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

        Issue 39, April 2010

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

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

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

* Editorial
* Readers Comments
* Commodore USA, LLC
* NEWS
  - New Version: D64Lister 1.7
  - CCS64 Updated
  - BASIC Game Competition
  - Amiga Zorro RAMBoard
  - Digital Talk 90
  - TAP Clean
  - Clear Competition Pro
  - Commodore Plus/4 Spreadsheet
  - Datatool
  - Return Issue 2
  - VIC20 Twitter Client
  - New Version of SD2IEC Released
  - PET Alive!
* NOSTALGIA
  - Commodore Free
  - John Fielden
  - Peter Badrick
  - Chris Syntichakis
  - Commodore Free (2)
  - Shaun Bebbington
  - Charles J. Gutman

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

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

This is an issue about Nostalgia, I
have a feeling about 90% of people
will hate this issue, but here goes
nothing as they say.

Being Nostalgic is something
Commodore users especially seem good
at. Although I am not saying things
were better when I was a young lad,
I do still remember my first
Commodore Machines as if it was
yesterday. I know some will be
reading and thinking that xyz
systems were far better but this
issue is a Nostalgic look at
Commodore and Commodore machines and
not other systems.

My first Vic 20 and then My First
Commodore 64 and My First Amiga 500,
for some reason these events have
stuck in my mind more vividly then
any other event I care to remember
or even can remember! Was it because
it marked a landmark in computing
history, or was it just as a child
of a certain age things seem to get
embedded and stay with you as you
grow to adulthood. I know when I
meet new people at parties or work,
they will see the C= logo or here
someone say "ahhh Commodore I had
one of those, what's the game where
you have to ?.." But for me I
couldn't let those memories Fade, I
kept my Vic20 and my Commodore 64
and still played games on them as my
systems progressed through the
Commodore Amiga range. I even
purchased a Commodore 64 emulator
for the Amiga that had a hardware
device. The device plugged into the
Parallel port of the Amiga and on
the other end was a serial connector
for a Commodore disk drive or
printer. Sadly the Emulation was
never as good as the real hardware.
I used to secretly have my Commodore
machines set up and sneak into the
spare room to play on them. I had no
idea that a strong internet
community and indeed a network of
Commodore clubs still existed, all
carrying on with the Commodore
hardware all "keeping the faith"

Was Commodore better than any other
manufacturer of 8-bit computer
systems?

or

was the Commodore marketing
department just too good?

My thoughts are that it was a real
historic and monumental event, to
own a computer and talk about it at
school was something only the elite
kids could do. Most kids at school
had never seen a computer, and to
play real arcade quality games at
home was an event in itself. Typing
in the programmes from the back of
magazine and books was a battle, I
am sure the magazines deliberately
messed up the listings just so you
had to buy the next 2 issues for the
amendments and bug fix routines.
Some magazines though started
carrying tapes on the front so you
could load and play demos and even
full games, without the typing.

My head as a school kid was awash
with the names of Tony Crowther,
Jeff minter, Ben Daglish, Rob
Hubbard, etc. insert you favourite
here

Of course something else was
beginning to take shape at this
time, BBS or bulletin boards these
let user chat and even upload and
download files, sadly most contained
cracked versions of commercial
software. Although I was a big fan
of some of the demos, and how the
heck could you run a program while
loading another from tape or disk
while not interrupting the execution
of the currently running one!

As a child programming the Commodore
became obsessive, although sadly I
did find I wasn't entirely any good
at it. I was however gaining skills
I could later use, and being a
"computer user" or "expert" opened
many Job interviews and openings,
mainly because most people had never
used a computer and were scared of
blowing the thing up or looking too
stupid.

As my Commodore machines were
upgraded new things came along to
excite me, the C64 with its SID
synthesiser chip and amazing music
demos and then the GEOS operating
system, the Amiga with its Workbench
and Sound tracker applications just
blew me away. I heard a Soundtracker
version of a chart song and was
speechless for hours while I
dissected every sample to see how
this thing could be put together and
of course the colour bars as samples
played was amazing. Something else
that is a pure favourite of mine is
Jeff minters Psychedelia, turning
off the lights and the brightness of
the TV up, the putting on some
headphones and playing on this
superb piece of software, I had many
dreams of these coloured shapes
floating in space (still do)
absolutely superb software, I
suspect no one else could have
created such a product or let alone
market something that was so unique.

Maybe I am just a romantic but I
still like to load games from tape,
the suspense of the loading (and of
course thinking will it actually
work) then the screen flickers into
life and a picture is formed, the
SID chip sparks up with digital
tones and after around 3 minutes the
game is loaded, (sometimes its 20
with just a blank screen to watch).
I think after waiting so long and
filled with anticipation, this makes
you play the game more, of course we
can load from SD cards and hard
disks now almost in the blink of an
eye. However I still bring out the
datasette and load games from tape.
(I know you are sat there with head
in hand saying NO NO what an idiot,
load it from disk) My answer is NO
NO back at you buddy!

I still remember the purchase from
Boots (chemist) in the UK. an FM
expander keyboard, taking the device
home and plugging it all in then
loading the Telstar demo, even now
listening to the Telstar demo takes
me back to my childhood, I suppose
at the time the FM synthesis was
something of an amazement and the
slot machine was an interesting way
of randomly programming FM sounds
without getting your hands dirty. In
childhood everything is possible,
everything is exciting, Nothing is
too strange to be realised. At that
time to a young child everything was
new and inventive.

Will the youth of today look back on
there console with nostalgia
(possibly) but I don't think it will
be the same fondness we have for
Commodore or the truly imaginative
hardware and software from the time.
Lets not also forget the countless
individuals keeping the Commodore
torch burning and alive with new
games, demos that cause you to stare
at the screen thinking "how the heck
is this possible" demos that seem to
overcome limitations of the
hardware, and of course the breed of
hardware hackers making new devices
for Commodore machines to use IDE
hard disk and load applications from
SD cards, and way too many other
hardware add-ons, who would have
thought it was possible to load Tape
games from an SD card, gone are the
errors because it's a digital copy
and loads first time, with the other
plus points of tape, I am a lover of
these devices. The countless
individuals who will help out a
fellow user, and not forgetting the
elite users who mock everyone else;
for trying and keeping the dream
alive. Remember some people are
indeed "perfect" in every way.

I realise that there are nostalgic
Spectrum user and Atari users and
that is fine, we all have
preferences whether that's our first
machine or the machine we first
wrote hello world on or because our
parents bought it for Christmas, I
don't think Mine is better than
yours as every machine has strengths
and weaknesses but "I Adore my 64!"

I remember my fist ever hands on at
a console an Atari 2600 my first use
of a machine a zx81 these are but
minor memories to the greatest
feeling of Nostalgia for me that is
Commodore! Even now when I see the
C= logo or the Commodore name I am
drawn into see what is there in the
hope of some truly initiative and
creative hardware.

I fully respect other systems and
while I am interested in
developments of other hardware and
software, really the only thing that
interests me is Commodore. I know
there have bee some exciting
developments on other platforms and
I am sure they are as passionate
about there machines as I am about
Commodore.

Computing is history and Memories
are made from history (something
like that anyway, sound almost like
some form of quote, if it isn't I am
copyrighting it for my own use)

Comments suggestions all are welcome
please email me.

So here is another issue of
Commodore Free remember to print it
out and put it under the budgie cage
to catch the droppings on.

Thanks
Nigel
www.commodorefree.com
www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk

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

*************************************
          READERS COMMENTS
*************************************

Email
Subject: Commodore 16 programming
         Book
Sender:  John Fielding

Hi Nigel,

I am just checking if the new issue
Of Commodore Free magazine was out,
when I had an idea you might like.

I'm looking for an old programming
book for the Commodore16. The book
is called "An Introduction to BASIC
Part 2 (two)" by Prof. Andrew Colin,
Commodore, I deduce as part1 says
1984 that part2 will be the same or
soon after.

part one came with the machine,
though this got thrown out when the
machine bust.  I I managed to get
another copy through eBay, and have
been searching ever since.  I got
part2 for the C64 (published: 1983),
and have been looking for p1 in the
same way.

I always wanted the sequel, but was
too young to be taken seriously by
the attendant who would've had to
order it.

Please help with the book if you
can, I'm getting tired of looking.

Best Wishes
Jn.

COMMODORE FREE
Well I don't have a copy. Anyone
else help out

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

*************************************
      NOSTALGIC ABOUT COMMODORE
         Commodore USA, LLC
*************************************

http://www.commodoreusa.net/

CPU SUPPORT
Intel CoreTM 2 Duo, Intel CoreTM 2
Quad @ 1333MHz FSB LGA775 up to 95W.
Intel Pentium D Processors with
Hyper-Threading Technology, Intel
Celeron D processor, support from
1.3GHz ~ 3.4GHz 1333MHz System Bus.
Supporting 9x, 5x & 6x series
processors with EM64T.

MOTHERBOARD
Intel G31 Express Chipset

CORE LOGIC MEMORY
2xDDR2 SDRAM sockets, populated up
to 4GB. Supports PC2-5300 667MHz &
PC2- 6400 800MHz.

