******************
*                *  
* Commodore Free *
*    Magazine    *
*                *
******************



Issue Number 4

EDITOR 				   
CONTENTS

Sigh !
 
I nearly packed the whole lot in, this 
issue has taken so much time you 
wouldn?t believe the hassle and threats, 
I have received. I seem to have 
offended 1 or two large companies 
with some of my comments, why they 
were reading a Free Commodore 
magazine I don?t know.

Also some problems with copyright of 
pictures text and logos that companies 
trying to cash back in on Commodore 
seem to have a problem with. 
I have had a legal letter demand I 
remove all of there content and 
reference to them from the magazine. 
I had really no option but to pull the 
last issues from the website and start 
Issue 4 from scratch, this time trying to 
ensure I contact everyone about text 
and graphics and logos before they 
went into the magazine.

I am hoping companies like 
Protovision wouldn?t mind the use of 
there logo on the news section, and I 
presume pictures of Commodore 
machines are ok to use in the 
magazine. 

Anyone know who owns the copyright 
to the Commodore machines shape? 
Can pictures of Commodore machines 
be legally printed in a Free magazine. 

As you can see I have been having 
some problems, and while some 
readers have emailed me with concerns 
that I have stopped producing the 
magazine, you can rest easily knowing 
you have issue 4

How many readers looked at the 
magazine, well according to my ISP 
the total downloads for issue 3 were 
300, I can obtain a report on each file 
and if that file was linked to from other 
places. 

So I know that other websites have 
links to Commodore Free magazine 
and users have followed these links to 
find the magazine. I can also so what 
pages people went to on the site, some 
user clicked links direct to the 
Download of the PDF which is fine.

Commodore Free makes no money, 
In the event that donations exceed the 
web hosting costs this money will be 
donated to Commodore Projects.



Thanks Commodore free
www.commodorefree.com


============================

Page 2	Editor 
Page 2	Contents
Page 3	Readers Comments
Page 3	Forever 8
Page 4 	News
Page 5	Protovision news
Page 6 	Commodore 64 cables
Page 7	Target 64
Page 7	Game over(view)
Page 8	Commodore in the Workplace
Page 8	CMDrkey Server failure
Page 9	Emulation Insights
Page 11	HVSC
Page 12	HVSC F.A.Q
Page 17	Interview with Aleksi Eeeben
Page 18	Quickmenu 
Page 20	Mega Game Cartridge for c 64
Page 20	Vintage Computer news Update
Page 21	Ebay Favourite Seller
Page 23	What is a Commodore Computer
Page 29	Xeo3 Plus 4 Shoot-em-up 


============================


Readers Comments

Dave ?LOADSTAR?

Perhaps we could add a From 
LOADSTAR feature, which would 
have a link to a downloadable game. I 
can make a package that loads 
emulator and 
game and runs both, then disappears 
when the player is finished. This can 
be just a freebee, or as they say in 
Louisianna, a lagnappe -- a little extra.

I am working on a new BASIC 
extension, something like DotBASIC, 
but easier to use. Don't know if anyone 
is working on hobbyist software 
anymore, but I guess that is not the 
point.

COMMODORE FREE
Dave your help on the Disk magazine 
was most welcome, I think (hope) I 
have what readers were looking for. 
The software link would be great if 
you can help out with free software. 
Thanks. 

CHUCK

Very nice magazine!
Chuck

COMMODORE FREE
Ok short and sweet thanks very much 

ALEX
I just reading the mag, I?m a poor 
fellow, can?t give you any money, but I 
can say "hat off!", nice work, hope you 
keep it coming!

YoursAlex Martin


COMMODORE FREE
Alex That?s fine magazine is free, 
although donations are welcomed as 
they help to pay for web space that 
isn?t free, If you want to donate but 
don?t have money to donate why don?t 
you donate and article you have 
written, on a favourite game, website, 
utility or on some hardware you use. 
Thanks for the comments though. 


Semseddin
I just wanted to thank you for your 
great magazine, Commodore Free.
I read it i really enjoyed it. Keep it up.

Semseddin Moldibi ^Endo of Glance^

COMMODORE FREE
Comments Appreciated Hope this was 
your correct Christian name 
Semseddin appologies if this is 
incorrect.

That?s all I had this month, You are 
welcome to submit ideas/ suggestions/ 
or other comments

============================


News

Because some message boards seem to 
frown upon enthusiasm, I have created 
my very own message board where 
you can talk about Commodore 
computers, sports or just about 
anything: 

http://b5.boards2go.com/boards/board.
cgi?user=PaulPanks  

Be nice, play fair and post. Most of all, 
have fun. I'm not sure how I'm going to 
divide the topics into folders, but that's 
something I'm working on. For now, 
everything just goes on the main page. 
Paul

Ebay news
I followed this item on ebay hoping to 
pick up a bargin and a spare machine, 
The bidding went mad, 
Here is the description : the end price 
was 184 + 15 postage: WOW the 
seller certainly earned some pocket 
money. The machine looked clean but 
the games were all copies !

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Commodore-128-
Desktop-with-136-Games-and-
more_W0QQitemZ280059354971QQi
hZ018QQcategoryZ3544QQrdZ1QQc
mdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

A Commodore 128d (desktop version) 
in great condition and fully working. 
Its sad to see this go, but I simple do 
not have the room. It comes with the 
XE1541 cable for transferring 
software/games from a PC (parallel 
port) to the C128 (serial port), a mouse 
and a pair of joysticks. It also comes 
with over a 100 brand new disks that 
have never been used, and also 
includes a lot of disks with the 
following games: 

After the War, Alien 3, Alienstorm, 
Alioth, Anarchy, Arkanoid, Arkanoid 
2, Army Days, Auf Wiedersehen 
Monty, Back to the Future, Back to the 
Future 2, Badlands, Ballfever, 
Barbarian, Barbarians, Batman, Battle 
Command, Battle Valley, Beachhead, 
Beachhead II, Beachhead III, Beverly 
Hills Cop, Bionic Commando, Black 
It, Blob, Blood Money, Blood Valley, 
Bloodwych, Bombel, Bombjack, 
Bombjack 2, Bombuzal, Boulderdash, 
Bubble Bobble, Buggy Boy (Best 
driving game ever!), Cabal, Captain 
Blood, Cauldron, Chase HQ, Chase 
HQ 2, Chip?s Challenge, Chuck Rock, 
Chuckle Egg, Cisco Heat, CJ in the 
USA, CJs 4th, CJs Elephant Antics, 
Commando, Continental Circus, Cool 
Croc Twins, Count Duckula, Crazy 
Cars, Creatures, Creatures 2, Critical 
Mass, Crystal Castles, Crystal 
Kingdom Dizzy, Dan Dare, Darkman, 
Defenders of the Earth, Deliverance, 
Delta, Die Hard 2, Dragon Ninja, 
Druid, Druid II, Escape from the 
Planet of Robot Monsters, Exile, 
Exploding Fist, Exploding Fist 2, First 
Samurai, Flimbo?s Quest, Gangster, 
Garrison, Gauntlet 2, Gauntlet 3, Ghost 
N? Goblins, Ghostbusters, Ghouls N? 
Ghosts, Golden Axe, Great Giana 
Sisters, Greenberet, Heroquest, Hotrod, 
Hudson Hawk, Hunt for Red October, 
Hyper Sports, Hyperball, IK+, Ikari 
Warriors, International Karate, Into the 
Eagles Nest, Its Magic, Jack the 
Nipper, Jack the Nipper 2, James Pond 
2 ? Robocod, Katakis, Kikstart, 
Kikstart 2, Killer Rings, Klax, 
Krakout, Last Ninja, Last Ninja 2, Last 
Ninja 3, LED Storm, Legion of Death, 
Light Force, Line of Fire, Little Puff in 
Monsterland, Loopz, Lotus Turbo 
Challenge, Maximum Overdrive, 
Mayhem in Monsterland (GREAT 
GAME! ? the only game to achieve 
100% in Commodore Format), 
Meanstreak, Mega Pheonix, Menace, 
Microprose American Soccer, 
Microprose Soccer International 
(personal favourite!), Midnight 
Resistance, Mighty Bombjack, 
Mission Impossibubble, Myth, Navy 
Moves, Nebulus, Nemesis the 
Warlock, Never Ending Story, New 
Zealand Story, Nobby the Aardvark, 
Northstar Operation Thunderbolt, 
Operation Wolf, Outrun, Outrun 
Europa, Over the Net, Overlander 

As you can see, that?s 136 games and 
more than enough to waste your nights 
away! A monitor cable is also included 
and the monitor is available for an 
extra 10, but this will add 
considerable weight for postage. 

Overall postage will be 15.00 (with 
insurance) - 16kg. The monitor weighs 
12 Kg on its own and would increase 
the postage to 30 (it would need to go 
by Parcel Force). However, I am more 
than happy for you to collect. I am 
willing to send overseas, but the 
postage can be expensive. 

============================

The 1541 "Ultimate"
(On this moment on a Xilinx 
developing board)
The construction and future of the 
1541 "Ultimate"
At this time, some hard work is 
performed to replace the widespread 
1541 disk drive. Our club member 
Gideon Zweijtzer has made an 
implementation of the 1541 disk drive 
in an FPGA, and demonstrated one of 
the first versions of this hardware-
emulation on Saturday December 16, 
2006 in Maarsen. This prototype used 
a Xilinx development board. The 
prototype shows that it is possible to 
?download? an image of a floppy disk 
from the PC to the 1541-emulator by 
means of Ethernet. This image is 
placed in a memory that the 1541-
emulator has access to. The rotation of 
the disk and the stepper motor that 
moves the read/write head is mimicked 
accurately. The achieved compatibility 
is very high, because this 
implementation uses the original 1541 
ROMs. At this moment the emulator is 
perfection to the point that even 
difficult speed-loaders such as the one 
from the Final Cartridge III work well. 

Parallel to the implementation of the 
1541 itself, work is being done on an 
interface to a SD-card, such that it 
should be possible to load .D64-files 
from there, rather than having to 
download them through Ethernet. 
These two functions together will 
appear soon on just one printed circuit-
board; one that can be used as cartridge 
for the C-64. This cartridge will 
include the 1541-emulator, but will 
also implement another cartridge, such 
as the Final Cartridge III. With this 
cartridge it will be possible to select a 
floppy image and ?put it in the drive?, 
by means of a menu on the C-64 
screen. For the purpose, the cartridge 
has a ?third button?. This button 
functions very similar to the freeze-
function of other cartridges, but will be 
used to bring up a menu to select an 
image from the SD-card. When the 
user exists the menu, the Commodore 
will continue operation. To serve other 
Commodore users as well, other than 
C-64 users, the plan exists to have this 
cartridge operate as stand-alone unit as 
well. Since the on-screen menu will 
not be available in this case, the user 
needs another method to select the 
floppy image. There are several ideas 
to do this, but these ideas are not yet 
completely mature. The hardware is 
being developed such that new 
functionality can be added to the 
emulator system by simply putting 
some files on the SD-card. The first 
release will ?only? implement the 
cartridge and the 1541 in its purest 
form. 

Information used with permission and 
taken from 
http://commodore-
gg.hobby.nl/innovatie_1541kaart_eng.
htm
 

============================
 
NEWCOMER NEWS
NEWCOMER by Cinematic Intuitive 
Dynamix got a 95% rating in issue 31 
of Retro Gamer. Visit 
http://www.retrogamer.net to learn 
more about the 
Retro Gamer magazine. Currently in 
development: ULTIMATE 
NEWCOMER with shorter decrunch 
times, faster disk I/O on 1541, direct 
support for IDE64, C128 and 
SuperCPU,  and most importantly a 
bug fixed story script to make the 
"Long&Complex" solution accessible 
for those really smart players.
Further extra hardware may or may not 
be supported, depending on the 
developers' time, resources and the 
availability of gametesters.
At the moment the makers are stuck 
with a critical bug in the re-written 
game engine code, and it will probably 
only get fixed during holiday 
vacations, so release date has certainly 
moved to sometime 2007.

The English and Hungarian scripts are 
complete and under testing. The 
German version is under 
translation.For  updates, register an 
account and subscribe for Newcomer 
news  notification at 
http://www.newcomer.hu



HARDWARE SECTION UPDATED
Our hardware section has been 
updated: New plugins for the MMC 
and SD card reader MMC64 were 
added as well as software which 
supports the 
network card RR-NET. Furthermore 
the breadboard 8 BIT BABY for 
electronic  enthusiasts and the 
COMPETITION PRO JOYSTICK 
were included. 
http://www.protovisiononline.de/hard
w/hardwstart.htm


STILL LOOKING FOR A 
CHRISTMAS PRESENT?
You are still looking for a Christmas 
present for a computer friend, or for 
yourself? What could be more suitable 
than a brand new COMPETITION 
PRO JOYSTICK? Order it now at our 
Online Shop: 
http://www.protovision-
online.de/catalog

FURTHER NEWS ON OUR 
HARDWARE PRODUCTS FROM 
AROUND THE C64 WORLD:

NEW VERSION OF DREAMLOAD 
MMC64
Good news for MMC64 users: Doc 
Bacardi/The Dreams published a new 
version of his DFI Plugin, which is the 
MMC64 version of his multiload and 
save system DreamLoad. Save, scratch 
and scratch-save should work 
now.Since this is another beta release, 
please remember to backup the content 
of your SD/MMC card! Further 
information, download link and the 
place for feedback is here: 
http://rrforum.ath.cx/viewtopic.php?t=
34&start=108


D81 WRITER PLUGIN V0.2 FOR 
MMC64
An updated version of D81 writer 
plugin for MMC64 by tnt is out: 

http://www.sci.fi/~tenu/c64/mmc64/d8
1.zip

V0.2 doesn't require burst mod (at the 
cost of 32 seconds per disk) but uses 
one if available.

IDEDOS 20061110 (0.90 PATCH 31)
A new version of idedos for IDE64 is 
out: idedos 20061110 (0.90 patch 31). 
This release adds EPCLink support, 
which means that now it's 
possible to use an ETFE or RR-Net 
card for highspeed transfers through 
the IDEDOS PCLink network drive. 
Reading speed reaches up to 40 kB/s 
(writing at 20 kB/s), which makes 
burning CDs for huge data transfers 
pointless. Unfortunately currently it's 
not so easy to get an ETFE card or 
connect 
RR-Net simply (RR+RR-
Net+portexpander), but let's hope this 
will change soon ;) 
http://idedos.ide64.org

MWC V0.2ALPHA RELEASED
mwc by Jockstrap is a command-line 
Linux client for Graham's 
WarpCopy64 V0.6 server, allowing 
you to transfer disks from your 1541 to 
your Linux system through the RR-Net 
ethernet adapter. Download: 
http://www.swolff.dk/mwc/mwc-
0.2alpha.zip

GUI4CBM4WIN UPDATED TO 0.6.0
Payton Byrd made a major bug fix to 
gui4cbm4win, the graphical user 
interface for the transfer software 
cbm4win. The bug fix is related to the 
migration to .Net. He added a few 
features as well.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed problem with reading the 
output file when detecting drives in the 
Options window

New Features:
- Added CBM Drive selector to main 
window

- Changed from calling the WIN32 
Shell api to using .Net Processes

- Capture stdout and stderr through 
pipe redirection instead of reading 
temp files in most cases.

- Added running Log panel

You can download the file at 
http://blog.paytonbyrd.com/?p=55

The Protovision team would like to 
thank you for your support in 2006. 
We wish you a merry and 
contemplative christmas.

http://www.protovision-online.de 
 
============================

The Commodore 64 monitor cable 


Important notes
On circuit diagrams, plugs are 
displayed as viewed from the back 
side, the solder side. Chips are 
displayed as viewed from above; also, 
see the small semicircular cut for 
finding the correct orientation. 

Construction
You need the following parts to build 
this cable:
One solderable 8-pin male DIN plug

Four solderable male RCA plugs, 
preferably, in red, black, yellow and 
white colors

Four shielded 1-wire cables of, 
preferably, at most 2 meters each; the 
impendance should be 75 Ohm but an 
audio cable should also work

Step 1. Solder one end of each cable 
onto the DIN plug. 

Step 2. Solder the other ends of the 
cables onto the tip of each of the four 
RCA plugs. 

 
You should have the following 
connections:

DIN plug 	RCA plug 
1, Luminance 	Black 
3, Audio Out 	White 
4, Video Out 	Yellow 
6, Chrominance	Red 

Step 3. Connect pin 2 (GND) of the 
DIN plug to the outer ring of all four 
RCA plugs.
Circuit diagram

Important notes
On circuit diagrams, plugs are 
displayed as viewed from the back 
side, the solder side. Chips are 
displayed as viewed from above; also, 
see the small semicircular cut for 
finding the correct orientation.

