Compaq Portable III (Model 2660) with External Expansion Chassis

July 24th, 2012 10 comments
Compaq Portable III (Model 2660)

Autopsy:

from Wikipedia:

The Compaq Portable III is a computer released by Compaq Computer Corporation in 1987. It was advertised as being much smaller and lighter than the previous portable x86-PCs, however it was still quite large by today’s standards.

Its street price upon its release was 4999 USD for a model equipped with an 12 MHz Intel 80286 CPU, 640 kB RAM, 1.2 MB 5.25″ floppy, 20 MB hard disk (type 2), and a 10″ amber colored gas-plasma display or 5799 USD with the upgraded 40 MB hard disk. There was also an optional ISA Expansion chassis allowed for 2 full length 16-bit ISA add-in cards for 199 USD. Power is supplied using a mains electricity outlet, no battery exist.

source: wikipedia

Osborne 1 (System One – 1981)

July 22nd, 2012 No comments
Osborne 1 (System One - 1981)

Autopsy:

from Wikipedia:

The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 10.7 kg (23.5lb), cost USD$ 1795, and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. The computer shipped with a large bundle of software that was almost equivalent in value to the machine itself, a practice adopted by other CP/M computer vendors.

Its principal deficiencies were a tiny 5 inches (13 cm) display screen and use of single sided, single density floppy disk drives which could not contain sufficient data for practical business applications.

The Osborne’s design was based largely on the Xerox NoteTaker, a prototype developed at Xerox PARC in 1976 by Alan Kay. The Osborne 1 was developed by Adam Osborne and designed by Lee Felsenstein. It was first announced in April, 1981. Adam Osborne, an author of computer books, decided he wanted to break the price of computers.

The computer was designed to be portable, with a rugged ABS plastic case that closed up and a handle. The Osborne 1 was about the size and weight of a sewing machine and was advertised as the only computer that would fit underneath an airline seat. It is now classified as a “luggable” computer when compared to later laptop designs such as the Epson HX-20.

source: wikipedia

 

C64 Game: Fifteen 3D / Lunar +1D / World Class Leaderboard …

July 20th, 2012 No comments

SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.4a released

July 16th, 2012 No comments

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

Changelog:

  • Fix DMA initialization in the menu (could cause sprite corruption in some games)

Download: SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.4a (1145)

source: sd2snes.de

Categories: Firmware, News & Rumors, Today

Atari 8-Bit Tools: RastaConverter Beta 4 GUI v0.0.1.3

July 15th, 2012 No comments

User Friendly GUI under M$ Windows (requires .NET Framework) for the command line tool RastaConverter by Jakub ‘Ilmenit’ Debski.

Download: RastaConverter Beta 4 + GUI (M$ Win) (1302)

source: atariage.com/forums

C64 Game: Little Sara Sister 1.5 +7HD / Elav +4HD …

July 15th, 2012 No comments

Amstrad Monitor PC-CD / Mouse / Keyboard and System Discs

July 15th, 2012 2 comments
Amstrad PC 1640 / Monitor PC-CD / Mouse / Keyboard

Autopsy:

The Autopsy of the Amstrad PC 1640 SD (IBM PC-compatible) can be read here

from Wikipedia:

The Amstrad PC1512 was Amstrad’s mostly IBM PC-compatible home computer system, first manufactured in 1986. It was later succeeded by the PC1640.

It launched for £499 and sold very well, as it was one of the first cheap PCs in Europe. It significantly helped open up the European PC market to consumers as well as businesses, and Amstrad’s advertising of the PC1512 was aimed at homes rather than offices. The 1512′s influence was such that the UK PC magazine PC Plus originally targeted itself at the “Amstrad PC 1512 and compatibles”, since home ownership of other PCs at the time was rare.

The PC1512 shipped with 512K of RAM; it could be upgraded to 640K of RAM with an expansion pack. Video output was compatible with the CGA standard, with an extension allowing all 16 colours to be used in the 640×200 graphics mode. The CPU of both the PC1512 and the later PC1640 was an 8 MHz Intel 8086, which was sufficient for playing The Secret of Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion and Prince of Persia. The power supply was located in the monitor, which made upgrading difficult.

source: wikipedia Amstrad PC1640 Technical Reference

Unboxing SIO2SD Micro by Panos Santos

July 14th, 2012 1 comment
SIO2SD Micro (testing)

Autopsy:

The SIO2SD is a device that allows you to load games/applications into any 8-bit Atari XL/XE computers via SIO interface from SD cards.