HDD SUPPORT
Integrated Serial ATA controller
facilitates high-speed transfers at
up to 3Gbps for each of the four
ports. Allows easier hard drive
upgrades and expansion for new SATA
optical drives. 2x SATA2 ports.

VIDEO & GRAPHICS
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator
3100. 3D enhancements enable greater
flexibility and scalability and
improved realism with support for
Microsoft DirectX 9.0c Shader Model
2.0, OpenGL 1.4. Intel Graphics
also support the highest levels of
the Windows 7 Aero experience.
Stunning media, incredible visuals
and new 3D capabilities. For
business users, Intel validates the
chipset, processor, graphics and
software stack to provide a
well-tested platform with support
for Microsoft* Windows 7,Vista,
Windows* XP, Linux (top
distributions) and OS/2 (SciTech).
Dynamic Video Memory Technology
(DVMT) 3.0 supports up to 289MB of
Shared Video Memory;
system memory is allocated where it
is needed dynamically. Supports
built-in Dual/Multi-Monitor windows
displays using LCD monitor & DVI
external display.

NETWORKING
1 Gigabit (GbE) Fast Ethernet, using
Realtek RTL 8168B/8111C.

REMOVABLE HDD
Optional removable 2.5" hard disk
drive.

AUDIO
Realtek AL888 High Definition Audio
enables premium Dolby Digital 5.1
surround sound and six channels of
enhanced sound quality and delivers
advanced features such as multiple
audio streams and jack re-tasking.
Audio is fully compliant with Azalia
1.0 spec. Two built-in 2.5watt
stereo speakers with three audio
jacks for Audio Out, Line-in, and
Microphone.

I/O PORTS
4 USB 2.0 Ports with transfer rate
up to 480Mbps, 2 RS-232 Serial
Ports, 1 Parallel Port supporting
SPP/EPP/ECP, 1 PS/2 mouse port, 1
POS or PS/2keyboard port, 1 dual
link DVI.

TOUCH PAD
Built-in Synaptic two-button
touch-pad with vertical and
horizontal scroll function.

OPTICAL DRIVE
One slim type Optical Drive,
CDRW-DVD, or DVD+/-RW.

EXPANSION SLOTS
One Mini PCI
One Mini PCI-e

SYSTEM BIOS
AMI Flash BIOS supports ACPI, API,
DMI, Plug & Play, and security
password. Supports booting from HDD,
PXE, LAN, CD-ROM, and ANY USB device.

EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface)
is a revolutionary standard to
manage the booting process of
next-generation PCs in a modular,
interactive way. EFI standards allow
the user to boot multiple operating
systems, with a fully graphical
interface and instant recognition of
the peripherals.

KEYBOARD
Full-Size Enhanced Windows keyboard,
detachable keytop matrix.

Commodore USA, LLC
954-344-6000    voice
954-493-8058    fax
954-667-3344    GV

email:
bsa@commodoreUSA.net
info@commodoreUSA.net
sales@commodoreUSA.net
support@commodoreUSA.net

I tried contacting the company via
email to request a reprint of the
material but never received a reply.
Not really Commodore related apart
from the use of the name Commodore
USA, so someone in the company must
be nostalgic

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

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

*************************************
     NEW VERSION: D64LISTER 1.7
*************************************

A new Version of the D64Lister is
available. The most important
changes since 16.06.08 are:

* Added New BASIC Token Table
* Added Support for CSV Token Table
  Files
* Added SpecialChar interpretation
  for Listing
* Added logging of faulty Images
* Added support for broken Files in
  GeosDetails, FileViewer and TOK64
* Added support for *.*D64* D64 Files
* Added Import Functions for *.TXT,
*.RTF and *.PRG Files
* Added FontDialog for Main
  Functions and TOK64
* Changed the BASIC Token Management
  completely
* Changed Memory Management
  completely
* Changed GEOSDetails ListView
  Component to something own
* Changed Colour Management for TOK64
* Changed some Dialogues and Messages
* Changed some Chars in the
  PETSCII->ASCII Conversion Tab
* Changed some Options (please
  update your settings)
* Fixed Bug in truncate Text for
  Win9x/WinNT
* Fixed Access Violation caused by
  GEOSDetails ListView with many
  entries
* Fixed Bug in Saving FileViewer Text
* Fixed some other little Bugs
* Some codereview and optimizations
* Documentation reworked
* Little SpeedUpdate ;-)
* Used UPX 3.04 for EXE
  compressing...visit
  http://upx.sourceforge.net for info

The D64Lister is a Windows Tool with
the following features:

* Windows based (Win9x, WinNT,
  Win2000, WinXP, WinVista, Windows7)
* Multifile support
* Extended Recursive OpenDialog with
  Directory selection
* D64 Images as parameter
* Images can be drag&dropped
* 40 Tracks Support (SpeedDOS,
  DolphinDOS, PrologicDOS)
* 99% PETSCII -> ASCII conversion
* 99% Original C64/1541 behaviour
* ASCII Textfile generation
* RichTextFormat file generation
* Appending of new Textfiles to
  existing ones
* Upper/Lower -> Upper/Graphics Char
  switching
* Emulated C64Screen
* C64Screen is zoom - and scrollable
* Comfortable OptionsDialog with
*.ini File
* GEOS File support
* Auto Upper/Lower Char switching
  for GEOS Files
* GEOS File Details
* GeoWrite Textviewer with styles,
  fontsizes, formats and photoscraps
* GEOS Font Shower
* GeoPaint Viewer
* PhotoScrap Viewer
* PhotoAlbum Viewer
* GeoPaint pictures and PhotoScraps
  are savable
* Fonts zoom - and savable (as
  bitmap)
* Zoomable display of GEOS icons
* Export function for supported GEOS
  Filetypes
* Show BAM (with diskerrors like
  StarCommander)
* Show BAM entry -> filename,
  filename -> BAM entries
* BlockViewer in hex or char
* FileViewer with BASIC Command
  Detokenize, C64 program export and
  Hex View

If you find some bugs or something
else don't hesitate to mail me.

The D64Lister can be found at:
http://www.hardworks.de/d64lister

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

*************************************
            CCS64 UPDATED
*************************************

http://www.ccs64.com/

CCS64 - A Commodore 64 Emulator - By
Per Hkan Sundell

CCS64 emulates briefly the following
things of an old C64 system:

The main Commodore 64 console, with
the keyboard and peripherals like
joysticks, paddles and mouse. It
emulates both the different systems
sold in Europe as well as the USA.

Up to four 1541 disk-drives are
emulated (which means that you use
special files on your PC, as a
replacement for the old 5 1/4 inch
floppy disks)

The C2N cassette recorder is also
emulated (which means the you use
special files on your PC, as a
replacement for the old magnetic
tapes)

Many of the old cartridges (that
means special hardware expansions
for the C64, which were plugged in
at the back of the computer) are
also emulated.

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

*************************************
       BASIC GAME COMPETITION
*************************************

http://www.forum64.de/wbb3/board25-co
der-unter-sich/board26-basic/36041-ba
sic-game-compo/

What: A game in BASIC V2, no
assembler, doing system calls is OK,
though.

Whereby: Has to run on a normal C64
with a normal 1541 and a joystick.

How big: One File, save games and
user supplied levels are OK. (I.e.
you don't need to save games inside
your program.  )

What as to accompany: One
screenshot, a PRG of the game, the
source code and a simple manual as a
normal text file.

Details:

The game mustn't be entered with the
screen editor, you can use the full
line range. Here again the command
line parameters for pet cat:

Tokenize:
petcat -w2 -o tokenizedprogram.prg
              theprogram.bas
Detokenize:
petcat tokenizedprogram.prg
       > theprogram.bas

If you use artificial editing
(self-made BASIC compactor) of the
source code you have to give the
tool chain with your entry, or at
least give a download location.
(Creative using of cross assemblers,
etc...)

No compilers, no crunchers, the game
must be LIST-able. Of course bugs in
the LIST routine with clever string
usage are taken heed of.

With sending an entry you give me
the right to post your entire on
Forum64, CSDb and other places where
it can be obtained freely.

Judges: The users of this board.

Give me a day to sort trough the
entries, I will post them here with
a forum based vote. One vote per
user.

Deadline: 1st of June 2010 - 11 o
clock pm

Please send your games to me before
the deadline, best would be some
hours before.

I wont take complaints about your
energy provider, your
granny/hamster/whoever or your ISP
who just now cuts your line while
uploading.

Prizes: Just fame unless someone
wants to donate something ;-)

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

*************************************
        AMIGA ZORRO RAMBOARD
*************************************

www.amigakit.com

AmigaKit.com is pleased to announce
ZorRAM, a new modern memory card for
Zorro 3 Amiga computers.

The new card will be supplied with
128MB of SDRAM memory as standard.
It features a low profile Zorro card
and has full Autoconfig support.

It will be available exclusively
from the AmigaKit webstores within
the next 6-8 weeks. Pricing will be
announced shortly.

Project Development

During 2009, it became apparent that
old Zorro 3 memory boards were
scarce and consequently selling for
over-inflated high prices in the
second-user market. We approached
our hardware partners E3B and
Individual Computers with a brief to
produce a modern day memory card for
the A3000 / A4000 (T). After
encountering many problems and
employing E3B's expertise in the
area of Zorro expansion development,
the ZorRAM card was developed.