Construction
You need the following parts to build 
this cable:
One solderable male S-Video plug

Two solderable female RCA ports, 
preferably, in red and black colors

Two shielded 1-wire cables of about 
20 centimeters each; the impendance 
should be 75 Ohm but an audio cable 
should also work

Step 1. Solder one end of each cable 
onto the S-Video plug.

Step 2. Solder the other ends of the 
cables onto the tips and the outer rings 
of each of the two RCA ports. You 
should have the following connections:

S-Video plug	RCA port
1, Chroma GND	Red, ring
2, Chrominance	Red, tip
3, Luminance	Black, tip
4, Luma GND	Black, ring

Copyright
The information Has been written or 
collected by Joe Forster/STA.
http://sta.c64.org/

============================
 
TargetD64
 

TargetD64 - Introduction 

The basic idea behind TargetD64 is to 
shift as much processing as possible 
from the user to the computer before a 
particular program (or a group of 
programs) is executed by an emulator. 
After you have downloaded a program 
from the internet you usually find that 
this program is treated by archivers 
and often by more than one archiver. 
Well known examples should be the 
.lnx.gz or .d64.zip format. Normally 
you are going through a process of 
dearchiving which needs user 
interaction (e.g. calling gunzip or 
launching up WinZip and so on). 

TargetD64 takes away all this work 
from the user. TargetD64 recognizes 
the archive format(s) and dearchives 
recursively. TargetD64 will finally 
produce D64 archives which are 
passed to an emulator. 

Supported archive formats are zip, gz, 
lha, lnx, [1-4]!, d64, x64, t64, p00. If a 
file can not be matched to one of these 
formats it is treated as a raw C64 
(PRG) file. 

TargetD64 will process all horizontal 
and vertical combinations of the above 
stated archive formats. Vertical 
combinations are nested archives (e.g. 
.lnx in .gz). Horizontal combinations 
are an arbitrary sequence of archives 
(e.g. .lnx and .p00 file which are both 
contained in a .zip archive). The latter 
also applies to a sequence of archives 
you can give as command line 
arguments (in this case the sequence 
can also be achieved by filename 
wildcards). Neither nesting level nor 
sequence size are limited by 
TargetD64 itself (but they are by 
system resources). 

All mentioned archives are builtins. So 
TargetD64 does not depend on any 
external applications (except the 
emulator of course). 

TargetD64 is implemented in C++ 
with common sources for Win32 and 
Linux (distinction is achieved by 
compile switch). TargetD64, published 
under the terms of GPL, uses foreign 
GPL sources as mentioned at the 
credits page. 

TargetD64, basically a command line 
tool, is fully "Drag & Drop" capable 
for Win32 and Linux's KDE. It is 
strongly recommended to configure 
"Drag & Drop" for the ease of use. 

TargetD64 is pre configured for VICE 
(Linux) and CCS64 V1.09 DOS 
(Win32). It is fully adaptable to other 
emulators by a profile (INI-file). 

With the Win32 binary distribution of 
TargetD64 there come configurations 
for CCS64 V2.0 beta DOS/Win32, 
C64S V2.52 and WinVICE 1.20. 

A test suite is ready for download 
(there you can see what TargetD64 can 
do for you and compare it to other 
tools). The test suite is fully automated 
for Linux (result verification). For 
Win32 the result verification has to be 
done manually. 

TargetD64 is right now available in 
source and binary distribution for: 

Linux on i386-compatible processor, 
glibc-2.4 based 
Win XP (mind that other versions of 
Win are not tested anymore but 
supposed to work)

TargetD64 is free software; you can 
redistribute it and/or modify it under 
the terms of the GNU General Public 
License as published by the Free 
Software Foundation; either version 2 
of the License, or (at your option) any 
later version. 

TargetD64 is distributed in the hope 
that it will be useful, but WITHOUT 
ANY WARRANTY; without even the 
implied warranty of 
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS 
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 
See the GNU General Public License 
for more details. 

http://home.arcor.de/karlheinz.langgut
h/targetd64/

Emailed the website but gained no 
response


============================

Commodore In the workplace

I work for a conservatory company and 
with 2 other members of staff look 
after 15 servers, 350 users and about 
50 laser printers

When a ?user? phones with a problem 
we have a system to ?log? calls, the 
next free person will deal with the call 
depending upon the impact, the call 
could cost the business. The main 
interface looks like this 

The application was put together by 
one of our programmers; at the time 
we didn?t have the budget to purchase 
a commercial system.

OK so what has this got to do with 
Commodore? I can here you asking, 
well if you click on the About option 
apart from a fancy screen of yours 
truly, the application plays at random a 
SID tune using Sidplay from a folder 
where the application is executed from.

you can see the music track playing 
next to the text MUSIC, I change the 
music at random, but one time we had 
the entire HSVC archive in a folder, 
unfortunately due to the amount of 
files this stopped the backup 
application running so I had to trim 
them down somewhat.

When each person has dealt with a call 
and closes the item with whatever was 
needed to fix the problem the 
application again plays SID tunes 
during the call closing period. 

Just a gentle nod towards Commodore 
and the fantastic sounds of the SID 
chip. Do you have any Commodore 
related items in your work place?

Of course my desk has the usual 
wedding photo but also a nice C= logo 
in a wooden frame. Sad, Mad or just 
nutty about Commodore lets here those 
stories.
 

============================
 
 
Emulation Insights
 

 
Presented by Luke Lynde
 

 
[1] INTRODUCTION

Hi everyone, here is Luke writing an 
article for you, all about Commodore 
64 emulation. Well, I have a small 
collection of Commodore 64 hardware 
I use regularly (some of it, anyway), 
but I still enjoy the convenience of 
using emulators on the PC. I would be 
a bit disgruntled if I was stuck using 
emulators only, because I know and 
appreciate the real thing! The main 2 
emulators that are ruling the "C64 on 
the PC" world are of course, WinVice, 
and CCS64. Many others have tried 
C64 emulation, with varying degrees 
of success, but have fallen miles short 
of these "2 leaders in the emu-scene", 
as they are known - proudly standing 
on the podium of a dazed emu-nation. 
High tech, indeed...

Not only in this article will I talk about 
WinVice and CCS64, I will also make 
Suggestions for improvement, which 
hopefully means the coders/creators 
will hear about and utilise. If a 
Suggestion I make is already 
incorporated, and I am unaware about 
it, I will no doubt feel a bit stupid. If 
again, a suggestion is incorporated in 
the program, but requires fiddling 
around too much, a much more user-
friendly method is more appropriate, 
for obvious reasons. Technical is good, 
but a majority of people using 
Emulators, are people who had a C64 
when they were young, wanted to play 
some games again, they don't want alot 
of confusing settings (and tech-tech 
jargon) because of the time away from 
using the machine - you know the 
story...

As suprising as it is what some people 
know about computers, it is also just as 
suprising what people don't know. 
Nothing wrong with being tech-
minded, but someone asked me 
recently where the CD goes in?! They 
were talking about PC, if they were 
talking about C64 - I would probably 
forgive them (LOL)! Maybe in another 
30+ years, emulation is going to be the 
only thing left to use, but until then, I 
fully support all those great hardcore 
users who are turning on their real 
C64's every day! As it stands today, 
the people behind WinVice and 
CCS64, should be applauded, for 
support of the C64, even if it is on a 
different platform. Man, when I started 
on C64 in 1988, who would of thought 
that around 20 years later, people 
would be using a emulator on a PC. 
Back then, PC's were total crap 
compared to C64. IMHO it wasn't until 
the Pentium processor (and Win'95), 
that PC's started taking off in leaps and 
bounds.

[2] WINVICE
http://www.viceteam.org/
 

Well, WinVice is considered the best 
Commodore emulator on the PC, but 
has some annoyances which I will 
include at the end of this section, under 
the suggestions area. As with CCS64, 
when you first 



install this program - you have to make 
about 10-20 changes to the settings, to 
get it just the way you 
want. Some people use less settings, 
some more. You have a windowed 
mode, which is really only good in 640 
480 resolution - something not 
common 
to many newer PCs - but with 
Windows XP you can run stuff in this 
resolution. Windowed mode has no 
scanlines, whereas the full mode 
(which takes up 
all the screen in 800 600) has 
scanlines, making it appear somewhat 
like a television set. This is the mode I 
use. Modes higher than 800 600 will 
show this full mode as actually more of 
a window... however, I feel there needs 
to be incorporated a 3/4 size mode.


The SID emulation is excellent, but I 
prefer listening to SID on real c64 - the 
emulation though provides a different 
tempo and feel to the music, which is 
also quite nice. Compatibility is very 
high, with just about anything C64 can 
be thrown at this emulator, and it will 
handle it. D64 files are my main 
collection, though I have other types. 
Pressing Alt-D takes you to full screen 
mode, where all you see is the C64 
screen. However when you need to 
make any changes to the settings, you 
have to press Alt-D again to get access 
to the menu options. If the menu 
options were available whilst in the 
full screen mode, this would be 
excellent. Printer emulation tends to 
conflict alot with D64 images that have 
been released recently, mainly demos. 
Not so much older wares, if I can 
recall. Anyway, the jerkiness of the on 
screen movements are pretty bad, and 
for this reason - whenever 

play games, I only use CCS64. For 
SID music, I use WinVice. For Demos, 
WinVice - then CCS64 (WinVice has 
better sound than CCS64, but CCS64 
is more smoother). For Disk 
Magazines, WinVice or CCS64. For 
Graphics, WinVice.The Machine Code 
monitor is WinVice is more fully 
developed than in CCS64, btw. 
WinVice would be the sceners choice, 
but I still like the latest version of 
CCS64.




Suggestions to improve WinVice

- Full Access to the menu system in 
Alt-D full screen mode, ie. all the 
miscellaneous options in drop down 
menus.

- Instead of only a small (too small!) 
window video output (no scanlines) 
and full size video output (scanlines) - 
have a window mode in-between these 
two sizes (with scanlines option [3/4 
size?]). Most people still use 800 times 
600 resolution on their PC's, so an in-
between video size, as suggested, 
would be ideal. Even for higher 
resolutions on LCD monitors, it would 
suffice.

- Instead of dragging PRG files into the 
emulator window, have an option 
where you can double click on it from 
the menu system, and it automatically 
loads. The same goes for other similar 
single file types.
- SID file player built-in, ie. double 
click on a sid file for it to  load and run 
under a built-in SID player (like 
PSID64). It would be cool if an inbuilt 
SID player had some nice graphics 
displayer.

- Movements on screen are very jerky, 
surely this can be improved, as CCS64 
have proven - some of it can be 
eliminated.

[3] CCS64
www.ccs64.com

CCS64 is really nothing like WinVice, 
in terms of program, but is an authentic 
stand alone emulator of the C64. The 
graphic detail and sound quality is 
slightly less than WinVice (the sound 
being the most noteable of the two). I 
really enjoy using this emulator, 
probably mostly as the first C64 
emulator I really used was the DOS 
version of CCS64 made around 2001. 
CCS64 has lower system requirements 
than WinVice. The DOS version ran 
comfortably on a Pentium 133 
computer, I had. The latest version, 
may only require a slightly higher 
system. WinVice on the other hand, I 
think you need at least 600+ mhz - for 
use with basic settings. Interpolate SID 
in WinVice, I know, even slows down 
a 800mhz machine I have now. With 
the Latest version 3.1 of CCS64, if you 
have no 3D card - you may need to 
switch resolution to 16-bit (Medium 
color quality), or you get Direct-X 
errors. I really don't understand why 
this is not in the documentation, 
because I found this out by mistake - 
missing out on using the latest version 
for some months.

Anyway, the menu system in CCS64 is 
comprised of a real C64 character set - 
which I find an excellent and 
innovative idea. The settings are easy 
to apply and change, and you no longer 
feel like you are in a windows point 
and click environment. Printer 
emulation is simple, but provides 
limited compatibility in what I have 
used it for. Drive emulation and 
general CPU handling has greatly 
improved since, say - the 2001+ 
versions, as it runs more programs than 
earlier versions.I always enjoy CCS64 
for games, as it handles on screen 
movements with a less jerky feeling. It 
has something to do with a PC monitor 
versus TV set refresh rate, you can 
read about that in the CCS 
documentation. If CCS64 was the only 
emulator ever for the C64, I would not 
feel disappointed about it. CCS were 
actually a cracking group in the early 
1980's, though I only ever heard of 
them through this emulator. Their 
cracks seemed nice, glad to see a 
member of the group made this 
emulator as some university project, I 
forget the details exactly.

Suggestions to improve CCS64

- Some interlace graphics look a bit 
bad, needs a finer touch.

- SID emulation is still pretty poor, 
though better than earlier versions, 
maybe some collaboration with 
SIDPLAY/RESID coders is needed? 
Decent SID emulation could make 
CCS64 the C64 emulator of choice.

- Machine code monitor, needs to 
undergo final development.

- Can't fault much else about it, nice 
stuff!

[4] IN CONCLUSION

Well there you have it. Kind of like an 
Alien V Predator showdown, well not 
really. Some features of one emulator 
(WinVice) are better than a feature in 
another emulator (CCS64), and vice 
versa. Anyway, I think it better having 
2 decent C64 emulators to choose 
from, rather than one. If I dare to give 
them a percentage rating, I would give 
WinVice about 90%, and CCS64 about 
88%. There is not that much between 
them, from a novice users point of 
view 
 
maybe the technical side points 
towards a different picture. I look 
forward to buying the new C64 
keyboard coming out next year 
anyway! Just joking, we  can only 
hope that some eccentric billionaire 
loves the mellow beeps like we do... 
Catch you later!

Signing off,
Luke Lynde (IQ-Dna/People of 
Liberty)
 
============================
 
Well recently I downloaded the HVSC 
top 100 sids, converted them into PRG 
format in a matter of seconds, and 
played them through my stereo via 
real C64 with 6581 Sid Chip. 

Awesome! A tune like "FAME" you 
could not forget from the early days of 
c64, even if I have not heard it in such 
a long time.  The "Last Ninja" tunes 
are there, which I love to listened to 
regularly anyway - but I do find the 
first Last Ninja tunes are below 
average when Compared to the 2nd 
and 3rd in the series. "Driller" is a 
killer tune by Matt Gray that takes up 
little space, but goes on forever.

 "Batman" from JCH, definitely one of 
the most memorable tunes of all time. 
"Mutants" has the most ethereal 
spooky effect I have ever heard on the 
C64. Then you have all the Rob 
Hubbard and Jeroen Tel classics, and 
much more. Please download it from 
the HVSC site, if you have not done so 
already!


There are so many great tunes in this 
Top 100 collection, I find it as an 
invaluable resource - because you are 
getting the most outstanding tunes 
from the large HVSC collection. 

The HVSC do a great work, and on 
that subject - the 10 year Anniversary 
demo from HVSC made my jaw drop! 
What an awesome collection of SID 
music!! This collection would be the 
best Music collection ever released on 
C64, surely! Such variety and 
differences in mood and style from all 
the musicians - it is like taking a 
journey through some wonderful 
soundscapes. As far as the design and 
layout of 10 years HVSC
 
- it could not possibly be better. Not 
only can you listen to these awesome 
SID's, but you can read the articles 
which are very informative in relation 
to C64 music. You must download this 
from CSDB now! I would never have 
expected such a great music collection 
to pop up, let's hope there are some 
great wares planned for the 25th 
Anniversary of C64 in 2007!

Signing off,
Luke Lynde (IQ-Dna/People of 
Liberty)

============================

Commodore Free Interview with 
HVSC team

> Who are you and what do you do for 
a job?

My name is Peter Sandn (aka 
Yodelking) and I'm from Sweden.I got 
my first Commodore 64 in 1983.I 
work as a technican for a family 
company called Formec.

> I notice this is a collaboration who 
else is involved?

The HVSC-crew is well described in 
Creators.txt in the documentsfolder of 
the HVSC collection.
But we get a lot of help from external 
contributers who helps out a lot.

> Where do you live / what are your 
likes dislikes?

I live in Staffanstorp in the southern of 
Sweden.

> What attracted you to sid music?

It was always amazed by the lovely 
melodies that were created, and for it's 
time it was really cool sounds. Still 
today I favor tunes with good melodies 
over technically advanced tunes. This 
goes for all music, not only SIDs.

