Contents

- Title Page

- Editorial

- General News

- BBC Micro Repair Engineers Wanted

- Commodore PET Returns

- Amiga 500 Lego

- The 68000 Wars

- AmiArcadia v23.04

- WiFi Joystick

- Turrican Met Twee Piano's

- Komoda & Amiga Plus #001

- C64 Scene for iPad 1.1

- Scene World Podcast Issue 7

- Return Issue 21

- KIM Kenner Archive

- C64Studio v4.3 Released

- TOSEC

- The Games-Coffer

- Retro Commodore

- List of Commodore Products

- Vasm 1.7b Released

- Commodore: The Amiga Years

- C64 News

- Last Ninja 2 Lego

- Lego Commodore 64

- NIBTools

- Mevlut Dinc Interview

- PSID64 v1.1

- Diagnostic Carts C64/128

- GLINK-LT

- C64 Fun Programming

- JSIDPlay2 v3.6

- Game Corner Q1/2015

- C64 12V DC

- C64 PLA Viewer/Tester

- MG Tracker V0.71

- Hoxs64 v1.0.8.8

- Propaganda Issue 29

- View64 v1.58

- 1541 - Why so complicated?

- IECATA

- Lighthammer

- ACID 64 Player Pro V3.6

- Vandalism News Issue 64

- Gravitrix

- Kim Pong — the Fair and Democratic Tele-Football

- PETSCII Editor 4.6

- BMP2MC V2.1

- Bruce Lee II V1.9

- C64 Charset Minion V0.8 beta

- FunkPaint 0.43b

- K&A Plus #01 [Polish/English]

- Break 64

- Simple Writer V1.1

- Station64 V2.0

- P0 Snake [64kb cartridge]

- C64Warez.com

- Games That Weren't 64 Updated

- Enchanted Forest SID

- Project Sidologie

- Abyssonaut

- Dungeon Crawl

- View64 V1.58

- The Marlo Files - Remastered Edition

- Bitfire 0.3

- SEUCK Games Competition

- C64 Studio 4.3

- Break 64

- Outlaw

- 1K Games

- C64 Reloaded

- Fire in Factory C64 Housings

- VIC 20 News

- Ohne Dich — Unexpanded Vic Demo

- The System IIII Game Catalog 1986-1990 — For the unexpanded Vic 20

- Borray Gammon — For The 16K Expanded VIC 20

- Shifted — For the unxepanded VIC 20

- Rush — For the unexpanded VIC 20

- Chiptunes Volume 1

- Cygnis — For the unexpanded VIC 20

- Address Book — For the unexpanded VIC 20

- C16 and Plus/4 News

- PetDraw

- Majesty Of Sprites

- Knaecketraecker

- Mr. Angry Dude

- Club-Info

- Botticelli Bilderdisk Issue 40

- YAPE v1.0.7 Released

- HVTC Update

- Looter

- Amiga News

- DirectoryOpus 4.18.42 - AmigaOS 4

- 3D Printed Parts For Commodore/Amiga

- Amigatronics Podcast 2x03

- EdiSyn v0.53 - AROS

- 880 Gamer Issue 6

- Help my Cat!

- TAWS (The Amiga Workbench Simulation)

- AMIcast Issue 4

- Crates! – AROS

- Ago – AROS

- Amiga Future Issue 114

- Amiga Image Storage System (AISS) v4.19

- The Game

- WinUAE Upgrade

- AmigaRemix

- Calimero v0.14 – MorphOS

- Assist v2.1 – AmigaOS 4

- A1200 Audio Filter

- EvenMore v0.86

- Meridian V3.11 – AmigaOS

- AROS Vision 2.9.2

- The 68000 Wars, Part 1: Lorraine

- AmiKit Updated

- REV'n'GE! Issue 30

- AMIStore: Workbench CANDI Updated

- AMIStore: Warp3D Radeon HD Southern Islands

- AMIStore: New Radeon HD v2.7 and v1.4 Available!

