Details:
I thank a friend for the donation.
Donated item:
SNDH archive v4.3 released - 4107 SNDH files (total 7719 tunes)
Ever since the birth of the Atari ST, different chip music formats have had different ways to use them. If you are coding a chip music player for the Atari ST you would have to use dozens and dozens of special ways to replay music.
But in the mid 90′s, BDC of Aura crew became tired of this inelegant system and decided to fix the issue once and for all. He then created the ‘SNDH’ file format. SNDH is actually the original songfile and replaycode with a header bolted on top of the music and replayer. The header has a unified calling interface no matter what type of chip music is hidden beneath it, and it has extended datas about the music.
Download: SNDH Atari ST YM2149 Archive v4.3 (1431)
source: sndh.atari.org
Some new games or tools (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups.
Titles:
Download: All Games in One Archive (2902)
source: csdb.dk
Autopsy:
This version of Coleco Vision SECAM (Péritel/Euroconnector) uses a PCB 91162 REV D which differs from the classical version with PCB 91209 because integrates an internal video encoder from Y (BY) (RY) to RGB which is separate from the motherboard.
This makes think that in theory all PAL versions that use the VDP 9929A with PCB 91162 REV D and RF output can be modified to have a RGB output signal by adding this external video encoder.
from Wikipedia homepage:
The ColecoVision is Coleco Industries’ second generation home video game console, which was released in August 1982. The ColecoVision offered near-arcade-quality graphics and gaming style along with the means to expand the system’s basic hardware. Released with a catalog of 12 launch titles, with an additional 10 games announced for 1982, approximately 145 titles in total were published as ROM cartridges for the system between 1982 and 1984. River West Brands currently owns the ColecoVision brand name.
In 2009, IGN named the ColecoVision their 12th best video game console out of their list of 25, citing “its incredible accuracy in bringing current-generation arcade hits home.”
Coleco licensed Nintendo’s Donkey Kong as the official pack-in cartridge for all ColecoVision consoles, helping to boost the console’s popularity. By Christmas of 1982, Coleco had sold more than 500,000 units, in part on the strength of its bundled game. The ColecoVision’s main competitor was the arguably more advanced but less commercially successful Atari 5200.
The ColecoVision was distributed by CBS Electronics outside of North America, and was branded the CBS ColecoVision.
Sales quickly passed 1 million in early 1983, before the video game crash of 1983. By the beginning of 1984, quarterly sales of the ColecoVision had dramatically decreased.
Over the next 18 months, the Coleco company ramped down its video game division, ultimately withdrawing from the video game market by the end of the summer of 1985. The ColecoVision was officially discontinued by October 1985. Total sales of the ColecoVision are uncertain but were ultimately in excess of 2 million units, as sales had reached that number by the spring of 1984, while the console continued to sell modestly up until its discontinuation the following year.
In 1986, Bit Corporation produced a ColecoVision clone called the Dina, which was sold in the United States by Telegames as the Telegames Personal Arcade.
source: wikipedia
Javatari is a multiplayer Atari 2600 emulator written in pure Java with no external libs.
Features:
Changelog;
Download: Javatari JAR v4.0 (Needs Java 6 or greater) (914)
source: javatari.org
Javatari is a multiplayer Atari 2600 emulator written in pure Java with no external libs.
Features:
Changelog;
Download: Javatari JAR v3.40 (Needs Java 6 or greater) (992)
source: javatari.org
Autopsy:
from Wikipedia homepage:
The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of “intelligent television”. Over 3 million Intellivision units were sold and a total of 125 games were released for the console.
In 2009, video game website IGN named the Intellivision the No. 14 greatest video game console of all time. It became Mattel’s first video game console, though it was their only console until the release of the HyperScan in 2006.
The Intellivision was developed by Mattel Electronics, a subsidiary of Mattel formed expressly for the development of electronic games. The console was test marketed in Fresno, California, in 1979 with a total of four games available, and was released nationwide in 1980 with a price tag of US$299 and a pack-in game: Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack. Though not the first system to challenge Atari, it was the first to pose a serious threat to Atari’s dominance. A series of advertisements featuring George Plimpton were produced, that demonstrated the superiority of the Intellivision’s graphics and sound to those of the Atari 2600, using side-by-side game comparisons.
Mattel Intellivision SECAM Motherboard:
source: wikipedia
Tomasz “Tebe” Biela has released an update of the program Graph2Font v3.9.8.7.
