
*************************************
       Commodore Free Magazine
    http://www.commodorefree.com/
*************************************

        Issue 38, March 2010

      Free to download magazine
  dedicated to Commodore computers
  Available as PDF, HTML, TXT, SEQ
         and D64 disk image

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

*************************************
              CONTENTS
*************************************

* Editorial
* NEWS
  - 64Copy receives an update
  - PS/2 PET Keyboard Adaptor
  - Amiga Virus Encyclopedia
  - VICE Updated V2.2
  - C64 Scene Website
  - IDE V4.1 Available Again
  - Star Commander Upgraded
  - Jim Butterfield Commodore Story
  - LukHash Experimental 8-bit Album
  - Protovision News Update
  - HardSID Develops New Products
* Working C64 PLA Replacement
* Interview with "Gunther Schmidl"
* CCC U.K. Mini Meeting
* Minigrafik Introduction
* Minigrafik for the VIC 20
* Interview with Michael Kircher
* Mini Minipaint Tutorial

*************************************
              EDITORIAL
*************************************

SID ORCHESTRA

Recently I thought about Rob Hubbard
and his recreation of SID tunes
using an orchestra, I also thought
back to the "BACK IN TIME LIVE"
events I have attended where people
and bands like "Press Play On Tape"
http://www.pressplayontape.com/ (and
of course others) perform SID music
tracks on real instruments (guitars,
keyboards, drums and added vocals in
the case of Press Play On Tape)
while both attempts were truly
superb, heck we have even had a
group at one of the events SINGING
SID music accapella (Visa Rster)
http://www.livet.se/visa/. I thought
wouldn't it be fun to do this the
opposite way around! Maybe take an
orchestral score (star wars for
example) and rework it to a SID
format, (hmmm done before I here you
say) Hold on though wait until you
hear me out fully.

First you take 16 Commodore 64`s
chained together via MIDI with a
master machine as the sequencer;
then rework the score and play it
back using the SID chips of the 16
machines. Now that to my knowledge
hasn't been done before. I did have
some success with 3 machines,
however the amount of space required
for 16 machines prohibits my further
experiments (also I don't have 16
Commodore machines and interfaces at
my disposal) but it would make an
interesting concept, not sure how
well it would work live though,
maybe 16 or 32 people could play 16
or 32 commodore's live using the
keyboard from the Commodore "sights
and sounds" range now that would be
impressive (in my opinion anyway).

SIDAROKE

I keep thinking of this rather silly
idea:
a SID singing Contest where you take
3 people to perform a SID karaoke or
SIDaroke, I am sure you can
visualise this in your mind right
now. Of course this would need to be
performed live to avoid cheating and
external help from electronic
processing etc. I do know some
people who can do very convincing
saw-tooth waveforms with there
mouths. I suppose it's something I
do all the time really (although
usually when I am alone)! I will
Buzz out a pulse width modulated
tone along with the lead sound of
the real SID tune usually on my car
cassette player (yes I can't afford
a CD player in the car) We could
have heats like the X factor,
working up to a semi-final and then
the grand final with presentations.
I wonder if Simon Cowell would be
interested in purchasing the idea
from me, Of course this would need
to be at a reasonable cost? I
suppose 100 million pound would
convince me to alleviate the
copyright from my possession, and a
10% fee on royalties from spinoffs
etc.

AN EXPERIMENTAL 8-BIT ALBUM FROM
LUKHASH

The thing that re-sparked my
interest on these SID related ideas
was another 8-bit inspired album
this time from the band LukHash you
can read about this more in the News
section of Commodore Free, where you
will find a link to their website
that has features a option to
download the songs as music files
for free. The combination of SID
sounds with Rock music, works very
well (hmmm in my opinion).

INTERVIEW WITH "GUNTHER SCHMIDL"
INFOCOM DOCUMENTATION WEBSITE

Also in this issue we have an
interview with "Gunther Schmidl" who
maintains the INFOCOM Documentation
Website, the interview did take
place some time ago and has taken
some time to complete, but that's
the problem with real life getting
in the way of projects. This
interview was on the Commodore Free
back burner for a number of years,
and now finally its been checked and
included for your enjoyment.

MINIGRAFIK: FOR THE VIC 20

If all that wasn't enough I have
included some information about
MINIGRAFIK: FOR THE VIC 20, you can
read about the project and the paint
package that uses the extensions
MINIPAINT, at the end of this issue,

CCC U.K. MINI MEETING

Oh nearly forgot to mention this,
Myself Alan Chris and Shaun all met
up to mull over some Commodore
related ideas and test out the
latest Commodore monitor Connection
setup. Alan has bee working for some
time to get an off the shelf board
working, to display Commodore video
on a flat panel monitor, to some
extent he is successful. However
there are some limitations at the
moment, but we think these can be
ironed out. Although others have
attempted this, once working the
plan is to purchase in some boards
for CCC U.k. and sell them to order,
when you see a Commodore 128
displaying 80 columns on a TFT
Screen its quite an amazing sight.

Ok thanks for Reading
Nigel
www.commodorefree.com
www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk

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

*************************************
                NEWS
*************************************

*************************************
      64COPY RECEIVES AN UPDATE
*************************************

http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/per
sonal.html

What is 64Copy?

64COPY is an all-purpose DOS and C64
emulator file manager, modelled
after "Norton Commander", and runs
under the Windows XP/2000 DOS VDM,
or in real DOS session. 64COPY will
run in a Windows Vista 32-bit VDM,
but Vista 64-bit has no VDM support
at all. It specializes in converting
and manipulating emulator files
between various formats. 64COPY does
not do any communication to the
1541/71/81 floppy drives to read
disks. If that is what you need,
download Star Commander for that
task.

Some of what 64COPY does includes:

- File conversion between D64 (all
  types, including the F64 variant),
  D71, D81, D80, D82, DNP, D2M, T64,
  G64, ZipCode (all types), PC64
  (Pxx, Sxx, Uxx, Rxx), LNX, DOS
  binaries, ARC, CRT, SDA, X64, LBR,
  ARK, SPY and CPK files.

- A very powerful 6502 Disassembler

- TEXT, HEX and D64 HEX editors

- FILE viewer

- BASIC unlister

- D64, D71, D81, D80 & D82 directory
  customizer

- Check disks and T64, ZipCode, G64,
  F64 and CRT files for errors

- ROM image manipulation (splitting,
  resizing, conversion to EPROM
  burner formats)

- A whole lot more!

64Copy v4.43 has been released, and
is available from the downloads
page. The CHANGES.TXT file for this
release is very large. I still have
not finished the CheckDisk for GEOS
disks and VLIR files but this is
still planned for a future release.

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

*************************************
      PS/2 PET KEYBOARD ADAPTOR
*************************************

http://ps2cbm.blogspot.com/

PS/2 Keyboard on a PET/CBM

If your CBM/PET keyboard is not
working too well. Here is the answer:
A PS/2 interface that lets you
connect a regular Personal Computer
keyboard (with PS/2 connector) to
your PET/CBM. The interface is
installed inside the PET/CBM and
does not take up any ports, other
than an internal expansion power
connector. As an added bonus,
pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del on the
keyboard will reset your pet.

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

*************************************
      AMIGA VIRUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
*************************************

http://ave.teyko.com/

Amiga Virus Encyclopaedia - The
Amiga Virus Encyclopaedia has been
updated. This web site dedicated to
analysis and descriptions of viruses
for the Commodore Amiga computer.
The database has now information of
more than 500 viruses

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

*************************************
          VICE UPDATED V2.2
*************************************

http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/

VICE v2.2 - VICE is a emulator for
the 8-bit Commodore computers. The
software can be used on a variety of
platforms: Unix, Linux, MS-DOS,
Win32, OS/2, Acorn RISC OS, BeOS,
QNX 6.x, Amiga, GP2X, Mac OS X,
AROS64, QNX 4.x, HPUX, Atari Mint,
Solaris Express and SkyOS.

New features in version 2.2 are:

Improved:
C128 VDC, VIC-20 and PAL emulation.
ReSID's resampler optimized.
SFX Sound Sampler and SFX Sound
Expander emulation.

Added:
EasyFlash,
Digibooster SID,
Mega-Cart and Final Expansion
cartridge,
paddle and lightpen/lightgun
emulation,
userport joystick adapters

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

*************************************
          C64 SCENE WEBSITE
*************************************

http://www.c64scene.nl/C64Scene/Home.
html

A new Dutch Commodore 64 website has
been created by Marc Teunissen. This
site's especially for the (Dutch)
Commodore Community with a emphasis
on the Commodore 64 but doesn't
exclude non-Dutch users (who speak
Dutch)

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

*************************************
      IDE V4.1 AVAILABLE AGAIN
*************************************

http://news.ide64.org

Developer Josef Soucek has announced
that IDE64 V4.1 is once again
available for ordering.
Go to  http://news.ide64.org   to
read up on the latest news for this
well-supported device.