- hw4cubic 6.0 Now Available

- AMIcast

- Acuario 2015

- A-EON Technology Acquires DvPlayer

- MultiViewerNG Released on AMIStore

- Turrican Anthology — Complete Turrican Collection for the CD32!

- GL Galore 1.0 Released

- Commodore: The Amiga Years — Kickstarter launch date announced!

- A-EON Technology Acquires TuneNet

- A-EON Technology Acquires Ringhio Messaging System

- A-EON Technology and ACube Systems Strengthen Strategic Alliance

- Hollywood Player 6.0 Released

- A Bounty For Our Developers 2015

- AROS Vision 2.9.3

- LoView 2.80 Released

- Amiga Mania Issue 9

- Ancient Amiga Running School Aircon

- Amiga 30th Anniversary Celebration In Amsterdam

- Interview With Steve Reed — From www.c64copyprotection.com and Clone Newsletters

- Review: Xplode Man — For the Plus/4

- Interview With Sean Peck — Creator of Kipperterm 128

- New Case

- Review: Meteor Defender Amiga

- Review: Abyssonaut

- Interview With R.M. Smedley — www.vic20listings.freeolamail.com

- Review: 10x10 — For the Amiga

Editor

Nigel Parker

Spell Checking

Peter Badrick

TXT, HTML & eBooks

Paul Davis

D64 Disk Image

Al Jackson

PDF Design

Nigel Parker

Contributors

Terry Raymond
Bartosz Debski

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 © 2015 Commodore Free Magazine
All Rights Reserved.

Issue 89

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

Available as PDF, ePUB, MOBI, HTML,
TXT, SEQ and D64 disk image

Editorial

With holidays and a death of a friend recently, things haven’t gone to well with the publication. I started work many times but didn’t seem to have the energy to finish what I was doing, and most times I sat with the majority of this time looking at a blank screen. Powered on more by determination, and some nice comments from readers, things like “when’s the next issue out” and “have I missed an issue” I decided to actually get myself motivated and produce an issue. I am way behind schedule but unfortunately real life has got in the way again.

For the people concerned about the issue, don’t worry I am still working on it, it was just a lapse, and I am well under way for the next issue as some people came to my rescue and released text for me to use.

So without much waffle I present the latest issue, latest in the very real sense of the word, I hope you like it and feel free to comment.

Regards

Nigel (editor)

www.commodorefree.com

General News

BBC Micro Repair Engineers Wanted

Fancy working on the repair of the BBC micro range of machines, well if you can handle a soldering iron The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) needs help to maintain the stock of BBC machines it uses in education programmes and exhibits and need peoples help with the exhibits maintenance and upkeep, read that as repairs

Read more here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33291036

Commodore PET Returns

In a vain effort to cash in the old Commodore name, manufacturers seem desperate to put the commodore name onto anything, as in this case, a generic Android phone, with some old emulation software and a strange Commodore Pet name. It even looks nothing like a Commodore or a Pet. Still the specification seems good as long as the price is right it could be tempting. Although younger readers may wonder what all the fuss is about

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/commodore_pet_returns_as_android_phablet/

Amiga 500 Lego

Fbsarts has created an amazing LEGO version of a Commodore Amiga 500 computer.

This creation is created in scale, with all the keys, disk drive and ports in the right places. you can even open the top to check the motherboard.

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/82519

The 68000 Wars

Jimmy Maher is writing a story all about the 68000 CPU, as used in the Commodore Amiga, Apple Macintosh and the Atari ST. He writes about introduction of the Amiga and the people who worked on it, including the problems and successes of the computer

http://www.filfre.net/2015/03/the-68000-wars-part-1-lorraine/

AmiArcadia v23.04

AmiArcadia is a emulator of early game consoles like the PHUNSY, Elektor TV Games Computer, Interton VC 4000, Emerson Arcadia 2001, Central Data 2650 and others.