> What commodore machines do you 
own?

In the old days I had c64, c128, Amiga 
1000, 500, 1200...(not at the same 
time, though...) I sold my last c128 in 
1989 together with almost all my 
disks. (and YES, I still miss my old 
disks, and I've regret it ever since!) 
Somewhere in 1994 I bought a c64 
again. Currently I have 6 c-64's and 2 
diskdrives.

> What amount of time is spent 
maintaning HVSc?

Impossible to say, as we're a big team. 
But it's quite a lot of hours spent on 
ripping music, verifying  credits,  
ensure that it works on a real c64, 
making the update script, and so on...

> How do you get the SID tunes who 
extracts them?

We have several music rippers in the 
team who works on this, newer  music 
is  often more easy to rip than those 
from old games where the coder made 
the  music, spreading the routines all 
over the memory. Also we get some 
great help from some composers who 
send in their own  tunes,  which saves 
us lots of time.

> Has anyone complained about 
copyright?
Have you had to remove songs due to 
copyright issues?

We didn't remove any tunes, but we've 
been asked to do it in the past. 


> Do you know of any CHART music 
that has ripped off SID tunes?

Yes, as a matter of fact there is.. :)


> Does the music collection work  for 
other platforms?

If you're refering to SID collections, 
HVSC works under several platforms, 
including Windows, Linux, Beos, 
Amiga... (some tunes can't be played 
on 
the amiga due to not updated players, 
though.)

> Do you plan a website version for 
the Amiga computers?

The HVSC already works on Amiga. 
And if you refer to collecting MOD's, 
there are already such sites.

> Do you listen to music other than 
SID tunes?

Yes, I like most kinds of music, except 
Jazz.
I'm specially fond of Mike Oldfield 
and Enya.

> How many tunes / authors are in the 
current download?

We have currently 33000 sidfiles in 
HVSC (some have several subtunes  
aswell...) I have no idea about how 
many authors, as several are unknown.

> How long has HVSC site been 
going?

HVSC was started 1996.

> How do you feel about current state 
of music / none Sid Commodore 
related?

I feel a lot music is being rushed, and 
mass-produced which lowers the  
quality. It's not often I buy a record 
where I like all tunes. (That actually 
only happened once: Merril Bainbridge 
with "The Garden")

> Are there any other projects you are 
working on?

I'm doing the composers page: 
http://composers.c64.org/ and I'm also 
working on a "Sidhunt" page where 
people can request SIDs they miss out 
on in HVSC.

> Where does it go from here, 
obviously the project will  never end, 
but do you have a final cutoff date or 
do  you plan to maintane the collection 
for as long as possible?

We all grow older and the amount of 
spare time decreases. We haven't set 
any date for when we consider the 
project to be finished. We work on as 
long as we enjoy it, and hopefully 
when people in the crew gets other 
priorities in life, we might get other 
people to join.
 
> What question would you liked to 
have been asked?

Nothing comes to mind at the moment.
But feel free to ask more questions if 
you have any.

> Have you read Commodore free 
magazine?
No, personally I never heard of it.

Best regards, Peter 

============================


HVSC Frequently Asked Questions 
(F.A.Q)

[1] What is the High Voltage SID 
Collection (HVSC)?

HVSC is the ultimate SID tune 
collection featuring over 30,000 
popularand requested SIDs from the 
Commodore 64.  The collection 
includes SIDs (aka C64 music) from 
games, demos, intros, etc. HVSC has 
been in the making for six years and is 
the result of many contributors. 

[2] What software and hardware do I 
need to play the tunes in HVSC?

Lucky for you, there are many devoted 
SID fans throughout the world. Many 
people have created or ported SID 
emulators to various OSes. To name a 
few: Win95, Win3.1, Linux, MSDOS, 
MacOS, AmigaOS, Atari Falcon, 
BeOS, OS/2, etc.  For a complete list 
of which OSs are supported, see the 
HVSC web,page. You can also listen 
to the SIDs in HVSC on a real C64 
with Real SID Play.  More information 
is available on the HVSC web page.As 
for additional hardware, you only need 
a sound card. In addition to using your 
home computer, there are hardware 
devices out there that utilize the SID 
chip itself in conjunction with your 
sound card.  See 

http://www.hardsid.com and 
http://www.sidstation.com
for more information.

[3] Isn't Commodore C64 music just 
silly beep-blop music?

Absolutely not!  Although the C64 
went into production in 1983, do not 
underestimate the C64's technology.  
In fact, Byte Magazine named the 
C64's Sound Interface Device (SID) as 
one of the 20 most important chips in 
computer history along side the 
PowerPC, Intel 8086, and Pentium.  
After all, there has to be a reason why 
there are so many SID fans.  You 
should note that there were two 
distinctive regions for SID music, 
America and Europe. American SID 
music is on average lower in quality 
compared to European SID music.  
This is not to say that American SID 
music is crap, but if you are judging 
SID music based on the American SID 
music you have heard, I can 
understand partially why you might 
think SID music is silly.  Why is 
American
SID music lacking compared to 
European SID music?  Mainly this has 
to do with much information sharing 
related to the SID composing tools in 
Europe (not to mention some theft as 
well).  The best way for you to 
determine if SID music is or isn't for 
you is to listen to some of the best.  
Take a listen to some Hubbard, 
Galway, Daglish, Gray (Fred and Matt) 
and Tel.  If you do not like  any of 
those artists, then there is a strong 
chance you will not like any  SID 
music. You should also note that C64 
music has been played not just on 
specialist radio shows like the KDVS 
6581 SID show (now sadly no longer 
with us) but also on Swedish national 
television.  So much for silly beep-blop 
then :)

[4] Which tunes are added to HVSC, 
and why?

HVSC adds music from games, and 
C64 scene programs (whether they 
befrom demos, stand alone music 
packs, or disk magazines) which have 
been released into the public domain.  
However, we do not normally add any 
Compute! Gazette tunes (see [5]).  
Thus, if a tune has been released 
publically including C64 FTP or 
WWW sites, this means it also allows 
for any other public collection such as 
HVSC to place it in their collections as 
well using the same unrestricted and 
free ethics that public domain software 
allows.  We do this so that HVSC 
serves
as an archive, not just for the SID fans, 
but for the composers as well if they 
ever need to refer to their work.  There 
are also some previously unreleased 
tunes by composers which HVSC also 
has (such as /Gray_Fred/Sled.sid), 
where the HVSC Crew strictly asks for 
_composer permission_ before 
releasing such.

[5] Why aren't there any Compute 
Gazette SIDPlayer tunes in HVSC?

Mainly, because on average they do 
not sound as good as non-SIDPlayer 
tunes.SIDPlayer was a public domain 
SID composer and player available in 
the early '80s on the C64. The tool was 
predominately used by Americans and 
has a strong following among the 
public domain audience.  SIDPlayer 
tunes are usually follow by a ".mus" 
and can be found on some C64 ftp 
sites.

The best Compute! Gazette SID tune 
collection HVSC knows of is 
maintained by Peter Weighill and the 
latest version can be found here:
http://www.c64music.co.uk/

(note: do not confuse SIDPlayer with 
SIDPlay. SIDPlay is a SID emulator 
where as SIDPlayer is a SID player for 
the C64.  Confusion is easy when there 
is SIDPlay, PLAYSID (Amiga), 
SIDPlayer (C64), Real SIDPlay (C64), 
etc.)

[6] What is the SID Tune Information 
List (STIL)?

The STIL is basically a text file which 
contains general information about the 
SIDs in HVSC.  Such information 
includes the original composer's name, 
defects in certain tunes, interesting 
trivia, etc.  Consult the STIL FAQ for 
more information.  Hopefully your SID 
emulator has the option to display the 
STIL information for the current 
playing SID tune.

[7] What is PSIDv2NG?

PSIDv2NG (PSID format v2, Next 
Generation) was invented by Simon 
White and Dag Lem and is an 
extension of the Playsid V2 file format.  
It takes
advantage of some free bytes in the 
header and allows for the following 
situations (the first one was already in 
the existing PSID v2 format):

* the SID file has a standalone player 
or is a Compute! Gazette SIDplayer 
tune

* whether the SID file is C64 
compatible or specific to the old  
PlaySID formats

* whether the SID file is for NTSC 
(eg: USA) or PAL (eg: Europe) TV 
formats

* SID chip selection, 6581 (old) or 
8580 (new) SID chip

* relocation fields, required to support 
a real C64(emulator) where additional 
code must be placed in C64 ram to 
play the SID tune.

All the above means that it also allows 
for better compatibility with a real 
Commodore 64 so you can play the 
tunes on the real thing (see  also RSID 
below)

It also has the added advantage of 
being backwards compatible with most 
SID tunes, so that older SID emulators 
can still play them, but to take 
advantage of the features of PSID 
v2NG, you are highly recommended to 
use SID emulators based on the latest 
libsidplay2 emulation engine (for 
example,  Sidplay2 for Windows) to 
play SIDs in HVSC.

RSID is an extension of the PSID 
v2NG format, introduced in HVSC 
5.1. RSID is for those rips that require 
strict C64 compliance, and also
ensure that older SID emulators do not 
lock up when attempting to play these 
SIDs. It does this by having "RSID" in 
the first four bytes    of the SID file 
header instead of "PSID", which 
allows for safe rejection. Examples of 
an RSID format SID include sample 
tunes which require real-time sample 
playback, busy delay loops in real time 
and cycle-accurate timing.

The RSID format should only be used 
if the rip will crash older SID 
emulators. More detailed information 
about the formats can be obtained on 
the documents section of the  Sidplay2 
homepage

[8] Why has HVSC decided to go with 
PSIDv2NG?

The HVSC Team had thought for some 
time about going with the file format, 
as it would allow for better and more 
accurate rips, being played with the 
cycle-accurate Sidplay2 player.  
However, such an issue was important 
and so in March 2002 HVSC 
undertook its first ever user survey, 
which asked how the collection was 
used, what the users found important in 
a SID file format to them, and whether 
the collection should move to 
PSIDv2NG format.  When you 
consider that of those surveyed:

* 73% wished for SID files to be 
played on a real C64 where possible

* 94% would like to hear SID tunes at 
their intended PAL or NTSC speed

* 91% wished to know which SID chip 
a SID tune was composed on and that a 
majority also wished for us to have 
SID files play more accurately, and for 
the collection to go to PSIDv2NG, then 
it was an easy decision to make.  
Further, PSIDv2NG is the only new 
SID file format thus far that facilitates 
what was preferred.

[9] Some of the file names have _PSID 
and _BASIC in their name. Why is 
this?

- If you use sidplay1, play the _PSID 
files if they exist.

- If you use sidplay2, play the non-
_PSID files.

There were many SIDs ripped where 
they were hacked for compatibility or 
PlaySID extended digi registers, which 
are specific to older SID emulators like 
PlaySID and Sidplay only.   Although 
Sidplay2 will play those rips, a real 
C64 will not and and in most cases it 
will lock up fwith them.

As the collection develops, C64-
friendly versions of these rips will be 
added which will run alongside the 
existing PlaySID-specific rips. Most of 
these will be in the RSID format which 
will safely reject on the older SID 
emulators.   Further, by marking the 
PlaySID specific tunes in this way, that 
user then knows which rip is suited 
best to their SID emulator.

Similarly, those SIDs that are marked 
BASIC were originally taken from C64 
games which were wholly 
programmed in the BASIC language.  
To convert these BASIC programs into 
timer-exact machine code SID tunes 
would take not only a lot of effort, but 
inevitably you would also lose the 
accuracy of playback of these tunes.  
Emulation support is now provided by 
the latest versions of Sidplay2 to be 
able to effectively emulate BASIC 
(and thus the tunes created within 
BASIC) correctly. HVSC 5.7 saw the 
first BASIC SIDs in the collection, and 
as the collection progresses, more of 
these tunes will appear.

[10] My operating system doesn't yet 
(or can't) support Sidplay2. Will I still 
be able to play the SIDs in HVSC?

Yes. Part of the PSIDv2NG 
specification is to allow for backwards 
compatibility, wherever possible.  The 
only SIDs you won't be able to play are 
those which are real C64 specific, and 
for the majority of those, they will 
have a PlaySID equivalent marked as 
mentioned above.

[11] When will the next update be 
released?

There is no fixed time schedule as to 
when each update is released.  Each 
update is dependent on two factors: 
available time and available SIDs.  
Once enough SIDs have been sent in to 
equal around 1.44 MBs (compressed) 
and the HVSC crew has time enough 
to properly sort the SIDs, the next 
update will be released.  At present, it 
takes on average three months to put 
together a new update.  However, you 
should note that with the amount of 
SIDs already present in HVSC, it does 
become harder to compile updates full 
of new SIDs and three months should 
be seen as an absolute minimum.

Also, if you wish to be added to the 
HVSC Update Announcement list, 
which means you get an email the 
moment the HVSC website is updated 
announcing the  new HVSC Update 
release, then please email HVSC 
Update Subscribe.  Note too that you 
will be able to download the update 
from two sites on the main HVSC page 
which should ease Net traffic on the 
day of the update release.

[12] Do I have to download all of 
HVSC after each update?

No. The update comes with a tool that 
automatically updates HVSC to the 
next version.  Instructions are provided 
in each update and within the tool.  In 
particular, do NOT run the update tool 
more than once.

[13] Why isn't the update tool available 
for my system?

The update tool was made in mind to 
be portable, and at the moment is 
available for Win95/98/NT, AmigaOS, 
OS/2, MacOS, BeOS, Linux, 
FreeBSD,
SolarisOS 2.6 on SPARC processor 
systems and Atari ST with external OS 
that handles long file names. If you 
would like to port the Update tool to 
your OS, the source code to the tool 
and information about the format of 
the HVS data file can be obtained by 
emailing 

Stephan Schmid & Peter Sandn

[14] Why do the updates sometimes 
add SIDs that HVSC already had?

We often replace SIDs in HVSC with 
better versions. Reason for replacing 
SIDs could be (1) more sub-tunes (2) 
100% rip (3) significantly smaller (4) 
merger of several SIDs. A "100% rip" 
includes SID tunes that are fully C64 
compliant and where applicable have 
all subtunes. Thus, there is a chance 
that a new version of a tune could 
sound identical to the current version 
in HVSC.  The new rip, however, has 
some internal
changes that does in fact make it 
superior.  Note that occasionally we do 
mistakenly add repeated tunes (and 
please tell us if you spot them.)

[15] After I ran the Update, I can no 
longer find some SIDs.  Where did 
they go?

To find out more details as to where 
SIDs were moved, why they were 
deleted, why they were replaced, etc., 
view the 
/DOCUMENTS/UpdateXX.hvs
file for the current update.  The "XX" 
in the path mentioned in the previous 
sentence represents the current update 
number.  So if after
running Update #7 you can no longer 
find a favorite SID, check 
/DOCUMENTS/Update07.hvs and 
search the file for the location where 
that SID was manipulated.  The 
UpdateXX.hvs file serves as a data file 
for the UPDATE tool but is also 
readable by humanoids and does 
contain some comments.  The best way 
to find the section of the file that 
contains the information you seek is to 
do a string search on the old SID or the 
path where the SID resided.

[16] How can I tell what version of 
HVSC I have?

Look at /DOCUMENTS/hv_sids.txt.  
The first few lines will tell you what 
version you have.

[17] Why should I get HVSC when I 
can just load up the game/demo and 
hear  the music on a real C64?

First off, remember that HVSC isn't 
just for emulator users.  In fact, the 
tunes in HVSC are still in raw C64 
code only prepended by some header 
information.  There now exists a really 
useful tool called PSID64, which takes 
a .sid from HVSC and turns it into a 
RUNnable C64 .prg file, which you 
can load and run on the real thing to 
play the tune.  The only ones you can't 
are those with _PSID in the filename 
(see [9] above for more information) 
but gradually there'll be real C64 
versions of those SIDs, too. We 
appreciate that there's still many C64 
diehards out there (in fact, several of 
the HVSC Crew still compose music 
on the real thing too.) hence our wish 
that all SIDs can be made into a C64 
runnable form. C64 users enjoy HVSC 
because it is the largest SID collection 
on Earth.  It is unlikely that you have 
all of the programs from where the 
SIDs in HVSC originated.  Plus, with 
HVSC, you can select any level tune at 
any time.  SID emulators are getting 
better all the time, and with 
libsidplay2's cycle exact timing, 
moving onward too.  And for people 
who no longer own a C64, SID 
emulators are a dream.  Imagine how 
many C64  disks you would need to 
store the whole HVSC on.