This version is like the original SIO2SD (based to latest schematic “version 2″) but in a smaller form with some improvements by Panos.

Panos improvements:

  • As for the cpu the latest “low consumption” ATMega32A microcontroller in smd form.
  • The 74LVC245 who guarantees good data transfer between the microcontroller and SDcard, in proper voltage levels also.
  • New 47nf capacitors for better button response.
  • Extra resistor and capacitor added in output of low dropout voltage regulator, for better voltage stability particularly at “no load” condition. As result of that is much higher reliability and compatibility with more SD cards.
  • New tactile switches with smooth feeling for more comfortable use.
  • Push on-Push off type SD connector.

source: atariage.com/forums

HxC Floppy Emulator: Firmware v1.7.1.2 released

July 13th, 2012 No comments

The HxC Floppy Drive Emulator is a software and hardware system created by jfdn aka Jeff.

The aim of this project is to replace the floppy disk drive by an electronic device emulating the floppy disk drive (list of supported Computer/Hardware).

There are two differents emulators:

  • A USB version which allows to connect the floppy disk drive interface of the computer to a PC via a USB cable.
  • A SDCARD version which allows to emulate floppy disks which images are stored in a SDCARD.

Firmware SD HxCFloppyEmulator v1.7.1.2:

  • Drive A <> Drive B constant polling issue corrected (Atari ST).
  • Better SD Card error handling.

Firmware SD HxCFloppyEmulator v1.7.1.1:

  • New embedded setting menu : To access this menu remove the SDCard and press the select button.
    • By this menu you can:
    • Change the floppy Interface mode.
    • Change the bitrate.
    • Change the track step mode.
    • Enable/disable the drive B.
    • Enable/disable the step sound.
    • Set the user interface sound volume.
    • Set the backlight timing.
    • Set the standby timing.
    • Check the software and bootloader version (integrity test included).
    • Clear/reset the settings and reset the Emulator.
    • Exit this menu…
  • SD Card: Issue with some sd card corrected : Incompatibility with some SD chipset corrected.
  • Write support: Timing for MFM / FM 250/300/500KBits/s write support readjusted. DataMark supported : 0xFB,0xF8 (deleted data mark), 0xFA,0xF9. HFE file format enhanced : Track 0 Side 0 & Track 0 Side 1 track write mode can be different from the others tracks.
  • New track seek algorithm: Faster track seek/settle time -> Faster Loading time !
  • Flip disk function: the disk image can now be flipped (reverse side 0side 1).
  • Bad track number at power up corrected (E-mu Emulator I/II, SP1200, Linn/Forat 9000…)
  • Experimental “Rev2″ HFE support : Correct some issue with some Amiga games/demos.
  • Lots of internals code optimization…

 Download:

source: hxc2001.free.fr

Re.Bit numero #7

July 13th, 2012 No comments

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Categories: Magazine, News & Rumors, Today

Atari 8-Bit Tools: RastaConverter Beta 4 by Jakub ‘Ilmenit’ Debski

July 11th, 2012 No comments

RastaConverter by Jakub ‘Ilmenit’ Debski is a command line tools for M$ Windows/Linux to convert and optimize images for use with the Atari 8 Bit computers.

Download:

source: github.com/ilmenit/RastaConverter atariage.com/forums atariage.com/forums

Arok Party 2012: Official demo party results

July 11th, 2012 No comments

This is the official demo party results from the Arok Party 2012 (Top 3 Entries only). See also the Arok Party homepage for more informations.

C64 Graphics:

  • 1 – Stay for a while… by Chorus, Resource, Singular.
  • 3 – And somebody looked in the window by Avatar.
  • 5 – Spy by Mr. Booa.

C64 Music:

  • 2 – Smile in the Crowd by Resource.
  • 3 – Asvanyviz by Padua.
  • 4 – Dream to Love by Hokuto Force.

