News
(Maintained by Brendan Reid from Commodore Wire)
"HV SID Collection" Update #29 released
(Monday 17th December 2001)
Warren Pilkington has announced the release of Update #29 of the well known High Voltage SID Collection, just in time for Christmas. This time around, not only are there an amazing 750 new SIDs included, there are also some quality SID fixes such as Ikari Warriors, Pac-Mania, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Bushido along with the competition entries from the X2001 party, plus heaps more. With the application of this update, your HVSC should now contain 17,730 SIDs!
"Back In Time 3" returning in June 2002
(Monday 17th December 2001)
Chris Abbott is already hyping Back in Time Live 3 - Gossips Nightclub, Soho, London, 21st June 2002: "guaranteed not to clash with World Cup football game!" :-) At least three C64 CDs will be launched at this event, Chris says, plus there will be c64 celebs, hopefully female TV celebs, a planned concert by Press Play on Tape, C64 karaoke, C64 high score competitions, loud C64 remixes, lots of drink, and the excitement of being in Soho, where it never closes and you can always get another coffee. "As with the other two, C64 history will be created here, so save up, book that time off work, get cheap flights, whatever. Just don't miss this one!"
Meanwhile, c64audio.com announces Baby 1.0, currently nearing its first beta-test... product delivery is expected to be sometime around July 2002, according to best estimates.
20 years of Usenet archives now online!
(Sunday 16th December 2001)
Followers of Usenet newsgroups are dancing in the streets at the news that Google has fully integrated the past 20 years of Usenet archives into Google Groups, now offering access to more than 700 million messages dating back to 1981! This is by far the most complete collection of Usenet articles ever assembled, and of course, includes a full history of our very own comp.sys.cbm going as far back as 1986, as well as the group's predecessor net.micro.cbm which dates back to 1983! Happy reading!
"CLiPS" & "JOS" merge: "WiNGS" is born
(Sunday 16th December 2001)
Malte Mundt reports in with the big news that the two formerly competing operating systems for the SuperCPU-powered C64, CLiPS and JOS - have joined forces! The team from Protovision brought together the main coders of both systems (CLiPS's Chester Kollschen and JOS's Jolse Maginnis), who virtually shook hands on committing their power to one common project. The end result is the birth of WiNGS - potentially, a far better final product for the C64 community...!
Cotton retires from Creative Micro Designs:
(Sunday 16th December 2001)
Long time Commodore servant Doug Cotton has retired from Creative Micro Designs as of last Friday, moving to take up a position as the Web Programmer for Hampshire College, a liberal arts school in Amherst, MA, USA. The change, says Doug, is not so much because CMD no longer produces Commodore products, but simply because he doesn't see himself doing the "local PC repair shop" thing for the next few years. "I'd like to thank those of you whom I've considered distant friends for the time we've spent together. I'd also like to thank the community as a whole - without those of you who have supported the Commodore platform for so long, so many great memories would have never been."
Out of Orderia - and the year has just begun
(Wednesday 12th December 2001)
Like in the past years, Out of Order are going to hold the Out of Orderia party - the right thing to celebrate the end of the year. All Commodore enthusiasts and everybody who's interested are invited to attend the sixth edition of this scene party and end the year with the breadbox. Again, the party will be held in the sacred halls of Hoppstädten-Weiersbach (near Birkenfeld, between Kaiserslautern and Trier). The most important features:
• Out of Orderia is a Commodore-only party (read: PCs and other systems
are okay as long as they're not the only computer you bring)
• the party place has separate sleeping space, a kitchen, restrooms for
ladies & gents and a shower. Plus, there's a meadow behind the house
that we can use as a playground!
• Demo, graphics, music and gaming competitions, and more!
• Auctions (sell any hard- or software)
• and many other surprises
• begins on friday, Dec 28; ends on sunday, Dec 30 at noon
• entrance fee is 20 DM / 10 Euro
• location: parsonage of the catholic community of
Hoppstädten-Weiersbach
• shuttle service from the station to the party place
• parking lot in front of the house
Reservation isn't mandatory, but strongly recommended due to place restrictions! Don't forget to bring your own cables, PSUs and so on! You don't know anything about Out or Order parties? Visit this site: http://www.murphys-world.de.