[18] Why do some tunes sound 
different compared to how I remember 
them on  the C64?

SID emulators are very good, but not 
perfect.  Although SID emulation is 
not perfect, the actual rip of the SID 
tune may be corrupt.  In addition
to rippers corrupting tunes, crackers 
would often make mistakes and muck 
up the tunes' speed (most infamously, 
Skate or Die and Driller.) Another 
common problem is that some people 
may not be aware of is that North 
America (NTSC) and Europe (PAL) 
had differences in their TVs that 
influence the speed of SID tunes that 
used raster timing. However, where 
possible in HVSC SID tunes are now 
flagged as being PAL or NTSC so you 
can now hear them as the composer 
intended.  You must use Sidplay2 to 
take advantage of this feature, 
otherwise in older SID emulators you 
can force the clock speed to PAL or 
NTSC to hear it as you remember it.

If you believe you have found a 
corrupt tune, it would be best if you 
load up the old tune on a C64/128 and 
compare it to the HVSC version.  If 
you then notice a problem with the 
HVSC version, by all means, let us 
know.  We strongly recommend that 
you do not compare the HVSC tune to 
a tune played in a C64 emulator, as 
often it's not accurate.  You might also 
want to check out the STIL which 
documents any known problems with 
the SIDs found in HVSC if the game 
or demo also played the SID tune the 
same way.

[19] How do I rip SID tunes from 
games/demos?

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValle
y/Lakes/5147/sidplay/ 

This gives a basic guide to the 
fundamentals of ripping, although 
please note that you should not use the 
PlaySID extended digi registers 
anymore.  All rips should be C64 
compliant. Once you've ripped the C64 
data (and wherever possible, tested 
your ripped data on a real C64) you 
should use the SIDEdit tool to convert 
your rip to PSIDv2NG format for 
HVSC.  Please use the
PSIDEdit link at http://lala.c64.org/  
for more information.

However, do not set an y of the 
PSIDv2NG fields unless you are 
absolutelysure you are correct.  
Consult the documentation with 
SIDEdit for
more information. You should then use 
Sidplay2 to test your rip to make sure 
it works correctly.

One other important thing to bear in 
mind - if at all possible, rip from the 
_original_ release of the game.  The 
initial wave of game cracks back in the 
late 1980s often missed out tunes, 
mucked up tunes etc and are never 
treated as a 100% reliable source for 
the correct game tunes, just to be on 
the safe side.  Also, you will find that 
the release date given in a crack can be 
inaccurate, along with the credits, as 
the cracker would often overwrite the 
correct credits with who cracked the 
game etc.

[20] Why isn't tune X in HVSC?

Of course, not every SID ever made on 
the C64 is in HVSC.  We feel that the 
majority of the most requested tunes 
are in HVSC.  This does not mean we 
feel that almost _all_ C64 tunes are in 
HVSC.  The HVSC crew is always 
busy ripping new SIDs and always 
receiving more SIDs.  The best thing 
you can do if you would like to hear a 
certain tune in HVSC is to check out 
the  SID Hunt web page  which can be 
reached from the main HVSC web site. 
Also, the  HVSC Ripped Tunes page  
is a good source to check if a tune has 
been ripped and due for a HVSC 
Update.
You may also want to consider 
Vincent Voois' "Sidbace 32"  which 
helps you locate information in both 
HVSC and STIL that you require.

[21] I can't find tune Y in HVSC which 
was used in an old intro/demo. Can 
you tell me where it is?

Unfortunately, many intro coders and 
programmers failed to properly give 
credit to the music they used in their 
work.  HVSC, thankfully, is very 
accurate in the credits it gives.  We 
have worked for years contacting the 
original composers of tunes to help 
verify SID credits in HVSC.  I don't 
think you are going to like what I am 
leading up to.  C64 musicians have 
long been ignored on the C64.  Many 
people will say, "Do you have the 
music to Commando?" not knowing 
who made the music.  The time has 
come that you too should learn these 
composers' names.  Basically, what I 
am telling you is that there is a chance 
that you will have to roll up your 
sleeves and dig through HVSC 
searching for your old favorite tunes.  
Before you do this, though, you should 
check out the HVSC search engine at 
the HVSC web site. With just a 
fragment of information, you can 
perhaps find the tune.  Also, note that 
the professional composers (i.e., ones 
who received money for their work) 
are at the root of HVSC.  Some of the 
lesser known composers and 
composers from post-1992 are in the 
"VARIOUS" directory. 

 Knowing this information should help 
reduce your search time. For demos, 
you might wish to pay a visit to 
Stephan Schmid's excellent Demo 
Dungeon site  - it has lots of demos, 
but also which tunes were used in each 
one. Very highly recommended.

[22] Why do some of the tunes in 
HVSC not play?

More than likely, a silent tune is a 
PSID-only tune or the tune isn't fully 
C64 compliant.  Our goal is to 
eventually all these tunes with versions 
that will work in the real C64 
environment mode of Sidplay2.  
Further, some tunes use ADSR values 
which the original Sidplay's libsidplay 
library does not like.

[23] Why are there some incorrect or 
ugly-looking credits in HVSC?

Slowly but surely we are taking care of 
this. With each update, we make at 
least 200 credit fixes.  So please be 
patient and if you notice any incorrect 
credits, email us and we'll try to fix 
them for the next update. Note also 
that any documented proof you have of 
the credit fix will help. Some people 
may not realise the amount of effort 
that has gone into HVSC since they 
have no idea of the collection's history.  
The chart below proudly shows the 
amount of progress HVSC has made 
since its existence. An explanation of 
the key: deleted tunes were either 
damaged or repeated; fixed tunes that 
replaced inferior rips; new is for new 
SIDs added; credits are fixes or 
additions to current HVSC credits.

The chart shows several things.  Not 
only does HVSC average over 400 
new SIDs per Update but the collection 
also averages over 400 credit fixes
per Update.  Also, note how the 
number of repeats added and the 
numberof fixed rips have been kept 
extremely low.  This shows the amount 
of quality in the collection.  Eventually 
we hope that the number of credit fixes 
per Update will drop below 200.
[24] Can I just download the individual 
tunes I want?

Yes.  HVSC is available unzipped at a 
few web and ftp sites.  A listing of 
these sites can be found at the  HVSC 
Mirrors Page.

[25] How is it determined which 
composers go under the /VARIOUS 
dir?

The current rule is:

 (1) If the artist has no tunes made in 
1992 or earlier, go to step #4

 (2) If the artist has game tunes (3 must 
be made in 1992 or earlier),   above 
Various... else go to step #3
 
(3) If the artist was a famous demo 
composer in 1992 or earlier, above  
Various...else go to step #4
 
(4) Below Various

Note: Rule (2) above has slightly 
changed.  This is in order that an artist 
who may have produced only one 
game tune for a magazine covermount 
prior to 1992 does not make it above 
VARIOUS.

Also, as of HVSC 3.1, the /VARIOUS 
directory changed structure.  In order 
to make it manageable chunks, 
/VARIOUS now has four subdirs, A-F, 
G-L, M-R and S-Z, so you can look in 
those to find the composers you seek.

[26] Do you offer HVSC on CD?

Yes we do :) Please contact the below 
for further HVSC on CD information:
-----------------------------------------------
------------------------
Jason MacKenzie
Binary Zone PD
ENGLAND
Website: 
http://www.bzpd.freeserve.co.uk/
-----------------------------------------------
------------------------
Imre Olajos Jr.
Website: http://lala.c64.org
-----------------------------------------------
------------------------
Bionic Grasshopper
Email: bg_mfc@usa.net
-----------------------------------------------
------------------------
Stefan Scheffels
Website: 
http://de.geocities.com/sokratekk.rm
-----------------------------------------------
------------------------
In addition, the HVSC Crew have 
ensured that any programs distributed 
on a HVSC CD have had written 
permission from the programmers 
concerned to include their work, such 
as Sidplay, PlaySID, APlayer etc.

If you are a public domain library and 
wish to include HVSC  on a CD-ROM 
then please email Stephan Schmid & 
Peter Sandn for permission -that's all 
we ask. As long as you are making no 
profit on the CD, we will be more than 
willing to support you.  One final 
thing. You may also see C64 
compilation CDs (such as the C64 
Classix CD) which contain to have 
"over 10,000 SID tunes".  They have 
copied HVSC onto those CDs without 
permission and are making profit from 
it, which is not only against the HVSC 
ethic, but also means that  the 
composers' works are being abused.

[27] When will HVSC be completed?

In all likelihood, never.  Far too many 
tunes were made on the C64 to 
reasonably expect that every SID will 
be collected.  In addition, people are 
still composing music on the C64 to 
this day (some of the HVSC team 
themselves are among them).  
Consider HVSC a living collection.

[28] I find myself listening to SID 
music all the time. Am I normal?

No, you are a SID-aholic. But we 
consider this a good thing. ;)

[29] So how do I make my own SID 
tunes?

In most cases, you will need access to 
either a real C64 or a  C64 emulator 
such as CCS64 or VICE.  Ideally it is 
preferred that you actually compose on 
the real thing, as you know the 
emulation is going to be 100% :-).  
You will also need a music editor 
program, which will enable you to 
easily alter the sequences with the 
notes in, the voices that the C64 will 
use, and also which will let you 
compile your tunes  to disk so that they 
can be loaded and run by other users.

ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/cbm/c64/audio/edi
tors/ 

is a good place to start to download a 
Commodore 64 music editor. I would 
advise you to try out a few and see 
which one you prefer.  Over the years 
many people have recommended JCH's 
Editor, Music Assembler, DMC 
Editor, Future Composer, 
Voicetracker, Siduzzit, Soundmonitor 
and many others, but do take the time 
to read all the documentation with 
them.  They will help you a lot in 
creating the right sound for your tune.

Those of you who are used to tracker 
programs like Fast Tracker on the PC 
might like to check out CyberTracker - 
see http://noname.c64.org/tracker/

- it's a FT-like environment for making 
C64 tunes.
And now there's a native PC 
application which will do the job very 
nicely for you.  Lasse rni's 
GoatTracker uses the well known 
reSID emulation engine in conjunction 
with a friendly and simple to use 
interface so that within minutes you 
can be mastering the SID chip and 
producing your tunes.  And for 
HardSID card owners, you can also use 
the real C64 SID chip on your 
HardSID to ensure your sound is as 
close to the real thing as possible.  The 
beauty also is that you can save your 
tunes (when finished) to C64 .prg 
format, or SID format too.
For more information, please consult 
the following webpage: 
http://www.student.oulu.fi/~loorni/
And of course, once you have a saved 
compiled tune, it should be pretty easy 
to convert to a SID file to send off to 
the HVSC Crew (hint).

[30] What if I want to release a cover 
of a SID tune commercially?

You should importantly please bear in 
mind that often the C64 composer will 
own authorship rights to their SID 
tunes, and not the software company. 
This is particularly the case as often 
known game composers worked 
freelance and so kept the ownership to 
their pieces.  You should endeavour to 
contact the original C64 composer to 
ensure not just permission but also that 
the composer gets due authorship 
credit (and payment of course) on the 
record.  Feel free also to contact Chris 
Abbott with regard to this if you are 
unsure how to proceed.

------------------------
------------------------

Information printed from the FAQ`s 
with the agreement of Peter from 
HVSC 
 
============================



Interview with Aleksi Eeeben
 

1) Emulation of a SID - a tough 
enough job to do on PC, but how on  
earth can someone even think of bring 
the sound of the 64 into the 
unexpanded 5 
KB of the VIC-20?

Common sense says it's not possible, 
so it had to be done with a little 
madness. No, it's not really a trick, but 
actually a quite faithful emulation of 
the inner workings of SID. Phase-
accumulating oscillators  are very 
much the same. Everything is just 
scaled down to such accuracy and 
detail that a 1 MHz 8-bit processor can 
handle.

2) Could you explain how you 
managed to make this happen to 
someone who  does not understand that 
much of coding like - well, let's say ... 
a nerd  like me?

The emulation consists of four parts:

1. Tone generator - The heart of the 
emulation, generates and mixes  three 
static voices and outputs the combined 
sound through volume register  4-bit 
DAC (exactly like playing samples on 
C-64). Triangle, sawtooth, pulse  Wave 
(with 32 widths) and noise can be 
selected with a jmp-switch and each  
voice has volume setting of 0-7. This 
code is running in an NMI timer  
interrupt called at 6.1 kHz rate. 
Locating the entire tone generator part 
on  zeropage, using self-modifying 
code and counting cycles, I squeezed 
the  oscillator code to 30-39 cycles per 
voice (depending on waveform), so 
there's a  few cycles left for other 
routines too.

2. Original playroutine - 6502 and 
6510 share the same instruction set,  so 
the same original routine from C-64 
can be used directly. For VIC 20, all 
writes to SID chip must be manually 
patched to some other memory  
location, since $D400-$D418 is ROM. 
Also zeropage usage must be checked, 
as  almost entire zeropage is used by 
the tone generator part. Luckily most 
playroutines need only a few zero page 
locations. And finally, if the 
playroutine itself is located under VIC 
20 ROM's then it has to be  relocated 
somewhere else.

3. Register emulation and envelopes - 
This routine is called in sync  with the 
playroutine. It's linked to IRQ and 
called only once a frame (50  Hz). It 
simply reads the SID register image 
produced by the playroutine part  and 
then changes the inner state of the tone 
generator accordingly. Sid  Vicious 
internal frequency values are SID-
frequency divided by a constant.  
Waveform jmp-switches are set based 
on SID image waveform registers. This 
part  also emulates the envelopes and 
updates the level bits in tone generator  
code. Gate bits are polled and 
attack/release phases started as 
required.

4. Noise emulation - Voices with noise 
waveform read from a 16-sample 
buffer. The buffer is constantly filled 
with new random numbers  whenever 
there is free processor time.

3) Nevertheless the routine has to have 
some kind of magic to it  because you 
state that on the 64 it could be used to 
play 2-SID-Songs on just one  SID - 
now 

that is awkward because we're talking 
about six voices here instead  of three. 
What's the trick and how much 
memory does that trick need, or in 
other words: can we hope for someone 
doing a six-voice-tune for a  upcoming 
game in the distant future?

On C-64 you can play 3 regular SID 
voices and 3 emulated voices. The 
emulated voices will take 
approximately 50-70% of CPU time, 
which makes  it unsuitable for most 
games. It's possible if your game is not 
very CPU-intensive, but generally it's 
probably better for title screens and 
such.

The emulated voices are always 
sounding a little rougher. Low- and  
mid-range notes with pulse waveform 
sound best, very authentic actually. So  
arrange your basses, lower leads and 
not-too-high pads in the emulated 
voices.  Also experiment with drums. 
The emulated voices have a sharper 
attack. Also  the noise has a certain 
unique character, although it can't 
reach as high  as SID.

4) Generally speaking: more memory, 
more voices? Can this be topped by a 
128 playing 9 voices or is 6 the limit 
for the SID to manage/emulate?

It's not really a matter of memory. On 
C-128 you could probably use the 2 
MHz mode for doubling the mixing 
rate to 12 kHz. 3 SID voices and 6  
Emulated voices is possible, but you 
need to rewrite the tone generator code 
for high memory instead of zeropage 
and this decreases the performance.

Pulse waveform is the fastest to 
emulate, since it doesn't require atable-
lookup for the envelope levels (level 
can be implemented directly 
bychanging the values of upper and 
lower edge). VIC 20 NMI's waste a 
few cycles because they jump through 
ROM. Thus, 4 emulated pulse wave 
voices should be doable on C-64 with 
similar quality.

Sid Vicious sound examples recorded 
from VICExvic:
www.cncd.fi/aeeben/temp/vic20-sid-
emu-upsidedown.mp3
www.cncd.fi/aeeben/temp/vic20-sid-
emu commando.mp3
www.cncd.fi/aeeben/temp/vic20-sid-
emu-zoids.mp3
www.cncd.fi/aeeben/temp/vic20-sid-
emu-uuno.mp3

These run in VICE xvic (remove all 
extra memory and reset emulator  
Before loading):
www.cncd.fi/aeeben/temp/upside.prg
www.cncd.fi/aeeben/temp/zoids.prg

The source code, work in progress:
www.cncd.fi/aeeben/temp/sidemu_sou
rce_v0.zip
Other stuff:: 
www.myspace.com/aleksieeben
www.cncd.fi/aeeben

interview printed with Permission from
http://www.cevi-aktuell.de.vu/ 
Magazine  

============================

Quikmenu
From Loadstar
 

On the Commodore free website you 
will find a link to the utilities page, 
from here you can download the full 
package given away from by 
?LOADSTAR?

