I thank my dear friend that gave me the Spem EXP-MEM 512k.

Autopsy:

Various companies offered to upgrade your QL with an internal memory upgrade. This was normally 512K, but some companies also offered a 256K version.

The method of upgrade was in two ways:

• Removal of the existing QL memory chips and replacement to give a total of 512K
• An internal board, which connects to the 8301 ULA socket, and has a wire to the 68008 processor.

The downside of this method of upgrading the QL’s memory was:

• The memory access was slower than external memory
• You could not use some of the later QL expansions, such as the Trump Card which themselves had memory built into the interface.

Internal interfaces were advertised by a range of companies, including CST, MicroPeripherals and Silicon Express.

source: Sinclair QL Computer Wiki

Forth, the Language.

Forth is a different language. It’s aged and a little weird.
What’s cool about it? It’s a very low-level and minimal language without any automatic memory management. At the same time, it easily scales to become a very high-level and domain-specific language, much like Lisp. Compared to C64 Basic, Forth is more attractive in almost every way.

It is a lot more fast, memory effective and powerful. Compared to C, specifically cc65, the story is a little different. It’s hard to make a fair comparison. Theoretically Forth code can be very memory efficient, and it’s possible to make Forth code that is leaner than C code. But it is also true that cc65 code is generally much faster than Forth code.

Download: durexForth v1.3 + Manual (1014)

source: noname.c64.org

Javatari is a multiplayer Atari 2600 emulator written in pure Java with no external libs.

Features:

• Client-Server multiplayer mode. Runs great in low-latency networks such as LANs.
• Drag&Drop and Copy&Paste of ROM files or URLs. Very easy to try ROMs from websites!
• Scanlines and TV screen emulation modes.
• Real Atari console user interface.

Changelog:

• New concept: Savestate Cartridges!
• Store emulator state as Savestate Cartridge files to disk any time (press F8)
• Savestate Cartridges can be distributed and loaded as normal ROMs.
• Savestate Cartridges can also be embedded as auto-load ROMs.
• Support for Starpath/Supercharger Tape ROM format.
• Bugfixes and improvements.

Download: Javatari JAR v4.1 (Needs Java 6 or greater) (1093)

source: javatari.org

I thank my dear friend that gave me the Staff K8AP Multi-Compatible Keyboard. Unfortunately is missing the adapter card to install inside the computer.

Autopsy:

Compatible keyboard for the Apple II / IIe.

I thank my dear friend that gave me the Atari Touch Tablet.

Autopsy:

The Atari Touch Tablet was a well designed and brilliant idea. Giving the user the ability to use a virtual sheet of paper and pen, they could draw, drag and drop, paint and erase images with the included Atari Artist program.

Perhaps given more time, the Touch Tablet could have been used for many other innovative ideas and perhaps vertical market applications. The Atari CX-77 Touch Tablet was designed by Tom Palecki formerly of Atari’s Industrial Design group.

source: atarimuseum.com

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Some new games or tools (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups.

Titles:

• Noxus
• The Rat +2D
• Chickhack &D
• Kur pelite tu tuceji +
• Cosmos +7D
• The Caves of Oberon +2D
• Color Flood +2
• Cosmos +
• Cosmos +7MD 101%
• International Karate II [fixed]
• Cosmos +7MD
• Wavy Navy +3HD +Pic
• Bomb Ace +2D
• Cosmos V1.2
• The Way +4ED [german/english]
• 2048 +2
• Cosmos V1.1
• Monstics Mystery II Preview &D +Pic
• The Impossible Game
• The Impossible Game +1MF [pal/ntsc]

Download: All Games in One Archive (2938)

source: csdb.dk

Someone has to repair these computers! ;-D

In the photo you can see: Commodore 64(C) motherboard, Commodore Amiga 500 motherboard, Commodore Amiga 600, Sinclair QL, Commodore 128 motherboard and some Amiga keyboard.