And for further information contact:
Volker Rust
Tel: 049 6831 5582
E-mail: info@maerchenbraut.de
"Serial Slave" system: first beta release
(Wednesday 12th December 2001)
MagerValp has announced the first beta release (v0.6) of Serial Slave - a system that allows you to use a PC as a virtual disk drive for your C64. It communicates using RS-232 and doesn't require any custom hardware. The PC server also runs well under multitasking operating systems, so you don't have to dedicate a machine to running Serial Slave. It's also fast: 3.8 kB/s with a SwiftLink, 11.5 kB/s with a Turbo232, and even 23 kB/s with a SuperCPU if your PC supports 230400 baud. "Expect rough edges and general funkiness," MagerValp warns. "Be sure to drop me a mail and let me know if it works."
"CIA-IDE" storage solution announced
(Wednesday 12th December 2001)
Brush, YTM and the Elysium team are proud to announce a new software and hardware solution for your Commodore mass data storage needs. The CIA-IDE is yet another approach to connect an IDE hard drive to a C64/128, yet it differs from previous similar projects in these areas:
• it is the simplest one (only two chips required (or just one in case of C128))
• it is free (documentation and software),
• the software is available in source code form under GNU GPL,
• there _exists_ a ready to use GEOS 2.0 driver.
"64HDD" CBM drive emulator is updated
(Saturday 24th November 2001)
Nick Coplin reports that an upgrade to 64HDD has been released with the focus being to improve drive emulation and software compatibility. New features include support of some more direct access commands such as block reads/writes and memory read/writes commonly used by commercial software for identifying disk types or loading directories. Says Nick: "I've used GoDot (now Public Domain) as the benchmark for this and have worked closely with Arndt (many thanks) to get this loading. The updated manual has the details, file saving is still to come - scheduled for v0.7a0."
Jeri Ellsworth supplying "Retro Replay"s:
(Thursday 22nd November 2001)
Another message through from CommodoreOne creator Jeri Ellsworth via Robert Bernado: "I can now start taking orders for the Retro Replay and Silver Surfer RS232 add-ons. The Retro Replays will sell for US$45 and US$20 for the Silver Surfers." See Jeri's website for further details on how to go about placing orders.
Meanwhile, Jeri continues: "I've also started work on a Tower Kit for the C128, C64 that has tapped mounting holes for a 1571, 1541, 1581, CMD hard Drive and an ATX form card. The ATX card generates the 60hz for the CIAs, brings the connectors out the 6 inch space in the back, memory mapped soft power register (same as C=1's magic register) and adds a internal connector for the SCPU. I don't know what the total cost will be... but I suspect it will be about US$80."
"gamebase64" project: beta release soon?
(Thursday 22nd November 2001)
Due to several tasks taking much longer than anticipated, gamebase64 v2.0 won't be ready for release this Christmas, according to Demetrius Kiminas. The GB development team are therefore considering a limited beta release, starting with the GB v2.0 program, a possibly limited beta database and screenshots around Christmas time and continuing well into 2002 with the official release which will present gamebase64 in its complete form. So what do you think? Discuss the idea if you like at the gamebase64 forum at the official GB website.
"RKO Voting Central" opens at "Remix64"
(Wednesday 7th November 2001)
Fans of remix.kwed.org are in for a real treat with this one. It's now possible to cast votes and actually rate the remixes yourself, contributing to a definitive chart of all-time favourite C64 remix MP3s from RKO! To vote, you need to register at Remix64. This is a great idea for those who aren't as familiar with some C64 tunes as they'd like to be (myself included), and wondering which tunes to listen to next...!
Details on HVSC's "Best Of Various 2001":
(Tuesday 30th October 2001)
The Shark has launched the High Voltage SID Collection's Best of VARIOUS 2001, where he states: "One of the constructive comments that was received from the previous year indicated that many people felt that the voting should be opened to all SID fans. This year we are happy to announce that BOV2001 will allow public involvement. And now, with HVSC 4.3 recently released, we are ready to begin BOV2001." The Best of VARIOUS project is an effort to highlight some superb SID tunes which are located in the VARIOUS group of directories, an area of the HVSC that many people are unfamiliar with. Thanks to Warren Pilkington for this news.