Don?t like me jump in and start 
running everything, I suggest you start 
from the left hand side and read all the 
documentation. Here are the 
documents in an effort for you to read 
them.

WELCOME TO QUIKMENU
by Dave Moorman

     As you can see, QuikMenu can  
present your disk in an elegant and 
easy-to-use manner. All programs and 
text files are displayed, with theoption 
to Read It or Run It (if aprogram is 
associated).

     The Read It function presents the 
text on the screen in LOADSTAR's 38- 
column format, and can be sent to a 
printer on device 4.

     Run It will load and run any BASIC 
2.0 program.

     Using QuikMenu on your own 
disks  can be as simple or as dramatic 
as you want. Read how to do it in 
"World of QM" on this disk.

     At the last minute, we added C-64 
Encyclopedia just because it was there 
and we had a lot of free blocks on this 
disk (image). Here is EVERYTHING 
you ever wanted to know about the C-
64, but didn't know where to look.

THE WORLD OF QUIKMENU
by Dave Moorman

     Using QuikMenu on your own 
disks can be simplicity itself. Only 
twothings are needed:

 1. QUIKMENU.PKD needs to be put 
at the  top of your disk directory.

 2. Text and bootable program files 
need to be renames. Text files need a 
prefix of "T.". Bootable program files 
(the ones that can be LOADed and 
RUN) need a "B." prefix -- and must 
have a"T." file with the same name. 
For example, B.MYPROG must have a 
text file T.MYPROG on the disk as 
well.
 
  With QUIKMENU.PKD at the top of  
the disk, the whole collection can be 
started with LOAD":*",8 and RUN.

     On the fist run, QuikMenu searches
 for all "T." files, then checks to see
 if there is a "B." file that matches. 
This information is put on the disk in a 
file called "QUIKLIST", which is
 then used to create the menu. On 
subsequent runs, the program simply 
uses QUIKLIST.

     If you change the files on the disk, 
be sure to scratch QUIKLIST and run 
QUIKMENU.PKD again to generate a 
new list.

CONNECTING QM
by Dave Moorman

    Your BASIC programs can return to 
QuikMenu with just a little editing. 
You will need to make sure the IRQ 
has been shut off (if the program uses 
music or Mr.Mouse) and that the 
default BASIC memory settings have 
been restored: 
 
    POKE44,8:POKE2048,0 
    POKE56,160:CLR 
 Be sure that lines 40000-40099 are 
free. Save your program. 
 
    LOAD"LSCONNECTOR",dv from 
this disk and LIST it. Then LOAD 
your program. Move the cursor to line 
40000 and press <RETURN> on each 
line. Put GOTO40000 at the point 
where your program ends, and scratch 
and save. 
 
    Your program will now call HELLO 
CONNECT and return to QuikMenu. 
 
    If you have a program that is in 
Machine Lanuage and/or does not let 
go of the machine (requires a reset), 
you can use the boot program for 
Doodle to create a Does Not Return 
boot. 
 
    LOAD"b.Doodle",dv and LIST 
 
    Change line 30: 
 
            30 A$="DOODLE" 
 to the name of your program. Change 
line 10000: 
 10000 
D=PEEK(186):N$="B.DOODLE" 
 to the B. name your want for your 
program. 
 
    Change lines 40150-40152 to the 
title you want to appear on the flash 
screen. 
 
 40150 data"MY PROGRAM" 
 40151 data"by Your Name" 
 40152 data"(c) 2006 Your Name" 
 
    Save the file with 
 
    GOTO10000 
 
    Your new boot is ready to go. The 
user has the ability to duck out before 
going to a program that does not return 
to QuikMenu.

DOODLING QUIKMENU
by Dave Moorman
 
    We have included Doodle on this 
disk because it is one of the best and 
easiest-to-use high-resolution bitmap 
drawing programs ever. Extended docs 
are not necessary for Doodle -- every 
command is just a <RETURN> or 
<Shift RETURN> away. 
 
    With Doodle, you can draw a nice 
little picture for your QuikMenu 
background, then port it into an FTS 
file using STB Print and Scrn2Font. 
 
    Some considerations you will want 
to keep in mind: 
 
  * The FTS file uses the screen font as 
a bitmap. Therefore only about one- 
fourth of the Doodle screen can be 
used for the graphic. 
 
  * Your graphic will probably need to 
be a line drawing, though cell-by-cell 
text colors can be displayed from an 
FTS file. 
 
  * Make the Doodle negative before 
saving it. The colors do not matter -- 
these you can change with Mr.MICK. 
With a negative image, you can paint 
areas of the screen very easily with 
Mr.MICK. 
 
    To transfer your Doodle file to an 
FTS file, first use STB Print to convert 
the "DD*" file into "*.SHP" format. 
Then boot up Scrn2Font and do the 
conversion. Finally, use Mr.MICK to 
make it nice.

BEHIND QUIKMENU
by Dave Moorman
 
    QuikMenu is a culmination of over 
22 years of programming experience at 
LOADSTAR. From the beginning, 
LOADSTAR has created a continuous 
environment for the presentation of 
text and software. 
 
    I remember booting my first 
LOADSTAR issue, back in 1988. We 
lived a long way from any 
telecomputing service such as 
QuantumLink or Delphi, and I 
imagined that this easy-to-use menu 
which allowed me to go from program 
to program seamlessly was what it 
must be like online. 
 
    I was wrong. LOADSTAR was 
better! 
 
    QuikMenu brings this same 
seamless environment to YOUR disk 
presentation. Be sure to read the 
articles on this disk for step-by-step 
instructions. 
 
    Twenty-two years is a long time. For 
a computer platform, it is a very long 
time. Over the decades, LOADSTAR 
has led the way to elegant 
programming for hobbyists. Most 
everything the guys at the Mighty 
LOADSTAR Tower were doing was 
included on an issue with a full tutorial 
and documentation. 
 
    LOADSTAR became my graduate 
course in software development. 
 
    In 1988, Fender Tucker arrived at 
the Softdisk Catacombs as the 
Managing Editor of LOADSTAR. He 
soon set out on a quest for 
LOADSTAR Quality. He never really 
defined the term, but gave some 
important suggestions. 
 
    Unlike its competitors, LOADSTAR 
was not limited to what a hobbyist 
could type in from a paper magazine 
page. Programmers were encouraged 
to use custom fonts, music, sound 
effects and anything that would make 
the program great looking. The "blue 
on blue" screen was a big No-No -- 
even for a Machine Language utility. 
 
    LOADSTAR has always favored 
BASIC as the "control" language. To 
that end, we published many ML 
"modules" which allowed most any 
intermediate BASIC coder to include 
fast and fantastic effects. A module is a 
collection of related ML routines, 
called with a SYS command (including 
parameters). With these modules, 
anyone could put nice boxes on the 
screen, make menus, print at, and do 
slick disk access for a "file requester." 
 
    Other modules allowed direct access 
to a bitmap screen, easy use of bitmaps 
in programs, sound effects, music, font 
effects, and even raster interrupt split-
screen effects. Many of these 
commands are available in one BASIC 
Extension or another -- but 
LOADSTAR had a special concern. 
 
    BASIC Extensions and many of the 
features offered by others would grab 
hold of the machine and never let go. 
This broke the continuousness of the 
LOADSTAR presentation. With 
modules, the programmer could Bload 
what was needed, adjust BASIC 
memory, use the extra commands, then 
put things back as they were before 
exiting the program. 
 
    Probably the greatest series of 
modules every created was Mr.Mouse. 
Suddenly, the C-64 was right up there 
with the Point and Click world. And 
any hobbyist could use Mr.Mouse in 
any program. Lee Novak, the creator 
of the various packages, included 
commands most often used -- such as 
Box and Menu -- and added 
programming objects such as multi-
select, scrolling menus, and mouse-
sensative regions. The ultimate 
Mr.Mouse (v.2.1) had 57 commands to 
make BASIC sparkle. 
 
    A couple of years ago, my PC guru 
challenged me to create a "Visual 
Basic" for the C-64. Of course, I first 
turned to Mr.MOUSE 2.1. Then I 
refurbished Mr.MICK to become a 
Visual Design utility. Not only could 
the programmer type, draw, and paint 
the screen -- now Event Regions could 
be defined and assigned roll-over color 
changes and Event Handling 
subroutine line numbers. 
 
    The template Boot program needed 
only to have its name changed to 
match the screen file. Everything else 
is nearly automatic. The Event Driven 
program waits for a click -- and does a 
hidden GOSUB to the Event Handler. 
And DotBASIC adds 74 commands to 
BASIC -- including the 57 from 
Mr.Mouse. 
 
    The Do-Loop is a breeze to use, 
along with Screen Objects, virtual 
string arrays in under-ROM memory, 
and auto-sorting. 
 
    So, when Nigel Parker needed a 
menu program for Commodore Free, I 
warmed up DotBASIC and did the 
principle work in about six hours. (And 
yes, debugging took another six 
hours!) 
 
    We hope you enjoy QuikMenu. I 
have not seen any other disk menu 
system (except LOADSTAR's Issue 
Presenter) that makes the whole disk 
into one, unbroken "operating system." 
 
    And it is yours -- free. Just don't 
forget LOADSTAR. Visit us at 
 
      http://c64.eloadstar.com/
commodore free
Each application has an accompanying 
text file, BEFORE doing anything else 
read and if possible print these 
documents out. Believe me it will 
make everything more logical, easier 
to use and less frustrating.

============================

Mega Game Cartridge for Commodore 
C64

Yes, that's right. Imagine One 
Megabyte of gaming action instantly 
accessible. No waiting for the games to 
load, just pick from the menu and off 
you play. This cartridge stores up to 64 
games. 

The cartridge is the latest creation from 
www.64hdd.com, makers of the very 
popular PC based hard drive 
alternative for Commodore computers. 

The cartridge contains: 
built-in menu system allowing you to 
cursor and select the game to play 
instant access for up to 64 games, plus 
the ability to exit to BASIC 

push button RESET switch (so you can 
select a new game) 

For the techies... 
two 512kb EPROMs (to make up the 
1MB total) 
memory banking logic heaps of wires! 

As far as I know, this is the first time a 
game cart of this type that has been 
released for the C64. It has only taken 
21years!!! 

The unit can be supplied blank (you 
will need to own a modern EPROM 
programmer), or if you request, it can 
be pre-programmed after the auction to 
contain the titles shown in the 
screenshots below. 

Commodore Free
Due to space I have only included 1 
Screen shot

www.64hdd.com/projects/hardware/m
egacart.html

============================


Vintage Computer Festival News 
Update

Yow! Just received this message and 
had the organizer talk about this at
the #c64friends chat. Chuck Peddle, 
one of the most important people in 
Commodore Business Machines, is 
going to appear at the Vintage 
Computer 
Festival East 4.0! I've got to go!

See below,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/%7erabel1/



-----Original Message-----
From: "Evan Koblentz"
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 00:13:00 -0500
Subject: Chuck Peddle @ VCF East

Hello Commodore friends ... Just 
wanted to let you three know that 
Chuck
Peddle confirmed his VCF East 4.0 
attendance today. The event will be
Saturday, June 9, at our computer 
museum [http://www.infoage.org] here 
inNew Jersey.

 We may add Sunday, June 10 as well, 
but the Commodore panel (30th 
anniversary of the Pet) will be 
Saturday starting at 10:30AM. Our 
location is about one hour south of 
Newark Liberty airport and about 90 
minutes northeast of Philadelphia 
airport. We'll announce a show hotel 
when the date gets closer.

[snip]

- Evan Koblentz
[http://www.vintage.org]

PS - let me know if any of you are 
interested in exhibiting / speaking at
our show.

An update ... we recently confirmed 
that Bil Herd and Dave Haynie will 
attend, in addition to Chuck Peddle. 
We also expect Bob Russell to attend 
but that's not yet official. Also, we're 
now strongly leaning toward making 
VCF East 4.0 into a two-day show 
(June 9-10) instead of only June 10. 
Keep your eye on 
www.midatlanticretro.org 
And www.vintage.org for details.

- Evan

============================

Ebay Favourite Sellers
 


Ebay the online auction, for anyone 
who has been hiding under a stone. 

Ebay is an online auction website, each 
country usually has its own section for 
example the United Kingdom is 
accessed via www.ebay.co.uk but the 
main website is www.ebay.com 
(America) 

To buy and sell on ebay you need to 
create an account, for that you supply 
your address and need a seller handle 
or name and a password to logon. 

Then buying is little more than 
searching for the item you require for 
example if you were looking for a 
1581 disk drive you could simply goto 
the main site and type in the search 
string ?commodore 1581? hit return 
and sift through the results. You need 
to look on the site for fuller options of 
searching and syntax. 

Most payments are electronic using a 
system called pay pal, you give pay pal 
a credit cards or bank details and they 
perform the transaction for you an in-
between for the banks.  Once a 
transaction is made Ebay ask you to 
leave feedback so you may for 
example say ?excellent service goods 
as described arrived quickly? and leave 
positive feedback, as a result the seller 
gains a score ranking for each positive 
feedback rating, thus you can see how 
good a seller is by the number of 
positives and a percentage for happy 
customers. 

Ok so one of my favourite sellers is 
?the Commodore Store? you can 
access the store directly via this link.

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/The-
Commodore-Store

The seller has NO negative feedback 
whatsoever, is very friendly and 
always packs and despatches goods 
quickly and competently. 

So what does this seller sell and why a 
write up of just one seller? Well the 
Seller specialises in hard to find 
commodore items, most are NEW and 
or never opened. For example Never 
opened disk games and never mailed 
out magazines. 

Here is a small selection of items 
descriptions for you to view
.
64 Diagnostic Cartridge ROMS for the 
C64 & 64C

Professional Diagnostics by 
Commodore!
Here is a great way to all three 
Commodore 64 Diagnostic ROMS in 
one package. The Commodore PCB is 
fitted with a socket, so you can quickly 
and easily switch between the three 
different diagnostic packages for your 
64. Plus you can make your own 
cartridges - use any 8k ROM on the 
PCB. 
If you have any questions we will be 
pleased to answer them, this is a great 
way to get your hands on these 
professional diagnostic tools for the 
Commodore 64.

C128 VIDEO RAM UPGRADE
For 128 Owners Who Need Extra 
VDC RAM

When Commodore first released the 
128D we got one, opened it up, and 
took a good look. It didn't take long to 
discover one MAJOR difference. The 
standard C-128 has just 16K of video 
RAM, while the newer 128D has a full 
64K. That's 400% more! 
We knew that there were tremendous 
advantages to the extra RAM. Like 
being able to scroll through video 
memory, of the potential for greatly 
enhanced colour resolution. And, since 
Commodore has seen fit to make it a 
standard feature on all the new 128D's, 
we knew it was only a matter of time 
before new software started taking 
advantage of the full 64K.
That time arrived. Programs like 
Maverick, FasTrac 128, BASIC 8, the 
BASIC 8 Toolkit, Spectrum 128 and 
News Maker have all been coded to 
take advantage of the full 64K of video 
RAM found on the 128D's. So if 
you've got a regular C-128 with only 
16K of video RAM, you've got a big 
problem. And we've got the solution.
You could upgrade on your own - but 
if thoughts of splattered solder and 
heat-damaged motherboards bother 
you, relax. We've developed a module 
that plugs right in to your C-128 - and 
doesn't fill that empty ROM socket, 
either. Just open the 128, remove the 
RF shield and the lid that covers the 
metal box on the motherboard, and pull 
the socketed 8563 chip. Plug our board 
in its place and plug the 8563 into our 
board. Replace the covers and you're 
done. That's it. No soldering, no 
hassles. Now your machine can have 
the same 64K of video RAM as the 
newer 128D machines. And you'll be 
ready for whatever the future holds.
Plug In 64K Video RAM Upgrade, 
designed by Chip Level Designs
Supplied with fitting instructions & 
test software on disk. New & 
Shrinkwrapped




Deep Scan Burst Nibbler!
Powerful Software - Innovative 
Hardware!

The Burst Nibbler system is probably 
the most powerful disk copier available 
for the Commodore computer. 

It gains its power by using parallel data 
transfer. With standard nibblers the 
data is read from the disk and decoded 
into a standard format before being 
transferred to the host computer by the 
serial bus. This is all well until it 
comes across some non-standard data 
on the disk. Because it can?t recognise 
the code it is unable to decode into the 
form needed for serial transfer. With 
parallel transfer the data is read from 
the disk and transferred directly to the 
host computer without the need to 
decode it. 