We would like to thank our hardware
partners for the many months of
development work put into this
project.

www.amigakit.com  Amiga Computer
Store

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

*************************************
           DIGITAL TALK 90
*************************************

German language D64 Disk magazine

Computer Scene, Discussion, Hall of
Fame, Games-corner, Out of C64 and
the Musicbox

http://noname.C64.org/csdb/release/?i
d=89920

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

*************************************
              TAP CLEAN
*************************************

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tapcl
ean/

TAPClean is a Commodore tape
preservation / restoration tool. It
will check, repair, and remaster
Commodore 64 and VIC 20 TAP or DC2N
DMP files (tape images). Tap Clean
can be used on a Windows, BSD, Mac
OS X and Linux computers.

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

*************************************
 COMPETITION PRO NOW IN CLEAR OPTION
*************************************

http://www.preis.de/news/2010/02/spee
dlink-competition-pro-usb-joystick-kl
assikers/

Which home computer-veteran does not
remember still this striking
joystick? Of the Competition Per
essential accessories were in the
80s for the Commodore calculators
popular at that time C64 and Amiga.
Now there is a new edition.

From house Jllenbeck comes the
speed link Competition per USB which
is connected  as the name already
indicates  via USB port to PCs.
Externally the joystick has barely
changed. Indeed, was the clear
version in which the device seems
now new, at that time a rarity  the
standard design was black-red.

Two big ones as well as two smaller
buttons exist, in addition, there is
a long-term fire-badge. The fitted
with springs metal kink itself
registers movements in eight
directions. Links and Rechtshnder
can use the joystick equally. In
addition, big robustness is promised.

A CD-ROM with 99 C64 plays is also
provided,

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

*************************************
    COMMODORE PLUS/4 SPREADSHEET
*************************************

The Plus4 spreadsheet, SVS-Calc, has
now been improved to V1.5 with many
new improvements and bugfixes. To
read more about it and to download
it, go to
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software
/SVS-Calc_1_5

Released by: Fantastic Italian
Research Enterprise (FIRE)
Created by: Z., Valentino (SVS)

Notes: Spreadsheet with intuitive
interface, powerful calculation
engine, graphics generator, colour
themes, and much more

There is even a video of it on
YouTube; go to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYZwS5
v09wU

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

*************************************
              DATATOOL
*************************************

I have also been pointed to this
Commodore 64 spreadsheet by a user

http://members.chello.at/wiener.freih
eit/datatool.htm

General

The C64 is a very nice computer for
solving trivial problems concerning
calculation by yourself. Simply turn
on the machine and write a little
BASIC program for your needs. But if
you want to provide some comfortable
data editing options, the
programming effort will grow
considerably, and C64 BASIC does not
support such a task very well. This
was, why I started thinking about a
program written in machine language
for data management, in combination
with free programmable BASIC
functions for data processing. I
searched for existing solutions, but
couldn't find anything of this kind.

As a hobby programmer, I write
programs mainly for my own use. But
this one could be useful for other
C64 users too. Well, there are not
much around, and few of them will
have a field of application for such
a program. Anyway, it is here, it is
free, and if you see a benefit, then
download and use it!

C64 Datatool is proper for
inputting, editing and printing any
kind of data in tabular form. In the
simplest way of use, the program
will store lists of words or
numbers. Data processing (e.g.
spreadsheet analysis, statistics or
data conversion) can be programmed
in BASIC. In the most advanced way
of use, Datatool is nothing but a
particular environment for your own
BASIC programs.

For manuals and other docs
concerning C64 BASIC please consult
Project 64 Home page or iDOC=

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

*************************************
           RETURN ISSUE 2
*************************************

http://www.return-magazin.de/

Issue 2 of the 8-bit German magazine
Return is available to download
Return magazine is filled with 8-bit
news Atari, Sinclair, Commodore,
Amstrad, Nintendo etc. 52 pages of
packed 8-bit literature the magazine
is published 4 times a year

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

*************************************
        VIC20 TWITTER CLIENT
*************************************

http://gizmodo.com/5472513/youre-neve
r-too-old-to-tweet

Utilising TweetVER (short for
Tweeting from a Vintage ComputER),
the people at the PC Museum will be
accessing Twitter from this VIC-20
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/twitter.asp

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

*************************************
   NEW VERSION OF SD2IEC RELEASED
*************************************

New release, available at
http://www.sd2iec.de

- new release format: all bin files
in one archive
Just unpack, the bootloader should
pick the correct one. Should reduce
confusion about the right file a
bit...

- Bugfix: REL offset calculation for
records 256,512,...
I hope this is the last one...

- Bugfix: Non-REL P command
parameters now match README
Previously P for non-REL files was
implemented and documented to use
hi-mid-lo parameter order, but
actually used mid-hi-lo. Now it's
documented to use lo-lowmid-himid-hi
order (i.e. 32 bit little-endian)
and the code conforms to that.

- Bugfix: Reading after EOI behaves
correctly now
I don't remember which program broke
because of that...

- Red LED only active while
unwritten data in memory (if your
hardware has two LEDs that is)
On the plus side: You now can see
when it's safe to remove the card.
On the minus side: Some operations
may look like the classic "there was
an error" blink.

- Remove XC,XJ commands
Calibration didn't really help and
the switch to disable JiffyDos was
left over from its initial
implementation in 0.4 which was
incomplete.

- New fastloader: ULoad Model 3
Used by Ultima III Gold and Maniac
Mansion Gold. Nice loader with
limited write capability, compatible
with the entire serial 15xx series
and CMD FD/HD - I'd love to see more
releases using it.

- New fastloader: G.I. Joe
Some people claim that the loader
from G.I. Joe is the most commonly
ripped IRQ loader, although I
haven't found much software that
uses it. Added anyway in case those
people are correct about this.

- New fastloader: Epyx FastLoad
cartridge
Implementable thanks to a prototype
cartridge by Skoe that features a
CPLD, Ram and Flash which allowed me
to reimplement the Epyx cart in VHDL
for testing. sd2iec supports only
the fast loader from this cart, not
the disk editor, copier or anything
else that requires custom code
running on the floppy drive.

- Support reading raw directory ($
with secondary > 0)
I still haven't seen this documented
anywhere, but a 1541/71/81/etc sends
the directory sector contents as-is
to the computer if you try to open $
with a secondary address > 0 (not
possible with LOAD). Implemented
exactly for D64/D71/D81 images,
approximated well enough for Unicopy
(from the Test/Demo disk) for
FAT/M2I.

- "display disk images as
directories"-mode
New option to show mountable files
as either files, directories or both
in the directory listing. This may
allow some programs written for CMD
drives to mount those images, but
don't expect too much because
mounting disk images has some
additional requirements on the exact
format of the CD command.

- DNP support
Should work with every size, tested
only with maximum-size DNP files.
DirMaster 2.1/Style can create those
files on Windows, but unfortunately
has a bug when creating directories
that will cause the CD:_ (left
arrow) command to fail. Instead of
returning to the parent directory
you'll be presented with random
garbage when listing the directory
contents, you can use CD// to
recover from this situation.
Hopefully someone will write an
fsck/chkdsk-style tool that corrects
the incorrect parent directory link
for those files because working
around this problem in sd2iec would
require too much additional internal
state.

- remote display support
No idea why people want it so
desperately, but there is now
support for a remote, I2C connected
display that shows a bit of status
information and allows changing the
directory and device address. To
conserve resources it offloads most
work on a second AVR connected over
I2C, an example implementation is
included in the source archive. Both
display and drive can be updated
independently, the drive side
doesn't even know how the data is
formatted on the display. This is
enabled in the sw2, uIEC and larsp
builds in an attempt to get someone
to design and manufacture nice
display units. =) Normal operation
should be completely unaffected if
no display is found during startup.

- build system doesn't require gawk
any more
For all those BSD fans out there,
patch provided by Aaron J. Grier

- 'Just under one year since 0.8.0!'

To purchase the SD2IEC card drive
for the Commodore, go to
http://www.nkcelectronics.com

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

*************************************
 PET ALIVE! - APRIL 24TH TO MAY 2ND,
                2010
*************************************

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcfor
um/showthread.php?19926-Pet-Alive!-Ap
ril-24th-to-May-2nd-2010

Where: on the Vintage Computer
Forums in the Commodore Forum.

When: April 24th to May 2nd, 2010

Who: ALL Commodore PET owners (and
everyone else!)

What?: A 10-day event to celebrate
the Commodore PET, in particular OUR
Commodore PETs. It will be all about
showing off funky PETs to one
another....and you don't need to be
a PET owner to join in the fun!

Here's how it will work. During the
period listed above, a special
events thread will be created. In
that thread, Commodore PET owners
will be encouraged to upload
pictures or video of their PETS for
comment, and to generally show them
off. You can dress them up, show
them doing something, or just let
others see what you have! It will be
the perfect excuse to drag that old
PET out of the garage, clean it up
and see if it goes!

Even dead or sick PETS can be shown.
If your PET falls into this
category, our PET Vets (resident PET
experts) may be able to suggest what
the problem could be in a special
PET Hospital thread associated with
the event week!