C64 Demo:

  • 1 – Pimp My Commodore by Chorus, Resource, Singular.

C64 Outside Party:

  • 4 Emelet Preview (Game Preview)
  • SID-Wizard 1.0 RC (Tool)

Download: Arok 2012 full Party stuff (927)

source: noname.c64.org/csdb arok.intro.hu

Categories: Event(s), News & Rumors, Today

Everdrive MD – OS Update v34 released

July 10th, 2012 No comments

It was released a new OS Update for the Everdrive MD Flash Cartridge (Megadrive/Genesis) by Krikzz. The upgrade instructions can be found here.

Changelog:

  • Fixed underscan problem for old TV-sets.

Download: Everdrive MD - OS Update v34 (877)

source: krikzz.com

Categories: Hardware, News & Rumors, Today

SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.4 released

July 10th, 2012 No comments

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

Changelog:

  • SPC Player (contributed by necronomfive/blargg)
  • System Information screen now shows CPU/PPU revision (contributed by necronomfive)
  • Satellaview: basic data transmission packet support (makes some more games boot, thanks to LuigiBlood for assistance and sample data packets)
  • Number of supported files increased to 50000 per card / 16380 per directory.
  • Slight speedup of menu text rendering.
  • Reduce load time of menu.
  • Adjust Cx4 timing to be more faithful (Mega Man now defeats the boss in attract mode in Mega Man X2)
  • adapt ROM mirroring size to file size if header information is invalid (fixes Super Noah’s Ark 3D, possibly others)
  • MSU1 interface changes suggested by byuu:
    • Data offset 0 and audio track 0 are automatically requested on reset. This causes the busy flags to become 0 shortly after reset/startup.
    • $2000 bit 3 is now “audio error”, becomes valid after “audio busy” -> 0 set when an error occurred while preparing playback of the requested audio track write LED stays on when SRAM content changes constantly.
  • Fixes:
  • fix empty save files on FAT16 / incorrect free cluster count on FAT32.
  • correct directory sorting (force parent directory at top of list)
  • fix text corruption when entering a directory with a scrollable name.
  • fix files/dirs count in system information.
  • make ‘sd2snes’ directory hiding case-insensitive.
  • improve DAC I²S timing.
  • fix occasional palette corruption in menu.
  • fix SD clock glitch on ROM loading (occasional glitches/crashes)
  • fix memory write timing on ROM loading (occasional glitches/crashes)
  • fix SPI timing (ROMs not loading; System Information not working)
  • properly synchronize SNES control signals (occasional glitches/crashes)
  • fix floating IRQ output (occasional glitches/slowdowns)

Download: SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.4 (1134)

source: sd2snes.de

Categories: Firmware, News & Rumors, Today

CBM prg Studio v2.4.0 released

July 8th, 2012 1 comment

CBM prg Studio Version 2.4.0 is 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.

New Features in v2.4.0:

  • Screen designer and character editor extended to use the C16 and Plus/4′s larger colour palette.
  • Build can now be cancelled.
  • Some speed improvements.
  • Improved invalid label detection.
  • Relaxed restriction on mono-spaced only fonts (use with care!)
  • Auto-completion added (labels, variables and macros) for assembly programs.
  • Column selection in code editor.

Major bugs fixed:

  • Assembly code reformatting tool.
  • Loading char/screen/sprite files from the project explorer when the file has been moved/deleted.
  • Start page crash for missing/moved projects/files.
  • Screen Code Builder:cbm+numerics only works with mouse on virtual keyboard.
  • Project open/save crash if project explorer window closed.
  • Project tick in view menu occasionally missing.
  • Occasional crash when opening sprite file in new project.
  • PI symbol/keyword incorrect.
  • Detect macro definition with no macro name. Previously would just report ‘preprocessor error’
  • Selected memory in viewer should fill in start end address in save.
  • End address of selected memory in viewer was sometimes wrong.
  • Removed start address from basic programs generated to memory.
  • Certain instructions not being optimised (zero page) properly.
  • Tidied up the label dump after a build. Long labels were being bunched up.

Download: CBM prg Studio v2.4.0 (917)

source: ajordison.co.uk