CONTENTS

- Title Page

- Editorial

- NEWS

- Regenerator 1.0 Released

- AROS AHCI SATA Driver Bounty Assigned!

- Ami-Lineapolis - First Playable Version (2.9) is Finished!

- Snapshoter Updated to v1.5.1

- Commodore 128 VDC-IHFLI

- Club Info #122 Released

- Vandalism News #56 Released!

- AmigaOS 4.1 (Update 2)

- Amiga Mania #1 Hungarian Amiga PDF Magazine Released

- FFmpeg

- DiscreetFX Celebrates 16th Birthday & Launches Project Metropolis

- Digital Audio Concepts

- Landing in the Village

- BioTerror!

- HybridSID - Emulated CPU, Real SID Chip

- Lode Runner Ported To Plus/4

- Review: Clone — C16/Plus4 Game

- Review: On The Farm

- Review: Chang's Adventure

- Review: Deff-Ender

- Review: Coins

- Commodore Programming — Charts

- Commodore Programming — Vote

Editor

Nigel Parker

Spell Checking

Peter Badrick

Text, HTML & eBook Conversion

Paul Davis

D64 Disk Image

Al Jackson

PDF Design

Nigel Parker

Website

www.commodorefree.com

Email Address

commodorefree@commodorefree.com

Submissions

Articles are always wanted for the magazine. Contact us for details. We can’t pay you for your efforts but you are safe in the knowledge that you have passed on details that will interest other Commodore enthusiasts.

Notices

All materials in this magazine are the property of Commodore Free unless otherwise stated. All copyrights, trademarks, trade names, internet domain names or other similar rights are acknowledged. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without permission.

The appearance of an advert in the magazine does not necessarily mean that the goods/services advertised are associated with or endorsed by Commodore Free Magazine.

Copyright

Copyright © 2011 Commodore Free Magazine
All Rights Reserved.

Issue 52, July 2011

http://www.commodorefree.com/
Free to download magazine dedicated to Commodore computers

Available as PDF, HTML, TXT, SEQ, D64 disk image
and now as ePUB and MOBI e-book

Editorial

Family commitments and general all round lack of time have meant another rather late issue of Commodore free or C=Free, however in this issue not only will you find the usual news for Commodore machines from around the world, we also have various Commodore games reviews.

On the News items; I would be interested if anyone can actually see on a real machine; this news item working “Commodore 128 VDC-IHFLI” as although I have the right hardware I couldn’t get it to run, but as the hardware is quite specific then I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised.

Some great art has appeared over the years for Commodore machines and the Colours on the Commodore 64 and hardware limitations that should limit people work doesn’t seem to bother some very artistic and talented people. If you look at the news item “Landing in the Village GFX” you see how very impressive, superb looking, and what some would call an impossible creation. It’s a great piece of work, and although I have signalled out one items its one of my favourite pieces of work, its worthy of printing out and hanging on a wall somewhere!

I have reviews some games from the 264 series of machines and of course the good old Commodore 64, these are new games that have recently been released onto the scene. Hopefully they will tempted to download and have some fun; remember all the game reviewed in this issue have been released as freeware .

Our COMMODORE PROGRAMMING series is continued by John Fielden who enters the scene of charts and grids and then murky world of voting with some applications to type in for the 264 series of machines.

That’s about it then for another issue thanks for reading

Regards

Nigel

Website www.commodorefree.com
Email commodorefree@commodorefree.com

NEWS

Regenerator 1.0 Released

An interactive disassembler for Commodore 64 binaries has been released called “Regenerator” the application will load any standard Commodore 64 .PRG file (or VICE snapshot) and disassemble.

http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/Regenerator10.zip

AROS AHCI SATA Driver Bounty Assigned!

The AHCI SATA Driver bounty has been assigned to Jason McMullan. The bounty aims extending AROS with support for SATA storage devices.

Jason has already a proven track record in AROS community by working previously on m68k port of AROS, completing the Kickstart ROM Replacement (Phase I) bounty.

The bounty is still open for donations! Check out bounty page on http://www.power2people.org/projects/profile/32

Ami-Lineapolis - First Playable Version (2.9) is Finished!

Ami-Lineapolis is native Amiga OS4 program for solving Morpion Solitaire written in PortablE language.

The developer wrote:

“Before computers I played this game using only paper and pens, the rules are simply and I had some more interesting job then listening boring teacher. Technics are not bad - now I can save my games, easier finding low visible moves etc. This is first Amiga OS4 release and not all features are coded, but enough for start playing. Try this game - is fun and easy, and you can be hooked... I need feedback from players for improving code, finding bugs, before I implement next features.

Read the ami-lineapolis.manual and start playing!

Troubleshooting: If game freezes especially on some Radeon HD graphics cards try disable graphics sync in options.

Any comment are welcome.

Useful links:

http://www.morpionsolitaire.com - what is morpion solitaire
http://www.lineapolis.dizzy.pl/ - my little webpage with this software

Thanks

I want thanks Chris - author of PortablE language for helping me much during coding Ami-Lineapolis.”

Download from OS4depot or from my webpage http://www.lineapolis.dizzy.pl

Snapshoter Updated to v1.5.1

Snapshoter is a infinite clipboard manager, image composer, have post it function, Dropbox file synchronization and a lot more. Compatible with AmigaOS 3-4, MorphOS, AROS and windows.