This project began many years ago as a simple graphics converter for Atari but over the years the features are significantly increased. The converter runs under Windows.
Download:
source: g2f.atari8.info
Autopsy:
from Secret Weapons of Commodore homepage:
Introduced CES 1978
Hardware 6504 CPU (28-pin 6502, 8K addressable memory, on-chip clock, IRQ line only) @ 1MHz, 6530 RIOT (64 bytes RAM, 1KB ROM, 2 I/O ports, 8-bit timer), 6332 ROM. Two ROM sockets; the 6332 is occupying only one of them. The 6504 is socketed; the remainder are soldered directly to the board.
Graphics and Sound If you can call it that. Four 7-element LED displays for the timers and four dome indicator LEDs. Piezoelectric beeper.
Eventual Fate Released summer 1978 in USA, UK and West Germany.
This chess machine is an 22 x 16 x 5cm (rear, approximately 8 x 6 x 2 inch; front is 3.5cm/1.2 inches high) machine, off-white (similar to early VIC-20s), with a dark brown base. The 7-element LEDs are in groups of two, one labeled “FROM (Time white)” and the other “TO (Time black)”; the four dome LEDs are labeled “Check”, “CHESSmate LOSES”, “CHESSmate IS PLAYING WHITE” and “CHESSmate IS PLAYING BLACK”.
The “keyboard” is a membrane setup (similar to the Sinclair ZX-80) with 19 keys (A-H, 1-8, NEW GAME, CLEAR, ENTER), but only 11 matrix lines (A-H and 1-8 share lines). A-H are also, respectively, labeled WHITE, BOARD VERIFY, CHESS CLOCK, DISPLAY TIME, STOP CLOCK, SKILL LEVEL, GAME MOVES, and BLACK. The rear plate reads: “Commodore International Limited / Power supply: AC adaptor model C160 / Power rating: AC 10V 600 mA / CHESSmate, 201490 01, made in Hong Kong / CAUTION: DO NOT OPEN MACHINE. UNAUTHORIZED SERVICE VOIDS WARRANTY.” This is printed in English, French and German. On the internal view, the ICs are, from left to right, the 6530 RIOT, the 6332 ROM (next to the empty socket for the option ROM), and the 6504.
The Chessmate was developed by Peter Jennings, the original author of KIM-1 Microchess, under contract to Commodore in 1977. The Chessmate’s hardware is in fact based on the KIM-1, but the ROMs are of course filled with Microchess 1.5, not the KIM’s monitor. This was the same version released for the PET; the empty ROM socket on Martijn’s board was intended primarily for upgrades to the chess program. The keyboard mapping is dissimilar to the KIM as well; some of the ports were actually used for sound, and Commodore made some rearrangements to the unit for ease of manufacture after Peter released the unit to them. While simultaneously released in the USA, UK and West Germany, it was significantly more popular in the latter country than in the others (presumably due to greater interest in chess there). Peter received a royalty for each unit produced, and still owns a first-production Chessmate (sadly non-functional) and the original KIM-1 used to create Microchess and develop the Chessmate’s custom version.
As mentioned, the Chessmate has very different ROMs from the KIM-1, and part of this difference extends to the RIOTs. The 6530 and 6532 RIOT “ROM, I/O and Timer” chips, a series of custom multifunction chips developed by MOS Technology, were designed as integrated-design cost cutters, reducing the chip count on the board as it gave the functionality of several chips and didn’t cost much more to manufacture than a regular ROM. Unfortunately, this has one important consequence: RIOTs are rarely transferable between units, because of differing CS logic between models, differing ROM contents, and some versions use fewer CS lines to get additional I/O lines.
This means that the RIOT you find in your Atari 2600 (yes, VCSes have Commodore-designed chips!) is not swappable with the RIOT you would find in a Chessmate, or in a KIM-1; even the KIM-1 by itself is bad on this point, since it had several revisions alone (my unit is Revision D). Martijn’s Chessmate has a RIOT labeled “6530 024 3279″, meaning produced on the 32nd week of 1979; this is one of the last 6530 RIOT production runs known, unfortunate because the later MOS 6532 RIOT is not pin-compatible with the 6530. The “24″ is also worrisome: this means there are no less than 24 6530 RIOT versions floating around in various units, and to the great despair of anyone wishing to repair a moribund representative of these intriguing units, virtually none of them are compatible with any other.
