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

Here’s what’s new since preview 4:

• Configuration menu. All settings are now available through the menu. Changes take effect immediately after confirming a setting with the A button. It can use some polish but should work fine. Note that the Video Mode settings are only effective on SuperCIC modded consoles.
• SRM files (save files) are now stored in sd2snes/saves/<romname>.srm – existing save files will be moved upon save, there is no batch migration.

Game fixes:

• DMA de-initialization has been reintroduced and changed from $00 to $ff. This reflects a real SNES better and hopefully finally fixes sprite corruption with SGnG and SSF2, AND title screen glitches/crashes with Pocky&Rocky US.

MSU1 enhancements:

• MSU1 volume boost: In case MSU1 audio is too quiet you can now increase volume in several steps. Available via Configuration->Chip Options.
• Interpolation filter to reduce aliasing, resulting in cleaner sound.
• Fixed a bug where volume calculation introduced DC offset to the waveform output. This eliminates clicking or humming on volume changes/fades.
• Changed MSU1 audio playback rate to exactly 44100Hz to match bsnes/higan implementation. Sound that syncs on bsnes should now also sync properly on sd2snes.
• MSU1 resume feature implemented (Thanks to Michaël Larouche!)

Miscellaneous:

• Missing ROM files are automatically removed from the “Recent Games” list. (Thanks to borti4938!)
• Background text is now properly greyed out in the SPC player.
• Ultra16 awareness (mostly thanks to borti4938!):
  • Ultra16 serial number and autoboot setting is displayed in the System Information screen.
  • Exiting from the SPC player doesn’t crash the menu anymore on Ultra16 consoles.
  • Soft reset is prolonged a bit on Ultra16 consoles so you have the opportunity to release the controller buttons, not entering the Ultra16 menu by accident.
  • Auto region patching is disabled on Ultra16 consoles so it doesn’t interfere with the Ultra16’s own facilities.

Critical & Minor bugs:

• Firmware locked up when loading Zelda 3 after soft-reset. I am surprised that it actually worked so well with all other games.
• Auto Region Patch setting wasn’t saved properly.
• Satellaview custom time had a garbled default value (year 1035). The default has now been fixed. If you’d like to apply it you can delete your config.yml or just the “BSXTime” entry from it to load the new default.

Download: SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.7a (927)

source: sd2snes.de

Autopsy:

12►

from Elektronite Homepage:

One smart ape has escaped from his cage. Mario, the zookeeper, is in a real fix! The gorilla Darwin has captured a very special lady and made his way onto a construction site and up bewildering, unfinished structures and a veritable King Kong! Leap for your life over bouncing barrels, ride fast-moving platforms to dizzying heights, scurry under runaway springs, and avoid roaming flames and dangerous balls of gas as you make your way up. It will take not only Mario but one of his brothers Toni and Bruno to outsmart the big ape and return the girl to safety.

It’s TWO games in one! The first arcade game, PLUS a second game with five all NEW levels inspired by the arcade hit D2K: Jumpman Returns! 9 Screens in total!

Features:

• New graphics and sound effects. Hear DK growl for the first time!
• Separate high scores for Game 1 and Game 2. Perfect for high-scoring competitions!

Video D2K ARCADE review for IntelliVision:

source: elektronite.com

Turbo Chameleon 64 is an extremely user-friendly cartridge that can be used without opening the computer. It is just plugged to the expansion port of the C64.

The Turbo Chameleon 64 cartridge can also be operated as a stand-alone unit (since it’s basically an FPGA computer like the C-One or the Minimig in a C64 cartridge case), replacing the computer, the floppy drive and the heavy power supply.

When used as a stand-alone unit, a USB power adapter or active USB hub can be used as a power source.

Changelog:

• New VGA controller with new modes and VIC-II sync.
• Tripple buffering mode added for properly displaying IFLI pictures.
• Scale-2x video scaling algorithm added.
• Scanline emulation added.
• In cartridge mode real CIAs registers and interrupts are used (allows use of a modem).
• In cartridge mode real VIC-II registers and interrupts are used (allows use of a lightpen).
• Fixed I/O assignments for FPGA (lower power use).
• Lowlevel SD-card functions now use multiple block reads if possible, which increases linear reading speed by about 40 to 50% (most noticeable on large files, such as REU images)
• BUGFIX: fixed error handling and timeouts of the IEC routines, which makes all related operations more robust.
• BUGFIX: added missing timeouts to SD-card functions.
• Joystick port 1 now also works for navigating the menus.
• BUGFIX: on some C64s pressing shift would result in phantom keypresses (F1/F2) under some conditions.
• NEW: various new VGA modes and other options for the new VGA controller (see manual)
• Improved loading speed of file inside T64 images.
• Improved keyboard handling to make the browser a bit snappier.
• BUGFIX: the size of the character ROM saved by the ROM saver was incorrect.
• BUGFIX: .wav player stops at the end of the file and does not continue playing garbage.
• BUGFIX: files bigger than 2k are displayed correctly by the .txt viewer.
• BUGFIX: when copying files out of a t64 image the resulting file was missing the last two bytes and/or the last block was missing completely.
• BUGFIX: filecopy from/to a IEC device did incorrectly abort after 1 block.
• BUGFIX: filecopy filename character set conversion was broken.
• BUGFIX: AR/RR ROM was not correctly disabled when autostarting programs from the filebrowser with AR/RR enabled as default cartridge.
• NEW: added DOS wedge command (see manual)
• NEW: added load and save commands (see manual)