Autopsy:

12►

The Mivar 9BN2V it’s a 9 inches B/W CRT screen with 16 programs preselection with a electronic tuning for each program. It can be powered even with a 12volt and has a headphone jack.

Mivar is an Italian TV-set manufacturer. It was founded by entrepreneur Carlo Vichi in 1945 in Milan. Mivar used to produce radios and CRT televisions, but now produces only LCD LED televisions. Mivar is the last Italian factory of televisions. Their factory is in Abbiategrasso (20 km from Milan).

Since the 80s until 2000 in Italy Mivar TVs have had a very wide spread, in fact these televisions were present in almost every Italian house, in the Italian TV Studios, in schools, hospitals, hotels and prisons, because these CRT TVs were good, cheap, robust and durable.

When the market decided to focus on the LCD TVs, Mivar was unprepared and had serious difficulties. But thanks to the tenacity of the master Carlo Vichi, Mivar introduced in 2010 some new attractive and competitive LCD-CCFL TVs, and in 2011 some new LCD-LED TVs. The televisions made today by Mivar are also particularly simple and rational, with a particular Italian design and front speakers for better sound. Today’s Mivar TVs are all made in Italy.

source: wikipedia

I thank my dear friend that gave me this external Numeric Keypad.

Autopsy:

The Advance Business Technology Inc (ABT) is a external Numeric Keypad made for the Apple II line of computers.

Autopsy:

12►

Zanussi, a well known Italian furniture company, released two game systems: Ping-O-Tronic, an analog game first released in late 1974 but really successful during 1975, and Play-o-Tronic, an AY-3-8500 game released in 1977 (this particular model was also released by Universum in Germany). Zanussi obtained the Sanders Associates License Agreement on April 21st, 1975. Zanussi reported 21,514 Play-o-Tronic units sold between October 1st and December 31st, 1977 (3 months) for a total amount of 620,408,000 lire, on which a 5.5% royalty was paid to Sanders (34,122,440 lire). Considering this amount, each game would have cost around 28,800 lire during this period, which seems quite low. Unfortunately there is no similar information for Ping-O-Tronic.

Ping-O-Tronic is a nice example of an early video game designed with discrete components (over fifty transistors and twenty diodes) and only three TTL chips (7400 type). All of the graphic objets (paddles, ball, boundaries) and sync signals are generated by transistor flip-flops and one-shots. The chips combine the individual signals so as to manage events like collisions between the ball and a paddle, or a lost ball. They may also be used as triggers for the serves.

This system is quite interesting because it has been improved and upgraded several times. At least nine different models are known to exist, all of which remain on the initial design (PP-2 if not PP-1). Little is known about the first model (PP-1), which dates late 1974. All we know is that it was nearly same as model PP-2 below, and may differ only by one or a few improvements in the electronic circuits (cleaner video signals, etc).

All of the systems play three games: Tennis, Squash / Solo and Attract / Automatic. Tennis and Squash are the obvious games played by analog systems. Curiously, the Hole in the Wall variant has not been implemented although it would have required minor modifications to invert the video signal of a paddle (or both to play more games). Surprizingly, an Attract / Automatic mode is available, where nodoby plays. Both paddles take the whole screen in height, forming a closed square with the two horizontal boundaries. Thus the ball bounces indefinitely, making a very strange PONG variant that only one other system known to play: Executive Games Electronic Television Tennis. This mode was a very clever way to attract people in shops because it required nobody to demonstrate the unit. You whould simply place it in the window and everybody walking down the street would see it play by itself ! This said, the attract mode designed by Executive Games was more realistic since it involved an intelligent paddle which moved automatically to always catch the ball in a squash game.

Several adjustments can be made. Paddles can vary in height from very small (almost unplayable) to enormous. This rare feature for an analog game certainly allowed young kids to play more easily. The picture can be centered both horizontally and vertically. The system is only powered by the mains (no batteries). Both hand controllers can be stored in the system case when not used.