Download:
Video:
source: floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/
Autopsy:
from Wikipedia:
The Commodore CBM-II series was a short-lived range of 8-bit personal computers from Commodore Business Machines (CBM), released in 1982 and intended as a follow-on to the Commodore PET series.
The CBM-II had two incarnations, the P series (P = personal, or, home use) and the B series (B = business use). The B series was available with a built-in monochrome monitor (hi-profile) with detached keyboard, and also as a single unit with built-in keyboard but no monitor (lo-profile). These machines were known as the “Porsche PETs” for their unique styling.
The P series used the VIC-II 40-column color video chip like the C64. It also included two standard Atari-style joystick ports. The 6509 CPU ran at 1 MHz in the P series due to the use of the VIC-II chip.
The B series used a 6545 CRTC video chip to give an 80-column “green screen” monochrome output more suitable for word processing and other business use than the VIC-II’s 40-column display. Most models have the Motorola 68B45 installed which is a pin compatible variant rather than the MOS 6545A1 2 MHz part. On the B series the 6509 CPU ran at 2 MHz.
Features common to both the P and B series included an MOS Technology 6509 CPU, an enhanced version of the venerable 6502, that was capable of addressing up to 1 megabyte of RAM via bank switching (however, no CBM-II model came with more than 256 kilobytes of RAM, 1/4 megabyte). The sound chip was the 6581 SID, the same one that was used in the popular Commodore 64 (C64) but with some limitations as it was over-clocked to 2 MHz. Additionally, the CBM-II had an industry-standard RS-232 serial interface and an IEEE-488 parallel bus (for use by disk drives and printers) just like the PET/CBM series. The CBM-II’s built-in operating system used an enhanced version of CBM BASIC version 4.0.
An optional Intel 8088-based coprocessor board allowed the CBM-II series to run CP/M-86 1.1 and MS-DOS 1.25; however, the computers were not IBM PC compatible and very little, if any, software taking advantage of this capability ever appeared. The coprocessor board only ran on hi-profile machines due to power supply and mechanical spacing requirements.
The production naming within the United States and Canada was the B128/B256 and CBM128-80/CBM 256-80 while in Europe they were known as the 600 and 700 series respectively (no “B” in front of the model number). The P machine was known worldwide as the 500 series. There are prototype models though such as the B500 (earlier B128 design) and B700 (earlier CBM 128-80/CBM 256-80 design) known to exist.
Due to the popularity of the C64, the P series was cancelled in the United States before it could be officially released; however, a few dealers who received preproduction units sold them. As these computers had not received approval from the Federal Communications Commission, this caused legal problems for Commodore. The units were recalled and destroyed, but a very small number exist today, in private collections. At least one model, the P500, was commercially released in Europe but only sold in small numbers.
source: wikipedia
Autopsy:
I have received this computer to be repaired for a friend with a classic startup fault; the Black screen of Death.
After careful analysis of the problem and thanks to Alessandro Polito for the test, the failed component was the CPU 6509.
from Wikipedia:
The Commodore CBM-II series was a short-lived range of 8-bit personal computers from Commodore Business Machines (CBM), released in 1982 and intended as a follow-on to the Commodore PET series.
The CBM-II had two incarnations, the P series (P = personal, or, home use) and the B series (B = business use). The B series was available with a built-in monochrome monitor (hi-profile) with detached keyboard, and also as a single unit with built-in keyboard but no monitor (lo-profile). These machines were known as the “Porsche PETs” for their unique styling.
The P series used the VIC-II 40-column color video chip like the C64. It also included two standard Atari-style joystick ports. The 6509 CPU ran at 1 MHz in the P series due to the use of the VIC-II chip.
The B series used a 6545 CRTC video chip to give an 80-column “green screen” monochrome output more suitable for word processing and other business use than the VIC-II’s 40-column display. Most models have the Motorola 68B45 installed which is a pin compatible variant rather than the MOS 6545A1 2 MHz part. On the B series the 6509 CPU ran at 2 MHz.
Features common to both the P and B series included an MOS Technology 6509 CPU, an enhanced version of the venerable 6502, that was capable of addressing up to 1 megabyte of RAM via bank switching (however, no CBM-II model came with more than 256 kilobytes of RAM, 1/4 megabyte). The sound chip was the 6581 SID, the same one that was used in the popular Commodore 64 (C64) but with some limitations as it was over-clocked to 2 MHz. Additionally, the CBM-II had an industry-standard RS-232 serial interface and an IEEE-488 parallel bus (for use by disk drives and printers) just like the PET/CBM series. The CBM-II’s built-in operating system used an enhanced version of CBM BASIC version 4.0.