The IDE64 cartridge is a device for
connecting an IDE hard disk drive
and CD-ROM drive to a C64, and/or it
can be used with a Compact Flash
card. It is plugged into the
Expansion Port and connected to the
hard drive by means of a 40-wire
cable. IDE hard drive transfer rate
is more than 100 times the rate of
the floppy drive 1541.  The IDE
cartridge contains a 128kB ROM
(EPROM or flash EPROM with IDE DOS,
Machine Code Monitor, File Manager
and Setup), a 28kB RAM (used for
internal buffers), a real-time clock
chip (powered by a battery), two
LEDs (to indicate the presence of
the cartridge and HDD activity), a
Short-BUS for new peripherals, Amiga
Clock Port, mini-USB Device Port
(PCLink), and an ispLSI chip.  Its
price is 99 Euros including shipping.

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

*************************************
       STAR COMMANDER UPGRADED
*************************************

http://sta.c64.org/sc.html

The Star Commander and the Star
Utilities have both been updated to
version 0.83. More information and
download links can be found at the
website.

The Star Commander is the ultimate
DOS shell that can handle the image
file formats of the C64 Software
Emulator ((c) by Miha Peternel,
1994-1997), CCS64 ((c) by Per Hkan
Sundell, 1996-2009), Personal C64
((c) by Wolfgang Lorenz, 1994-1997)
and VICE ((c) by the VICE Team,
1993-2009), it copies files and
disks between the PC and a Commodore
1541/1570/1571/1581 drive,
optionally in turbo mode, and also
converts several popular Commodore
archive formats. It is a
comfortable, user-friendly and fast
giftware software with online help
and is very similar to The Norton
Commander ((c) by Symantec Inc.,
1986-1995) and The Volkov Commander
((c) by Vsevolod V. Volkov,
1991-2000).

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

*************************************
  JIM BUTTERFIELD TELLS A COMMODORE
                STORY
*************************************

While rummaging around various Beta,
VHS, Digital 8, and DV tapes, I came
across a VHS tape that was given to
me.  Its label was printed, "Chicago
Commodore Expo, October 24, 1998 -
Jim Butterfield Tells a Commodore
Story".  I viewed the tape, and
though the video quality is only
fair, the audio is good, and of
course, Jim tells a good story of
the early days of Commodore.

http://blip.tv/file/3066765

Thanks to BIOS for the upload,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

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

*************************************
  AN EXPERIMENTAL 8-BIT ALBUM FROM
               LUKHASH
*************************************

www.lukhash.com/deadpixels.html

"DEAD PIXELS" is an experimental;
fourth long play album from LukHash.
A fusion album with an interesting
8bit sounds blended into Rock music.
Songs were recorded using real
chiptune DMG Gameboys and Commodore
64. online: WWW.LUKHASH.COM  Album
is distributed free of charge.

In 2009 LukHash began experimenting
with original chiptune machines;
including the COMMODORE 64 and a
couple of modded DMG Nintendo
GAMEBOYs  to create a blend of
original 8bit sound from the 80's
and Rock music

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

*************************************
       PROTOVISION NEWS UPDATE
*************************************

http://www.protovision-online.com/

DISTRIBUTION CHANGES

Our Online Shop is available again
for a while after being offline for
a few weeks in October/November 2009.

The most important changes:
1. Distribution is now being done by
our new member Stefan Schauf (Doc of
Desire). Hence our new postal
address is:

Stefan Schauf
Schoetmarsche Str. 25
32791 Lage
Germany

Our banking details and our PayPal
address changed. The means of
payment will be shown during the
order process and will also be
transmitted to you after
successfully completing an order.

Oliver Frster (Poison) who took
care of Protovision's distribution
for over six years, stays member of
Protovision and still takes care of
organization as well as our website.

2. For orders under 20 Euros we have
to charge a low order fee of 3
Euros. Within Europe, shipping is
free for orders over 20 Euros. For
orders outside of Europe, shipping
costs will be charged according to
the weight.

3. Because of tax changes, German
VAT will be listed from now on.
Customers from outside of the EU
don't have to pay VAT.

Happy shopping!

HARDWARE

MMC REPLAY is completely sold out.
It is still unsure whether there
will be another batch of MMCRs. The
manufacturer is currently
concentrating on the new CHAMELEON
cartridge. However, a remaining
stock of the RETRO REPLAY freezer
cartridge is available again
(limited stock!).

The COMPETITION PRO JOYSTICK can be
obtained again as well, either as
single joystick(s), or in form of
the limited COMPETITION PRO 4 PLAYER
BUNDLE: 4 Competition Pro joysticks
and one 4 Player Interface at a
reduced price. The Ethernet card
RR-NET is on stock again, too. Did
you know? RR-Net and MP3@64 also fit
on the new IDE64, available from
http://www.ide64.org Last but not
least, CARTRIDGE CASES are also
available in yellow now!

GAMES

Almost all titles are available
again. The only exception here is
NEWCOMER. ULTIMATE NEWCOMER (English
and Hungarian version) is still
under development, completion is
very close! See the updated Newcomer
section for more information:
http://www.protovision-online.com/gam
es/newcomer.htm

VANDALISM NEWS #52 - THE MARKET

Issue 52 of the Australian based
disk magazine VANDALISM NEWS has
been released on 31st October 2009
at Syntax Party 2009.

"The Market" chapters contain
information about game projects
Protovision is involved in:
GRUBZ
PIECES II
TANK WARS
ULTIMATE NEWCOMER

Leech at:
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?i
d=84122

NETBOOT65 - TFTP, TELNET, GOPHER AND
HTTPD FOR THE C64 There is a new
release (v1.0.25) of the
increasingly inaccurately named
NETBOOT65 by Jonnosan, which now
includes:

- NetBoot - the original "boot a c64
  via tftp" cartridge image

- KipperKart - net booting, SID
  player, web application server and
  more

- KipperGo - a gopher and simple
  telnet (vt100 and PetSCII)
  cartridge image

- KipperTerm - telnet client (vt100
  and PetSCII) plus XMODEM support
  See
  http://netboot65.sourceforge.net/
  for more.

GEOLINK VERSION 0.96 BETA IS OUT

ShadowM implemented IP65 (a TCP/IP
stack for RR-Net) into GEOS and
wrote a small chat client for it.
Look here: http://lyonlabs.org/
commodore/geoLink/geoLink.html

THE STAR COMMANDER & STAR UTILITIES
UPDATED

The STAR COMMANDER and the STAR
UTILITIES have both been updated to
version 0.83. More information and
download links can be found at the
website: http://sta.c64.org/sc.html

VICE 2.2 SUPPORTS 4 PLAYER INTERFACES

The latest version of the popular
VICE emulator contains support for
some 4 Player Interfaces, including
the one by CGA (Classical Games)
which is being distributed by
Protovision. Downloads are available
from the VICE homepage:
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/
(mind the new URL!).

COMMANDER LASERSTRAHL DOUBLE CD

Commander Laserstrahl is the name of
the protagonist of Metal Dust. Some
time has passed since his mission
within the SuperCPU game. His new
mission is to study the earthlings
and to explore Planet Earth as a
possible "New World". He does this
in the form of a radio play in
German language, produced by Welle:
Erdball. The new double CD of
COMMANDER LASERSTRAHL has been
released at the end of December
2009. MacGyver/Protovision speaks a
little guest role in one episode.
Learn more at
http://www.welle-erdball.de/commander
-laserstrahl/

HOMEPAGE

The Protovision homepage experienced
some updates. Find out what is new
in these sections:

Hardware section:
http://www.protovision-online.com/har
dw/hardwstart.htm
Links section:
http://www.protovision-online.com/lin
ks.htm

PRICELIST UPDATED

There is also a new pricelist
(01/10) available. You can find it
here:

http://www.protovision-online.com/pri
celist.htm

http://www.protovision-online.com/

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

*************************************
    HARDSID DEVELOPS NEW PRODUCTS
*************************************

http://www.hardsid.com

Dear Sid Fans
We're proud to announce two new
lower-cost HardSID products designed
for C64 music lovers who want to
play back SID tunes, play games on
emulators and create C64 tracker
music without buying a more
expensive SID synthesizer.

The new devices:

* HardSID Uno
* HardSID UPlay

Please visit our new products page:
http://www.hardsid.com/products.php

Please send a Tweet about us:
http://tinyurl.com/promotehardsids

Regards,
The HardSID Team
http://www.hardsid.com

Follow us on twitter:
http://twitter.com/HardSIDOfficial

HardSID Uno

Enjoy over 36000 wonderful C64 tunes
in high-quality played back on a
real SID chip!