Download: Chameleon 64 beta firmware 8b (1621)

source: beta.icomp.de

Gallery:

The PETdisk is a new storage device, made by bitfixer, for the Commodore CBM / PET with an IEEE-488 port.

The system is in two parts. A datassette module that makes it possible to play “data” from a PC soundcard to the CBM / PET and play “data” from the CBM / PET to the PC. The IEEE-488 module has an SD card and a micro processor.

You can use the commands LOAD, SAVE and LOAD “$” to load or store data on the SD card. The device number can be changed with a help of a jumper. The USB cable is used to provide 5VDC from the datassette module to the IEEE-488 module.

For more informations,schematics,documentations and price of the kit please visit the site of the author.

Video demostration:

source: bitfixer.com

Gallery:

This is the preview of the Manosoft C64SD Infinity v2.0 Blue version. This version will be soon available for sale.

Here the full review of the Manosoft C64SD Infinity v2.0.

source: manosoft.it

Quick overview of some Flash Cartridges (backup device) for Super Nintendo (Famicom/Snes), Megadrive (Genesis), Nintendo 64, Atari 2600.

Flash cartridges (backup device) used in this video:

• Everdrive-MD flash cartridge for Sega Megadrive (Genesis) with SD/MMC interface.
• EverDrive 64 backup device for Nintendo 64 with SD interface.
• SD2Snes backup device for Super Nintendo (Snes/Famicom) with SD interface.
• Harmony flash cartridge for Atari 2600 with SD interface.

Turbo Chameleon 64 is an extremely user-friendly cartridge that can be used without opening the computer. It is just plugged to the expansion port of the C64.

The Turbo Chameleon 64 cartridge can also be operated as a stand-alone unit (since it’s basically an FPGA computer like the C-One or the Minimig in a C64 cartridge case), replacing the computer, the floppy drive and the heavy power supply.

When used as a stand-alone unit, a USB power adapter or active USB hub can be used as a power source.

Changelog:

• fixed REU, transfer length register is 1 after a transfer completes.
• fixed REU 512K wrap around.
• fixed cache controller preventing corruption when accessing 0x1FFFF0000 – 0x1FFFFFFFF
• faster SDRAM controller. More memory bandwidth for turbo.
• added slowdown modes to the Turbo settings. Offering CPU speeds of 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%.
• added native updater program (see manual) to update the fpga core without an usb connection.
• make menu item active when pressing a hotkey, so it is selected when going back to the respective menu.
• correctly mute/unmute second sid in menu freezer.
• clockport- and rr-net- items in options menu are correctly disabled if either is not available.
• if found, load and run update.prg from sd card (chameleon updater)
• if “boot from sd card” is enabled, load boot.prg from sd card (regular c64 boot program)
• improved navigation in one panel mode, cursor right enters subdir/image and cursor left goes one level up.
• improved quickfind, just type a filename quickly to jump to it.
• mount menu is skipped if there would only be one active item.
• when returning to the menu from the sid player by pressing left/menu button it will go directly to the filebrowser.
• added gfx viewer for various multi-color and hires formats.(see manual)
• added wav player (see manual)
• added filecopy (F5 in two panel mode, see manual)
• set $030c-$030e to 0 before starting prgs, increases compatibility with certain packers.
• .sid files which actually contain a basic program can now be run correctly.
• re-read destination panel after copying image.

Download: Chameleon Beta-7b release (1707)

source: beta.icomp.de

The Indivision AGA Mk2 A1200/4000T is the successor to the discontinued Indivision AGA 1200 flicker fixer. As the name suggests, the new version also supports the Amiga 4000T (not the A4000 desktop model, there’s the Indivision AGA Mk2 A4000/CD32 for use with that computer). Other Amiga models are not supported.