There is more. veteran vintage
enthusiast Earl Evans, who many will
know from his Retrobits Podcast,
will be checking the uploads. At the
end of the event Earl will announce
awards for the best photos or videos
in the following categories:

1.Best DRESSED PET (adorned with
props, perhaps showing a theme)

2.Best BEHAVED PET (A PET doing
something?perhaps running a program,
showing some graphics, operating
some equipment etc.)

3.Best GROOMED PET (The cleanest PET
which is in tip-top shape externally)

4.Most NEGLECTED PET (Something we
should call the Pet protection
agencies about!)

These categories are not necessarily
exclusive and one display could
collect several of the awards. Earl
is even likely to show off his own
machine (removed from the
competition of course).

Anything that is a PET qualifies.
This means models from the original
2001 to the SuperPET or their CBM
equivalents.

Don't own a PET? No worries!...enjoy
the show and partipate with comments
and feedback on the images and
videos.

A few other details?

* Uploading photos and video. Please
use Youtube for any videos. If you
have more than one or two photos
consider using Flickr or other photo
services to show them off. We don't
want to overload the VCF server.
Don't use a service that requires
people to register just to see them
though.

* Images and video should be
original and should have been
created for this event. This does
not preclude citing links to
existing PET images and video on the
Web which you think might be
interesting to others, in context of
PET discussions during the week.
Make sure it is just a link though
and make it obvious that it's
pre-existing.

* Our PET vets can give you some
advice for broken PETs but they will
be under no obligation to commit to
a diagnostic discussion. Some
problems can be tricky, require a
high degree of technical skill and
even during PET Alive!, people have
off-line lives. They should be able
to suggest where you might start to
look though.

* Just PETS. No CBM IIs, Vic 20s or
C64 please. Save them for the next
show (-:

* There will be no prize for an
award, just Kudos. The competition
is just a lighthearted enhancement
to add some zip so don't shy away
from showing off YOUR PET even if
you don't think it's got a dog's
show of winning. No matter what its
state...snap it and let us see what
you've got!

It should be lots of fun! Any
questions please ask them in this
events thread.

All PETs need exercise now and
again, so wake yours up, clean it up
and get it ready for the show!

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

*************************************
         COMMODORE NOSTALGIA
          By Commodore Free
*************************************

I can't remember the exact year I
became interested in Computers, but
remember it was  via the local
newsagent and of course sci-fi on TV
I would often browse the shelves of
the local news establishment and
pick out magazine that looked
interesting, mainly based on the
pictures and strange incantations
otherwise known as "listings".

Meanwhile a school friend was given
a zx81 for his birthday along with a
thermal printer and later upgraded
to a 16k ram pack. (I am sure he
didn't really want this as he seems
to have little interest in the
machine or playing with it when I
called) I remember I wasn't very
impressed with the system especially
the Ram pack that kept falling off
and crashing the machine, also the
keyboard and entry system did
nothing for me. I managed to get the
hang of some rudimentary Basic
Commands and managed some sort of
text adventure game and of course to
print my name all over the screen
"HELLO WORLD". I cant tell you any
games we played but I do remember
one trying to get a budgie into a
cage and a maze game looked very
interesting but I don't think it was
Monster maze.

Meanwhile back in school

The School had purchased 2
computers, some form of Commodore
PETS, they locked them up in "the
computer room" and I remember you
could only use the machines if you
were in set 1 for maths. I presume
everyone else was deemed too thick
to operate them. My zx81 owning
fried was by some strange
coincidence in "set one" for maths
and so had access to the machines,
however I was in set 3 (for thick
people) so couldn't use the
machines. My friend showed me
homework about computers and
although I found the questions and
indeed the answers easy he
struggled. So we traded, I did his
assignments and homework he did my
Technical drawing homework. (oh
don't tell anyone about that) for
some reason as soon as I was given a
piece of paper for Technical drawing
it would become horribly marked
without me even putting pen to paper
anyway?..

My friend was very reluctant to play
on his zx81 I presume he felt I was
more clever, didn't like being shown
up. I looked through various
magazines and found an article about
the "Vic20" produced by the
typewriter firm Commodore, this was
a Colour machine with sound! The
pictures in the magazine looked
amazing. So; I asked my Father and
mother for a machine to improve my
maths and English (cough
splutter?.). I presume everyone used
this ploy to con parents into
thinking there children would loose
out of they didn't have a computer,
however due to the cost my plan
failed.

Typewriter

I had a type writer and I typed in
one or more of the basic listings
each and every day, I did this for
months, my father watched this and
soon we were going to a friends who
owned a mythical "VIC20". When we
arrived the machine was playing
Blitz Bomber, we played this for
some time, everyone was excited
especially when the little man cam
out the plane to wave! when you
landed the plane. my dads friend
said he had the game for a week and
couldn't land so I must be good at
it. Then we looked at music and a
text writer program. Loading games
from tape was slow but do you know I
didn't really notice, what with the
excitement about the VIC and the
BUZZING in my head. Sound Colour
graphics heck this is far superior
to the ZX81.

I know my Father tried to palm me
off with some form of games console,
and I remember about this time
looking at the amazing Atari 200 at
another friend's houses, but it
didn't have a keyboard and you
couldn't connect a printer so
although the games were good it was
dismissed by me. I also remember my
Father was ready to part with money
for an intelivison console, but I
finally talked him out of this in
the shop (much to the disgust of the
salesman).

Christmas

Christmas came to our house and I
had just one present that year a VIC
20 and a cassette player. I remember
loading "Blue meaniez from outer
space" as if it was yesterday, it
confused me why the meaniez stopped
when the lasers zapped. I tried my
hand at some of the Basic listings
in the book on Christmas day and
managed to get HAPPY CHRISTMAS and a
rudimentary tune (something like
jingle bells) playing (this took me
all day. I know my Mother and Father
were impressed and seemed glad the
system was purchased.

The Vic stayed with me for a few
years until the pull of the
Commodore 64 was too much. One of my
friends had a BBC micro and we
played Elite and defender both
looked amazing; but something still
pulled me towards the Commodore 64.
The BBC micro was used in an
introductory look at computing by
the BBC, so my parents were sort of
pushing this unit. I refused and
wanted a C64, again at Christmas
some years later I received a C64
and another dataset drive. A moth
later for my birthday I received a
Floppy disk drive and I saved up my
pennies for a 1084 colour monitor.
Although the Vic was amazing the
Sound from the Commodore 64 just
blew me away. I remember visiting
many shops and watching demos on the
Commodore 64, something about the
sound from this machine was special.

Potential

My Father started to see potential
in the Commodore 64 especially with
the various word processors and
spreadsheet packages I was using. He
bought me a dot matrix printer and
we went to a Computer show in London
to see what was new. It took a good
5 hours drive from our house to get
to the exhibition centre. The
exhibition was amazing, mainly
because it was the first I had
attended and we became fixed on the
GEOS stand a full GUI system for the
Commodore 64! you could change fonts
and font size make corrections
absolutely amazing, my father bought
the package after a 10 minute demo.
it was Geos version 1, and we used
this for some months then went to
version 2. Geos did irk me somewhat
that the main boot disk couldn't be
copied. The system as a whole was
amazing though (but slow with just
one drive) it didn't seem to matter
how long documents took to create I
was in a world of my own, although
spellchecking things wasn't such a
thrill (still isn't really).

Amiga

I remember seeing an advert for the
amazing Amiga so it was a natural
progression to this machine. I had
the Commodore 64 hooked up to a
couple of MIDI sound devices and
could create music using various
music packages of the time. I also
had a sound sampler and a drum
machine for the Commodore 64 hence
the immediate acceptance into a
local band to do electronic drum and
synthesiser programming; the group
also had a Rolland Juno keyboard,
and I fell in love with this. As you
can imagine we were quite poor,
although the experience was fun, we
did a few gigs then split up after
arguments about money and the usual
(I do more work than you).

Jobsworth

I decided I wanted to work with
computers somehow but didn't know
what, the school I attended
suggested I think of another job as
I was too poor at maths. Because I
had no formal computer training no
one would take me on as a programmer
(probably a wise decision) or
computer sales person. I was always
good at joinery/carpentry so
reluctantly I went into this line of
work doing a 4 year apprenticeship
and then working for a local company.

Now back to the Amiga

this was a 21st birthday present and
my introduction to sound trackers,
you could recreate a full record
with just sampling a few drum breaks
and hooks and vocals. Also with me
working I purchased yet another
floppy drive and a commodore 64
emulator for the Amiga! Yes I was
still using the Commodore 64 with
the Amiga. I could trigger samples
from the C64 using software on the
Amiga, this I figured was pretty
cool. And so did some members of a
local band.

Fast forward and the Amiga 4000
appeared I had done some music work
on a tape for friends  mainly
experimental music, I thought it was
a fair attempt but they insisted me
to commercially produce the tapes
and to sell them. I had 500 copies
manufactured by a professionally
duplication agency. The tapes
appeared on local radio and within a
month had sold out! I produced
another 500 and most of these sold
within the next month. This gave me
enough funds with some savings to
purchase an Amiga 4000 outright. I
contacted a local PC specialist; as
no one else could help me, he said
he had tracked down a machine and or
company, and could deliver it (at
the time I didn't realise it was SDL
or Silica who distributed Commodore
in the UK.) he wanted to see why it
was so expensive and so special, so
he delivered the machine by hand.