Features list

1. Fast, light and efficient clipboard manager.

2. Store unlimited clipboards.

3. Add watermarks to your pictures.

4. Post-it function.

5. Compatible with DropBox (Support for multiuser sharing the captures and using only one executable, Also notes are used as messages between users here)

6. Auto store text and images in clipboard from any program to paste again in other program.

7. Capture pictures, video of any size (The video is placed in the video folder), capture the full desktop, or crop any image.

8. Capture images with timer for example pop-ups.

9. Image compose mode.

10. Scale, rotate, put border, change contrast, add transparency, use text or arrows in the collage mode.

11. Infinite layers to play with your images in real time. 12. Save the collage as JPG image.

12. You can delete or add files directly the captures drawer, Snapshoter sort all those files and prepare it.

13. Languages English, Catalan , Spanish, Turkish, Italian and French. (Sorry this version is only in English)

14. Drag n drop picture files to the clipboard bar and automatically you have all the images ready.

15. Paint, compose, create, and a lot more.

16. New text mode added to collage, you can use any font installed in your system now, select shadows, outline, bold, italic, underline, colours......

17. New RGB palette.

18. New layer selection mode in collage mode. Now the image blinks to locate the selected layer.

19. Take photos in your cellular and send it using dropbox to Snapshoter and instantly you have it in your Snapshoter bar ready to work. Also you can capture images in your computer and automatically are sent to your cellular via dropbox.

20. Can be launched automatically when the OS boot.

21. Never lost your clipboards, (If you don’t delete it)

www.xabierpayet.com

Commodore 128 VDC-IHFLI

Release for Commodore 128 with 64K VDC RAM and Commodore 1901 Monitor

Product Name: VDC-IHFLI
Group: Akronyme Analogiker
Platform: Commodore 128 with 64K VDC RAM and Commodore 1901 Monitor
Release Date: 12/06/2011
Code: Tokra, Mike

Successfully Tested On:
Commodore 128 with 64K VDC RAM and Commodore 1901 Monitor

Thanks To:
Mike (for his brilliant graphics converter)

Technical documentation

Another new graphics-mode for the Commodore 128 with 64KB VDC RAM:

- 640x480 pixels with 8x2 colour-blocks (Interlace Half Fli)

- 14 pictures each with own .d64

- converter for .ppm-files included

- works on Commodore 1901 Monitor - need feedback on other monitors

- will *NOT* work in VICE (tested with Version 2.3) due to incomplete VDC-emulation

The .d64-files are bootable. Just copy to a real disk or mount in your favourite SD-device and type "BOOT". This will start the viewer.

Also included is a converter for the PC (ivdc_quant.exe) created by Mike. It's a command line tool that expect a file called "input.ppm" in Portable Pixmap format with a resolution of 640x480. Make sure to save with binary encoding. The converter will produce a "result.ppm"-file to check the file on the PC and two more files that can be loaded on the C128. Use "vdc-ihfli-view" to display these.

Background

This mode was created while doing the VDC-FLI-mode. It only uses the VDC-registers and no special software tricks. It involved a lot of trial and error to get the register setting just right so that both bitmaps and attribute-areas would align in memory as well as on screen. It's probably interesting to know that two 640x240 pictures with 8x2 colour blocks are interlaced. This means the colour blocks themselves are also interlaced which can lead to some nice mixed colours.

Tokra, signing off, June, 12th 2011...

Contact: tokra@tokra.de

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/97932/vdc-ihfli.zip

COMMODORE FREE Sadly I couldn’t get this to display on my setup

Club Info #122 Released

There is a new edition available of the German language diskette magazine for the Commodore C16, C116 and Plus/4. In this edition: Forum, Tips and Tricks, Computerspass and the Games Guide. Software: OZ History, Zitadelle and Bloedsinn Hoch3.

Title: Club Info 122
Category: Magazine [ More Issues ]
Release Date: 2011-06-01
Language: German
Size: 64K
Device Req: Disk only (2 sides)
Machine: PAL & NTSC
Code Type: Basic
Distribution: Freeware
Released by: Unlimited (ULTD)
Created by: L., Erich (Erich)

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Club_Info_122

Vandalism News #56 Released!

Vandalism News 56 has been released, this is a Commodore Disk magazine and you can download it from URL listed here

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=100489

AmigaOS 4.1 (Update 2)

Bring your Classic Amiga up to date: this much awaited system software updates your Classic Amiga to the latest AmigaOS 4.1 (Update 2) standard. Supplied on an Amiga CD with Boot Installation Floppy Disk, and two printed manuals all in a box.

Some of the main Classic developments are:

- Improved bootloader with large table MMU support

- Updated kernel offering increased stability in low memory conditions

- Support for virtual memory via hard disk paging

- ZorRAM and DKB 3128 support as memory pagers

- Improved (future proof) Mediator support with Radeon 9200 and 9250 using up to 256MB of video memory (correct voltage graphics card required)

- Support for PCI sound card (ESS SOLO-1 based cards)

- Warp3D hardware acceleration support for Radeon, Voodoo 3/4/5 and Cybervision / Blizzardvision PPC (stable beta version for Permedia2-based cards)

- DDC automatic monitor detection for Radeon and Voodoo 3

- Hardware compositing engine (Radeon only) with software fall-back

- Native FastATA driver support.

- Selected SATA PCI card support.