This is achieved because the Burst 
Nibbler System is actually hardware 
and software package. The hardware 
consists of a parallel cable that plugs 
into the computers user port. The other 
end of the cable plugs into the Via chip 
socket inside your disk drive. The 
software is a powerful Nibbler control 
program with various parameter 
settings to maximise results. 

How much power do you want? How 
about: 

> Only package to copy up to 41 
tracks!
> Will copy a whole disk in under 2 
mins!
> Full and half tracks copied - no 
problem!     > Transfers raw GCR 
Code via cable!
> Fitted in minutes usually no 
soldering!
> Make a perfect copy every time! 

Fitting involves lifting the 6522 Via 
chip inside the drive, inserting it into 
the socket on the cable and plugging 
the whole assembly back into the 
socket, the other end just plugs into the 
user port and has a through connector 
for your other hardware. 

Deep Scan Burst Nibbler - New Cable 
& software...
Software Version v1.9. For the 
Commodore 64/128 & 128D and the 
1541, 1570 & 1571 disk drives..


The RAMBOard
The Essential Maverick Accessory for 
your 1541!

Remember the 1970?s. That?s the 
decade that brought us the first 
affordable home computers? The 
1980?s was the decade that saw the 
development of stunning software that 
finally took advantage of the available 
hardware. What do you think of the 
1990?s will be remembered for?

For our part, we?re going to remember 
it as a decade of killer copy protection.

No kidding. Our programming staff 
has just been flooded by the clever and 
crafty sophistication of some of the 
new breed of copy protection schemes. 
We?ve been writing parameters for 
years now, and yet with all that 
experience behind us we?re seeing 
things that even our famous Maverick 
archival utility system can?t handle.

At least, not without a little help...

The RAMBOard was designed from 
the beginning as an integrated 
component in the Maverick arsenal. 
It?s a RAM chip mounted on a custom 
board that, in almost all cases, plugs 
right into your Commodore disk drive. 
This extra RAM creates a ?virtual 




workspace? that gives Maverick 
enough elbow room to work some 
special magic.

With RAMBOard installed, Maverick 
is able to back up programs that can?t 
be backed up by software alone. 
Current Maverick modules already 
contain advanced RAMBOard 
parameters. As future copy protection 
schemes become more radical, 
RAMBOard will be an indispensable 
part of the Maverick arsenal ? and you 
can bet that our future parameters will 
reflect that.

Parameters aren?t the only reason for 
owning a RAMBOard. The advanced 
user?s amount you will be interested in 
the fact that the Maverick sports a state 
of the art track editor that reaches its 
full potential only with the use of the 
RAMBOard. 

With the RAMBOard installed you can 
read, edit and write whole tracks at a 
time. Plus a dual GCR RAMBOard 
powered nibbler! This and other 
RAMBOard support utilities found in 
Maverick allow the experienced user to 
actually create custom copiers ? a 
hacker?s dream come true!

Yet for all its capabilities, the 
RAMBOard itself is simple to install: 
just open your drive, plug in the 
RAMBOard, and close the drive. 
That?s all there is to it. There?s no 
soldering, no wire cutting, and no 
hassles. None and our illustrated 
instructions will make you feel like a 
pro before you even begin. Anybody 
who has tried to backup some of 
today?s software knows that it?s not as 
easy as it used to be. The good old 
days of ?Track 23? errors are gone 
forever. Welcome to the RAMBOard.

The RAMBOard designed by Chip 
Level Designs Includes -
Hardware, test software on disk & 
instructions.... New & Shrink-wrapped
Requires Maverick v5 or later, for the 
Commodore 1541 or 1541C disk drive.


Cartridge Backer 64
Feature Packed Utility Software!
The Cartridge Backer v2 from the 
publishers of the CSM Program 
Protection Manuals.

Cartridge Backer v2 allows you to 
quickly and easily transfer cartridge 
based programs to disk at the press of a 
button. A host of software utilities 
allow you to complete flexibility, you 
can save as an EPROM dump, a 
BASIC kernel version, ZAP version & 
many more options.... A settings 
manual gives you pages of dip switch 
settings and a comprehensive manual 
covers all the software functions.
A powerful system for If you have any 
questions we will be pleased to answer 
them, this is a professional cartridge 
backup system and even allows you to 
repair defective/corrupt cartridges.
Cartridge Backer 64 Includes -
Hardware, software on disk, 
instructions manual & settings 
manual.... New & Shrink-wrapped
No external RAM boards, ROMS or 
cartridges are required.


============================
 
 
What is a Commodore Computer?
 

 
A Look at the Incredible History and 
Legacy 
of the Commodore Home Computers
Copyright 1999
(May be used without modification for 
non-commercial purposes) 
Reid C. Swenson, M.S.

 
There are many individuals who have 
probably never heard of the 
Commodore home computers and are 
unaware of their incredible legacy and 
the tremendous impact which they 
have had upon the evolution of 
computers. Some of the younger 
generation who are too young to 
remember the 1980's may still not have 
seen or heard much-- if anything-- 
about Commodore computers and 
likely have very little sense of their 
significance. Likewise, many of the 
middle aged and older generation who 
did not develop an interest in 
computers until recently may be 
equally uninformed. However, most 
individuals who were involved in the 
home computer and electronics fields 
during the 1980's are probably 
somewhat familiar or quite familiar 
with the Commodore products and 
their history.

The Commodore 64
Commodore's most popular model, the 
Commodore 64, was the Model T Ford 
of the home computer movement. As 
you may recall the Model T Ford was 
the first automobile that the average 
person on an average income was able 
to afford or justify buying because of 
its low price, extensive consumer-
oriented marketing, and usability.

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit 
computer that uses Commodore DOS 
instead of MS Dos or Windows. In 
fact, for the most part it cannot run 
IBM or Macintosh computer programs. 
The Commodore 64 has BASIC 2.0 
and 64k of memory although when you 
turn the computer on it indicates only 
38,911 bytes available because nearly 
half of its memory is used for internal 
functions. The Commodore 64 was 
actually part of the evolution of 
computers marketed by CBM 
(Commodore Business Machines) 
which had previously proliferated the 
CBM and PET business computers 
into business and academic settings 
and who had then subsequently 
developed the VIC-20 computer which 
was the predecessor to the Commodore 
64.

The Commodore VIC-20
The Vic-20 (named after its 
revolutionary Video Interface Chip) 
had captured the imagination of many 
enthusiasts around 1981 because of its 
very user-friendly BASIC language, 
nice color graphics, programmable 
sound, comfortable keyboard, and the 
fact that it could directly connect to 
compatible disk drives and printers 
without expensive expansion modules 
and interfaces. The Vic 20 had been 
affordably marketed for around $400 
when it first came out and it quickly 
caught the imagination of many 
consumers and educators with several 
user-friendly and affordable 
peripherals (such as joysticks, a 
"datasette" cassette storage device, 
modems, printers, and shortly 
thereafter the VIC-1540 floppy drive, 
etc.) being released.

The 1530 (C2N) Datassette
During the early 1980's IBM was 
promoting the PC Jr. computer which 
was radically inferior (in most ways) to 
the rest of the home computer systems 
on the market and vastly more 
expensive. Commodore 
was, therefore, really receiving more 
competition from the Atari 400 and 
800, the Texas Instruments 99, the 
Radio Shack Color Computer and the 
Apple 2 computer. Despite the rivalry 
between these 8-bit manufacturers 
much of the credit for innovation goes 
to Commodore largely because 
Commodore consistently pushed the 
price down and because the Atari and 
Apple computers used the Commodore 
6502 processor as their main 
microprocessing chip.
In the very early 1980's unique 
marketing schemes were developed by 
different firms trying to cash-in on the 
developing computer craze. The 
fascination that many people had 
begun to experience with the fledgling 
computer video game, educational, 
business, and word processing 
capabilities of these computers quickly 
led to various multi-level marketing 
groups trying to involve people in 
selling these machines. There were few 
computer stores at the time and most of 
them were small. Computers were 
somewhat of an uncertain novelty item 
which many of the larger electronics 
and department stores were a little 
slow to embrace because of the 
uncertainty and lack of experience in 
dealing with such products. Consumers 
were often equally tentative and 
uncertain although there was a great 
deal of enthusiasm on the part of those 
who were keenly interested in such 
products. Many factors such as these 
created opportunities and schemes for 
the smaller and more venturous and 
creative individuals who wanted to get 
involved-- sometimes in 
unconventional ways. Oftentimes 
young and penniless entrepreneurs 
developed some hot selling 
Commodore software or hardware on a 
very low budget resulting in overnight 
fame and fortune.

Just as the Commodore Vic 20 was 
beginning to become fairly popular and 
many stores and some multi-level 
marketing programs had acquired 
significant inventories of Vic products 
rumors began to emerge that 
Commodore was working on a vastly 
more powerful version of the Vic 20 to 
be called the Vic 64 and eventually 
called the Commodore 64 (many came 
to casually refer to it as the "C-64" or 
just the "64"). As the rumors of the 
impending release of the Commodore 
64 continued they sparked excitement 
and uncertainty in the Commodore 
market. Those who had invested quite 
a bit of money into the Vic 20 line 
found themselves with ambivalent and 
mixed emotions. This was probably the 
first experience which many 
individuals had ever encountered with 
the phenomenon we now refer to 
"upgrading". Undoubtedly some 
became resentful. Some of those who 
had developed their marketing strategy 
and acquired large inventories of Vic 
20 products found themselves 
scrambling around to modify their 
plans or to obtain price-protection as 
the value of Vic 20 products began to 
plummet rapidly.

Commodore had originally planned to 
release the Commodore 64 for nearly 
$1000 (without any floppy drive or 
monitor) but by the time it actually hit 
the market they had already decided to 
reduce the suggested retail price to just 
under $500. This was still a lot of 
money back then-- keep in mind that 
$500 back then was about the 
equivalent of $1000 today. Still, it was 
the best deal on the home computer 
market-- especially since it had a built-
in RF modulator for connecting 
directly to a regular television set. 
Amazingly, the price of the 
Commodore 64 plummeted to under 
$300 within a matter of months, and a 
few months later was down to $200. 
Suddenly customer interest in these 
amazing new computers began to heat 
up.

About this time many sizeable chain 
stores (some of which had already 
been carrying Vic-20 merchandise) 
began to carry Commodore 64 items. 
Regional electronic superstores got 
involved as did a significant number of 
smaller computer dealerships. 
Eventually Commodore 64 and Vic-20 
software and hardware was carried by 
such national department stores as 
Sears, Montgomery Ward, Fred Meyer, 
LaBelles, K-Mart, and many others. 
Also, many toy stores such as Lionel 
Play World and Toys'R'Us began to 
sell these computers. The price 
dropped by another $50 and dealers 
were buying the Commodore for just 
over $100. Commodore became so 
popular that Commodore even offered 
shares of stock on the stock market for 
several years.

As the competition among retailers 
heated up it was not uncommon to see 
retailers willing to sell the Commodore 
64 systems at cost or even at a slight 
loss in order to lure people into their 
stores. The strategy (which usually 
paid off) was that customers would see 
the computer selling at an incredibly 
low price of near $100 and come to 
buy the computer and end up buying 
the 1541 disk drive, a Commodore 
printer, Commodore modem, a 1702 
Commodore monitor and a bunch of 
educational software, games, supplies 
and accessories to go along with it. By 
the time the customer walked out the 
door the purchase usually resulted in 
significant profit to the retailer.

Many after-market and 3rd party 
manufacturers subsequently began to 
create and market Commodore-
compatible software, hardware, books, 
and accessories in an effort to get in on 
the blossoming industry. Many 
Commodore magazines also became 
established-- some of which even 
included monthly disks with many free 
programs on them. Many of our 
present software and hardware giants 
got their humble start during this 
period. Microsoft's Multiplan became a 
very popular spreadsheet for 
Commodore. Other companies such as 
Electronic Arts, Accolade, Activision, 
Cinemaware, Cosmi, Batteries 
Included, Sublogic, Epyx, Access, 
Infocom, Mastertronic, etc. soon 
became household words.

Commodore service and repair centers 
became quite common. Training 
centers taught computer fundamentals 
and programming using Commodore 
computers. Many schools, universities, 
research centers and educational 
enterprises began using Commodore 
computers. A significant number of 
small and medium size businesses used 
Commodore computers as well.

Unique marketing approaches 
continued to develop as smaller 
companies and private individuals 
began developing the concept of 
shareware or freeware. This new 
concept was based on the idea that a 
programmer could write and copyright 
a useful or fun program and then freely 
distribute copies of it to the public on 
the condition that end users would pay 
a registration fee to become an official 
user of the program. Usually a 
relatively small fee was supposed to be 
sent directly to the program's author. 
Oftentimes the author would provide 
an updated or more complete version 
or accompanying manual or program 
add-on or other benefit as an incentive 
to pay the registration fee. This kept 
overhead, production, and marketing 
costs down by relying on grass roots 
distribution and the "honor system" of 
marketing. Several shareware and 
freeware programs became fairly 
famous during this time, but 
undoubtedly a great many 
programmers' dreams never quite lived 
up to expectations. The idea of try-
before-you-buy software has continued 
to evolve up to this day-- becoming 
more and more sophisticated and 
creative.

Also, during this same time period a 
great number of public domain 
programs began to emerge. There were 
many programmers who had written 
and not copyrighted their programs for 
various reasons whose programs began 
to be freely distributed without any 
registration fee being required. This 
greatly added to the availability of 
affordable software.

Another interesting phenomenon-- 
Commodore User's Groups-- began to 
unfold during this time. This 
phenomena was a result of the need 
and desire of people to share 
information regarding their computers 
and interests. User's groups were 
popular among other brands of 
computers, but probably not to the 
extent that they were popular among 
Commodore users. The Commodore 
was seen by many as the ideal hobby 
computer and many of those who had 
lower budgets had been attracted to the 
Commodore because of its price. 
Frequently these individuals (who 
often had more time than money) 
developed an incredible loyalty toward 
the Commodore computers. It was 
amazing that many of these 
Commodore users often showed more 
commitment to the Commodore 64 
than Commodore Business Machines 
did.

A large factor in the success of the 
Commodore 64 was its amazingly 
versatile, futuristic and user-friendly 
design. The fact that this amazing 
computer had more memory, a nicer 
keyboard, and was easier to interface 
with peripherals than most computers 
of that era made it so it was and still is 
(in many ways) an ideal computer for 
educators, hobbyists, game players, 
beginning programmers and musicians. 
For the money it was also hard to beat 
as an affordable home word processing 
system. Its only weakness was in the 
area of larger business applications 
because of its 40 column video display, 
limited disk storage and slow disk 
access.

The powerful combination of 
Commodore chips allowed some 
amazing capabilities. The Commodore 
64 utilized the Commodore 6510 
microprocessor chip which was an 
advanced version of the Commodore 
6502 microprocessor which had been 
used in the Vic 20, Apple 2, and Atari 
models. The 64 had revolutionary 
sound via the 6581 Sound Interface 
Device (SID) chip and was probably 
the first home computer to be able to 
emulate the human voice without 
additional hardware. This SID chip 
provided for 4 different voices and 
many sophisticated sound forms. The 
C-64 had superior 16 color graphics 
with sprite capabilities due to its 6567 
Video Interface (VIC) Chip. The other 
support chips in the Commodore 64 
were equally impressive for that time 
period. At the same time the early IBM 
home computers were non-color and 
non-graphic machines with sound that 
amounted to little more than beeping.

The Commodore home computers 
were fairly reliable considering their 
low price tag and sophistication. Many 
individuals went for years with very 
little maintenance and repair work 
required. However, certain problems 
with the hardware did manifest 
themselves periodically and somewhat 
predictably. Many of the repairs 
required for these computers stemmed 
from static electricity discharges 
blowing out the 6526 CIA chip-- 
usually from touching the joystick or 
game port after picking up static 
electricity from walking across carpet 
or touching the front of the television 
or monitor. This would result in some 
keyboard or joystick control 
malfunctions. Power supplies would 
occasionally fail or develop deceptive 
heat-related problems sometimes 
blowing out ram chips in the process or 
causing strange looking colored blocks 
or characters to appear on the screen. 