I set the machine up and we played
some games, he seemed to be suitably
impressed; I suggested he invest in
an Amiga 1200 if it was just for
games. That year I was made
redundant from the factory I worked
at having served over 7 years as a
joiner for a fabricated building
manufacturer. I saw an advert for
Silica shops so applied along with
pushing into various other pc
related shops in the hope I could
get a job by blagging as I realised
this could be my last chance into
the pc and games industry.

To my credit I had successfully set
up a 286 for my father with a laser
printer and upgraded it to a 386
then later a 486 and finally self
built a Pentium. I did have some
skills and it seemed this was enough
for most shops! I was given a job as
a PC technician at a local shop. I
also went for an assessment in
Manchester for Silica Shops they
seemed impressed I knew so much
about the Amiga machines and
Commodore in general, I sat for an
hour talking about Zorro slots, poor
guy I didn't give him a chance. I
was told I would get the job! but
formality meant a second interview
and again bored the HR director with
my verbal Commodore evangelisms. I
was thinking about the pc
technicians' job should I accept
this as a stopgap; but just as I was
thinking it all over: the phone rang
it was Silica's HR "you have the job
and start on xyz day at 9am." Cool
no brainer then

After working at silica for a few
months I was promoted to assistant
manager, later as the manager left I
was employed as a stand in manager.
My Midi equipment grew as I worked
on PC machines fixing windows
problems and freeing enough base
memory to play games for friends! I
later produced a boot disk we gave
away in the Shop for pc user to help
them play games, with options for No
ems Ems memory etc. Windows 95
arrived and that meant more friends
needed help upgrading etc, aren't
PCs great as a source of income.
Some news arrived about Commodore
being in trouble and they then
produced the Amiga 600 but we
couldn't work out why the machine
was released.

Christmas

During Christmas periods the amount
of Amiga 1200 we sold was unreal, I
remember some guy coming in and
asking for 6 machines. Silica were
as I said THE importer of Commodore
for the UK, they would re-bundling
machines and create the various
packs in house to ship out to other
shops. Then the cd32 arrived, an
interesting concept and I remember
that Commodore; who were again ahead
of time had released the CDTV that
no one under-stood. I think changing
the name of the CDTV to MEDIA Centre
would have been a better move (with
hindsight) My problem with the Amiga
4000 was it was a bodge, all the
promises of better chipset then the
1200 and a DSP for sound were of
course cut. As it turned out these
were down to lack of funds from a
now failing Commodore. I ended up
with a 1200 in a big box with zorro
cards and a faster processor that
caused many games problems, ah well
that's progress.

SOUND ON SOUND QUOTE October 1991
DR. T'S KCS AMIGA
Dr. T's KCS Amiga: Level II V3.5
Quality music software for the
Commodore Amiga has been thin on the
ground, but now there's at least one
sequencer that can stand comparison
to leading ST software. Paul Overaa
checks out version 3.5 of Dr. T's
KCS level II.
http://www.soundonsound.com/Contents.
php?Month=10&Year=1991

I used Drt`s KCS level 3.5 to
compose music, and still think this
is the best piece of software I have
ever seen (although it did have some
bugs and the screen size was fixed
arghhhhhh) I went on a one day
course to learn how to use Drt`s and
was disappointed the programming
language part of the software was
only described briefly. The gent
taking the course said it was
covered in another course costing
over 1 thousand pounds! I declined
attending this due to money problems
(like finding or justifying the
price) this was the most powerful
part of the program. I never got on
with Music X as many others seemed
to, If it was me or if it was just
not intuitive I am unsure so it got
dumped maybe it was too intuitive!
Around this time I took part in a
COBOL programming course, this
taught me one important thing, that
is "I am not a natural programmer"
The cd32 was interesting especially
if sold with the FMV module allowing
Full screen feature films to be
viewed, again this could be done on
the pc with a realmagic add-on card
but the results were blurry and VERY
expensive.

I talked in the Silica shop to a
cable TV guy he looked at the pc and
said we cant use that! then I showed
him the cd32 and he was hooked; we
can use this to play a looping
adverts when we are off air its
cheep and the quality is excellent.
I sold 32 units in one sale!
Although finding the FMV carts
proved impossible, I managed to sell
only 3 and had to have him look
elsewhere for people with stock!
Later as the machines sales dwindled
Silica created the Critical Zone
pack for the CD32, Silica had an
in-house competition to think of the
packs name. Meanwhile in the shops
we had to assemble the poly boxes
and games before selling them to
customers, it was a great deal for
the customer though.

Silica lasted for some years until
Commodore went bust to everyone's
shock! we had a crisis meeting and
were told of a manager buy out from
David Trammel it didn't happen! and
Escom purchased the rights to the
Amiga, didn't know what it was or
how to market it then went bust.
Later Gateway bought the rights and
didn't know what they had so the
machine slowly disappeared, and as
this was our main selling item
contact so Silica was in trouble,
they dabbled with PCs and own brand
systems but Commodore was THE main
seller for Silica.

I left and went to work as a manager
at various shops, later moving back
to construction for my current
employer www.ultraframe.co.uk I was
employed as a pc technician and
after some traumatic exams passed as
an MCSE (Microsoft certified Systems
Engineer) in windows 2000 having
missed NT4 because the exams retired
before I passed them all DOH! I
passed an upgrade exam to Windows
2003 and am still studying windows
2008.

My Commodore Amiga is now sadly sat
on a desk never powered up, the
Commodore 64 still is used but I
lost the way with the Amiga, after
it fragmented into various operating
systems and hardware it became for
me too complex to follow. I always
thought I was on my own with the
Commodore 64! but sat on a works
training course during lunch and I
used a web browser and in some
inspired twitching of hands typed
"commodore 64" I don't know why but
I did! Of course he number of hits
received was unbelievable this was
around 1999, people are still using
the machines! I found
www.commodorescene.uk.org and met
Allan Bairstow and Andrew Fisher
then Shaun Bebbington, and the
brilliant Jason Kelk (TMR) amongst
others like Robert Bernardo and I
joined the Fresno users group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug/
amazingly the machine was still
alive, as Commodore scene magazine
faded I carried on with Commodore
Free and helped setup the
www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk with
the first meeting at my house.

Commodore for me has many memories,
its not just nostalgia, these
machines hadn't been available
before so our generation were sort
of pioneers. We were doing things no
one else had done before. I know
everyone loves there childhood but
this is different somehow. Now I
have 2 Pristine Commodore 64 units
boxed with games 1 has NEVER opened!
sat in the attic waiting for my son
to ask about Commodore and
computers, I would love him to
become a Commodore user but who
knows, he owns a DTV unit and plays
pole position so there is a chance.

I remember Chris Snowden of
www.commodore16.com demoing the
plus4 at a recent
www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk
meeting, I had dismissed the c=16
and plus4 units but to be honest now
I have to have a plus4 the machine
can do some amazing things, pity it
was overpriced and incorrectly
advertised by Commodore.

Commodore Dead? What do you mean!

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

*************************************
      FIRST COMPUTER NOSTALGIA
      Why I Like The Commodore
           By John Fielden
*************************************

I remember I was 8 or 9.  Leading up
to Christmas 1982/3.  Before that I
hadn't really noticed computers
much.  Apart from The Junior school
proudly showing off it's BBC Micro.
I say showing off as it seemed rare,
if ever that any-one besides the
teachers got to use it. In fact if
memory serves it seemed to spend its
life flashed in front of students
without being used but moved out for
others use, or moved in for storage
only. Nice school!

To that point I didn't think much of
computers, not much hope of getting
one so I never bothered to dream
about it, or in fact understand what
they were; except glorified
calculators and a means to play
games that could be educational as
the headmaster was keen to point
out. (I genuinely hope he learned a
lot from his experiences!) One of
the class mates used to talk
enthusiastically of his commodore
64. One thing I remember was a
cousin, whom one day I visited had
Frogger on his C64.  I was rubbish
by his practised standard, but
instantly smitten. He soon turned it
off to talk and be sociable. And
there was this lingering wish to
keep playing. I don't remember much
else of the visit apart from some
experiment with 3D glasses that had
no effect on me due to astigmatism
(A spatial impediment of the eye.)