"ConGo" image viewer/converter updated
(Tuesday 30th October 2001)
Matthias Matting has released ConGo v0.86 beta, the latest version of the 8-bit image viewer/converter for Windows. ConGo can show images from Commodore 64, Sinclair Spectrum, Amstrad/Schneider CPC, Commodore Plus4 (all in all around 100 different image formats, working on Atari 8bit). It can save them in PC formats like BMP and JPG, and it can also convert PC images to formats of the supported 8-bit platforms with quite good results. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes:
• added loading and saving of Sinclair Spectrum screens (.scr, .scl, Hobeta)
• added saving to several C64-Hires-formats (like OCP Hires etc.)
• added loading of CPC-Screens (Mode 0-2, file extension .cpc (!), Palette: .pal)
• added CPC save/render option (Modes 0, 1)
• added "allow distortion" option to resizing (batch + normal)
• added number of unique colors shown as hint on picture
• added format: Pagesetter Plus4 (*.ps4), Boticelli Plus4 (*.bot)
• added format: C64-font (*.fnt, 1x1, 1x2, 2x2)
• fixed some bugs
New Protovision release: "It's Magic 2"
(Monday 29th October 2001)
Following on from the epic release Newcomer, Protovision are proud to present their second game release of the year: It's Magic 2. The game can be ordered for only 25DM / $15 / £10, and is shipped on a 1541-disk, but you can easily copy it to your FD, HD or RAMLink and run it there. A small manual is also included in the package. Says the website: "It's Magic 1 was already nice, but It's Magic 2 tops it by all means and is on its way to become a true C64 classic amongst the jump'n runs."
"C=One" prototype is stolen in Chicago:
(Monday 15th October 2001)
Bad news from Jeri Ellsworth this last week after hearing of the theft of her CommodoreOne prototype after her rental car was stolen while stopped at a southern Chicago petrol station. The car was later recovered, but Jeri continues: "...we lost all our clothes, money, soldering station, VOM, all C=1 prototypes, Wheels, turbo232, a year's worth of hand written notes on the C=1, Courtney's SX64, rare C= bubble jet printer, Warp Speed cart."
"The worst thing to lose was the notes I had and the hand drawn schematics which have set development back a little bit. The C=1 prototype was almost at the end of it's usefulness, but I still needed it for new SID and fix the keyboard controller. Very depressing." Here's hoping Jeri is able to continue development of the C=1 without too much difficulty...
C64 emulator: "Hoxs64" updated to v0.7C
(Monday 15th October 2001)
There's been a minor flurry of updates to David Horrocks' C64 emulator Hoxs64 in recent days, with version 0.7 announced last week, but a number of bugs (display-related and some others) have since been fixed and the latest release now stands at v0.7C. Among the new features added over the last week are 1541 disk drive emulation and improved DirectX handling, with SID support still to be added.
"Star Commander" v0.82.63 beta released
(Tuesday 9th October 2001)
Joe Forster has announced the release of version 0.82.63 beta of his popular C64<->PC transfer software Star Commander. Says Joe: "...because the hardest part of our yearly work was done at my work place and I was getting... bored about having to wait for the prototypes of those stupid XA1541 cables (still no sign of them, GRRR!), I thought I'd do something useful in the meantime. Here's the result." There's a big list of changes with this update, too many to list here, but it should be mentioned that the structure of the SC.INI file has changed.
Help needed with Java port of "Paradroid":
(Monday 8th October 2001)
Here's an interesting message I intercepted from alt.c64 from depsypher: "I'm wondering if anyone here would be interested in helping me do a port of Paradroid. I've got it partially completed, but I'm running out of steam motivation-wise. This was my first attempt at an arcade game, and it's playable, but still has a long way to go... Anyway, you can see for yourself here..." "...if anyone has any experience making level editors in Java or would like to help see Paradroid happen in a browser, contact me and I'll send you the code etc..."
New and improved "Action Replay" clone
(Wednesday 3rd October 2001)
The word is out - the ultimate clone of the popular Action Replay cartridge is here. Announcing the launch of Retro Replay, a bugfixed, souped up, feature-packed new and improved revision of everybody's favourite little red hardware plug-in. Compatible with both NTSC and PAL C64s, Cyberpunx's Retro Replay cart is now available for ordering for 99DM/50€ but there's only 300 of the wee beasties, so be quick! Ordering and other general info on Retro Replay can be found at www.ar.c64.org.
STOP PRESS: It's also now been announced that Jeri Ellsworth will be a Retro Replay distributor in North America. For pricing and/or reserving a cartridge, contact Jeri at cm_easy@yahoo.com. Thanks to CreaMD for passing this on.