The 906114 PLA (logic array) chip 
(sometimes labelled with the number 
82S100N or PLS100N) would 
sometimes fail spontaneously causing 
the computer to no longer have a 
picture. The 6581 SID sound chip 
would sometimes go out-- usually due 
to a monitor being connected 
improperly. On rare occasions the 
6510 microprocessor, the 6567 NTSC 
VIC (video chip), the 901227 Kernal 
ROM, the 901225 Character ROM, or 
the 901226 BASIC ROM would fail. 
The Commodore disk drives would 
periodically need alignment and 
cleaning and an occasional chip 
replacement or bridge rectifier or such. 
Keyboards would likewise need to be 
cleaned infrequently. Because of the 
interdependency of each of the internal 
components of the Commodore 
computers it is not unusual for 
Commodore computers to have similar 
symptoms while actually having 
different underlying problems.

Even when experiencing occasional 
hardware problems the Commodore 
users rarely felt like they were at the 
mercy of the service wolves due to the 
many options which they had. 
Oftentimes there were simple and easy 
to implement solutions for 
Commodore malfunctions. Fuses 
(which were usually easy to replace) 
would get blown out in the computer, 
drive, or power supplies periodically, 
but they were all usually available at 
Radio Shack stores. New cables or 
external cleaning of contacts was 
sometimes all that was required. Some 
seemingly complex problems 
(especially with the Commodore 128 
and Amiga) stemmed from the fact that 
various chips sometimes became loose 
in their sockets and could be easily 
pushed in tighter or removed and 
reseated. The good news was (and still 
is) that (even in a worst-case scenario) 
the Commodore computers and 
peripherals could usually be totally 
replaced with a new replacement unit 
for less than the average minimum 
repair fee for most IBM and Apple 
systems.

As used Commodore computers 
became widely available at amazingly 
low prices during the late 1980's and 
throughout the 1990's many of the 
Commodore repair centers had 
difficulty staying in business. Despite 
this, there are still a few local and 
several national places who do 
Commodore repair work, sell parts and 
manuals, and have diagnostic software 
and hardware tools and information 
available.

Commodore had to constantly work to 
develop peripherals to go along with 
the blossoming market during the 
1980's. Because Commodore was 
marketed so widely in so many large 
national department stores and in so 
many foreign countries there began to 
be a big demand for these accessories 
and peripherals. During the mid to late 
1980's individuals walking into most 
major department stores which sold 
computer products would typically 
have seen software and hardware for 
IBM, Apple, Commodore, and 
oftentimes Atari side-by-side or in 
close proximity.

The VIC 1525 Printer
The Vic 1525 printer and a higher 
quality model 1526 had replaced the 
early Vic 1520 printer. The Vic 1540 
disk drive was replaced by the model 
1541 drive.

Commodore also continued to work 
behind the scenes to develop new 
computer models. Commodore 
unveiled the Commodore SX-64 
portable computer around 1984 which 
was incredibly nice and affordable for 
its time period. The SX-64 computer 
had a detachable keyboard and a 5" 
color monitor and a floppy drive built 
in. It needed to be plugged into an AC 
outlet, but for its time it was amazing. 
It is still considered to be one of the 
nicest collector's items available. The 
SX-64 did not become as popular as 
the Commodore 64 did, but the fact 
that it had almost total compatibility 
with the desktop Commodore systems 
made it quite popular-- especially to 
those who needed to travel and/or go to 
Commodore User Group meetings.

The Commodore 128 computer + 1571 
disk drive
Then in about 1985 Commodore 
released the beautiful Commodore 128 
computer (utilizing the Commodore 
8502 microprocessor) which had three 
different modes of operation and two 
different display options. One of the 
reasons the 128 was quite successful 
was that it had the advantage of being 
able to use virtually all Commodore 64 
software (while in the Commodore 64 
40-column mode), peripherals, and 
accessories and yet also had a (rarely 
used) CPM mode and a fairly popular 
Commodore 128 mode which allowed 
an 80-column display, as well as the 
128k of memory, BASIC 7.0, a 
numeric keypad, and a faster higher 
capacity disk drive-- the 1571 floppy 
drive. Therefore, the Commodore 128 
overcame many of the weaknesses and 
drawbacks which the Commodore 64 
had with regards to business 
applications. All of the Commodore 
disk drives at this time were 5 1/4" 
floppy drives. However, Commodore 
eventually also released a 3.5" disk 
drive-- the Model 1581 which had 
significantly higher storage capacity 
(800k).

The Commodore 128 could use the 
monitors and disk drives designed for 
the Commodore 64 quite well. 
However, to take advantage of the 
increased disk speed and storage 
capabilities of the 128 the 1571 or 
1581 disk drive was required. Also, to 
take advantage of the 80-column mode 
an RGB monitor was required. 
Therefore Commodore made several 
monitors which had both an RGB 
mode and a composite (audio/video or 
audio/chroma/luma) mode. 

Other manufacturers such as Philips 
(Magnavox), Thompson, Teknika, 
Amdek and a few others also made 
monitors which could support both the 
40 and 80-column mode of the 
Commodore 128. Most of these same 
monitor manufacturers (and others 
such as Sakata and BMC) had also 
previously made models for the 
Commodore 64 and wanted to continue 
profiting from the Commodore 
consumers. In fact Philips (Magnavox) 
actually made many of the 
Commodore brand monitors for the 
128.

In fact, it was not uncommon for 
Commodore to subcontract with other 
manufacturers to produce peripherals 
with the Commodore name on them. 
Most of Commodore's printers, floppy 
drives, and monitors were actually 
made by other manufacturers to 
Commodore's specifications. Most of 
these Commodore branded printers and 
monitors were essentially identical to 
existing or subsequent models made 
and distributed with the OEM (original 
equipment manufacturers) brand name-
- except that the Commodore version 
almost always had special Commodore 
features and/or interfacing. 
Commodore compatible floppy drives 
made by other manufacturers also 
emerged, but they were independently 
developed (for the most part) due to 
the fact that the Commodore 64 and 
128 drives were "intelligent 
peripherals" possessing chips that 
Commodore had decided not to license 
or supply to its competitors.Hard 
drives were not common (or 
affordable) back then, so virtually all 
Commodore programs had to be run 
off of floppy disks, datasette cassette 
tapes, or cartridges. The Commodore 
drive was fairly slow in loading 
programs so many different utilities, 
cartridges, and hardware modifications 
became available on the market for 
speeding up disk access.

By the mid and late 1980's a staggering 
selection of software was available for 
the Commodore 64 and 128. Literally 
thousands-- if not tens of thousands-- 
of different commercial titles had been 
marketed and an equal or greater 
quantity of public domain and 
shareware programs were available.

Unfortunately, not many games or 
educational programs took advantage 
of the 128's advanced modes because 
software developers chose to write 
programs for the larger base of users 
who owned Commodore 64 machines-
- knowing that their programs would 
automatically work in the 128's C-64 
mode. There were, however, numerous 
business, word processing, and 
developmental programs and some 
telecommunications programs written 
to take advantage of the Commodore 
128 mode. Many of these features and 
programs became useful as businesses, 
writers, programmers and modem and 
BBS (electronic bulletin board 
services) began to see the advantages 
of using the Commodore 128 for 
serious professional applications.

We owe quite a debt of gratitude to 
many of these early developers and 
computer users who began to develop 
and utilize the fledgling computer 
software and telecommunications 
industry. Fortunately, Commodore and 
other manufacturers provided a good 
selection of software and telephone 
modems such as the model 1600, the 
1650, the 1660, the 1670, and the 1680 
modem. If it had not been for 
pioneering efforts of individuals like 
this we may not have had the great 
capabilities which we have now with 
computers and the Internet.

The Commodore 64c
Around 1986 or 1987 Commodore 
released the Commodore 64c computer 
which was essentially functionally 
identical to the original Commodore 64 
except it was more sleekly designed 
and more attractive. Commodore also 
released the 1541c and the 1541-II 
floppy drives to go along with this 
nicer looking Commodore 64c.

The Commodore 1541-II floppy drive
Many people's lives have been greatly 
blessed by the advent of the 
Commodore computers. Many 
handicapped individuals and shut-ins 
have had great opportunities open up 
to them from these computers. Many 
slow learners and children who may 
not have taken an interest in learning 
found that learning can be fun because 
of the Commodore computers. Many 
family gatherings, birthdays, 
Christmasses, parties, and other social 
events have been enriched by the 
creative fun involved. By being 
addicted to something as enjoyable and 
of such a positive nature as this many 
have been lured away from (or spent 
less time and money on) harmful 
addictions such as drugs and alcohol. 
Many lifelong and job-related skills 
such as typing, programming, and 
word processing were acquired via 
these computers. 

Many computer retailers, department 
stores, manufacturers, and 
programmers have profited financially 
from the Commodore computers. 
Many other businesses, researchers, 
students, and other ventures have also 
benefitted either directly or indirectly. 
Undoubtedly the social and 
technological spin-offs from these 
computers have had a ripple effect 
which has directly improved the lives 
and strengthened the economy of our 
entire nation and other nations.The 
ability of people to have wholesome 
and affordable recreation and a 
diversion from everyday stresses and 
pressures undoubtedly has helped the 
mental health and outlook of many 
individuals also.

Many of those who have gone on to 
make huge contributions to the 
computer industry began with the 
Commodore home computers. Many 
Commodore C-64, 128, and Amiga 
computers are still used in schools, 
businesses, production studios, and as 
control devices. They are still some of 
the best computers to learn computer 
fundamentals on. The fact that these 
Commodore computers have so many 
built-in functions and capabilities still 
makes them fun computers to 
experiment with. Because you can still 
obtain many hundreds of the original 
programs for these computers they are 
still viable choices-- especially for 
hobbyists and home educators. The 
fact that the Commodore 64 can 
connect directly into a normal 
television makes it a good choice still 
for those on a budget.

The fact that users of the Commodore 
computers did not need to constantly 
reconfigure, re-install, and uninstall 
software or worry about viruses and 
system crashes (as is common with our 
more modern Windows computers) 
allowed users to spend the majority of 
their time actually using the computer 
rather than spending so much time 
fighting it.

During the mid to late 1980's a certain 
amount of software piracy began to 
hurt the Commodore software market. 
Much of this piracy was likely induced 
by unnecessarily high prices. 
Fortunately, most people realized that 
the programs were such a good value 
for the money that it wasn't too big of a 
problem. Several software 
manufacturers developed sophisticated 
software protection schemes to make it 
difficult for people to duplicate 
Commodore software. However, these 
schemes seemed primarily to hurt the 
honest users more than the dishonest 
people some of whom became 
extremely adept at defeating the 
protection schemes. Many software 
manufacturers finally decided to 
eliminate the software protection or to 
use off-disk protection schemes so that 
the legitimate users wouldn't be hurt 
and inconvenienced. Eventually many 
of the software manufacturers began to 
realize that the best way to discourage 
software piracy was to make their 
software more affordable. 
Undoubtedly, however, the dishonesty 
and greed of some individuals 
contributed somewhat to the gradual 
decline of the Commodore software 
industry. Some of these individuals 
never learned that it is not wise to kill 
the goose that lays the golden eggs. 
Some of these hackers probably felt 
that they were just having harmless fun 
and felt somewhat challenged by the 
prospect of trying to outsmart the copy 
protection schemes.

As interest in the Commodore 
computers began to decline 
Commodore Business Machines and 
many other vendors of Commodore 
compatible products lowered their 
prices on both hardware and software 
in an attempt to maintain interest in 
their products. Commodore also began 
bundling software with hardware and 
making package deals as did other 
producers.

GEOS 64
Just when many individuals felt that 
the Commodore 64 may begin to lose 
ground to the newer IBM and 
Macintosh models of the mid 1980's a 
company named Berkeley Softworks 
created a new operating system for the 
Commodore 64 called GEOS which 
became immensely popular and helped 
to rejuvenate interest in the 
Commodore line. GEOS (which stands 
for Graphic Environment Operating 
System) was largely a takeoff of the 
popular early Macintosh (icon based) 
mouse oriented operating system. In 
fact, GEOS came with Geowrite and 
Geopaint-- much like Macwrite and 
MacPaint. Commodore owners were 
thrilled that they could have a 
computer which could perform nearly 
like the Macintosh-- for just a small 
percentage of the price of a Macintosh-
- while still having color graphics and 
sound which surpassed the capabilities 
of the Macintosh. The fact that 
Berkeley was able to squeeze so much 
power out of the Commodore 64's 
limited memory and disk capacity was 
a tribute to the highly efficient 
programming which Berkeley 
implemented. Certainly Microsoft 
could take a few lessons about efficient 
programming from those who wrote 
GEOS. A full line of GEOS-based 
programs ensued.

The Commodore 128D
Around 1986 or 1987 the Commodore 
128D was released and became quite 
popular. The 128D was basically a 
Commodore 128 computer with a 
built-in 1571 disk drive and a 
detachable keyboard. The idea was to 
conserve desktop space and make a 
nicer looking computer to compare 
with the professional appearance of the 
IBM compatibles. This computer had 
the latest chip revisions made for the 
Commodore 128 and 1571 drives and 
had more video memory. This was 
perhaps the best 8-bit computer made 
by any manufacturer. The fact that 
there were not so many cables and 
wires running around and that it did 
not hog as much desktop space (due to 
the fact that the monitor could sit on 
top of it) made it very nice to use.

During the 1980's several large 
Commodore and Amiga trade shows 
and user conventions were held 
throughout the United States and in 
some foreign countries-- especially 
Canada. Commodore also usually had 
large displays at COMDEX and other 
consumer electronics shows. 
Thousands of users, retailers, and 
developers usually converged on these 
gatherings. This was quite a spectacle 
to see. The exciting and innovative 
new products which were unveiled at 
these shows kept Commodore users, 
dealers, and distributors coming back 
for more. The fact that there was fierce 
free enterprise competition-- and the 
fact that the computer industry had not 
yet conceded (or capitulated) to the 
dominance of Microsoft and IBM-- led 
to unprecedented creativity. 
Unfortunately, however, many people 
began starting to demand uniformity 
and standardization at the expense of 
innovation.

Commodore had been so competitive 
in the marketplace that IBM, Apple, 
and Atari had been forced to lower 
their prices and improve their features 
and quality. These other manufacturers 
were successful in doing so-- to the 
point where many people started being 
attracted away from Commodore 
toward other brands. However, if it had 
not been for Commodore being such a 
huge factor in putting downward price 
pressure and creating such innovative 
home consumer products the evolution 
of affordable quality home computers 
would have occurred much more 
slowly.A large number of Commodore 
gaming enthusiasts were also drawn 
away in the mid to late 80's as 
Nintendo and Sega began to market 
their 8-bit game systems which were 
somewhat simpler and easier to use 
(but in many ways less versatile) 
gaming systems.

The Commodore computers had 
permeated the U.S. and foreign 
markets very substantially by 1985. By 
the late 1980's somewhere near 10 
million Commodore 64 compatible 
machines had been produced and 
distributed when sales began to rapidly 
decline. Probably 70 or 80 percent of 
the Commodore 64 compatible 
machines manufactured were 
Commodore 64s and 64c models and 
only about 20 or 30 percent were 128 
models. Less than 5 percent of them 
were the SX-64 machines. It is 
probably safe to say that the 
Commodore 64 was the best selling 
computer model ever made by a single 
manufacturer-- if judged by number of 
units sold. Commodore's demise was 
largely a result of poor marketing and 
external market forces-- not lack of 
development.

The Commodore Plus 4
Of course, not all of Commodore's 
products were big hits. Commodore 
made several products which were 
fantastic ideas (in their own right) but 
never actually caught on because of 
poor timing or other unpredictable 
factors. One of these was the 
Commodore Plus 4 computer. The 
Commodore Plus 4 had been 
developed on the heels of 
Commodore's great initial success with 
the Commodore 64. The Plus 4 was 
very nice because it was smaller and 
had built-in software applications. 
Despite being a very beautiful little 
computer with many excellent features 
it never really became popular 
probably because it wasn't very 
compatible with the large base of 
software which had already been 
developed for the Commodore 64. 
Many (but not all) software 
manufacturers seemed hesitant to want 
to invest development efforts for this 
computer when there were so many 
who already owned Commodore 64 
computers who were clamoring for 
software.Among other Commodore 8-
bit products which never caught on 
well were the Commodore 16, the B-
128, the SFD1001 disk drive, and 
several others.

