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Commodore Horizons Magazine – C16/Plus4 Special

November 24th, 2009 No comments

Commodore HorizonsA free brand new C16/Plus4 special edition of Commodore Horizons Magazine is now available.

source: commodore16.com

Categories: Magazine, News & Rumors, Today

Sidplay64 v0.5 Beta by Shape

November 21st, 2009 No comments

SidPlay64This is a program that can playback sid files from the HVSC collection on a real c64.

SIDPLAY 64 v.05 beta (20/11/2009):

Added a long overdue IDE64 fix. Thanks to iAN COOG and Soci.

source: noname.c64.org

FPGA Arcade site updated

November 21st, 2009 No comments

This site is about recreating gaming hardware from the past in modern programmable devices, known as FPGAs.

source: fpgaarcade.com

Categories: Hardware, News & Rumors, Today

96 icons of vintage Consoles & Computers

November 21st, 2009 No comments

Consoles/Computers icons

This is a Collection of 96 Consoles & Computers icons for Windows, Mac and Linux or forum Smiles. Are in PNG/GIF format.

download: Consoles/Computer icons Collections

Monitor Commodore 1084

November 19th, 2009 No comments
Monitor Commodore 1084

Autopsy:

from C64-Wiki:

The Commodore 1084, which was originally developed for the Amiga, is a very good colour monitor for the Commodore 64. With its many ports it can be used for connecting to many home and personal computers and can also be connected to video recorders, picture record players and TV tuners.

The Commodore 1084 has a good, sharp picture with luscious colours. All the important settings can be changed over regulators art the front or the back. While the 1084 only plays mono, the modell Commodore 1084S can also play stereo. Due to its good price performance ratio the 1084 was (and still is) very popular.

Download: Commodore 1084 Service Manual (2144)

source: c64-wiki.com

Xilinx CPLD XC9536 replacement PLA for Commodore 64

November 18th, 2009 17 comments
Replacement PLA for Commodore 64

Autopsy:

The PLA chip (906114-01) used in the Commodore C64 is a generic 82S100 gate array with custom programming.

Its logic functions were dumped and reverse engineered by the community and are available from a variety of sources. This PLA uses the Xilinx CPLD XC9536 to emulate perfectly the PLA of the Commodore 64.

Download: Xilinx CPLD XC9536 JED C64 PLA + Eagle (2250)

source: zonadepruebas.com

Some Coleco Vision Games Cartridges with Instructions

November 18th, 2009 No comments

Cartridges list:

  • BurgerTime by Data East U.S.A.
  • Rocky Super Action Boxing by United Artists Corporation + Joystick Sticker.
  • WarGames by United Artists Corporation + Joystick Sticker.
  • Buck Rogers by The Dille Family Trust.

click here for the CBS Coleco Vision category.

Atari Paddle

November 14th, 2009 2 comments
Atari Paddle

from Wikipedia:

A paddle is a game controller with a round wheel and one or more fire buttons, where the wheel is typically used to control movement of the player object along one axis of the video screen. A paddle controller rotates through a fixed arc (usually about 330 degrees); it has a stop at each end.

The paddle wheel is usually mechanically coupled to a potentiometer, so as to generate an output voltage level varying with the wheel’s angle relative to a fixed reference position. A paddle is thus an absolute position controller. That is, without any previous knowledge, the sensor can be read and the result directly indicates the position of the paddle knob. This is in contrast to a quadrature encoder-based device or “spinner”.

source: wikipedia

Commodore Vic 20 yellowed but in very good conditions

November 12th, 2009 No comments
Commodore VIC-20, Yellowed but in very good condition

Autopsy:

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 user) 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 couldn’t 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).

The TOI computer failed to materialize, mostly due to the fact that it required an 80-column character display which in turn required the MOS Technology 6564 chip. However, the chip could not be used in the TOI since it required very expensive static RAM to operate fast enough. In the meantime, freshman engineer Robert Yannes at MOS Technology (then a part of Commodore) had designed a computer in his home dubbed the MicroPET and finished a prototype with some help from Al Charpentier and Charles Winterble.

With the TOI unfinished, when Jack Tramiel was confronted with the MicroPET prototype, he immediately said he wanted it to be finished and ordered it to be mass-produced following a limited demonstration at the CES.

source: wikipedia

Some Pocket Electronics calculators

November 12th, 2009 No comments
Pocket Electronic Calculator

Autopsy:

Short Description:

  • Commodore GL-979D (1975) – 7 Digit green VFD.
  • MD2 888m (1976) – 8 Digit red LED.
  • Texas Instruments TI-30 (1976) – 8 Digit red LED.

source: mycalcdb.free.fr

CBM FileFinder v0.60 v1.0 Beta

November 11th, 2009 No comments

CBM FileFinderLittle tool useful to find a specific file inside common emulator file formats (such as D64, T64, G64, CRT and so on) or information inside SID files.

You can find, for example, SID from Rob Hubbard, or a specific SEQ file in all your files.

It comes with a complete help file.

source: aegsoft.snokie.org

Rob Hubbard’s Best Demo by Crypt

November 10th, 2009 No comments

robHubbardThis is a Rob Hubbard’s Demo by Crypt, one of My Favorite Musicians.

source: noname.c64.org

(Italian) MC-MicroComputer dal 1981 al 2001 Online!

November 9th, 2009 No comments

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Free PaperToys based on obscure UK Videogames of the 1980s

November 8th, 2009 No comments

PaperToysYou can download the PDF of:

  • Rick Dangerous
  • Cybersnake (Switchblade)
  • Hiro (Switchblade)

print them out and have fun with them.

source: simonphipps.com

Working in progress for the new 1541U-II

November 7th, 2009 No comments

1541 Ultimatefrom 1541 Ultimate homepage:

It is about time to release some news about the 1541U-II. I think some of you must be really curious about the extra features and possibilities that the 1541U-II give, and about the progress on production and firmware. To start off with the 1541U-II features, I can tell you that it differs from the ‘standard’ 1541U Plus/Ethernet that:

  • the board itself is about 30% smaller than the 1541U;
  • it has a MicroSD connector, instead of a full-size SD;
  • it has a real-time-clock function, for correct file time and date;
  • it has a larger FPGA, which enables the implementation of more features;
  • it has a USB Host port, which can be used to connect USB-sticks;
  • it is targeted to have a suitable case for the device.

Some of you have written in the forums, that the MicroSD connector is not much of an improvement. But the rationale behind going to MicroSD is mainly the available space on the board is less, and that with the addition of a USB-A port, the average user will use the usb-stick rather than the SD-card.

So the MicroSD-card does not need to be removed from the cartridge very often. However, because at the moment that I announced the 1541U-II, the USB port was not yet tested, I could not reveal this feature as I did not want to make promises that I can’t keep.

1541U-IIThe USB turns out to be quite a bit of work to get it to work, but I can now announce that I managed to implement enough of a host-controller function to be able to talk to USB devices and send the most basic commands to access a mass-storage device. I am quite close to have implemented the ‘read-block’ and ‘write-block’ functions, which is the interface level that the file system module uses. In other words, I expect to be able to access the (FAT) file-system on the USB stick quite soon!

How will it work for the user? My objective is to have one ‘directory’ level above the current root of the SD-card, where you can select which partition you want to browse. There the USB flash drive becomes visible, as well as the MicroSD card, if present.

source: 1541ultimate.net