The Indivision AGA Mk2 support a DVI-I connector instead of the usual VGA socket. DVI-I provides digital as well as analog signals, so you can use modern TFT displays, older TFT displays with analog input or CRT monitors alike (the latter two with a VGA adapter).

source: vesalia.de jschoenfeld.com

Musicmax gives an demonstration about installing and the use of the Commodore c64 Kernal Multiload.

This device comes in two parts:

• One EPROM that replaces the original Kernal of the Commodore 64.
• A control-box that makes it possible to select and start an alternative Kernal.

In the video you can see that the SX-64, EXOS V3, JiffyDOS and the Cockroach Turbo ROM are being used.

Thanks to commodore-gg.hobby.nl which have shared this News.

SIO2Arduino is an Atari 8-bit (800/XL/XE) device emulator that runs on the Arduino platform. It currently emulates a single Atari 1050 disk drive (D1:) but there are plans to extend it to support multiple drives as well as other devices.

In its current state, SIO2Arduino allows you to put single and enhanced density Atari 8-bit disk images (ATR, XFD, XEX and many PRO and ATX) onto a microSD card and boot them on real Atari hardware.

source: whizzosoftware.com/sio2arduino

The cartridge EasyFlash III by Skoe is available on Retro-Donald shop. Like the previous version the VHDL code is open source.

This version introduces several new features, like:

• Kernal emulation (no need hardware changes).
• If you choose to use the Kernal emulation the RAM will be available.
• You can choose 8 Kernal’s.
• You can choose 7 EasyFlash’s.
• USB connector for firmware updates.
• Emulation of FinalCartridge III, ActionReplay…

source: retro-donald.de skoe.de

Autopsy:

After 8 long months of waiting i finally received the Ultimate 1Mb module by Candle’o'Sin.

The Ultimate 1Mb module is a expansion for Atari XE/XL.

This module allows a easy installation regardless of machine type one chooses and is not intrusive to original hardware. The Ultimate 1Mb was designed to fit in any XL/XE computer, including 1200XL and XEGS – there are no versions as such, the only diffrence might be with lenght of ribbon cables it connects to motherboard

Features:

• To be as much solderless as possible (only RW, PHI2, HALT and RESET lines need soldering)
• Fully flashable SpartaDOS-X with up to 320kbytes for its purposes
• RTC module for SDX with battery backup and NVRAM
• Fully flashable 4 OS ROM slots
• Hardware WRITE PROTECT for whole Flash array
• Configurable memory expansion with 4 modes of operation (disabled, 320k RAMBO, 578k COMPY SHOP, 1088k RAMBO)
• Customizable BASIC and MISSLE COMMAND slots (also flashable)
• System select/Memory exp mode select from integrated BIOS

source: spiflash.org atariage.com

Protovision, founded in late 1996, turns 15 years old! For this occasion, there is something special for Christmas this year: With the 4 Player Games Compilation you get the chance to get your hands on four games for four players at a special rate: Bomb Mania, Tanks 3000, Hockey Mania and Team Patrol are coming in a nice box and of course with printed manual.

Offer valid while stock lasts, so you better fly to our Online Shop and save your copy – with or without 4 Player Interface to your choice.

source: protovision-online.com

This new project based on a ZoomFloppy device makes it possible to read and write cassettes with a Commodore Datassette and a PC via USB.

Specifications:

• 16MHz sampling rate.
• CAP / TAP file format, C64, C16, VIC-20 and experimental Spectrum48K support.

source: zoomtape.de.vu

Turbo Chameleon 64 is an extremely user-friendly cartridge that can be used without opening the computer. It is just plugged to the expansion port of the C64.

The Turbo Chameleon 64 cartridge can also be operated as a stand-alone unit (since it’s basically an FPGA computer like the C-One or the Minimig in a C64 cartridge case), replacing the computer, the floppy drive and the heavy power supply.

When used as a stand-alone unit, a USB power adapter or active USB hub can be used as a power source.

Changelog:

Differences from Beta-6f to Beta-6g:

• Implemented bit-fade in SID when no waveform is selected.
• Implemented bit-fade in SID when reading write-only registers.
• Added bits to detect in menu when disk-images need update after write actions by the emulated drives.
• Implemented “door” on emulated drive, when open drive will read dummy bytes.
• Fixed CPU instruction timing bugs discovered when comparing emulated 6510 against real 6510.
• CPU irq/nmi timing fixes.
• Implemented bit-fade on I/O port of emulated 6510.
• Fixed SID stereo mapping for D500 and D700.
• Four timers added at addresses D0AA to D0AD for menu (it can’t use CIA timers when freezing).

Download: Firmware Chameleon Beta 6g (1494)

source: syntiac.com