* Ideal for SID Players, C64
  Emulators, SID Trackers

* USB connection (compatible with
  both 2.0 & 1.1)

* No power supply required! Use it
  with a notebook just anywhere!

* Supported by the HardSID 4U Winamp
  Plugin! (seeking, sub-tune
  handling, IR remote controlling)

* Superior sound quality (..it is a
  HardSID!)

* Support for one SID chip of any
  version (old: 6581, new: 8580/6582)

* Updateable firmware over USB

* Drivers for Windows XP/Vista/Win7

* Cycle-accurate playback of your
  favourite SID tunes

* Digitized sound + high-speed
  playback with low CPU utilization

* Seamless playback of .sid tunes
  while you work on your PC
  Connectors

* One analogue SID sound output
  (jack)

* USB connector for connecting the
  unit to a desktop PC or a Notebook
  forget the emulation... you need
  the REAL ONE!

HardSID UPlay

Do you need both old and new SID
versions for playback? You need the
HardSID UPlay then!

* You can install two SIDs in it: one
  old 6581 + one new 8580/6582

* Switch between the two SIDs simply
  from the player software

* Ideal for SID Players, C64
  Emulators, SID Trackers

* USB connection (compatible with
  both 2.0 & 1.1)

* No power supply required! Use it
  with a notebook just anywhere!

* Supported by the HardSID 4U Winamp
  Plugin! (seeking, sub-tune
  handling, IR remote controlling)

* Superior sound quality (..it is a
  HardSID!)

* Updateable firmware over USB

* Drivers for Windows XP/Vista/Win7

* Cycle-accurate playback of your
  favourite SID tunes

* Digitized sound + high-speed
  playback with low CPU utilization

* Seamless playback of .sid tunes
  while you work on your PC
  Connectors

* One analogue SID sound output:
  Outputs the sound of the actually
  selected SID chip (jack)

* USB connector for connecting the
  unit to a desktop PC or a Notebook

HardSID 4U "a HardSID... for you!"

The HardSID 4U is the most powerful
SID synthesizer since the legendary
C64!

* Two CPUs and main memory

* USB connection (compatible with
  both 2.0 & 1.1)

* Isochronous USB endpoint for
  low-latency audio

* VSTi interface with 8000Hz update
  rate on all SID registers (free)

* Wave-in VSTi pin for routing 8000Hz
  signals to any registers (example:
  playing other VSTi's sound on the
  volume register)

* Full automation of all VSTi
  parameters

* Superior sound quality (..it is a
  HardSID!)

* Support for up to four SID chips
  (6581/8580/6582 in any combination)

* Updateable firmware over USB

* Microsoft Vista compatible (drivers
  for Win2000/XP/Vista)

..and if you're a C64 fan

* Cycle-accurate playback of your
  favourite SID tunes

* Digitized sound + high-speed
  playback with low CPU utilization

* Seamless playback of .sid tunes
  while you work on your PC by
  providing a huge playback buffer
  for non-VSTi applications

* Supported by the HardSID 4U Winamp
  Plugin! (seeking, sub-tune
  handling, IR remote controlling)

The HardSID 4U Studio Edition

* Full physical separation of the
  SIDs from the USB driven circuits

* 100% elimination of EMI
  (Electromagnetic interference)
  noise that may come from your PC
  via USB

Many PC parts (sometimes the USB
controller itself) are generating
electromagnetic interference (EMI)
which travels through the USB cable
into your USB Audio device (HardSID
4U in this case). Even if you use a
cable with built-in EMI suppression
some of the noise will work its way
through to your audio device. So, if
any part in your PC isn't properly
electromagnetically shielded, the
EMI noise will be audible when low
level audio is played. EMI noise can
not be perfectly removed by any
suppression method except by
expensive physical separation of
circuits connected to the PC from
the audio circuits.

Suppressed EMI noise is still
perfectly acceptable for hobby
usage, but if you're planning to
record your work/art in studio
quality, you should consider going
for the HardSID 4U Studio Edition,
since it physically separates your
audio circuits from the ones
connected to your PC. We're using
expensive technologies to replace
direct electrical contacts between
the PC driven circuits and the audio
circuits.

Connectors

* Four mono dry outputs for the best
  sound quality (2x stereo jacks)

* Mixed output for the easiest usage
  (1x stereo jack - mono signal)

* Four mono inputs for filtering
  external sources with SID filters
  (2x stereo jacks)

* USB connector for connecting the
  unit to a desktop PC or a Notebook

* DC-in connector for connecting the
  power supply (1A@12VDC)

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

*************************************
 WORKING PLA REPLACEMENT FOR MY C64
*************************************

Hello All,
Just wanted to let all of you know
that I FINALLY created a WORKING PLA
Replacement for my C64. I have only
tested it in one of the Breadbox
C64's so far.

I use Ray Carlsons Diagram,
http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlse
n/tdsweb/EPROMPLA/eprompla.jpg

Info:
http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlse
n/tdsweb/EPROMPLA/eprompla.txt

C64 PLA chip replacement using an
EPROM and adaptor
latest updates and corrections
11-20-07

The supply of replacement ICs for
Commodore computers has been
shrinking since Commodore stopped
making chips more than a decade ago.
Most of what you find now are used
"pulls" from existing equipment,
some good, some bad. The most common
failure in the C64 has been IC U17,
a pre-programmed 28 pin generic
82S100 programmable logic array or
PLA. That IC normally runs very hot
and should have been heat sinked. It
was in later versions of the 64.
Since the supply of obsolete
unprogrammed 82S100 ICs has likewise
dried up, a way to replace the
Commodore PLA with some other kind
of device has been discussed many
times on the newsgroup comp.sys.cbm
and elsewhere. A 64K EPROM
programmed with the code from a
working PLA and rewired via a
circuit board or other adaptor to
cross-connect a few pins has had
some success in duplicating the
logic of the original PLA. There are
several different versions of this
modification on the internet. Note
that the code for the EPROM must
match the pinout of the adaptor that
goes with it! The modification I
found takes only a few pin swaps to
make it work. The other one takes
more. Guess which one I chose to
use? ;-)

With a "burner" on my PC, I began
experimenting with various types of
EPROMs when my stock of PLA chips
was depleted. The original PLA
averaged a rather speedy 50nS. The
best information I had early on was
that a very fast IC was needed to
simulate it. Most reprogrammable UV
EPROMs are much slower at 150 to
300nS and I already had some of
those. A one-time-programmable (OTP)
Atmel AT27C512R45 seemed fast enough
with its 45nS response time and they
were cheap at the time, so a batch
of the OTP chips was purchased and
some adaptors made out of
"sandwiched" IC sockets. One adaptor
was needed to extract the PLA code
and get it into my computer, and
another adaptor to make the
programmed EPROM work in the C64.
I'm putting up both adaptor
schematics and the code on my site
if anyone wants to make their own
substitute PLA. The resulting
replacement ICs do work in many C64
boards but not in others, even ones
with the same board number. Now to
the reasons...

One of my C64 boards (250407) will
work with just about any PLA
substitute EPROM from the slowest
250nS to the fastest OTP. Other
boards are -very- fussy about the
replacement PLA. Results with those
boards varied from blank screen to
less than the normal bytes free at
startup to random character colour
errors or program crashes... common
indicators of a failing OEM PLA or
bad RAM. The sub-PLA could be made
to work in some boards by replacing
the VIC, the MPU and/or the CIAs.
For example, a CPU with a later code
date worked in a board with a
sub-PLA whereas the earlier CPU chip
wouldn't even boot up (blank
screen). My oldest 64 board, a 1982
326298, gave me the most trouble.
Most of the chips in it are early
versions. Swapping some of them out
with newer ones made that board work
fine.

The original RAM ICs Commodore used
were either 150nS or 200nS. RAM
chips of a certain speed may work
with the original PLA but not with
the sub-PLA. In one experiment, a
sub-PLA worked with all 200nS RAM,
then one 150nS RAM chip was
substituted, and the bytes free at
startup was reduced although the
original PLA worked fine with that
arrangement. I conclude that C64 ICs
work within a narrow "window" of
acceptable pulse timing, neither too
fast nor too slow. The use of a
substitute PLA in some boards
obviously creates timing errors,
some fatal (blank screen) and others
producing subtle screen "glitches"
and program crashes.

If an EPROM works in a particular
board, that's fine. But, what do you
do if no sub-PLA seems to work? One
workaround I found was to add a
small capacitor (one end tied to
ground) to the replacement IC output
pin 18, the \CAS line to the RAM,
which adds a bit of delay to those
pulses. I experimented with values
between 50pF and 220pF and got good
results. The bottom line here is
that whatever board you have may or
may not work 100% with a sub-PLA. It
may need to be "tweaked", and most
users will not want to do that. So,
a drop-in replacement for the
original PLA that will work with all
boards without any problems is still
unavailable.