- Intelligent Installer for PCI / Zorro with automatic AGA fallback support

- New classic styled Bootlogo and Backdrops

The minimum requirements are:

- An Amiga 1200, 3000(T), or 4000(T) with Blizzard PPC or Cyberstorm PPC accelerator card

- Minimum 96MB memory installed on Blizzard PPC or Cyberstorm PPC

- Kickstart 3.0 ROMS

- IDE or SCSI CD-ROM drive (on Cyberstorm PPC) for installation

- 1GB hard disk drive on IDE internal port or Cyberstorm PPC SCSI

- Amiga 880K Floppy Disc Drive

The recommended configuration (in addition to the minimum) is:

- Prometheus or Mediator PCI BusBoard with a compatible Radeon graphics card

- RTL8029 based PCI Network card

- ZorRAM 128MB or 256MB Zorro 3 Memory card (or other compatible Zorro 3 memory card) (Amiga 3/4000 only)

- 20GB or larger hard disk drive on Cyberstorm PPC SCSI or internal IDE port

- 256MB RAM (Blizzard PPC only)

Notes: Radeon graphics cards support limited to Mediator PCI busboards only at present- this will possibly be extended to Prometheus PCI in future updates.

Amiga Mania #1 Hungarian Amiga PDF Magazine Released

I'm extremely proud to introduce my long-awaited dream as it became reality at last.

A new Hungarian Amiga magazine, In the first release (36 colour pages) will be a mixture of articles: interviews, tech. solutions, serious apps and games.

You can find the first issue in PDF here:

http://amigamania.amigaspirit.hu

Enjoy.

Reynolds

FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a complete, cross-platform solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. FFmpeg can also convert from any sample rate to any other and resize video on the fly with a high quality polyphase filter.

http://aminet.net/gfx/conv/ffmpeg-gita52f598-m68k.lha

DiscreetFX Celebrates 16th Birthday & Launches Project Metropolis

Press Release

Date: June 6th, 2011

This announcement already went out by telegraph on accident and is burning up the wires so we are also releasing it here one day early. To Celebrate it's 16th Birthday DiscreetFX is once again helping the Amiga community by Launching Project Metropolis.

http://www.discreetfx.com/ProjectMetropolis.html

What is Project Metropolis you might ask? It is a Instant Download Application Storefront for Amiga OS 4.x, MorphOS, AROS and Classic Amiga. We will not only sell our own applications there, we will sell 3rd party programs as well. A very generous revenue share has been setup for the developer and is paid monthly.

- 3rd Party developer gets 80%

- DiscreetFX gets 20%

The application approval process is very easy and the market will decide which apps are good or bad not DiscreetFX. Now, finally customers will have a central place to buy and Instantly Download their Amiga OS 4.x, MorphOS, AROS and Classic Amiga apps. Developers can focus on creating their great applications and even games, then be confidant users will actually see them since there will be a quick cloud based solution for customers to buy them.

Welcome to the unified future of buying all your Amiga OS4.x, MorphOS, AROS & Classic Amiga commercial applications in one place. Free programs are of course available from AmiNet like they have been for many years.

If you are a developer and wish to contact us about this venture please use the link below. Great developers and DiscreetFX partnering together is what will make this a fantastic success.

http://www.discreetfx.com/contact.html

About DiscreetFX

Want to see DiscreetFX’s effects software in action? Turn on your television, we have been creating visual effects software products for editors and creative professionals for over 15 years. DiscreetFX creates Real-time transitions and effects seen on over 100 television programs including Blind Date, 5th Wheel, Shipmates and many more! You can also see DiscreetFX software used on the following networks HBO, Showtime, Discovery Channel, PBS, Fox and more!

DiscreetFX is privately owned visual effects startup and based in Chicago, Illinois. For more information, please visit:

www.discreetfx.com.

Digital Audio Concepts

Useful products for your Commodore 64/128

Welcome to the Digital Audio Concepts web store. Here you will find a few products we have for sale. Just select what you want with the options on the right. When you're done, just click "Checkout". Product appearance may vary slightly from the photos shown here.

After lots of late nights in front of my PCB layout and schematic editor programs, I've finally got my internal Stereo SID board to a point where it is ready to sell.

Anyone who wants one, just head over to my new storefront, located at:

http://digitalaudioconcepts.com/

Available fully assembled or as a parts + PCB kit; users will need to specify what machine the board will be used in, plus a few other options.

Internal Stereo SID board for the Commodore 64 and 128

This is a compact, feature-filled dual-SID board, designed to provide a proper way to mount a second SID inside your C64 or C128 without resorting to the old piggyback hack. Easy no-solder installation. Variations available to fit most C64 and C128 computers. Get yours today!

SID Symphony II Cartridge

If you'd rather not open your C64 or 128, and have an expansion port free, we also offer an external cartridge option: The SID Symphony II. Designed to be as simple to use as possible, this cartridge is built for a 6581 SID, and works with any software that can access a SID chip anywhere in the $DE00 to $DFE0 address range. Sized to fit standard Commodore 64/128 case shells (such as those sold by Protovision or Vesalia Online).

DigiMAX Card

If the beautiful analogue sound of the SID chip isn't suitable, maybe it's time to go digital instead? For this, we've created the DigiMAX. When plugged into your User Port, it provides four 8-bit digital sound channels (in stereo) through a separate output on the card. With appropriate cables and mixer (not included), one can even use the SID and DigiMAX together.

8BSS Card

Maybe you would rather record sounds into your Commodore 64 or 128 and process them in some way (or just play them back). In that case, the 8BSS is right up your alley. It supplies two 8-bit analogue input channels, taken through a stereo 1/8" "miniplug" on the card. This device is best used with a slightly amplified source such as a CD player or radio.