The Amiga 500
Perhaps the biggest heartbreak of all of 
Commodore's efforts centered around 
the 16-bit Amiga computer which had 
initially been developed by a separate 
company. Commodore acquired or 
bought out the Amiga technology from 
its original developers and began 
developing and marketing Amiga 
computers during the mid 1980's. The 
Amiga computers were based on the 
Motorola 68000 processor and were 
somewhat akin to the Macintosh. The 
extreme power, user-friendliness, 
multi-tasking abilities, incredible 
graphics and (stereo) sound, along with 
built-in speech synthesis were way 
ahead of the competition. Many 
Commodore 64 and 128 owners 
immediately realized the potential of 
the Amiga and decided to acquire one. 
It appeared to many-- for a while-- that 
Commodore may actually retain a 
dominant position in the market place 
with the Amiga being such an 
obviously superior computer to any of 
the home computers of the time. 
Unfortunately, the lack of a diverse 
software base came back to haunt the 
Amiga as people chose to stay with 
inferior hardware and operating 
systems in order to stay compatible 
with the large number of IBM and 
Macintosh systems and software 
products which had taken over the 
business world despite still not being 
particularly well suited for home use.

Much of the downfall of Commodore 
stemmed from poor marketing, lack of 
dominance in the business sector, 
competition from other gaming 
systems, poor support, poor 
management, and growing 
competition. Commodore tried to 
expand into the IBM compatible 
market in the late 1980's with the PC 
compatible PC-10, PC-20, Colt, and 
even a 286 notebook computer and a 
few other machines which had only 
meager success. Commodore even 
developed an incredible interactive 
stand-alone CD unit (based on the 
Amiga technology) called the CDTV 
which (along with Philips CDI) were 
the predecessors to many of the CD-
based interactive game systems which 
followed. In the final year or so before 
Commodore Business Machines 
ceased operations they had even 
developed the first 32 bit game system 
called the CD-32 which may have been 
a big hit if Commodore had endured a 
little longer.

Amazingly, even after Commodore's 
decline started in the late 1980's the 
loyal Commodore and Amiga 
hobbyists and devoted users refused to 
give it up. A strong undercurrent of 
support arose. Even though most of the 
larger chain stores and distributors 
were forced to give up on Commodore 
products a strong effort to recirculate 
and refurbish old Commodore products 
has continued-- even to this day. In 
fact, in some countries, especially in 
Europe and Scandinavia the 
Commodore 64, 128, and Amiga 
computers are still immensely popular.

Because such a massive quantity of 
items had been developed and 
produced for these machines a great 
many liquidations and surplus 
inventories of Commodore-related 
products remained available for many 
months from many distributors. Those 
who chose to keep supporting the 
Commodore machines were frequently 
able to pick up brand new merchandise 
at tremendous prices and pass the 
savings on to their customers. Much of 
this surplus new merchandise is still 
available today through the surviving 
resellers.

It is not uncommon for past owners of 
Commodore C-64 or 128 computers to 
begin to feel a nostalgic attraction 
toward using the Commodore 64 
again. Many of these individuals 
fondly reminisce about the intense fun 
they had in past years when computers 
were simpler and in many ways more 
fun. Back then the programs had to 
rely on content, strategy, and plot 
because many of the flashy special 
effects of the newer systems were not 
available. These older computers often 
left some things to the user's 
imagination-- by creating mental 
images-- instead of drowning the user 
in multimedia sensory stimulus 
overload as is often common with 
newer computers.

The Commodore computers and some 
of the Commodore-compatible 
software and accessories have become 
collectors' items for many individuals. 
Unlike most computers which seem to 
become outdated quickly, the 
Commodore computers seem to have a 
sense of timelessness about them.

There is no doubt that the newer 
multimedia computers have some 
major advantages over the old 8-bit 
Commodore computers, but a little 
diversity can be a good thing. Just like 
watching an old movie, using some 
older computer programs can help one 
appreciate different things and gain 
different perspectives. Many classic 
old computer games and educational 
programs were never made on any 
platform other than Commodore and 
Amiga. In the midst of the craze and 
pressure to constantly upgrade and 
fight compatibility problems and 
system crashes with many of the newer 
Pentium systems it can be somewhat 
refreshing to step back for a while to a 
more relaxing time.

Many home schoolers find the 
Commodore 64 to still be the best 
solution for younger children to learn 
with. For the price and simplicity it is 
still hard to beat. The simple 
programmability, availability of 
software, and ability to be integrated 
with existing televisions and 
curriculum make it a viable alternative 
for hands-on instructors and those on a 
budget. The fact that the Commodore 
64 is viewed as being a "fun" computer 
often lures even the most resistive 
students into participation. Very few 
people are intimidated by the 
Commodore 64 because it (quite 
deceptively) almost seems like a toy. 
By making learning fun the 
Commodore 64 has already won half 
of the educational battle the moment it 
is turned on.

Despite the fact that Commodore 
programs won't normally run on other 
computers there are some fairly recent 
emulators which have been developed 
which allow many of the older 
Commodore programs to run on some 
of the newer computers. However, 
many people still want to use original 
Commodore machines and software to 
have the full feel and compatibility of 
the original experience.

Interest in the Commodore computers 
has resulted in a longevity of product 
availability which has exceeded even 
the greatest expectations. There is still 
some development of products and 
software for Commodore 8-bit 
systems. Creative Micro Designs is 
still manufacturing newer CPU chips 
and accessories for the original 
Commodore systems. They even still 
publish a magazine called Commodore 
World. There are also a couple of 
Commodore on-disk magazines being 
produced such as LoadStar and 
Commodore Gazette. There is even a 
company which recently announced 
the production of a new device called 
Web.it which is an IBM Windows type 
system which can automatically 
emulate and run Commodore 64 
programs and even access the Internet. 
Gateway 2000 has acquired the rights 
to the Amiga and is currently 
developing new Amiga compatible 
hardware and operating systems. 
Several national dealers still sell and 
support Commodore and Amiga 
hardware and software through the 
mail and via the Internet.

The internet has greatly helped 
maintain availability, support, and 
interest in old computers such as the 
Commodore by creating forums and 
awareness of available suppliers, users 
groups and other resources. The 
Internet is ideal for individuals who 
share a common interest such as this. 
Even though the Commodore 64 is not 
the ideal computer for surfing the 
Internet it can be done. However, most 
of those looking for Commodore 
support and affiliation on the Internet 
are probably using newer computers or 
devices such as WebTV to make 
surfing the Internet a little easier.

A very sizeable percentage of 
individuals who are accessing the 
Internet with a newer computer 
undoubtedly still own older computers 
which they acquired in previous years 
who lost interest in them only because 
support for their old computer became 
difficult to acquire. A large number of 
these old computers have the 
Commodore or Amiga name on them. 
Now that software, hardware, 
accessories and support is so easy to 
locate and obtain a noticeable 
resurgence of interest is occurring.

The main staying power of the 
Commodore and Amiga computers, 
however, is that they have become a 
part of the lifestyles of so many 
individuals. Many Commodore and 
Amiga user groups still meet regularly 
and publish monthly newsletters. 
People still enjoy their old games, 
educational programs, applications, 
and the creativity which these 
machines were so well suited for.If 
anything can now be said about the 
Commodore and Amiga computer 
systems it is this: "Rumors of the 
deaths of the Commodore and Amiga 
computers have been greatly 
exaggerated." Good things-- especially 
hobbies-- have long lives. Especially in 
the hearts of those who still love them.

http://www.oldsoftware.com/history2.h
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============================
 
Xeon3 for the Commodore Plus 4
The ultimate plus 4 Shoot ? em ? up

A cooperation work by Mike Dailly 
and Luca Carrafiello (aka Luca/Fire)
 

- Plus/4: A Short Introduction -

Plus/4 never got a real game market, 
'cause its c64 incompatibility early 
discouraged both users and software 
houses. How many dedicated programs 
d'you remember for the Plus/4? Maybe 
some games from Anco, "Ace" and 
"Ace 2" from Cascade Game, 
"Mercenary" from Novagen...and very 
few others.

In this sight, users (many from Eastern 
Europe, especially Hungary) were 
forced to sustain their beloved 8bit 
system with selfproduced software; 
and this choral initiative tooks to create 
a Plus/4 'scene', surely smaller 
compared to the C64 one but with 
higher density of real coders.

Years passed and technology evolved 
(mmm...sure?). C64 still lives thank to 
a solid bunch of faithful guys, though 
you feel the presence of C64 in the net 
most of all 'cause lots of nostalgics and 
computers' collectors. In few words: a 
lot of retrocomputing but few 
retrocoders! Talking about Plus/4, this 
proportion decreases the actual amount 
of coders to almost ZERO!




- XeO3 / Xenon Trioxide -

Err..not zero but ONE: sincerely, I 
don't know why, but I can't stop 
coding, drawing, composing on my 
Plus/4. Years ago, I promised that 
nothing and nobody will take me away 
from my 8bit black box, nor if I'll 
remain really alone in the scene.

Mike Dailly, (co-)author of many 
games running on several machines 
(from "Blood Money" on C64 to "F1 
2000" on PSX) had to code something 
nice for his 




homepage; he understood that there 
weren't Plus/4 emulators in the large 
emulation field on the net, and 

started to code "Minus4", nowadays 
one of the nicest Plus/4 emulators 
available. And the best way to show it 
surely is to code a cool action game 
that runs on perfectly.

In order to accomplish it, Mike and me 
have spent and will spend work time 
stealing it from family, job (Mike), 
study, job, university final work, 
girlfriends (Luca): Mike has to 
improve the emulator, write code and 
waves editor, maybe sprite editor too; I 
have to draw all graphics, compose 
musics and fx, draw levels, animate 
sprites.

- Will We Finish It? -

Follow the making of XeO3! Keep an 
eye on this homepage and you'll know 
if we will be able to create 
the ultimate shoot'em'up game for the 
mythic Commodore Plus/4! And if you 
think you can do 
anything helping us, from real 
participation to writing a friendly 
supporting email, DO IT!

Attention: please don't be scandalized 
by the poor, not technician explications 
written in this chapter, because the 
objective would be an easy explication  
for everybody.

- Colours -

If you have just seen the "levels" 
chapter and you said:"Pfh, so few 
colours!", probably you are a C64 user. 
At the moment I don't know if we'll 
use different colours for background 
graphics, or different coloured level 
zones (do you remember C64's 
Armalyte levels?), but it's almost sure 
that sprites (your ship, ship's 
explosions, enemies...) will be 
coloured in the same colours, and 
background too.

You must know that Plus/4 has no 
hardware sprites!

  Armalyte,  Thalamus 

In order to avoid talking  too 
technician, the C64 hardware sprite 
management allows to use several 
colours  without clashes, as you can 
see in the game screen extract to the 
left. 
     
Gwnn,  Mastertronic Championship 
Wrestling C16,  US Gold 

C16-Plus/4 games using sprites, then, 
must:
-1) use same colours for sprites and 
background (see figure 2);

-2) use several colours but accept the 
consequent colour clash (see figure 3);

-3) use characters and not real sprites, 
but we don't care here.

- Graphics & Memory -

OK, now we know that Plus/4 has no 
hardware sprites...so, what can we do? 
We can code a routine managing 
software sprites. Using 2 character 
banks, a part of one has to be used in 
'mixing' our sprite with the actual 
background characters which are 
moving in that moment into its square 
space. After overlapping the ship to the 
background, the whole square will be 
printed on the screen.

Do you noticed how much waste of 
memory? The worst consequence is 
that a big slice of the characters bank 
(256 chars) has to be used for sprites. 
If you think that another part of the 
bank is occupied by pinned graphics 
(broken turrets, explosion graphics for 
turrets, weapons, fonts), you can 
imagine in which little space we have 
to condense both background and the 
end level big enemy's graphics! 

- Music & FX -

We will use for sure the SIDcard 
technology. Plus/4 users know it since 
years: the SIDcard permits you to 
insert the famous C64 SID chip into 
the black box. In this way, you can 
listen cool music (not the poor TED 
sound) without assigning too much 
work to your CPU. Often, nowadays 
any  emulator shows its 'SIDcard on' 
option.

If possible, I would insert a frequency 
converter: your Plus/4 will read the 3-
voices music but it will play a channel 
with a TED voice and both the 
remaining two, quickly alternating, 
with the second TED voice. Not much 
quality...but you can hear it, what the 
hell! It's quite fast and may be done.

Another ambitious solution has been 
recently achieved: both SIDcard for the 
music and TED sound for effects, with 
adjustable indipendent volumes by 
pressing keys F1/F2 and F3/HELP. If 
nothing changes, that will be the 
definitive solution.

At this point, the critical variable is the 
space: how many musics can I insert, 
is there enough space for the frequency 
converter? Well, actually I composed a 
whole 4K block for the 1st level, and 
I'd found lotta difficulties, because of 
the short memory: the level's music 
can't be so complex as I would, nor so 
much long in playtime. So, I must 
direct my efforts toward the melody 
and avoid complicate and original 
sounds, that waste much 
memory.Some precise valuations about 
game graphics data can't now be for 
sure.

I used a dedicated editor working on 
PC to assemble graphics into levels, 
coded for me by FatMan. In order to 
collect memory, a level is assembled 
by 200 3x3 chars blocks; I had to draw 
these blocks in the 3x3 editor (see 
figure on the left), then use blocks to 
compose screens in the map editor (see 
figure on the right).

- Panel -

That's the 96 chars panel Mike consent 
me to draw : a 40x4 chars panel on the 
bottom, that will keep you informed 
about your ingame actual situation: 
ships left, score and coins you 
collected. We prefer to have single 
colour hires for alphabet (26) numbers 
(10) ships (1) and coins bar (4), 
because those are the indicators you'll 
read in the meantime a new wave 
comes.

- Sprites -

They must be 16x16 (8x16 MCM) 
pixel sized, 167 in all per level. You 
guess it, a so sized sprite is a very little 
one, and, trust me, it's very difficult 
defining ships and other enemies with 
so few pixels!

Sprites are also pickups and sprite 
explosion. Here you can see the first 
effort, enough to build up a playable 
demo.

Ship Coin1 Coin2 Up Down Rear 
Smart Laser Blade Ball Energy Boom 
Dude 
             

- Weapons -

Apart of back fire and lateral ones, I'd 
chosen frontal enhancing weapons 
only.
Soon, Mike understood that we can't 
manage in the code large bullets, hence 
I had to reduce their dimensions. That's 
a real pity, I spent my effort when I 
drew the big ones; moreover, we're 
still looking for some decisive 
variables that can give different 
characteristics for any weapon 
(shooting frequency, high power, 
background overlapping...). We shall 
see in the newar future, but let me 
show a quick index of all weapons.

- Final Enemies -

The bigger enemies in the game had 
been originally thought to be 
chararcters' based. After the project 
had begun a new life, the overall 
rewriting of the code makes us wonder 
they will be made of sprites assembled 
together. This trashed all the 
previously drawn enemies.
Hence, the final bosses will be drawn 
with sprites, you will find at the end of 
level, ready to blast you away. 
Together with final bosses, ocasionally 
the player will find some middle level's 
bosses, not less dangerous of the big 
ones. That's a preview of the 1st level's 
armoured guy.

- Intro Presentation Ending -

They should be done once the game is 
finished. Theorically, I would draw a 
short animated intro, a nice piclogo (is 
a logo drawn in graphic mode, not by 
characters), and an animated final. The 
pic you're watching on the left is the 
early one drawn for the game; it never 
will appear in the game, 'coz Mike 
judged it too 'empty'. 


Time to play it unfair!

XeO3 will play SID music and native 
TED sound fx in the same time, and 
you'll get a real arcade game feeling 
overall!

In the game's frontend you can choose 
your audio configuration, mixing TED 
and SID stuff at your best to take all 
the possible from your hardware. 
There should be a good chance to have 
frequency converted music through 
TED device.

SID music plays from a Plus/4 via 
SIDcard, a well known hardware 
addon that plugs an 8580 SID chip 
(newSID) into the expansion port.
At the moment, I composed the SID 
tunes and fx, with my wonderful copy 
of SidWinder V01.23 running on 
Plus/4 (coded by TLC/Coroners, based 
on the Taki/Natural Beat original C64 
version; see figure on the left).

Believe me when I tell you it's hard to 
fit the intro tune, the ingame 
soundtrack and a couple of derived 
jingles (end level and game over 
jingles) in 4 Kilobytes only, but I 
managed to do it for the first two 
levels, and it worked with decent 
results.

All the game's music can be heard in 
streaming with the XeO3's blog.radio. 
Click on the icon here to play all of 
them.
Here you will keep an eye on actually 
finished game levels.

We wonder about 8 levels, but it may 
change.

Two levels had been declared as ready, 
until we revised the whole project, 
deciding to severely change  both 
levels.
Now, Level 1 had been completely 
redesigned, in both graphics and 
mapping.

============================

 THE END

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