When I repair a C64 that needs a
replacement PLA, I can make the sub
work in most cases with chip swaps,
selecting an optimum speed of the
substitute EPROM and/or by using the
time delay capacitor. Testing the
final product involves 1. observing
the bytes free on the opening screen
to see if it's normal, 2. looking
for "glitches", random colour shifts
or odd characters anywhere on the
screen while a program is running,
3. testing with several different
cartridges such as CBM Jupiter
Lander (which refused to load in one
board when everything else seemed to
work) and a passing grade using the
C64 diagnostic cart some kind soul
gave me years ago.

Making the substitute PLA is pretty
straightforward. With a few pins
rewired via an adaptor (schematic is
readpla.jpg) I made with two
"sandwiched" IC sockets, I used my
ERPOM burner to copy the code from a
working PLA chip. The burner reads
it as if it were a 27C512 EPROM and
the resulting file pla.bin has a
checksum of hex DAA0. That code was
burned into a standard 27C512 EPROM.
I then used another cross-wired
adaptor (schematic is eprompla.jpg)
to install the EPROM in my C64. The
files mentioned above are on my
schematics website at
http://staff.washington.edu/rrcc/uwwe
b/eprompla/

One last thing... replacing a PLA
with an EPROM in an adaptor socket
that plugs into a board-mounted IC
socket may cause intermittent
operation if the board socket has
loose contacts. One way around that
is to use an adaptor socket with
round pins that are thicker than the
standard replacement types. Of
course the mod PLA socket can be
soldered into the C64 board
directly. It's likely to be the last
time it will be replaced anyway...
as long as it works correctly the
first time it's installed. It
doesn't need to be heat sinked like
the original PLA should have been...
the new chip runs cool.

Ray Carlsen

Much appreciated for the info Ray.

Since I'm using a Promenade C1, I
had to break the file into two 32k
sections as there is NO WAY to
program an entire 64k file with a
Promenade C1. Each file will need
"00 20" inserted into the Beginning
of the file, they will be 32770
bytes in size.

In order to program a 27c512 EPROM.
BEST to use -45ns for the PLA. you
will have to run a ground wire from
the CASE of the Promenade C1 to PIN
#1 on the IC. This will allow you to
program the FIRST HALF (32k) of the
EPROM. Remove the wire to program
the SECOND HALF of the EPROM.

I am using Promshell to do this. You
can find the disk on my FTP site :
ftp://www.n2dvm.com//Commodore/Progra
ms/Eprom/promshell.zip

Here are the files I used for the
PLA. They already have the "00 20"
added to them to make it easier on
you.

ftp://www.n2dvm.com/Commodore/Program
s/Eprom/PLA-Files.rar

Have fun.

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

*************************************
  INTERVIEW WITH "GUNTHER SCHMIDL"
    Infocom Documentation Website
*************************************

http://infodoc.plover.net/index.html

Q. Please introduce yourself to our
readers

My name's Gunther, I live and work
in Austria - unsurprisingly, in
programming. I'm a big fan of
adventure games, both text and
graphical, and I've written a few
text games myself. These days, free
time doesn't really permit
authorship, so I'm playing and
occasionally reviewing adventures
instead, though I'd like to dabble
in some authoring again. I'm also
interested in the history of
Interactive Fiction, and have
managed, with the invaluable help of
people like Stephen Granade and
Graham Nelson, to unearth several
obscure games and bring them to a
greater public.

Q. Are you an Infocom fan in general
or do you have a bias to a
particular machine, I know we are
Commodore users but we wont be mad
if you preferred another system

I'm an Infocom fan in general. I
actually grew up on PCs - our first
computer was an insanely expensive
IBM laptop with two 3.5" floppy
drives and no hard drive - and the
first two games I played were Space
Invaders and Space Quest 2. Friends
of mine had a C64, an Atari and an
Amiga, so all the "big" home
computers were available to
everyone. Naturally, I still have an
affinity for the PC, but I know my
way around the other machines as
well.

Q. Do you own any Commodore systems?

Only in emulation, I'm afraid. Like
I said, I know a bit about both
AmigaOS and C64 BASIC, so I can get
stuff running, but I rarely do it
these days.

Q. Did you ever finish any of the
Infocom games yourself, and if you
did; did you need to use hints?

I finished most of them, with the
notable exception of Journey, but
few without hints. I managed to
finish SUSPENDED, and got a horribly
bad result, but it was the first I
actually finished by myself.

Q. What's your favourite Infocom
puzzle?

Hard to say. One of the most
well-executed puzzles is the
Babelfish puzzle in The
Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
but I can't actually call it a
favourite. I think the time travel
puzzle in Sorcerer was pretty good,
if extremely hard. LGOP's T-Remover
is also fun.

Q. Do you think text-only games are
better at stimulating the
imagination?

I think both text and graphic
adventures have their merits. Text
can, of course, do things that
non-text can never convey (the
famous "voice of honey and ashes"),
and are more precise ("what is that
four-pixel object on the screen
supposed to be" was a common
question in parser-driven graphical
adventures until pure
point-and-click games took their
place -- where after pixel hunting
became the new guess-the-word).
Graphics are easier to convey
exactly what the author wants to
show, but you couldn't pull off
things like surprise the player with
a character's gender/race/... as
easily.

It's easier to have mimesis-breaking
puzzles in graphic adventures, I
would think -- to implement a
Fifteen puzzle or Towers of Hanoi in
text would be more work than it's
worth (though the 15 puzzle has
actually been done). Text adventures
had hunger and sleep daemons, turn
limits, and mazes. Graphic
adventures have
arrange-these-items-in-the-correct-or
der puzzles, timed sequences, and
mazes. The medium dictates what you
can do to annoy the player :-)

Q. Were the games all text based or
did some graphics scenes exist?

Most of the Infocom games were
all-text, but they did produce a few
games with graphics: Beyond Zork had
a graphical mode where it would
display a map of your surroundings,
and a special rune font. Zork Zero,
Arthur, Shogun and Journey had
illustrations and graphical puzzles
(Towers of Hanoi, Nim, etc)

Later a few mostly graphical games
(including two adventures, "Return
to Zork" and "Leather Goddesses of
Phobos 2") were released under the
Infocom label, but that was after
their acquisition by Activision.

Q. Do you think Graphics from
adventure games detracted from the
gameplay?

Graphics pretty much started out as
illustrations of the scenes, as in
Sierra's "Mystery House", the first
graphic adventure. What they did do
was dumb down the parser, so you'd
have to guess from the line drawings
what object, exactly, you were
seeing on the screen, and then issue
two-word commands and hope the
parser would understand you. Thus,
yes, the games interrupted play,
pulling the players out of the
game world, by throwing "I don't
know what you mean" messages at
them. This problem was mitigated by
going point-and-click, however.

Douglas Adams later made Starship
Titanic, a full graphic adventure
which was advertised as having an
intelligent parser to let you
communicate with the denizens of the
ship. Let's say it wasn't very
intelligent after all and leave it
at that.

Q. Do you still own any boxed
Infocom games, with their "feelies"
can you explain about the "feelies"?

Feelies were (and are, sometimes!) a
way of getting people to buy,
instead of pirate, the games.

One, you'd get a nifty box with, for
example, a glow-in-the-dark stone, a
rubber centipede, some "gemstones",
booklets, or "hieroglyph rubbings",
etc.

Two, in later games, material from
the game box would actually be
needed to pass copy protection in
the game. A game might ask you to
type in a word from the manual, or
set a code wheel to some specific
position and type in a number from
it, or answer a question to be
learned from the feelies, etc.

I've managed to come into possession
of several games with their feelies
-- it's just nifty to have something
tangible along with the game itself.
Shows the extra effort the company
spent to immerse the player in the
world. Plus, hey, piracy protection.
Which worked about as well back then
as it does now.

Q. I presume these games are highly
collectable, what are the top 10
most valued games?

Top ten is hard to say, but by far
the most collectable items are the
original Starcross "Saucer"
packaging and the original Suspended
"Mask" packaging. They often go for
several hundreds of dollars on eBay.
Everything else is way more
commonplace, except the oddball
games like "Fooblitzky" or
"Quarterstaff" (a Mac-only RPG), and
the
product that caused the downfall of
Infocom: their database system
"Cornerstone".

Q. Ok there must be at least one
duffer what is the worst Infocom
game you played and why was it so
bad?

My two least favourite Infocom games
are "Beyond Zork" and "Journey". The
former is an adventure-RPG hybrid
which does neither part very well;
the latter is a glorified
choose-your-own-adventure-style game
which has endless possibilities of
getting you stuck at the very last
puzzle because you run out of
something you need much earlier.
Like I said, I never completed it
myself despite multiple attempts.