Prototyping Cartridge

If none of the above suit your fancy, maybe you'd like to build your own cartridges instead? For that purpose, we created this simple prototyping board. Holes are on a 0.1" grid, pads connected in sets of 2 to 4, with power rails down the left side. This board also sports a 9/13/25 pin D-Sub connector footprint at the far end, and is sized to fit standard Commodore cartridge shells.

Landing in the Village

COMMODORE FREE: I saw this Picture created for the Commodore 64 and couldn’t believe it! The picture looks truly superb, very clever

Credits

Graphics: Carrion of Miracles

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/97616/landing.prg

BioTerror!

http://greatnorthweb.com/bioterror!/bioterror!.d64

Type

LOAD "*",8

After the program loads, type

RUN

I struggled with the limited 8k memory and had to remove a few parts of the game, but my original concept remained intact.

v1.0 commands include

- QUARANTINE [CITY NAME OR #]

- LIFT QUARANTINE FROM [CITY NAME OR #]

- RESEARCH [CURE CODE]

- UPGRADE RESEARCH

- CURE [CITY NAME OR #]

- NEW DAY

- DAY [NUMBER]

- REPORT

- MAP

http://greatnorthweb.com/bioterror!/

HybridSID - Emulated CPU, Real SID Chip

Loading...

This is kind of a hybrid between an emulated and a hardware SID Player. The CPU and CIA stuff runs emulated on a PIC32 and the sound is generated by a hardware SID chip.

Detailed explanations, pictures, schematics, and the firmware can be found here:

http://dangerousprototypes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&a...

Have fun,

Markus

P.S.: A follow-up video demonstrating digi-support is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nCUBvLy_ps

Lode Runner Ported To Plus/4

Lode Runner has been ported to the Commodore 264 series of machines you can download it from here

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Lode_Runner_Plus4

The well known run and jump game Lode Runner a classic on any system has been ported to the 264 range of machines by KiCHY, guide your man around avoiding the guards and collect the gold

Notes from the programmer

Lode Runner +4 by KiCHY of ASN

The game source was downloaded from http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=92529 which is a modified/enhanced C64 version.

Sorry for the (sometimes) blinking figures. If you think you can improve it (sure it is possible, I were a bit lazy) drop me an e-mail and I can provide you the sources.

Thx for Honz for the great source/disassembling/commenting!

11 of July, 2011.
KiCHY of ASN

Review: Clone

C16/Plus4 Game

By Commodore Free

http://plus4world.powweb.com/dl/games/c/clone.prg

Overview

Skoro of the well known group Assassins has released “Clone”, a logical game. It’s based on the C64 version but this implementation is all his own work.

Object

Match the left side of the board to the right. There are a few twists however, play it and see. The Objective of the game is to change the colour and arrangement of the tiles in the left side window, in order to match those in the right window.

The player can perform this by pointing and clicking a given tile space.

This action performs an on/off switching in the selected place and in the four nearby tiles (“cross EORing”); plus, any single tile’s colour will rank down, complying the colour sequence you can see in the reminding column located in the centre of the screen. Beyond the lower ranking (YELLOW), a tile disappears, leaving a blank tile space.

There’s a time limitation to achieve any level, once you’ve finished to play, you can choose to start the next match in the last level you’ve faced before.

COMMODORE FREE

So Armed with a joystick, we load the game and are intro, pressing space takes us into the main game, on the right is the mach set, and on the left is our set, you need to match the set of tiles on right with your tiles that are on the left, do this by moving the joystick and clicking the button to change the tiles colour, the colour rotates matching the colour in the centre of the screen. Very frustrating to play, especially with the time limitations.

Graphics: 7/10
Sound: 7/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Lastability: 8/10

Overall: 8/10

Brilliant very addictive.

Review: On The Farm

By Commodore Free

Credits

Code: Achim
Music: Richard of Blazon, Scene World Magazine, The New Dimension
Graphics: Achim
Idea: Wayne Womersley of Art Ravers
Loader: Martin Piper

Download

Disk image:

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/97510/On_the_Farm_2.d64

Tape image:

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/97511/ON_the_Farm_2_TAPE.tap

Review

Arrrrrrr me young farmer laddo

Its time for you to round up the Sheep, and guide them into the pen, doing so will not only aid the farm but gain you points.

The game seems to consist of you “a sheep dog” and the enemy “some sheep” you have to guide the sheep into the sheep pen once X amount have been gathered you are then guided to the next round where obstacles are included like a cat and Bird in level 2, hitting either will reduce your health, hit one twice and you will die.

The Music is by Richard Bayliss, not sure how it ties in with the theme on the farm, but it’s a decent enough tune, I was expecting sheep style noises and dog barks in the game however these are just musical sounds rather than samples or sounds closely matched to dog barks, its more white noise really than anything.

The game is controlled via a joystick in port 2

And looks a lot like a SEUCK game although that may not be a bad thing necessarily!

So the joystick can move Left right up down this will move the sheep dog and pressing the fire button makes the dog bark; causing the sheep to scare and start to move, the idea is position yourself standing behind the sheep and pressing fire causing the sheep to move in the opposite direction. You can move the sheep to steer them into the pen by pushing them up and down.

As the levels increase various obstacles hinder your progress, a wolf appears who will kill the sheep and it floats up to heaven, there is also a bird that drops its mess on you casing some damage. Because sheep are a little stupid they sometimes forget and start moving in the wrong or random directions.