It was a rare treat, a one off due
to the families other commitments
etc. A chain of events occurred that
helped me to forget all about that
impossible dream. Well almost.  An
aunt had holdings where we lived.
And threatened to come home for good
one day.  Meantime being something
of a curious kid, and perhaps out of
boredom saw fit to sneak open some
of the holdings once home alone.
From a background philosophy of If
you have nothing then nothing can be
stolen. To a new material paradise
world of treat yourself whether you
can use it or not. I unwrapped a
ghetto-blaster and spent hours of
fun listening to the radio. Until
inevitably found out when said aunt
came home and noticed things out of
place. Of course I was the first and
last and only to be suspected. And
of course was chided & derided
heavily -and constantly thereafter.
Branded bad for life and with no
hope of reprieve! (there are
undercurrents to this very day!) I
was to live out my days waiting for
any opportunity to listen to the
radio in glorious stereo FM!  To
make things worse a friend of my
mum's helping with her cubs project,
unwittingly decided to be kind and
pass on to me her son's cast offs. I
got tapes of all the favourite
Saturday night viewing of the time,
with little books to read as you
heard. And was the ancient little
mono tape player with its crackly
volume control enough?...Nope! So
more trouble. And they say 'hell
hath no fury like a woman scorned'.
It might in this case be true for
the fury of a woman taking out all
her anger at 'misspent' adventures
with men projected where it's safe
to at any given opportunity though
must be far worse. After all had the
woman in question been more
nurturing she might've encouraged a
child to explore the emerging
technological world. No there was a
deeper motive to the midwives
hatred. I won't dwell on it or try
to analyse it here. Suffice to say
that in the build up to that Yule
tide. When my Dad asked "What do you
want for Christmas, son?"

A "tape recorder, please" was pretty
soon out of my lips. Only to be
drowned out by those who seemed to
take it upon themselves to talk for
me completely uninvited, only to
hear "He wants a radio alarm" like
my mum had which was on the list.
The question was asked "Which?"
I asked Dad for the tape recorder,
thinking of the ghetto-blaster.

Well Christmas finally came full of
days and weeks of Grandma's "Isn't
it exciting!".  When I woke up
Christmas morning, ushered
downstairs to the living room where
I saw a present in the shape of a
ghettoblaster, and opened my own
Commodore 16 computer. I was amazed,
awestruck. And I don't remember much
else except wanting to try the tapes
that came with it. And was
encouraged to read the books that
came with it by Dad who since said
that he wasn't going to let me be
left behind as all the other kids
had computers. Thank You Dad, very
much!

We were later upset that the C16
games weren't compatible with C64
machines and vice-versa. But this
didn't prevent the beginnings of
learning programming from happening,
in fact it enabled it for longer.
And while by the time I got to the
end of part 1 of An Introduction to
BASIC, the recommended part 2 was
out of print (I still haven't
tracked it down, though I found one
for the C64). The love of computer
programming lives on and has been
exercised by the excellent
commodore-free magazine. My skills
so far progressing with each new
topic covered. And providing its own
rewarding challenges. As I hope is
also true for every-one following
the articles. Even my comprehension
of the intro part1 has greatly
improved. Expect to see an odd
program based on themes from these.

Challenges along the way included;
initially only having one television
and no monitor. A headmaster who
seemed vindicated that my computer
had been confiscated after he'd hit
me for being unable to stop giggling
with a mate in class. And throwing
the parental notification letter
away forgetting it was parents
evening that night.  My mum fussed
that she'd been unprepared. But I
look back thinking maybe better that
than her stressing what she might
say all night before going. Also
games, as they took away budget for
books. Although I had no idea where
to get these or their importance in
advancing learning. Growing up;
football took precedence.

At school, even on the rare occasion
in the final year when I got a go on
the Beeb.  And with some excitement
as the educational games looked
interesting. The conflicting
keyboard always brought my usage to
a premature end. The Beeb's break
key or Reset, being where the Ins
Del or Delete key was on my C16.
With very unsympathetic teachers
whom having to rely on the head to
reload the program. Having been put
with some-one not skilled in
appropriate typing, my turn was lost
while the Headmaster was called to
fix it, but the so and so whose
mistake I'd been eager to correct
got another go!  Needless to say no
cross reference in programming
commands is given to that box of
rusty old bolts!

When things progressed to senior.
The BBC seemed to die somewhat and
Spectrum owners seemed to wage war
with mainly the C64. Obviously
seeing no threat from the C16,
some-one half heartedly tried to
compare it to the old ZX. But the
real contest was with the 128's (x2
or x3). I was almost part of the
Commodore club but of no use in the
raging arguments about the new game
for which platform provided the best
playability, sound and graphics
capabilities. In all those years, I
only saw the commodore rivalled once
in graphics by an "Amstrad", which
was heavily suspected to be one of
the new 16 bit models like an Atari
ST. I forget the game in question.

Having nearly been part of a club
(albeit unofficial & unregistered).
The draw of peer pressure had me
wishing to be a fully fledged
member. By the time another cousin
was ready to sell on his C64. It was
because he was ready to upgrade; To
an ST., as it happens. And of
course, so was every-one else!
...That is an ST.: Or an Amiga, of
course!  And by the time I got my
Amiga these peers had pretty much
left the picture.  Now it seems more
of a case of which brand is the best
with PCs and Macs covering, for the
most part, different things, as far
as I can tell.

Commodore 16

The first games I played were from
the complimentary pack included in
the box. A tape of four games, as
well as two tapes to try to
demonstrate the programming
capabilities. These would've been
better had they included a write up
to show the user what was going on.
I found my mind boggling at the site
of the long listings scrolling up
the screen. Full of numbers, POKES &
PEEKS and DATA statements that I had
no chance of understanding. (I'm
still exploring the PEEKS & POKES).

Back to the games then.

In no particular order. A Chess game
for beginners which we couldn't beat
without backtracking. And then it
took some doing. We surpassed it
eventually learning that it gave up
on losing "his" Queen!

Rolf Harris Picture Builder with two
examples of what could be achieved
if you happen to be Leonardo
Divinchi! None of us were artistic
but still, for a time it had a nice
novelty value for playing around,
and what must've looked like
"toddler-art" or something.

Moving on we looked at a rather
complicated and strange looking game
to the newcomer called XZAP. A shoot
em up, as the name suggests, with
strange patterns loosely resembling
maze like caverns. With all sorts of
alien creatures that you had to use
all your cunning and sharp reflexes
to keep away from while trying to
clear the screen of other said
aliens. These were mainly shapes
from the keyset, but often the shape
or its density changed and bullets
would pass through or bounce off
depending on the alien. My Dad and I
had much fun teaming up. With him
concentrating on firing and myself
controlling the movements of the
little cannon shaped ship. It was
hilarious when I expected him to
fire on something and he didn't, or
when he fired expecting me to attack
something when I went a different
way to avoid something else.

The final game in the set was
Punchy. A Platform type, based on
The sea side Punch and Judy shows.
The way to do it was to get across
the screen as the policeman to try
to save Judy from Mr. Punch. The so
and so would throw custard pies and
such that you either had to jump
over, or avoid jumping into and not
get hit. Despite such things as
navigating over a fortress, or
trying to land on a magic carpet to
get across a canyon. Very Arabian
Knights. It took many hours, over
many days and weeks to complete this
game. But I did it, with my Dad's
encouragement. Unfortunately, the
anti-climax was realising you just
go back to the beginning. We wanted
theme Music, A victory tune with a
note of congratulations on screen,
fireworks. The Policeman maybe
handcuffing Mr. Punch and putting
him in a vehicle to be taken away.
At least before starting again.
"That's the way to do it!".  I since
found the game is also on the C64. I
played it through an emulator as
with the C16 version. And believe it
or not, found The C16 version to be
better! Although it did come out
after the C64, so the programmers, I
think, would have opportunity to
improve the design. The sound is
better too despite the glories of
SID.

When the four games became played.
And the BASIC manuals were a bit
tedious for a youngster with no-one
to go to when Dad was away, and
things became too hard to understand
-even for him, a maths expert
(common speak). Grandma, Mum would
say "Hey!  It's no good asking me."
And we'd never heard of clubs. In
fact no-one understood that it was
important to buy more programming
books to progress with it. So
programming was to take a back seat
for awhile having limited
comprehension.. Though there were
some achievements along the way. I
remember feeling chuffed to bits
when my Dad was impressed that I'd
programmed a rendition of The Z-cars
theme by ear. From a tape that had
movie themes on. Though saved to
tape, it is long gone. Probably part
of some-ones second hand collection.
And the music tapes?  Some idiot put
them on a windowsill, and the rain
got in so they warped. But I'll
never forget the look of sheer
delight on my Dad's face when I
showed him my achievement.  The
program itself wouldn't go anywhere
as that's all it did. Rigid to that
one task of producing sound.

Another special memory comes to mind
of being helped along by a visitor.
He engineered for a rental company
where my uncle was a sales rep. The
Uncle having kindly forgone
commission on the sale to give us a
good TV deal. So on occasion when it
broke, Roy was sent round. And as
there was nothing on TV in the day
time.(So, what's new?) the sixteen
would be set up with said telly
being used to destruction by it.

We had actually met before at a
church bazaar where he was helping
to raise funds.  Having set up his
computer, he was charging for it's
use. I remember playing Space
Invaders. At which point I seemed to
lose any interest for what the rest
of the family were doing. Or for
what else was there for that matter.
I remember, we had a discussion
about SOUND. And that the chip for
sound in the C64 is more advanced
than the C16. And the Amiga was
therefore further advanced still.
Even though these were still in
their infancy!

Do you know how it feels to put
something down, like a book. Only to
come back later to find it has
vanished? I had been trying to learn
Random Numbers. I was particularly
stuck because I had little idea of
the DIMension statement to store the
numbers in. I'd given up to play
Pacmania. Which is still the hardest
version of PacMan that I've ever
played. The red Ghost is faster than
you and comes straight for you,
while the others work to block you
in.