The emulator is available for the 68k Amiga, Amiga OS4, MorphOS and Windows.

http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/#amiarcadia

WiFi Joystick

Solo761 is working on a WIFI connected joystick. The system comprises of 2 parts with each use a ATMega 8 microcontroller and NR24L01 send and receive module. The receiver uses the power of the computer and the transmitter uses a USB connection for power. Solo761 says “At the moment it supports joysticks with two buttons, although DB9 connector has pin for third button I don't know if any game actually uses it...”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-rE1DHK3Yc

Turrican Met Twee Piano's

A German concert with two pianos where you could listen to the music of Chris Hülsbeck: The music played: Welcome to Turrican, Loading Screen 1, Thunder Plains, Loading Screen 2, The Great Bath, Loading Screen 3 Laser and Enemies, Loading Screen 4, Tower of Morgul, The Final Fight and Credits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6jcoFnerHQ

You may also like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dJrsmt9BOY

Komoda & Amiga Plus #001

Komoda & Amiga Plus is a pdf magazine in English for Commodore users.

In this edition: Alter Ego, Aviator Arcade, Little Sister Sara Trilogy, The Vice Squad, X-Force Evil Wizard Wacky Waste, Arctic Shipwreck, Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory, Memento, History Line:. 1914-1918, Tetris, C64Persian, Stars and Planets a'la Commodore, Mortal Kombat, computer hardware emulation.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16069876/files/KAP/K&A_Plus_01_EN.pdf

C64 Scene for iPad 1.1

Released by: Mr. SID

http://www.twinbirds.com/c64_scene/C64_Scene.ipa

http://www.twinbirds.com/c64_scene/C64Scene-1.1-source.zip

This app lets you Browse and watch all C64 scene productions available on CSDB directly on your iPad.

See http://csdb.dk/release/index.php?id=1... for more details.

Scene World Podcast Issue 7

Tess & Tel: Tess Fries and Jeroen Tel

Jeroen Tel is one of the most prolific and famous game music composers on the planet. With singer and dancer Tess Fries, the two are moving music forward with their new Pixel-Pop genre.

http://sceneworld.org/blog/2015/05/21/podcast-episode-7-tess-and-tel-tess-fries-and-jeroen-tel/

Return Issue 21

Return magazine is a German magazine featuring 8-bit computers. In this issue: 20 Years PlayStation, Dynamite Headdy (Mega Drive), Donkey Kong Junior (C64), Tim Wright (Cold Storage), AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, RGCD 16K (C64), Lindwendture (C64), Einhänder (PlayStation) Sys Check II (Atari XL), Tiger Heli, Gamescom 2014 Remix: Fist II - The Legend Continues, Crossover:. Street Fighter II, Pixel Art: Art Design and many more,

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

KIM Kenner Archive

pdezoete@dottyflowers.com Have scanned the Dutch computer magazines KIM Kenner, Kenner 6502 and uP Kenner and made available on its web page. All the computer magazines have now been converted to PDF, and are free to download

http://kimkenner.dottyflowers.com/

C64Studio v4.3 Released

C64 Studio is a machine language development environment that works with VICE. Recent changes: Alternative BG colour for the map editor, True drive adjustable Emulator option, Undo for map editor, editor charset and the sprite editor. Improvements EasyFlash creation PETSCII dialogue table, and Tiles builds.

New Features:

- Fix: Colours on startup with new settings are now set to sensible values

- Fix: Replaced Scintilla in most places with a pure .NET control. A big step towards better cross platform. Also better syntax colouring

- Fix: !ifs inside macro definitions now work

- Fix: Big speed up on preparsing when opening multi file projects

http://www.georg-rottensteiner.de/en/index.html

TOSEC

TOSEC, (The Old School Emulation Center), is a group dedicated to the preservation of games and programs for home computers and console system. New to the sited are the updates of 14 new, 117 updated and 13 removed programmes.

http://www.tosecdev.org/

The Games-Coffer

On the "Games Coffer" web page hosts games, demos, animations, slideshows, diskette magazines, history, FAQ, emulators, reviews and advert Scans for Amiga and Commodore 64 machines. New games recently added are : AmigaDOS Tutor, Catch Song, Count and Spell, Climbing Up, Personality Analysis, World History, A Matter of Time, Atomic Food Chess, Bouncer, Climbing Up, Crillion, Masquerade, Pixie Kingdom, Ramify, Jetstrike, Jetstrike AGA, Jetstrike Junior and Base Jumpers.