The actual animation on the characters is very convincing the dog moves well and the various creatures that pop up like the swooping vulture and a mole popping up on later levels look very nice, the background isn’t much to speak of although it’s a field full of grass, some bits of grass are blowing in the wind. On one level it looks like some sort of toadstools are randomly placed, hitting on will kill you instantly, presumably dogs don’t like magic mushrooms. The whole game feels like a Mastertronic release from the 80`s, its playable and amusing for a while

Graphics: 5/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Lastability: 5/10

Overall: 5/10

Review: Chang's Adventure

By Commodore Free

Programmers notes

Chang's Adventure

(C) 2011 Mad Productions All Rights Reserved.

To load, rewind the tape, then press SHIFT + RUN/STOP, then press play on the tape recorder. The program will now load.

In his previous adventure, Chang, along with his lover Koong-Shee, successfully escaped from Li-Chi's island. They sailed to an unknown island called The Unknown Island, in the hopes that no one would ever find them.

However, after several weeks of peace, Li-Chi's spies have found the secret island. Chang and Koong-Shee are now no longer safe.

You take control of Chang in this sequel to The Willow Pattern Adventure. You must help him escape from The Unknown Island, due to the fact that the island is not so unknown anymore!

In order to escape, Chang must get to the boat again. But it won't be easy. The island is filled with evil sword wielding ninjas, and the road leading to the boat is blocked by a gate. The gate has been disguised as a huge boulder.

The key to the island gate is guarded by a Temple Warlord, who is actually one of Li-Chi's henchmen. The temple itself is also locked, and the key has been left in a long lost, forgotten location.

To succeed in his quest, Chang must find the temple key, find the temple, defeat the Warlord and get to the boat in the top-left corner of the island. Along the way, he must kill or avoid the ninjas.

Scoring info

Killing a ninja - 1 %
Picking up jewels - 2 %
Defeating the Warlord - 3 %
Completing the game - 5 %

Some gameplay tips for you

- Never waste a sword! There is only a limited number of them, so using a sword on something useless can destroy your chances of completing the game. A good strategy might be of help.

- Collect pieces of treasure! They give you bonus points. Finding all pieces of treasure is necessary if you wish to score full 100 %.

- Some ninjas don't need to be killed. There might be an alternative route past them...

Good luck!

Controls

I - Chang walks up (or jump, when in temple)
K - Chang walks down
J - Chang walks left
L - Chang walks right
SPACE - Chang throws his sword if he has it

Or use a joystick in port #2.

COMMODORE FREE

Cutesy graphics it may have although some could class this maze style game is a little crude in the animation department.

Chang's Adventure is a maze adventure game where our hero has to find objects, kill villains and collect tokens, the download link to the games website is here and various versions are in the zip file with both tape and D64 image

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=101086

The tape version has the usual loading music and loading screen.

Despite the games rather crude graphics, the whole thing plays incredibly well, I am guessing the creator has gone for the amusement element rather than anything else, as the game as a whole is very good, well planned and executed. The animation of our hero walking certainly had me laughing. However once the fun is over you realise this is a very good game, (how many time have I said that) all the elements are there and the difficulty seems to have bee gauged well for the user.

Loading

Loading up the game from tape then we have the wonderful loading screen, now I am a sucker for these slow reveal pictures and with the great beat tapping music the suspense is almost unbelievable, soon the game loads and we are on the main title screen

The title music is another Richard Baylis piece

Title Screen

As the screen loads we are taken back in time with some suitable oriental music composition, think of a classical SID style music piece here, actually this style of music fits the game better than the Richard Baylis techno beats on the loader.

Pressing a joystick plugged into port 2 took me into the game

The classical Oriental music continues through the game, now the first thing I need to do is find something to throw at the path guardians, so I can find more goodies. Picking up what I suppose is a spear or knife allows our hero to throw and kill a guarding adversary, although once killed you then loose your weapon and need to look for another one.

Some of the Guardians you can walk up to and they will throw a spear at you, move quickly enough you can avoid the deadly tool, dodge out of the way then run back pick it up and throw it at one of the guardians.

Nice game with good controls and the download also features an editor, with both tape and Disk images versions of the game to try.

Graphics: 5/10
Sounds: 5/10
Gameplay: 7/10

Overall: 7/10

Although it may lack sonically and with not much eye candy this is a well thought out game and plays relay well

Review: Deff-Ender

By Commodore Free

Released by :Deff-Soft
Released At : Sideways SEUCK Compo 2011
http://tnd64.unikat.sk/Sideways_Seuck_Compo_2011.html

Credits

Code: Chris Yates / Jon Wells
Music: Deff-Soft
Graphics: Deff-Soft
Design: Deff-Soft
Loader: Martin Piper

Download

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/98295/Deff-Ender.d64
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/98294/Deff-Ender_TAPE.tap

Review

First empty your mind about any preconceived ideas you have that this game is defender, for a start the game is created entirely in SEUCK.

Released for the SEUCK (shoot Em Up Construction kit) sideways competition 2011, The game has some similarities to defender namely that you shoot the green aliens and collect the people who seem to float in the sky and also walk on the ground. Why these guys decide that walking along the top of the screen is a good past time I don’t know.

There looks to be scenery as in defender a sort of green line representing a landscape, however this is purely for show, there is no collision detection for alien or your ship

The tape version

And some upbeat music , after a few seconds this is all then Followed by a tape loading screen (the disc version just loads the game)

The music then seems to cuts of quite abruptly as the game is now loaded and then we are sonically given a techno style music piece

The music is obviously fast paced and fits the game well, at then end of the piece it loops back round and starts again.

Starting The Game Then

Ok pressing fires will start the game so lets go..

The sound effects through the game are functional moistly white noise and whistles.