Q. Recently, memos and e-mails about
a possible Hitch-hiker's sequel were
made public. Do you think it could
have been a success, and do you
think the company information should
have been revealed?

With the built-in audience for
Hitch-Hiker's, I'm pretty sure the
game would have been at least a
moderate success. I don't know if
there were plans to add graphics to
it, but probably yes - I think that
the kind of graphics available then
would have worked against the HHGG
world. There's a reason why the
books and radio series were vastly
more successful than the TV series
and the later movie.

As for the infamous "Infocom Drive",
it is sad that the information was
revealed the way it happened. I'm
sure nobody wants to see their dirty
laundry aired in public, and I'm
also sure that because this
happened, it will be much harder to
get actually interesting stuff out
in the public - you don't antagonize
the people you depend on for
goodwill.

Q. Are there many documents/manuals
that you are still looking for? And
Can you give or readers a plug about
the website?

We have a full set of the available
Infocom documentation.
Unfortunately, Infodoc has not been
updated in a long time due to time
constraints by Roger J. Long, who
did the majority of the work, and
myself, and thus it has been
surpassed in some ways by other
websites, most notably
http://infocom.elsewhere.org/gallery

We do still, however, offer fully
OCR'd (and a few 100%
screen-reader-friendly) versions of
the manuals, with all the important
information, as well as a number of
neat things not readily available
elsewhere, such as a full set of the
company newsletter sent out to
customers, information on the
Japanese version of Zork 1, and a
few other surprises.

Q. How was all the information
collected to the site?

The manuals were readily available
in PDF format from the Masterpieces
of Infocom collection. Other
material was scanned or photographed
and OCR'd (or just typed in). We
cleared the rights with Activision,
who gave permission readily. We
didn't hear back from the rights
holders of HHGG and Shogun, which is
why those manuals are not available.

Q. If our reader can help out or
wants to help what do you need or
want?

If anyone wants to take up the
transcription of the manuals into
screen-reader friendly format, they
are welcome to do so; I don't think,
however, that much is going to
happen with the site in the future.
It mostly stands as it is, and is
hopefully useful to people.

Q. How many Infocom games were
released in total?

http://infodoc.plover.net/goodies/fil
es/gamelist.html  has a full (but
now out of date, due to the
discovery of the Drive) list of all
the released games by Infocom.
Infocom released a total of 36 text
adventures.

Q. Was there a fan base with
newsletters for the games?

There was the official company
newsletter, The New Zork Times
(later renamed to The Status Line
after the New York Times
complained). There were also
unofficial fan clubs, and these days
there are, of course, multiple fan
websites.

As an example of the dedication of
Infocom gamers, consider this
hand-drawn map of Dungeon, the
predecessor to Zork 1-3:
http://almy.us/image/dungeon.jpg

Q. Were there phone lines providing
hints and tips?

Involuntarily - people called the
Infocom office for help and hints.
The Zork User's Group (ZUG) was
created to handle these calls on a
pay-per-hint basis. This eventually
led to the creation of Invisiclues,
the hint booklets in invisible ink,
to take some load off the poor
employees.

Q. Do you know the shortest time it
took to complete on of the games ?

Unfortunately not.

Q. Is there anything else you would
like to add?

Thanks for the questions, and thanks
for your patience.
Gunther

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

*************************************
        CCC U.K. MINI MEETING
*************************************

I left my house and drove down to
Preston Train station, shortly after
my arrival I met Shaun Bebbington
and Chris both Commodore Computer
club U.k. Members
www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk we
exchanged greetings then all boarded
my car and set off to Alan's house.
Intense fog, roadwork's and sheer
amount of traffic meant the going
would be slow, but eventually we
arrived, parked up and were greeted
by Allan.

The first order of the day was a
strong cup of tea, and then after a
brief tidy up! Allan invited us into
his Den of computers. Now I have
been to Allan's on 2 other
occasions, but this time marked a
new and cleaner Computer room
(actually a converted garage); Allan
said he was installing more storage
and shelving so to excuse the mess
(although it was scarily tidy, every
paper filed neatly away; and every
disk labelled and stacked in place;
even nuts bolts and screws found
there own storage boxes and a shelf
to house them in). Moving further
into the garage I was greeted by an
almost complete looking Dalek scarily
pained in grey like it had come out
of a mould and was getting prepared
for world domination or some such
similar event; maybe like scaring
small children. In the picture you
can see how truly evil the machine
is, without power and a full
armourment its still intent on
attacking a florescent jacket. If
you want to follow the Dalek project
you will find it here
http://commodorescene.servebbs.org/da
lek.html

Allan said he was still working on
his Commodore setup but did have his
Commodore 128D with SCPU, RAMLINK
and Cmd hard disk setup all
connected to a Flat panel TV, So
this begs the question "Allan did
you get the A-22 Board Working?
Allan's reply was "sort of have a
look"

Although the picture wasn't truly
accurate, (colour problems) it was
good enough to use and stable, as
can be seen in the screen shot
(sorry it's off my phone I didn't
take my camera; although it does
show a very clear image. You can
also see a picture of the A-22 board
Allan has spent time adapting to get
the full colour display of the 128
and a stable picture, so the colours
are not all bleached out. I see in
some forums the users seem to think
the board can be purchased and used
as is, the problem is this isn't a
perfect picture, especially if you
want to use Geos and Wheels.

Now booted in 80 column mode glory
was a 128d with a TFT screen, Allan
then booted the wheels operating
system (and updated version of Geos)
and the screen sprang into action
again, very clear and usable
although there were some problems
like the mouse pointer colour,
although still usable it tended to
blend in with the background on some
areas of the wheels desktop (so the
board isn't just plug and play as
some forum members suggested). Allan
booted up Post print and as you can
see it worked perfectly with all
areas of the screen visible and
clear and in full colour.

The quite remarkable thing about
this was that the demo "Risen from
Oblivion" ran without a hitch,
although the colours were not 100%
accurate but without this machine
side by side to one running the demo
on a commodore monitor it would be
hard to spot, and the demo did still
look impressive.

If you can't get the demo to run try
watching the demo on the YouTube
link, Although the Demo will run
under Winvice the timing is
incorrect (I think the Winvice
emulation of the 128 is limited to
1mhz) and so some of the effects
don't work properly, especially the
end picture again this must be the
emulators limitation, the problem is
the final picture is well worth
seeing and a main part of the demo
(in my opinion). Still a very
impressive demo, even viewing it
after all this time from its initial
release. The link is for version 2
of the demo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8ZyA3
WzpZQ
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?i
d=44983

The demo itself needs some bizarre
hardware to actually run in the real
world so we were quite surprised it;
firstly ran and secondly that it
didn't look to bad on the screen
(again apologies for the poor screen
shots from my Camera phone)

Next we decided to re-visit the
networking of a Commodore 64, Shaun
suggested we test out GEOLINK,
http://www.lyonlabs.org/commodore/geo
Link/geoLink.html for information;
this software was written by ShadowM
using the IP65 network stack and
runs under GOES, with the server
version running in Java on a remote
machine, although still in an early
form, the software has been tested
with RR-Net, MMC Replay, FB-Net,
1541 Ultimate, and 64NIC+ network
cards. We very easily obtained via a
DHCP router an IP address and were
able to test logon to the remote
server, and even ping domain names,
the Application comes on a
customised GEOS disk (downloadable
from the website) boots on a c64
with a 1541, we tried running the
software on Allan's 128 setup but it
didn't seem to work so we downgraded
to a Commodore 64 and 1 disk drive
and a network card; although still
in an early release the demo is
quite impressive stuff. I hope this
application evolves into a real set
of networking tools for Geos /Wheels
users, something sadly lacking from
such a setup.

From Allan's router we could see the
Commodore 64 machine on his home
network and even ping the commodore
64 from a pc, the software with the
aid of the DHCP client is so easy to
use and takes any confusion from the
user who is new to networking and or
IP addressing, filling in IP
address, Subnet mask, gateway and
DNS server settings.

Of course no meeting would be
complete without some for of game
play and this was in the form of
Richard Bayliss`s "sub Hunter"
Possible Richards finest work to
date. After a quick dance around to
the music, we took turns, sadly no
one completed the game on this
session though.

All to soon my day pass ran out; and
With regret I had to leave Allan and
head back to the motorway, although
it was rush hour when I left, and
the road had a large number of
roadwork's, I made it quickly back
home, drank a cup of fruit juice and
went to bed.