An optional Intel 8088-based coprocessor board allowed the CBM-II series to run CP/M-86 1.1 and MS-DOS 1.25; however, the computers were not IBM PC compatible and very little, if any, software taking advantage of this capability ever appeared. The coprocessor board only ran on hi-profile machines due to power supply and mechanical spacing requirements.
The production naming within the United States and Canada was the B128/B256 and CBM128-80/CBM 256-80 while in Europe they were known as the 600 and 700 series respectively (no “B” in front of the model number). The P machine was known worldwide as the 500 series. There are prototype models though such as the B500 (earlier B128 design) and B700 (earlier CBM 128-80/CBM 256-80 design) known to exist.
Due to the popularity of the C64, the P series was cancelled in the United States before it could be officially released; however, a few dealers who received preproduction units sold them. As these computers had not received approval from the Federal Communications Commission, this caused legal problems for Commodore. The units were recalled and destroyed, but a very small number exist today, in private collections. At least one model, the P500, was commercially released in Europe but only sold in small numbers.
source: wikipedia
FAIL is a viewer of pictures in native formats of Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Atari Falcon and Atari Portfolio computers.
Currently the project includes:
Changelog:
This is the last release of FAIL. But don’t worry! We are just renaming our project to Retro Computer Image Library (RECOIL), because we are going to support formats from 8-bit and 16-bit machines other than Atari. Stay tuned!
Download: FAIL (First Atari Image Library) v2.0.2 (1585)
source: fail.sourceforge.net
SNDH archive v4.2 released - 3921 SNDH files (total 7389 tunes)
Ever since the birth of the Atari ST, different chip music formats have had different ways to use them. If you are coding a chip music player for the Atari ST you would have to use dozens and dozens of special ways to replay music.
But in the mid 90′s, BDC of Aura crew became tired of this inelegant system and decided to fix the issue once and for all. He then created the ‘SNDH’ file format. SNDH is actually the original songfile and replaycode with a header bolted on top of the music and replayer. The header has a unified calling interface no matter what type of chip music is hidden beneath it, and it has extended datas about the music.
Download: SNDH Atari ST YM2149 Archive v4.2 (1484)
source: sndh.atari.org
Autopsy:
Here you can see a hack of my dtv (Direct-to-TV).
from Wikipedia:
The C64 Direct-to-TV, called C64DTV for short, is a single-chip implementation of the Commodore 64 computer, contained in a joystick (modeled after the mid 1980s Competition Pro joystick) with 30 built-in games. The design is similar to the Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Game. The circuitry of the C64DTV was designed by Jeri Ellsworth, a self-taught computer chip designer who had formerly designed the C-One.
Tulip Computers (which had acquired the Commodore brand name in 1997) licensed the rights to Ironstone Partners, which cooperated with DC Studios, Mammoth Toys, and “The Toy:Lobster Company” in the development and marketing of the unit.[1] QVC purchased the entire first production run of 250,000 units and sold 70,000 of them the first day they were offered.
There exist multiple versions of the C64DTV. DTV1 (NTSC television type) comes with 2 MB ROM. It first appeared in late 2004 for the American/Canadian market. DTV2 (called C64D2TV sometimes) is a revised version for the European and world markets (PAL television type) and appeared in late 2005. The ROM has been replaced by flash memory in these devices. However, the DTV2/PAL version suffers from a manufacturing fault, which results in poor colour rendering (the resistors in the R-2R ladder DACs for both the chroma and the luma have been transposed). In the DTV3, a problem with the blitter was fixed. Another DTV variant is the Radio Shack “HUMMER Off-Road Racing Challenge Video Game”.
Hardware Specifications:
Core circuity:
Casing/Connectors:
Graphics:
Sound:
Memory:
CPU:
source: wikipedia dtvhacking.retrosafe.com
ASAP is a player of 8-bit Atari music for modern computers and mobile devices. It emulates the POKEY sound chip and the 6502 processor.
The project was initially based on the routines from the Atari800 emulator, but the current version has a completely new original emulation core.
Changelog ASAP 3.1.5 (2013-08-17):
Download: ASAP v3.1.5 (1324)
source: asap.sourceforge.net
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