Although model PP-2 is labeled Zanussi Ping-O-Tronic on the top side, models PP-4 and PP-5 are known to exist as Seleco Ping-O-Tronic. As a matter of fact, Seleco was a trademark of the Zanussi Industries. Other models like PP-6 only show “Ping-O-Tronic” without trademark. We currently ignore if both Seleco and Zanussi labels were used for a same model.

source: pong-story.com

I thank my dear friend that gave me this computer.

Autopsy:

12►

The Thomson MO6 was an 6809E-based computer introduced in France in 1986. It featured 128 KB of RAM, a 40×25 text display, and built-in Microsoft BASIC. The MO6 was available until January 1989. In Italy it was sold by Olivetti with little aesthetic changes, and named Olivetti Prodest PC128.

The Thomson MO 6 was the successor of the Thomson MO 5. This machine was widely used in French schools. It was compatible with the MO 5 and the other members of its family (TO 7, TO 8, TO 9 and TO 9 plus).

It has two versions of BASIC on ROM, one to be compatible with MO5 and BASIC 128 (both made by Microsoft). Almost all memory (101 KB) was accessible with BASIC thanks to a transparent 16 KB bank switching mechanism. An optional 3.5″ floppy disk drive (640 KB) was available.

It had a short life because soon after it was launched, the TO 8 came and challenged to it.

BUILT IN LANGUAGE 2 Microsoft BASIC interpreters – MO5 compatible and BASIC 128
KEYBOARD Full stroke 69 key with 5 function keys and arrow keys
CPU Motorola MC 6809e
SPEED 1 MHz
CO-PROCESSOR Custom Thomson gate array chip
RAM 128 KB
ROM 64 KB
TEXT MODES 40 or 80 chars x 25 lines
GRAPHIC MODES 8 modes, from 160 x 200 to 640 x 200 dots

source: computinghistory.org.uk

HermIRES it’s a cross-platform hires bitmap (Art Studio 1 format) editor for the Commodore 64.

The format has some restrictions, here are the rules:

• The maximal resolution of the picture is 320×200
• Only 16 fix C64 colours can be used (no gradient either)
• In a 8×8 pixel-block only 2 colours can used to be displayable by C64 (this is detected in HermIRES, but .hbm files can be saved with clashes too.)
• On a real C64 the PAL will blur the screen-content a bit, should check on CRT, or at least VICE emulator’s CRT simulation.

Changelog:

• AFLI caption can be fully disabled (AFLIexe-patch included along with bin2array.exe)

Download:

• HermIRES v1.29 (Windows/Linux) (1297)

source: hermit.netne.net

It was released a new firmware for the SD2Snes Flash Cartridge (Super Nintendo/Famicom) by Ikari. The upgrade instructions can be found here.

Changelog:

Added:

• OBC1 support (Metal Combat: Falcon’s Revenge works)
• Menu now displays the 10 most recently played games instead of one.
• Hidden and system files are now ignored in the file browser.
• Some minor internal changes for convenience of development.

Fixes:

• Partial-size BS dumps should now load correctly.
• Fixed a PSRAM mapping bug in the new BS-X mapping logic that caused graphical corruption on some games (notably Treasure Conflix garbled sprites)
• SRAM mapping for LoROM
• 0000-7fff only. Fixes saving in some games, e.g. Ys III Wanderers from Ys.

Download: SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.6 (1465)

source: sd2snes.de

Forth, the Language.

Forth is a different language. It’s aged and a little weird.
What’s cool about it? It’s a very low-level and minimal language without any automatic memory management. At the same time, it easily scales to become a very high-level and domain-specific language, much like Lisp. Compared to C64 Basic, Forth is more attractive in almost every way.

It is a lot more fast, memory effective and powerful. Compared to C, specifically cc65, the story is a little different. It’s hard to make a fair comparison. Theoretically Forth code can be very memory efficient, and it’s possible to make Forth code that is leaner than C code. But it is also true that cc65 code is generally much faster than Forth code.

Download: durexForth v1.26 + Manual (1131)

source: noname.c64.org