CCUK UPDATE

At this mini meeting various CC U.K.
problems were tried to be resolved
like banking issues and I asked for
a list of stock to sell via
Commodore Free magazine. (Allan is
compiling a list of items the CC
U.K. shop has. Hopefully this will
be included in this issue maybe.)
One thing that was causing confusion
was the membership, its quite
confusing with the various options 6
months 1 year and life so we decided
that we should just have one option
that of life membership for 30.
Also we suggested a "crap game
competition" More on this when
details arrive.

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

*************************************
      MINIGRAFIK FOR THE VIC 20
            INTRODUCTION
*************************************

This is a short expose introducing
MINIPAINT, and its accompanying
BASIC extension, MINIGRAFIK:

I'd like to introduce two programs
designed for doing high resolution
graphics on the VIC-20: MINIGRAFIK,
and MINIPAINT.

MINIPAINT is an editor for a 160x192
pixels graphics mode, and MINIGRAFIK
is an accompanying extension for CBM
BASIC. Unlike to the Commodore 64,
where the VIC-II chip provides a
dedicated graphics mode, on the
VIC-20 there is only a text mode
available. However, the character
definitions can be placed  into RAM,
and by "painting" the text screen
with unique characters, it is
possible to set up a bitmap.

Only the internal memory is
accessible to the VIC-I, and the
layout of the bitmap has been
carefully chosen to only allocate
the upper 4K. A RAM extension is
required, at least 8K for
MINIGRAFIK, and 16K for MINIPAINT.
The zeropage is untouched, and so
both programs are compatible to
KERNAL, and CBM BASIC.

The main screen of MINIPAINT shows
three windows. All edit operations
are done in the first - largest -
window, which shows a zoomed view
into the picture. This window is
overlaid by a dialog box, when you
invoke the help screens, or want to
access storage media. A second
window, and third window show the
same view in original size, and
additional status information.
Pressing the SPACE key toggles
between editor, and a full-screen
preview.

MINIPAINT, and the stored picture
files are compatible to both PAL,
and NTSC. The pictures can easily be
used by your own programs in BASIC
and machine language. For BASIC
programmers, the MINIGRAFIK
extension provides powerful commands
for loading, saving, and
manipulating pictures in this file
format.

There are some projects where these
two programs already have
contributed to: VIC=toria Gold
Edition, a strategy game set in the
times of Ancient Rome, some of the
graphics in Realms of Quests III
were designed in MINIPAINT, and
quite recently 'Island of Secrets'
has been re-released with additional
graphics.

I hope to have piqued your interest,
and maybe yours is the next program
or game to use bitmapped graphics on
the VIC-20 with MINIGRAFIK, and
MINIPAINT.

Here's MINIPAINT, a pixel-oriented
editor for MINIGRAFIK bitmaps:
http://cid-05ef0a8eae2a4f4a.skydrive.
live.com/self.aspx/.Public/vic-20/min
igrafik/minipaint/2009-11-01.zip

The main screen is divided into
three windows:

- At the top, a scrolling window of
  40x32 pixels into the 160x192
  picture, zoomed to 4 times the
  size,

- in the bottom left, the same window
  in original size,

- in the bottom right, status and
  help info,

- it supports *both* hi-res, and
  multi-colour for each (4/8)x16
  cell,

- the program, and the stored
  pictures are PAL/NTSC compatible by
  design (as MINIGRAFIK already is),

- the pictures contain a stand-alone
  viewer, and can easily be used from
  both BASIC, and ML (as the game
  VICtoria readily demonstrates).

Within the editor:

- Cursor controls work as usual,
- Keys 1,2(,3,4) set a pixel
- Ctrl-1,2,3,4 cycle the colours for
  that palette entry,
- H enters hires, M enters
  multicolour mode,
- HOME, and CLR work as expected,
- DEL, and INST cut and paste whole
  attribute cells,
- SPACE toggles preview/editor,
- ? (Shift+/) toggles help/editor,
- f1/f3/f5: enable different draw
  modes:
- f1: set pixel, advance cursor,
  repeat,
- f3: set pixel, advance cursor,
  don't repeat - this is the default
  after start, and load picture,
- f5: set pixel, don't advance
- <- (left arrow key): toggle cursor
  draw mode (f5 only)
- Shift-L/S will load or save the
  picture,
- C=-4 shows the disc directory,
- Shift-Q quits MINIPAINT

Within the load/save dialog box, DEL
deletes the last char, RETURN starts
the load or save, and f7 cycles
through the devices 1, and 8..11:

Further plans mostly concern the
completion of the batch processing
suite. MINIPAINT as such is feature
complete. Version 1.2 fixes some
small issues in the directory
display.

The batch processing suite makes use
of MINIGRAFIK to convert PGM files
into MG format, export MG files to
Koala bitmaps, and convert to and
from charset binaries (1K or 2K) at
4096, 5120, 6144, and 7168 - thus
transforming MINIPAINT into a
comfortable charset editor

Here's King Tut, pixeled with
MINIPAINT

http://cid-05ef0a8eae2a4f4a.skydrive.
live.com/self.aspx/.Public/vic-20/min
igrafik/minipaint/king%20tut.prg

I used a suitable cropped, and
re-sized photo, and a variant of PGM
import to obtain a first workstage
in white, light orange, orange, and
blue. The lower part of the snake
(in cyan), and the black shades were
added in MINIPAINT.

Outside MINIGRAFIK, or MINIPAINT the
file must be loaded ,8 (not ,8,1!),
and then RUN. You'll need at least
an 8K RAM expander to view the image
this way.

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

*************************************
      MINIGRAFIK FOR THE VIC 20
*************************************

http://www.sleepingelephant.com/ipw-w
eb/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=952&st
art=49

New version 4.02 of MINIGRAFIK!

Improvements to version 3.2:

- The @ command (point plot, line
  draw), and the @() function have
  been extended to support
  Multi-Colour mode.

- @SAVE, @LOAD command added (see
  below)

- faster start-up time

Symbol explanations:

<...> denotes parameter expressions
[...] denotes optional parts of a
parameter list

Commands:

@ON initialises the 160x192 pixel
graphics. The screen is recentered
correctly regardless of MINIGRAFIK
running on a NTSC or PAL VIC.

@CLR clears the hires screen.
Furthermore the Colour RAM is
initialised to the foreground colour.

@RETURN returns to text mode. If an
error occurs during program
execution, this command is executed
on your behalf before outputting the
error message.

@<colour>,<x>,<y> [TO <x2>,<y2>]

Draw line in <colour> from (<x>,<y>)
to (<x2>,<y2>). If the TO part is
omitted, a single point at (<x>,<y>)
is plotted.

<colour> denotes a logical colour.
<x> and <x2> may range from 0 to
159, <y> and <y2> from 0 to 191. The
origin (x=0, y=0) lies in the
top-left corner. All arguments can
be written as numbers, variables, or
arbitrary numeric expressions.

In High-Resolution mode (M=0) the
allowed logical colours are:

0: clear pixel to background colour G
1: set pixel in foreground colour F

In Multi-Colour mode (M=1) two extra
logical colours become available:

2: set pixel in border colour B
3: set pixel in auxiliary colour A

In Multi-Colour mode the resolution
is halved, so that when <x> is even,
<x> and <x>+1 address the same pixel.

The foreground colour (F=0..7) and
Multi-Colour enable (M=0..1) are set
individually for each 8x16 pixel
cell. The background colour
(G=0..15), border colour (B=0..7),
and auxiliary colour (A=0..15) apply
to the whole screen.

To assign a physical colour to the
logical colours, issue the following
POKEs:

POKE 36879,16*G+8+B
  (set background, and border colour)
POKE 36878,16*A
  (set auxiliary colour)
POKE 646,8*M+F
  (set foreground colour, and
  enable/disable MC mode)

Physical Colour Table:
 0  Black        8  Orange
 1  White        9  Light Orange
 2  Red         10  Light Red
 3  Cyan        11  Light Cyan
 4  Purple      12  Light Purple
 5  Green       13  Light Green
 6  Blue        14  Light Blue
 7  Yellow      15  Light Yellow

@SAVE [<filename> [,<device>]]

Save screen to device. A
device-number greater than or equal
8 addresses the disc drive. In that
case a filename must be given.

If the device-number is omitted, or
equal 1, the screen is saved to
tape. @SAVE without any parameters
saves an unnamed screen to tape. A
tape save notifies the user with a
border flashing black/red to press
RECORD & PLAY on the tape drive.
When the save has completed, your
program continues execution.

The file contains a stand-alone
display routine, to view the image
via LOAD and RUN without MINIGRAFIK
in memory. If MINIGRAFIK is loaded,
use @LOAD instead, inside a program.