Well, the TV broke, D.E.R. were
called and The Master appeared! I
say this because it was almost like
The Karate Kid film where the old
Master sees the boy in trouble and
decides to try to help him. Having a
memory like a sieve, I needed
reminding that we'd met before. This
set me off about my current plight.
He kindly taught me how to generate
a list of random numbers for the
pools. The list produced 11 numbers.
His demonstration continued. Now
those numbers didn't repeat but he
said if you go on long enough they
will. Several attempts, still no
repeated number. Pointing out that
the ratio of 'chosen numbers' to
'pool to choose from' meant the odds
of a repeat happening are quite
remote. So we tinkered with the
program and it proved true.
Changing the program allowed me to
see it in more detail. If memory
serves, Having shown me how to, he
deleted it and left me to work out
how to stop the repeat numbers.
Needless to say I forgot. Oddly
enough the TV soon broke again. And
thankfully The Master showed up
again.

I told him, I'd got nowhere. Once
the TV. was fixed he asked me to
demonstrate what I'd tried.
Announced he liked my thinking. And
was kind enough to show me the right
answer. I think at this point my mum
got cross that he wasn't working on
the TV. like he was paid to do. I
wish she'd have seen that he was
earning more than wages could give
him by imparting his computer
knowledge. He vanished after that.
But I must Thank him, his generous,
and gently enthusiastic manner and
his ability to communicate the joy
that computer programming can bring.
Not least in keeping me off the
streets a bit longer with something
productive to show at the end.

Roy, if you're reading this. I Thank
You very much for the kindness you
showed me in that short time. And so
besides a special mention for my Dad
whose saving up and going without
his beloved beer meant I actually
got a computer, this article,
including much of the programming
series for The C16 is dedicated to
you.

C=64

The Commodore 64 looked like it had
been repaired along its way to me.
And did well to last as long as it
did. Still it didn't quite reach my
18th where I was to receive a life
assurance maturity payout.
Programming had long since gone by
the by as the POKE numbers in the
manual were printed wrong. And it
still hadn't been twigged that many
books make light work-or is it
hands?  In this case it is the same
thing!  I remember giving up and
playing Ghostbusters, The Double on
being introduced by one of my no
good lay about "mates" of the time.
Became addictive once I showed my
Dad one Sunday.  At one point he
bought a new C64 from Sale of The
Century in the local paper. Just to
play The Double!!!  He later sold it
without warning to his workmate. I
wish he'd given it to me as mine
didn't last much longer. I do
remember having to write to Summit
Software for a copy. I asked if the
copy protection could be removed as
the characters were too small to
read, detracting from the actual
game. It was sent along with a nice
letter thanking me for my interest
and feedback. Clearly a fellow
football fan.  Well, Dad took it. I
didn't get much say, he and Mum
being divorced, but allowed round
Sundays to visit the computer!  He
gave it back announcing he'd sold
his computer.  words come to mind
that I can't print!)

The Amiga

Having gauged the market,
researching "heavily"' that is
listening to a schoolmate babble on
about his, and his older bothers
experiences, as well as wanting to
keep things commodore. On maturity
of policy I soon became a proud
owner of a brand new A1200 from the
local store. The attendants face
changed from dubious suspicion to
shock when I produced the 300
asking price in cash. Getting it
home much to my dismay no BASIC
package!

I found Mansell, racing game OK. but
limited. I was disappointed when the
driving tutor didn't actually speak.
Finding it impossible to read the
instructions and follow the track at
the same time. Trolls, which I
barely played. I still had a b/w
telly. Having long since been
prevented from using the main one
-so as to stop having to call out
the repair man.  So, the next
investment was colour, with teletext
which was a first for that house.
Add-ons stopped after that. It is a
shame but piracy reared its ugly
head. I now think that had I been
successful in my search to find a
programming program that worked, and
lets not forget the books to with
it! I wouldn't be looking back to a
misspent youth.  I decided to buy
those games deemed worthy. And my
rare couple of visits to said
pirates was spent being discouraged
from programming by their club going
friend.  Though I was given their
copy from an A500 which didn't work
on my set up. Nor did I have the
books. I got magazines which managed
to help put me off the alternatives
out there. Along with people saying
"It's not proper BASIC". Such as
Blitz, and AMOS.  There did exist a
proper BASIC with a much wished for
Compiler but that didn't come to my
attention until recently. Where the
internet proved its value for
getting those otherwise impossible
to find items.

I still have The1200, a bit old now,
and warn with a cheap 3.5ins drive.
I remember being shouted at by the
pirate club goer, who said "You'll
never need that amount of disk
space" -some 500mb+ He was right
about that one.  Though I heard that
he kept having to delete things, and
was upgrading his 40megs. He soon
went his separate way.  The mail
order firm was a mixed bag.  Having
to buy at least one item of a
certain price per issue meant I
would go to the store less. I did
buy magazines such as Amiga Format,
CU Amiga etc.  Even getting a short
letter published in one of them.
Oddly, about piracy. We'd complained
to each other that the cost of these
things is quite high, when you don't
know what you're getting, and try
before you buy with demos might be a
way forward. But I've long since
lost my appetite for games, and
regard them a waste of my time!
Having tried one or two and finding
the whole experience even more off
putting than it used to be. I hate
buying something only to find that I
will have to keep forking out to
make the thing work. so I just don't
have anything to do with any of it
now.

...Except the internet, where I've
bought books on programming, found
emulators for all of the above!  As
far as programming goes I had got
Devpac assembler through mail order,
even got the odd book!, still didn't
understand it though. and it got
shelved.  Back to BASIC and I first
found GFA, though a stockist pointed
out the compiler is only available
to download, which being of limited
abilities I found too much messing
about, couldn't do it. Thankfully,
recently I found a very good second
hand BASIC package with much wished
for compiler. "HiSoft BASIC",
(probably also available on the
net!), is everything I ever wanted!
My dream came true, or true-ish at
long last.

Games most remembered:

C16.
Star Trader, Berks trilogy, Petals
of doom, Spectipede, Pacmania, Big
Mac, The Last Ninja

C64.
The Double, Ghostbusters, loads of
Football management games, Outrun

Amiga.
Civilization, UFO Enemy Unknown,
Cannon Fodder, Railroad Tycoon (P,
*later found on eBay), Frontier
Elite2 (reached Captain, became
Elite, no criminal records, Much
cheating!  Realised there were no
new missions so gave up on it), More
management games like SWOS, &
Championship Manager93/4, Premier
Manager2, Pinball Fantasies.

END

I hope you enjoyed reading how my
love of the Commodore came about.
And hope you are enjoying the
programming and nostalgia.

Happy Programming
John Fielden.

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

*************************************
          8-BIT MEMORY LANE
     By Peter (Badders) Badrick
*************************************

Observe?

An 11 year old boy, who goes by the
name of Peter is pretending to be
asleep. It's a little after 1am,
December 25th 1984. His parents went
to bed about half an hour ago, and
he's just letting them get to sleep
before the foraging begins.

We pan the camera around his dark
bedroom, switch on the night vision
light and watch as Peter reaches
down to the bottom of the bed. His
hand closes over a lump. Peter is
grinning.

Jump forwards an hour. Peter has
decided it's late enough to get up.
He's been through his stocking,
right down to the fruit and nuts
that are always at the bottom. He's
read his new book as best he could
in the dim light coming through the
gap in the curtains. The snoring has
started from across the hall, so now
is the time.

He slips out of bed and winces as
something falls to the floor. The
snoring continues. He lets out a
breath and creeps to the bedroom
door, slowly turns the handle and
peeps out onto the landing. There's
his Dad, waiting for him. Sprung!
His Dad smiles and tells him to have
fun, but keep quiet. Peter's gone
before he can finish!!

Downstairs, we can see the small
lamp in the corner of the room has
been left on, and there is something
on the coffee table. Peter gasps as
he realises what it is. Oh boy, a
Commodore 64! Not a Spectrum, but a
REAL computer. Real keys too, not
rubber blobs. This is the best
Christmas EVER! (Well, this year at
least). He sits on the couch in
front of the computer. There's the
computer, a joystick, 6 games and a
tape deck. There's a note on the top
of the tape deck. He gets up to read
the note.

Good morning Peter, happy Christmas.
I bet it's not even 3am! Turn on the
TV, then the computer. When it says
READY, press SHIFT RUN/STOP and wait.

He follows the instructions to the
letter. PRESS PLAY ON TAPE appears
on the screen. Cool. He presses play
and after a short while FOUND "XMAS
MESSAGE" is displayed. A short time
later, the READY prompt is showing
again and the flashing cursor is
waiting for input. He types RUN and
presses return.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER
HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER
HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER
HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER
HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER
HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER
HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER
HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER
HAPPY CHRISTMAS PETER

WOW, this is great!

After watching this for a few
minutes, Peter turns the computer
off and changes the tape for a 64
Supersoft game called Xerons. SHIFT
RUN/STOP, PRESS PLAY ON TAPE.

Peter (Badders) Badrick.