The thing to note about this game is that you are moving from right to left or should I say the screen is scrolling, and although your ship can move freely up, down, forward and back you cannot turn around like you would expect to do in defender, obviously this isn’t defender.

Man About

The idea of the game is move around, kill the green aliens and collect the men before they are captured. To collect the men who are on the ground, you simply fly into them, you seem to be able to shoot them without any problem and your bullets just pass through them. Of course bullets will kill everything else.

Once a man has been captured by the evil aliens, you can shoot the alien who is carrying him, once the alien is dead the man will continue to float up into the sky and then seems to walk along the top of the screen, until you rescue him by driving into him.

There is no radar or similar to see when you are or where the alien wave is moving as would be expected in a defender game. After you have scrolled along for some time you are then greeted with the next level, and different aliens, in level 2 for example we have a craft that shoots in 4 directions simultaneously, when 2 of these appear on screen at once the whole thing slows down, this is more a failing of SEUCK than anything else. The game has 4 levels to complete and sadly I haven’t managed to finish them.

Without any expectations that this is defender the game is good enough to kill a few minutes,

Graphics: 6
Music: 6
Gameplay: 6

Overall: 6

Review: Coins

By Commodore Free

Credits

Code: Iceout of Avatar
Music: Fredrik of Avatar
Graphics: Flower of Avatar, Raiders of the Lost Empire

Download

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/getinternalfile.php/97530/coins_ata.d64

Review

The idea of the game is to match 4 coins into a square you do this by rotating sections of the screen

I have been playing this game for some time, and although it does depend on luck as the starting positions all seems to be random, but then of course you need player skill to turn luck or lack of it into results.

What the heck am I talking about,

well my lack of skill really at playing the game,

Coins is a game where the player must match up 4 “coins” of the same colour and then move your square cursor over them, this gains points and adds time to the timer and removes the coins from the playing field.

You need a joystick plugged in port 2 and rotate coins by pressing the fire button and moving the joystick left or right or up and down

So starting up the game then

We are given a short intro and after a short crunch we have the title screen

Graphically this game isn’t going to excite many players and the title screen is functional rather than creating a full on WOW style feeling, But remember their is more to a game than fancy graphics. Hopefully this game will prove that theory so keep reading

We then have the main game screen where we can select the instructions or start the game .

Instructions

So to play anything we need an idea of what to do and the instructions although brief do provide that. Showing a pictorial as well as text description of the game

The idea of the game is to get 4 “coins” of the same colour in a group or square then move your square cursor over them and they will disappear add points.

Frustratingly the playfield is to large and the graphic coins are to small, it would have been better to have an option of easy / medium / hard to give the player something to work up to, but when the game starts it’s a daunting task looking at such a large area and small graphics you get the feeling its impossible to complete.

Sonically the tile screen music is great, in game sounds are a little disappointing amounting just con clicks

Graphics: 4/10
Sounds: 6/10 Great music on title screen
Game Play: 4/10
Longevity: 4/10

Overall: 4/10

The coins are to small and the play area to large but a nice variation on an idea

Commodore Programming

Charts

By John Fielden

Where would we be without charts?

Many say 'life is impossible without them' and certainly they advance civilisation. From maps to Spreadsheets and beyond! So here we dedicate this months c16/+4 feature to DRAWing them.

READY.

# (don't type in brackets: see photo)

# if the colour prints too dark, try adding to line 20

:COLOR1,2,5

that should give a nice grey colour and be lighter to print.

# REMs will help you navigate which line draws -err, which line.

# All commands, statements etc. have been used in the pages before, and are quite self explanatory. Any Questions - Ask.

10 REM *EXERCISES*
20 COLOR0,2:COLOR4,2
30 SCNCLR
40 GRAPHIC1,1
{switch to mode1 and clear screen}
50 CHAR1,0,0,"EXERCISES:__________
MON. DATE: ________"
{on emu; found in combi. after
0-zero}
60 CHAR1,0,2,"TYPE:"
70 CHAR1,0,4,"MON :" :
CHAR1,0,6,"TUES:"
80 CHAR1,0,8,"WED :" :
CHAR1,0,10,"THUR:"
90 CHAR1,0,12,"FRI :" :
CHAR1,0,14,"SAT :"
100 CHAR1,0,16,"SUN :"
110 CHAR1,0,18,"TOTL:" :
CHAR1,0,20,"PROG:"
120 DRAW 1,40,10 TO 310,10
130 DRAW 1,40,10 TO 40,180
140 DRAW 1,310,10 TO 310,180
150 DRAW 1,40,27 TO 310,27
160 DRAW 1,40,43 TO 310,43 :REM
170 DRAW 1,40,60 TO 310,60
180 DRAW 1,40,75 TO 310,75
190 DRAW 1,40,90 TO 310,90
200 DRAW 1,40,106 TO 310,106
210 DRAW 1,40,122 TO 310,122
220 DRAW 1,40,138 TO 310,138
230 DRAW 1,40,155 TO 310,155
240 DRAW 1,40,180 TO 310,180 :REM
250 REM *LINES DOWN*
260 DRAW 1,70,10 TO 70,180
270 DRAW 1,100,10 TO 100,180
280 DRAW 1,130,10 TO 130,180
290 DRAW 1,160,10 TO 160,180
300 DRAW 1,190,10 TO 190,180
310 DRAW 1,220,10 TO 220,180
320 DRAW 1,250,10 TO 250,180
330 DRAW 1,280,10 TO 280,180
340 CHAR1,0,24,
"NAME: __________________"
{explore for the right key ctrl!}
350 GETKEYA$
360 GRAPHICCLR

Finally, this program will help gauge where the lines go. And display how you don't have to rewrite the graphic page every time you want it.