Memory Map:
MINIGRAFIK   MINIGRAFIK
active       not active
-----------  -----------  -----------
$1000-$10EF               char map
$10F0                     free
$10F1-$10FD  $1201-$120D  SYS 8584
$10FE        $120E        36878 reg
$10FF        $120F        36879 reg
$1100-$1FFF  $1210-$210F  bitmap
$2000-$2077  $2110-$2187  colour
$2078-$20EF  $2188-$21FF  display prg

@LOAD [<filename> [,<device>]]

Load screen from device. A
device-number greater than or equal
8 addresses the disc drive. In that
case a filename must be given.

If the device-number is omitted, or
equal 1, the screen is loaded from
tape. @LOAD without any parameters
loads the next screen from tape. A
tape load notifies the user with a
border flashing black/green to press
PLAY on the tape drive.

When the load has completed, the
image is displayed on screen, and
your program continues execution
after the @LOAD command. There is no
wait for a key press.

DO NOT load anything else than a
@SAVEd screen with @LOAD!

Functions:

@(<x>,<y>)

This function returns the logical
colour at (<x>,<y>). <x> may range
from 0 to 159, <y> from 0 to 191.
Both arguments can be written as
numbers, variables, or arbitrary
numeric expressions.

For a High-Resolution 8x16 pixel
cell, the function returns 0 for
background, and 1 for foreground
colour. If the cell is Multi-Colour
and <x> is even, then <x> and <x>+1
share the same logical colour, and
you must be prepared for the
function to return values from 0 to
3.

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

*************************************
   INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL KIRCHER
 Creator of Minigrafik and Minipaint
      for the Commodore VIC-20
*************************************

Q. Please introduce yourself to our
readers

A. Hi, I'm Michael Kircher, 37 years
old, and working as electrical
engineer in Nuclear Fusion research.
I'm posting as 'Mike' in the VIC-20
Denial forum. When I don't use my
spare time for programming, I enjoy
swimming, cycling, photographing,
construction of models, and playing
a good game of chess.

Q. What is your first Memory of
computers and Commodore?

A. I became interested in computers
at quite an early age, when I could
try out my uncle's ZX81 in the
summer of 1982.

The most fascinating thing for me at
that time was, that a TV set
actually could display something
different than the normal TV
programme - something one could
think out oneself. I had been
tinkering around with electronic
kits already for some time then,
having built an AM transistor radio
at the age of nine. I really didn't
focus on Commodore until I got my
first computer.

Q. What was the first Commodore
Machine you owned, and did you
progress through the C64 and onto
the Amiga?

A. My first computer was a German
Commodore VC20, as a Christmas
present in '83. Even though it was
considered as family computer at
first, it was soon monopolised by
me. Intrigued by those strange DATA
statements full of numbers in BASIC
type-in programs, I even wrote my
first ML programs on the VIC until
its PSU gave up mid '86. I already
had a C=116 then, and later on, I
had a C=128, which then was my main
computing platform until early '91.
I changed to Acorn, and bought an
Archimedes A3000, which was followed
by an A5000. So at least I could
avoid the PC world for quite a long
time.

During that episode, I taught myself
ARM machine language, and C. This
led me to vastly different methods
of program design. Interestingly
enough for me, I found many of these
methods could be transferred back to
the machine language of the 6502; if
one was willing to throw some false
suppositions over board. All in all,
it was quite an interesting time
then: together with a friend, I
published some demos, and a disk
magazine called 'Hardliner', under
the handle/group name 'Architects'.

Even though, today there is nothing
much more than the PC monopoly. One
good thing about it, is that
nowadays emulators, and
cross-developing allow programs to
be written for our first machines,
that we simply couldn't do in former
times without those tools at hand.

Over the time, one main interest for
me always had been computer
graphics. So, when emulators had
matured enough, I thought what I
could have achieved with the VIC,
had its PSU not given up early?

Q. Can you tell our readers about
the VIC-20 graphics extension
MINIGRAFIK?

A. MINIGRAFIK is a compact tool for
the VIC-20, that provides a high
resolution graphics screen of
160x192 pixels with at least a +8K
RAM extension being present. It
features commands for changing
between text, and graphic modes,
pixel plots, line drawing, and it
can save, and load the graphics
screen. There is support to mix
hires, and multi-colour graphics on
the same screen, the latter which
allows up to four colours being
placed nearby on the screen, at the
cost of resolution.

Q. So when and where did the idea
for MINIGRAFIK come from?

A. A friend of mine gave me a tape
with the original version of
MINIGRAFIK in 1985. It had been
published by a German computer
magazine as type-in program. The
original version had been written
for an unexpanded, or +3K expanded
VIC-20, and featured a 128x128 pixel
screen. Line drawing, and graphics
load/save commands were not
included, but even so I wrote some
programs for it, like function
plotters, pie charts, and a simple
joystick-driven graphics editor. The
tape, and the extension later got
lost in time.

I had subscribed to the Denial forum
late 2004, and in 2006 there
appeared a discussion thread about
hires graphics in general, which
gave me the incentive to reconstruct
MINIGRAFIK, this time with a
resolution of 160x192. Only the
internal memory of the VIC-20 is
accessible by the VIC chip, and I
chose this resolution as it is the
maximum one, which can be displayed
without clobbering the lower 1K used
by CBM BASIC, and KERNAL.

Besides the increased resolution,
the added line draw, and load/save
commands, I also included enhanced
support for multi-colour graphics.

Q. Is the extension still evolving,
for example are there still new
features to implement?

A. As it stands, the current version
of MINIGRAFIK already gives a good
starting point for graphics oriented
programs. Many graphics primitives
can be coded with pixel plots, and
line drawing alone. For example, I
didn't include a BOX command, as
that can simply be expressed as
sub-routine with 4 line commands.

Some sensible candidates might be a
colour selection command,
circle/ellipse draw, flood fill, and
text output. Even though, the
usefulness of a dedicated colour
selection command can be disputed,
because it would only replace up to
3 POKEs for eye candy, but no other
advantage. The other features will
most probably be implemented as
SYS-callable library routines in
machine language, leaving the kernel
of MINIGRAFIK untouched. Currently,
a program using MINIGRAFIK can count
on using nearly its whole code, so
there is no baggage of unused parts
of MINIGRAFIK around when it is
loaded.

Q. Apart from the obvious VIC-20
limitations like memory and screen
resolution, what main problems did
you face implementing MINIGRAFIK?

A. The main concern was, that
MINIGRAFIK does not operate on its
own, but acts as support library for
user programs. That required a
seamless integration into the BASIC
interpreter. I also wanted the
extension to work on both PAL, and
NTSC TV systems. For this, the two
versions of the VIC chip must be
programmed in a different ways, an
auto-detect routine takes care of
that.

Q. Can you explain to our readers
how to use the MINIGRAFIK extension
from their own programs, for example
can you use BASIC commands to use
the features of MINIGRAFIK?

A. MINIGRAFIK installs itself as
extension to CBM BASIC. The new
commands, and functions are all
prefaced by an '@' character. @ON,
@CLR, @RETURN select graphics mode,
clear the graphics screen, and
return to text mode. @LOAD, and
@SAVE access tape or disc to load,
or save the graphics screen. '@' on
its own specifies a pixel plot, or
line drawing command, with a syntax
similar to the DRAW command in BASIC
3.5 or 7.0. Finally, the @()
function takes a co-ordinate pair as
two parameters, and returns the
pixel colour within a numeric
expression.

I could have added additional
tokenizing, and de-tokenizing
routines to give the commands their
own names. Still, the combination of
a flagging character, and standard
BASIC 2.0 tokens with fitting
descriptions of the intended use
seemed satisfactory to me.

The screen bitmap has a simple
address function, so programs
written in machine language have
fast access.

Q. I presume the whole of MINIGRAFIK
is implemented as machine code? How
big is the code when loaded into
memory?

A. Indeed MINIGRAFIK is 100% machine
code, only 1K in size. Even though,
the memory from addresses 4096 to
8191 is permanently allocated for
graphics display while the extension
is active. With the minimum required
+8K RAM extension that means there
is still 7K available for BASIC
programs.

Q. Has MINIGRAFIK been used in any
recent VIC-20 games?

A. It found use in 'VIC=toria Gold
Edition', a strategic board game set
in Ancient Rome, which Alessandro
Ubiali, and I co-developed in late
2008. Some graphics for 'Realms of
Quest III' by Ghislain de Blois were
prepared off-line with
MINIGRAFIK-enhanced conversion
programs. A few weeks ago, the text
adventure 'Island of Secrets' had
been re-released with a new LOOK
command to show screens of more than
30 locations in the game. And, while
it might not strictly qualify as
game in the usual sense, I've also
written a LIFE simulator which uses
MINIGRAFIK.

Q. When or where did the program
MINIPAINT evolve from?

A. Really, MINIPAINT started out
from the editor part of the LIFE
simulator I just mentioned. To get
the features of a full-fledged
graphics editor, and for speed
reasons, I had to translate many
parts to machine language, but there
is still a main part written in
BASIC which interfaces that ML
library to MINIGRAFIK.