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

*************************************
       NOSTALGIC COMPUTER PAST
        By Chris Syntichakis
*************************************

From the childhood I had mania about
electronics, my dad is marine
engineer and was involved with
electronics projects. Around 80s I
started to read about computers on
various electronics magazines, I
found them interested as there were
a lot of projects that 'married'
electronics and computers.

That time I got a used ZX81 (had a
faulty PSU, but I managed to fix
it..), but later stopped working.
Then I decided to upgrade from the
ZX81 to a better system...

I got a Plus/4 from Italy, my
biggest mistake that time, there was
no software (I was living in Greece)
except some educational programs,
some text adventures (mainly for
C16) and some crappy games like
'Street Olympics'. The only good
thing about this machine was the
BASIC, I liked type-ins from
magazines and I started to make my
own, like mathematics-related (e.g.
matrix solvers) or electronics
related (like resistor codes)..
sometimes, I tried to convert BASIC
programs from type-ins for other
machines (but in vain...)

After around one year I upgraded to
a C64, as this has more software
(and warez) heh good ol' times we
had nice copy parties there.

But my C64 did not last so long, as
I fell in love with the Amiga... A
friend of mine received an Amiga
1000. I remember I went back to
home, after visited my friend and
saw the 'boing demo', the poor C64
was like a piece of crap in
comparison to the Amiga.. That was
my last time with 8bit C='s. Amiga
was expensive, so I got an Atari ST.

Some years passed, without my C64...
I changed a lot of machines, an 286
running Xenix, Archimedes 3000/5000,
Amiga 500/600/1200, Sun
SPARCstation, SGI O2, but  I always
had the 'nostalgia' of the 8bit
machines esp. the C64.

Every time I got a new
system/pda/mobile I was wondering if
there is a C64 emulator for this, If
there was C64 emulator I was trying
to find the sources of the emulators
(vice or frodo).

I still remember I got a copy of the
Solaris developing package from my
work and had to hack the system ID
of my Sun, in order to 'cheat' the
'licence manager', as I wanted to
compile the *latest* version of Vice
C64 for my Sun LX.

I only managed to buy a real C64,
after I got the c-one. I though that
machine would provide me with real
C= dose, but that time was under
heavy development and a big
disappointment for me.

I got 'stuck' with the Commodore
machines, I cannot say I don't enjoy
my other systems too (including my
Spectrums), perhaps because they
were my first advanced computer.

For the story, the zx81 is still
alive! It was for years into a
cupboard, as I though it was
completely dead. The problem was the
RF modulator, the signal is too weak
to be handled with 'modern' TV sets.

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

*************************************
              NOSTALGIA
          By Commodore Free
*************************************

I suppose we should raise the
question why are we nostalgic to
Commodore, why do some of us get so
angry when someone says my XYZ is
better then your Commodore because
it has ZZZZZ

I question myself many times why it
is I preferred Commodore to the
Spectrum, the Dragon 32, the Oric or
any other number of 8-bit systems. I
suppose I was subconsciously drugged
by the marketing department of
Commodore, although the press seemed
to be all over the Vic20 and the
colour graphics and real typewriter
look and feel meant to me it was a
winner over the Spectrum.

The Commodore 64 won me over firstly
because I already had a Vic20 and it
looked the same (physically) but the
sound processor and hardware sprites
seemed to be something special, I
wasn't technically aware why this
was; only that it sounded better
then any other 8-bit system and some
of the games looked bright and
colourful!

Would I have made the same choice
now if these machines were lined up
side by side and I had the benefit
of hindsight; I have asked this
myself a number of times, I know
some spectrum games were better and
never released on the Commodore 64
same for the Amstrad and Oric etc.
The BBC micro had a superb version
of defender and I am still wowed
when playing this version. Even
tanks on the Atari 2600 seemed
better than the Commodore version,
however I would have still picked
the C64. I am not saying mine is
better than yours but the SID sound
to me is special, the colour pallet
of the C64 while not perfect is well
thought out and immediately
noticeable when you see a screen
shot you realise it's a C64

Nostalgia can mean a number of
things to a number of people, it's a
childhood look back with rose tinted
glasses for me, and I have no shame
admitting that, yes some games on
other systems were better some coin
op conversions were poor on the C64
and yes it had problems with the
slow tape drive (not to mention the
expense) and a proprietary tape unit
and slowwwww loading times, (well
until speed loaders came out.) I
played Elite on the BBC and never
liked any other version! the C64`s
conversion was slow and flickery and
quite poor.

Sitting with the family for tea,
nights over at grandparents getting
away with murder and stopping up all
night, these are all nostalgic
memories, fondness, my only problem
with Commodore was the Amiga 4000
this machine should have been so
much more, and I wish now I
purchased my friends 3000 instead of
a new 4000, or had at least re read
some of the reviews of the launch.

Did Commodore get it right all the
time

NO! many times they failed and
fudged systems due to time
restraints or expense, that's down
to the management of the company,
but when I see the Commodore logo I
am drawn to whatever it is to find
out more.

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

*************************************
    I DON'T OFTEN FEEL NOSTALGIA
*************************************

Okay Nigel,

I don't often feel nostalgia about
Commodore computers; it's difficult
to do when you use them so
regularly, however I'll answer those
questions for you:

My first machine...

was actually a Texas TI99/4a,
although I don't have many solid
memories of it. This would have been
around 1982 I suppose. A few years
down the line, we got a Commodore
64, with datasette, joysticks and a
load of games. I was amazed that a
game could be loaded whilst playing
music, and that games could speak
without any hardware add-ons. The
first game I remember playing was
Park Patrol, which was great we also
had SOS, Delta, Alf in the Colour
Caves, Arcade Classics and Beech
Head II to start with. I suppose the
cries of "Medic" might make me feel
nostalgic every now and then. Superb

Why I use Commodore...

This is simple: because they're true
personal computers. I find
modern-days PCs rather more
impersonal to be honest, with the
world seemingly obsessed by how fast
this processor is, or how many cores
it has, or how much data the thing
can throw around the screen.
Impressive yes, but very impersonal.

As for what Commodore means to me...

everything!

Regards,
Shaun

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

*************************************
            8 BIT MEMORY
        By Charles J. Gutman
*************************************

It was the summer of 1985 and it was
a "kickin' summer!" The girls were
all out in the pool in their
bikini's, the dudes were drinking
their cokes and all of us were
eating our ice creams. I was in
between 10th and 11th grades so I
really had to make this summer good
as it was for all intents and
purposes, my last as I knew summer
school was looming for the rest of
the way in order for me to graduate.

Now during this time I met this guy
that lived a few houses down the
street through another guy and you
know how strange it is when you meet
someone through someone else and you
establish a friendship with the new
person but somehow never see the
other person again for whatever
reason? Life is funny that way.

Anyways, we played his Atari
throughout most of the summer
months; and near the end he pulled
out this blue box that he had slid
underneath his bed that said
"COMMODORE 64" on it. It was the
coolest thing that I'd had seen up
to that point; because although I've
seen computers on TV, and have read
and heard things about many of them,
THIS ONE PLUGGED DIRECTLY INTO THE
BACK OF HIS TV SET!!!!  It was
awesome! So he plugged and prodded
away at the keyboard and showed me
some neat tricks that you could do
by changing colours and fooling
around with the sprites and making
different sounds like cannons and
machine guns, and lasers. It was the
coolest thing I'd ever witnessed up
to that point. I had to have one!

So I went home and told my mother
about it and she wasn't impressed.
In fact, she showed no concern
whatsoever for it to my dismay! So
when Christmas rolled around and
they asked me what I wanted for
Christmas, I told them that I wanted
a Commodore 64 Computer! Naturally I
DID GET a computer (if that's what
they like to call it), but it was
only 4 inches wide, a notepad
looking thing with soft press
buttons on it, and it said "TIMEX
SINCLAIR 1000" on it and it also
came with a RAM expansion kit.

Unfortunately since

A) I knew nothing about how to use
this thing,
B) I saw little to no potential in
it's uses, and
C) it looked LIKE A DOORSTOP, I just
threw it in the closet and never
even bothered to even open it up to
fool around with the hunk of junk!

My Commodore dream was still left
unfulfilled <SIGH>.

In 1987 I joined the U.S. Navy and
served for 8 years as a sailor with
an honourable discharge and in my
second year in 1989 we went off
sailing the south Pacific on a thing
called "WESTPAC 89." I was on the
U.S.S. Ranger and I had a supervisor
named BM2 Nedefski and we were
talking one night in his office
while he was on his Commodore 128D
and I told him about how I wanted
one of those, but that my parents
were too cheap and didn't care what
I wanted so I never got it; and to
my shock and surprise his response
was, " Funny thing that we are
talking about this now as I was just
getting ready to put it up for sale
because I'm planning on purchasing a
new Amiga 500 anyways so why don't I
just save myself the time and money
of putting it in the paper for sale
and just sell it to you directly?"

Boy Oh Boy was I thrilled! At last
my love has come along. I bought the
128D and did eventually lose it due
to a divorce, but was able to regain
it again in the future and now I got
a "SUPER128D (Metal Casing)!" So my
encouragement to each one of you
today is to stay hopeful as just
because a dream is delayed does not
mean that it will not eventually
come to pass if your patience
endures.

Remain Blessed,
Charles J. Gutman
*** 8-Bit Designs***

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