# Try a grid with diagonal lines making the squares. Just for fun!

# If the colour is too light look at line 15. color1,... is the pen colour. Try variations.

5 REM *GRID*
10 SCNCLR
15 COLOR1,2,5 :COLOR0,2:COLOR4,2,6
20 GRAPHIC1,1
30 FORJ=0TO300 STEP2
40 DRAW1,0,J TO 350,J
50 NEXT J
100 FORJ=0 TO 350 STEP2 :REM
110 DRAW1,J,0 TO J,300
120 NEXT J
900 GETKEYA$
910 GRAPHIC0,0
{Will switch to type screen,
and leave graphic page as is}
920 PRINT"*ANOTHER KEY PRESS*!"
930 GETKEYA$
940 GRAPHIC1,0
1000 GETKEYA$
1010 GRAPHICCLR

READY.

Rumour has it that even politicians know how to use charts! -Which is "proved" in the voting system!!

Happy Prog'ing

John Fielden

Commodore Programming

Vote

By John Fielden

First of all.

The views and opinions addressed in the "Happy Programming" / "Happy Prog'ing" pages are by John Fielden and not necessarily shared by Commodore free magazine, its editor or any of the staff, workers, volunteers or readers.

...Having said all that, probably somewhere near, well ahead of their time and probably not available anywhere else! -I think.

On page 20 of "Prof. Andrew Colin' An Introduction to BASIC part 1, c16/plus/4" there is something similar to the Voter program/s. The first, "Vote" is a crude representation of what could happen with the first past the post system. Crude both programming wise and because there is no real/known scale to the bar chart.

In the scenario, either Labour or Conservatory could form a coalition with any other party to get past the point where they have enough seats to form a majority government. On top of that, the minor parties, being Liberal Democrats, Green and 'Others'; could all get together themselves to form a government. Only Labour and Tory could then get together in order to block this (in theory) from becoming the majority and therefore the most likely to form government.

As it happens I'm all against forcing people to vote as it is not democratic! A democracy thrives on the individual’s freedom to choose. Anything less is a despotism or / and dictatorship. Although The film Brewster’s Millions had it right with the option "NONE of the Above!" where you could vote not to vote! The choice to opt out is useful in an Alternative Voting system. It says I have no second, third,. Choice/s or even says no thanks to all -which is fair enough! If truth be told. If it were down to policy matching my beliefs I'd never vote. As the current MP proved there worth with a problem I was having with the hospital, a word from said MP got things moving in my favour so quickly that I wish I'd written there in the first place!

On the other hand if I was cynical I would say that this is state manipulation to get people to vote! So I'm on a one good, successful deed to one election vote favour basis! The current one is with the Housing Association, who doesn’t want to spend money. Even though the items suggested are required for proper up to date and accessible hygiene functions for the premises!

Enough of my life / "existence!".

What did we think of the referendum on AV.? A mass NO turn out, I see. I was for it until I realised it would replace first past the post. I thought the idea was to have it as a back up to avoid having to have another coalition. So that if no-one got past the commons majority post, they could look at the AV form and decide where the majority actually is. It can work if the no. 1 spot gets 3 points, while the number 3 spot gets 1 point -assuming three piles of votes to count. That way the chances of third place getting in are diminished somewhat, while the party that was in the lead under 1st past the post, have a deserved advantage. As said, this would be effective where seats didn't have a 60% or more majority.

To illustrate:

1 party A, 2 party B etc. So in AV party A will always get the most points. They could also tip the party with the most seats at the end of the 1st past post round with an extra half a point.

Alternatively (get it? Alternative Voting! ...? "Oh! OK.") You could make it even more interesting. By reversing the score of a count! There are a number of ways to do this but for sake of arguing; If a. The least score wins. Number 1 being first choice scoring 1, where 2nd choice scores 2 etc. Personally I feel AV should only come into play when no-one gets past that national majority, the post they all rant on about. This might avoid us having another coalition, if and when this one fails. As is ;too much compromise has been made already. Don't you think? -say "Yes John!"...

In any system, to get the right scale; We need the number of seats: divided by number of parties standing for election.

Here, Independents usually come under others, but generally have an allegiance with a former party. And other parties are assumed to form as one to make things easier to play with!

We also need a category on the vote form for those who "chose to abstain". This is especially necessary with Alternative Voting (AV) or the system really won't work as democratic. For instance if votes aren't counted just because some-one only put a cross in the 1 category, and so isn't interested in going onto the next round if their choice goes out, trying to force them won't work. Remember democracy not conspiracy or conscripted vote. Hopefully, the No to AV campaign has got how it will work wrong for the sake of their propaganda. I'm no liberal, nor do I care much for politics, but this has got my imagination going. Make the politicians and vote counters etc. work for the excessive money they're on!

The Intro. prog. being designed to be simple for the beginner. Therefore are deliberately limited to encourage learners to expand on them for their own use. So, Lets now look at improving/tweaking ways of programming the above. And even move towards programs that allow a user to count in their own elections. Say for a committee, or schoolyard coup!

Votes1b

I cannot speak for the excellent professor whose teaching I am very grateful to. But I can say that for these purposes the results I created are entirely fictional and not meant as a representation of real life. I've avoided politics for radio stations, as it was a cheap way to plug the one I'm involved with. -which of course has been given the most listeners!

The results aren't the important thing here,

The program is.