I did the first drafts of MINIPAINT
in 2008, the project then lay
dormant for nearly one year until I
picked it up again last year.

Q. What was the main idea of
MINIPAINT?

A. MINIPAINT, at its heart, is a
pixel-oriented graphics editor.
Before I had written MINIPAINT, the
two main methods of creating
graphics were either using
MINIGRAFIK itself to do "programmed"
graphics, or import images from PCs
or other sources, converting them
into the format specified by the
@LOAD, and @SAVE commands. One of
these programs, PGM IMPORT, does a
fairly good job of translating a
80x192 pixel 256 grey-scale level
PGM file into a MINIGRAFIK
multi-colour screen dithered to 13
intensity levels.

Still, the VIC chip is capable of
displaying really stunning pictures
when a good graphician has complete
control over the finest aspects of
the displayed picture. This is, what
MINIPAINT is designed for. Of course
it can also be used to fix up
conversions.

Q. I see you have an example piece
of art work "Tutankhamun", can you
take our readers through the process
to draw this on the VIC with
MINIPAINT?

A. I used a cropped photo of the
mask of King Tut, and a variant of
PGM IMPORT to produce a first
workstage in the colours blue,
orange, light orange, and white.
Since I had selected white as
foreground colour, I could add
shades in black as another
foreground colour within MINIPAINT.
Another small part, the snake at the
top, was repainted in cyan colour as
well.

It was mainly a matter of luck I had
no problems with attribute clashes
of the foreground colour with this
picture, and so it turned out quite
well.

Q. How long did the picture take to
complete?

A. The preparation on the PC, and
the conversion maybe took 15
minutes. Adding the black shades
incurred the longest part of
completing the picture, roughly 2
1/2 hours.

Q. Can MINIPAINT drawings be used in
user programs or called as
standalone PRG files for demos, etc.?

A. Since MINIPAINT, and MINIGRAFIK
share the same picture format - the
save/load function in MINIPAINT is
implemented with MINIGRAFIK commands
- the pictures can simply be loaded,
and displayed by your own programs
with the @LOAD command. The picture
files themselves are actually
executable PRG files. That means,
even if one does not currently have
MINIGRAFIK, or MINIPAINT available,
that picture can be displayed by
LOADing it ',8' (*not* ',8,1'!), and
then typing RUN.

Q. Are both applications well
documented with user guides and
examples?

A. MINIGRAFIK is still being
discussed in the thread in Denial
about hires graphics. I had posted
quite some example programs there
over time, many of which are now
also hosted on my SkyDrive account.

MINIPAINT features a small, but
handy on-line help system, which is
invoked by pressing the '?' key.

For both programs I am currently
preparing a comprehensive manual,
which includes a tutorial for
MINIPAINT, example programs, and
utilities using MINIGRAFIK, and
additional documentation for those
who want to access the hires screen
from machine language.

Q. Have you had much feedback from
users of the applications?

A. There has been quite some
feedback, mostly by Denial fellows.
While I did the design, and coding
of MINIGRAFIK all by myself, for
MINIPAINT I got some very important
feedback during development from
Shane Fell, and Vanja Utne.

MINIPAINT wouldn't be the program it
is now without their suggestions.

Q. Have you had any thoughts about
other applications that will utilise
the MINIGRAFIK add-on for the VIC?

A. The hires screen can be used to
"host" output from a 40 column
emulator. Even though there are some
of these programs around, like
FAT-40, they all suffer from a
sluggish output. This is mainly
because they replicate the whole
BASIC editor functionality within
themselves - there's not much room
to optimize things, when the API
focuses on single character output.

Text output on a bitmapped screen is
heavily sped up when a routine that
can print complete lines at a time.
Such a routine already has been used
for the dialogue boxes in MINIPAINT.
These ideas might end up in a 40
column text editor. Together with an
assembler, it might even be possible
to produce a new kind of programming
environment for the VIC-20.

Q. What 3 things would you change
about the VIC-20 if you were able to
go back in time and help redesign
the machine?

- The 3K RAM between 1024 to 4095
  should have been populated as well.
  That would have allowed to locate
  the screen at 1024, not only
  increasing the amount of accessible
  RAM for the VIC chip, but there
  would also never have been any
  problems because of a relocating
  text screen with bigger RAM
  extensions.

- Nice would have been an error-free
  shift register in the VIA chip.
  That would have given us fast
  floppies right from the start,
  without the necessity for the CBM
  developers to re-implement the IEC
  protocol bit-banging style in
  software.

- Separate luma, and chroma, instead
  of composite video output.

These features would have kept the
essence of the VIC-20. And for any
other enhancements regarding
graphics, sound, and memory, there's
still the C=64 around. ;)

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

*************************************
       MINI MINIPAINT TUTORIAL
*************************************
     Created by Michael Kircher

As a comprehensive manual for
MINIPAINT is in the works, a
complete coverage of the editing
functions is given there. For the
following tutorial it suffices to
know, that cursor controls work as
usual, pixels are set with the keys
1 to 4, their colour assignment is
changed with CTRL-1 .. CTRL-4, SPACE
toggles between editor, and a full
screen preview, and while editing it
is always possible to invoke the
on-line help system with '?' (SHIFT
+ /).

MINIPAINT requires at least a +16K
RAM extension.

When you draw a picture in
MINIPAINT, at first you need to
think about, which colours appear
most often in the scene. For an
example, consider a single apple
tree against the sky, with the sun,
some clouds, and a few birds.

The three most common colours are
Light Blue for the sky, Green for
grass, and leaves, and Brown for the
branches and trunk of the tree -
where the darker version of Orange
is the best approximation for. One
of these three colours must be
chosen from the lower 8 available
colours, because it is assigned the
border colour. In this case, there
is only one choice, Green.

In case you do not want a visible
border appearing around the scene,
you might:

- choose background, and border
  colour the same,

- in high resolution mode, set
  foreground the same as border
  colour, fill with foreground, and
  draw the scene as negative image in
  background colour. Even though this
  normally restricts the picture to
  two colours, the paint colour now
  can be any one of the 16 available
  colours, or

- in a similar fashion, in
  multi-colour mode, fill the picture
  with pixels in border colour
  beforehand.

Press 'M' to show the full palette
display in the status window. Then
change background (1) to Light Blue,
border (3) to Green, and auxiliary
colour (4) to Orange. The foreground
colour (2) is used to draw
everything else, for the moment you
should set it to Black. Press CLR
(with SHIFT) to clear the screen.

Orange is toned down to Brown for
the branches, and trunk of the tree.
For this, mix Orange, and Black in
the top-left corner of the screen in
a chequered pattern, up to X=6 and
Y=15 - the whole top-left attribute
cell. Cut the cell with the DEL key,
and then sketch the bottom ground,
and tree with the INST key:

[IMAGE: tutorial_01.png]
[IMAGE: tutorial_02.png]

Refine the details by clearing
pixels to background colour, and
adding pixels in Black or Orange
fitting to the pattern. Sketch the
outline of the treetop in Green:

[IMAGE: tutorial_03.png]
[IMAGE: tutorial_04.png]

The grass at the bottom is painted
in two steps: first put a two-pixel
thick line in green between ground,
and sky. Then add blades of grass
with vertical lines. To draw the
apples, change the foreground colour
(2) to Red. Place the apples within
the treetop. While doing this, some
parts of the branches might change
colour from Black to Red. This is
the colour clashing mentioned in
chapter 2. Leave the affected parts
alone for the moment.

[IMAGE: tutorial_05.png]
[IMAGE: tutorial_06.png]

When you have placed all apples,
take a look, where the branches have
changed from Black to Red. There,
replace the Red colour with Green.
Since that colour is taken from the
border colour (3) this does not
incur yet another colour clash - and
later will 'hide', that a colour
clash had happened in those places.
Then, within the outline of the
treetop, apply another chequered
pattern of Green over the
background, so the Green pixels are
aligned with those used to conceal
the colour clashes. This step
completes the tree.

[IMAGE: tutorial_07.png]
[IMAGE: tutorial_08.png]

To draw the sun, change the
foreground colour (2) to Yellow, and
press 'H' to switch to high
resolution mode. Place the sun in
the top-left quarter of the picture.
Draw the outline first, then fill
the interior. Then, add some clouds.
Change the foreground colour to
White, and place the clouds in good
distance to both sun, and tree to
avoid colour clashes. Add some
structure along the top- left facing
part of the clouds by clearing
pixels to background colour. For the
finishing touch, change the
foreground colour back to Black
again, and add some birds - the
picture below to the right-hand side
shows the result:

[IMAGE: tutorial_09.png]
[IMAGE: tutorial_10.png]

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