/Bitmap picture to three seperate
c64 hires bitmaps which when flicked together fuse the colors together tocreate a rendition of the original image.

History:

21/01/10

• Major bug fix.  some brightness check flags were toggled incorrectly for each 8×8 or 8×2 block resulting in close colors being filtered out and replaced by bad luma combos.
• Added ‘ass lace mode’ to standard non fli mode + (non super flicker reduction).
• Added weaker dither (dither 1). Default of dither 1 in previous versions is now ‘dither 2′.
• Optimisation of conversion routines. Now runs slightly faster.

18/01/10

• Tweaked non luma overload reduction mode to accept some more color combinations.
• NTSC/PAL Exe toggle.
• FLI X2 mode.
• Super Flicker Reduction.

11/01/10

• Initial Release.

source: noname.c64.org

Replacement the Sinclair QL membrane and reassemble the Keyboard.

source: rwapsoftware.co.uk

Autopsy:

12►

from Wikipedia:

The Sinclair QL (for Quantum Leap), was a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as the successor to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the hobbyist and small business markets, but failed to achieve commercial success.

The QL was originally conceived in 1981 under the code-name ZX83, as a portable computer for business users, with a built-in ultra-thin flat-screen CRT display (similar to the later TV80 pocket TV), printer and modem. As development progressed, and ZX83 became ZX84, it eventually became clear that the portability features were over-ambitious and the specification was reduced to a conventional desktop configuration.

Based on a Motorola 68008 processor clocked at 7.5 MHz, the QL included 128 KB of RAM (officially expandable to 640 KB) and could be connected to a monitor or TV for display. Two built-in Microdrive tape-loop cartridge drives (first seen as a peripheral for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum) provided mass storage, in place of the more expensive floppy disk drives found on similar systems of the era.

Interfaces included an expansion slot, ROM cartridge socket, dual RS-232 ports, proprietary QLAN local area network ports, dual joystick ports and an external Microdrive bus. Two video modes were available, 256×256 pixels with 8 RGB colours and per-pixel flashing, or 512×256 pixels with four colours (black, red, green and white). Both screen modes used a 32 KB framebuffer in main memory.

The hardware was capable of switching between two different areas of memory for the framebuffer, thus allowing double buffering. However, this would have used 64 KB of the standard machine’s 128 KB of RAM and there is no support for this feature in the QL’s original firmware. The alternative and much improved operating system Minerva does provide full support for the second framebuffer.

source: wikipedia

This converter converts a truecolor Jpeg/Bitmap picture to three seperate
c64 hires bitmaps which when flicked together fuse the colors together tocreate a rendition of the original image.

History:

18/01/10

• Tweaked non luma overload reduction mode to accept some more color combinations.
• NTSC/PAL Exe toggle.
• FLI X2 mode.
• Super Flicker Reduction.

11/01/10

• Initial Release.

source: noname.c64.org

After many years, Resource release a new version of Project One (Converter and Paint program).

source: resource.cx noname.c64.org

Autopsy:

12►

from Bo Zimmerman Homepage:

The VIC-1010 is an optional expansion to the VIC-20 manufactured by Commodore UK. It plugs into the VIC-20′s game/expansion/bus port, providing 6 more such ports along the top.

The rest of the unit sits behind and a bit off to the right of the machine, preventing any obstruction of the VIC’s other ports. Built into the 1010 is a 220V power supply to supplement the computer’s supply.

source: zimmers.net

Autopsy:

from Datamath:

This funny synthesizer based product from Texas Instruments generates a lot of different sounds and stores them into internal memory. Compared with earlier products of the Speak & line this one uses a quite simple technology.

This educational toy is very similar to the Speak & Music but uses an Italian speaking language.

source: datamath.org