10-70 Remember my wish to cover each command in the c16 manual with something. Well, here's a good opportunity to use The "DELETE" command. What is more, I've typed it for you. just type:

LIST70

press <return>

line 70 will appear.

take the cursor over the 7.

Press <space bar> twice to take REM out, and press <return>

When you type list again, all that rubbish will be gone.

You might want to replace some lines with proper form. And I still feel a bit off publishing it. So, if you have an emulator like Yape. You can copy and paste the following:-

10 REM *FAIRER VOTING*
20 REM *BASED ON HAPPY PROG'ING
ARTICLE IN*
30 REM *COMMODORE FREE MAGAZINE*

add the Issue number for reference if you wish.

with that done, save it to avoid having to do it again!

80 find the best backdrop to highlight the bar chart. (made easy with the next program!)

100 after messing about, I decided to get on with it.

110 variable: should give more than enough options for.. options!

120 v$ for names, v for numbers. (here, you could use the integer as in v% for numbers as fractions won't work).

130-190 The candidates

210 The Question is what is the question? Q$ determines what is the question.

220 Some made up numbers for the bar chart.

230 nucleus for the actual bars!

300 & 310 The above was intended as a back up if user just pressed return, though there are alternative ways to do this. Like demanding an answer, or simply skipping an item leaving it blank.

e.g.

A: INPUT" WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION ";Q$
B: IFQ$=""THEN A

No method stops a user typing gibberish, or swear words (-"Ed!!") but as the program is written for a third party user, it is their business what they do with it!

I have left this blank for peoples learning. It's simple stuff like.

How many parties? <max. a>

name parties, give numbers etc.

You could even add a loop in the program to allow a live count!

450 clear screen, and set up title.

460 print question neatly.

470 print measuring bar

500 reset data count, necessary if going back to reprint such as live or recounts! (note that data can be used with the variables that can be added to)

510 0 to 6 = 7 times round. Remember 0 is 1 and 1 is 1 again too!

520 read data give it a variable

530 assign a use for that data.

540 print party name,

550 print the bar to the required length for each party

560 start a new line

600 complete loop from line510

610 job done, wait for key press.

620 Inform user of above.

700-720 The Gold Bar Standard. I originally thought 255 was the maximum. But as this is not a string (re. IN$) rather a repetition of one. There isn't really a number limit, except what the commodore can't handle.

900 reset the ink to standard

10000- set the numbers for the colours.

speaking of colours... Remember I said choosing the best is now easier. Well, it is Thanks to this program. And can also be expanded. Try keys to alter foreground and background, as well as repeat a colour set.

colors1

90 clear screen

100 start main colour loop

105 start luminance count

110 set up codes for bar/s, and print one bar. Approx. length, 10 or 12 spaces as required.

115 wait for key press

120 next luminance and eventually colour.

200 return standard ink at end of program.

The Listings

votes1c

10 REM *WHY AM I DOING THIS?*
20 REM *WHAT AM I DOING ANYWAY?*
30 REM *ERR... SOMETHING TO DO WITH*
40 REM *POLITICS...*
50 REM *THAT WILL PROBABLY GET ME-*
60 REM *-SACKED ANYWAY!!!*
70 REM DELETE-71
80 COLOR0,2,5:COLOR4,2,6
100 REM *VOTES1*
110 A=12
120 DIMV$(A):DIMV(A)
130 V$(0)="WWW.PHOENIXFM.CO.UK"
140 V$(1)="BBC RADIO "
150 V$(2)="BBC SPORT "
160 V$(3)="BBC W/S "
170 V$(4)="BBC OTHER "
180 V$(5)="INDEPENDENT"
190 V$(6)="OTHERS /TV"

210 Q$="HOW MANY LISTENERS (IN
1000'S)":Q=7
220 V(0)=20:V(1)=18:V(2)=16:V(3)=12:
V(4)=10:V(5)=9:V(6)=5
230 IN$="{rvson} {rvsoff}"
300 REM *HERE'S WHERE THE INPUTTING*
310 REM * WOULD GO! *
450 SCNCLR:PRINT" VOTES:":PRINT
460 PRINTQ$;" ?":PRINT
470 PRINTTAB(20);"¸0";TAB(25);"5";
TAB(30);"10";TAB(35);"15"
500 RESTORE 10010
510 FORJ=0TO6
520 READ A,B
530 COLOR1,A,B
540 PRINTV$(J);" ";TAB(20);
550 FORK=1TOV(J):PRINTIN$;:NEXTK
560 PRINT
600 NEXTJ
610 PRINT:PRINT"{orange}
{rvson} A N Y   K E Y {rvsoff}"
620 GETKEYA$
700 COLOR1,A-5,B-3 :PRINT
710 PRINT"WWW.COMMODOREFREE.COM ";
720 PRINT: FORL=1TO255+225 :
PRINTIN$;:NEXTL
900 COLOR1,1
10000 DATA8,6, 2,3, 3,1, 4,1, 5,2,
5,6, 6,4, 7,2, 7,5, 8,5, 9,2,
10,5
10010 DATA 10,6, 11,2, 11,4, 12,4,
12,6, 13,3, 13,7, 14,3, 14,6,
15,4, 15,6
10015 DATA 16,1, 16,4, 16,6

Colours1

90 SCNCLR
100 FORJ=1TO16
105 FORK=0TO7
110 COLOR1,J,K:PRINT"
{rvson}{12*space}{rvsoff}",J;K
115 GETKEYA$
120 NEXTK,J
200 COLOR1,1

For those of you looking to make vertical bars, there is a hint; how to in one of the pictures.

Happy Prog'ing

John Fielden