http://www.gamescoffer.co.uk/

Retro Commodore

Retro Commodore has many high quality scans. Amongst dome of the latest additions are: Computer Issue 10 (Danish),Mastering the Commodore 64,Amiga Intuition Reference Manual, IC Run Oct 1987 (Danish), Amiga System Programmers Guide, Grafik og Data Commodore 64 / 128, Piccoline, Partner (Danish), Commodore 64 Disk Companion, Amiga Bogen (Danish), Brugerporten på Commodore 64/128 (Danish), Amiga og PC-tilbehør '92 Katalog and Markt & Technik CP/M Software commercial (German).

http://www.retro-commodore.eu/

List of Commodore Products

This is a very comprehensive list of Commodore equipment. The list was originally started by Jim Brain and is now being maintained by Bo Zimmerman. If you can add information to this list please contact Bo with your additions or amendments

http://www.zimmers.net/commie/docs/cbm-products.txt

Vasm 1.7b Released

Vasm is a portable and retargetable assembler to create linkable objects in various formats or absolute code. Multiple CPU-, syntax and output-modules can be selected. Many common directives/pseudo-opcodes are supported (depending on the syntax module) as well as CPU-specific extensions.

The assembler supports optimizations (e.g. choosing the shortest possible branch instruction or addressing mode) and relaxations (e.g. converting a branch to an absolute jump when necessary). Most syntax modules support macros, include directives, repetitions, conditional assembly and local symbols.

The following CPUs are supported: M680x0, ColdFire, 80x86, PowerPC, ARM, Jaguar RISC, Z80, C16x/ST10, 6502 and the 6800.

http://sun.hasenbraten.de/vasm/

Commodore: The Amiga Years

Brian's Kickstarter campaign has been a huge success so far so take a look at it and provide your support for an accomplished Commodore author by purchasing his new books at:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1462758959/commodore-the-amiga-years-book/

Take a look at Brian's promo video for the new Amiga book:

https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/1875854/video-544399-h264_high.mp4

Hello! I’m Brian Bagnall and I want to tell you the story of Commodore during the Amiga years. Commodore produced my favourite computers in the eighties and for years I waited for someone to write a book about those incredible times. Strangely, it seemed like publishers were only interested in talking about Apple, Microsoft and IBM. It’s time to give the Commodore Amiga some credit as the first commercially successful multimedia computer.

Take a journey from Amiga's beginnings in 1982 to when Commodore filed for bankruptcy in 1994. Dozens of brilliant and motivated engineers produced a computer with graphics, sound and multitasking capabilities years ahead of Apple and IBM. A lot happened in that decade, and this book will describe to you the most relevant parts in a definitive history of the Amiga story and Commodore’s final descent..."

C64 News

Last Ninja 2 Lego

Ozgurbarka has created the opening scene from the Commodore 64 game “Last Ninja 2” in LEGO. The game was released by System 3 for a number of 8 bit systems in 1988. The game had superb game play, amazing graphics and animated characters and stunning music.

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/97019

Lego Commodore 64

Made entirely out of Lego this design is in SCALE, it has everything on it (keys, led and logo), and if you open it... you can see the various chips and circuitry, as far as possible in Lego. For more information go to the website

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/82511

NIBTools

Pete Rittwage has released a new version of NIBTOOLS, this is a system for transfer data from original diskettes to a G64 or D64 disk image formats. The images can be used with emulators or can be used to create new (real) diskettes. Changes in this version are: Update for the SRQ code. SRQ nibbling is now the default. And a verify option (-V) for read and write.

http://c64preservation.com/files/nibtools/

Mevlut Dinc Interview

The C64.com has an interview with Mevlut Dinc. Mevlut who created many games for the Commodore C64, Spectrum and Amstrad computers. The games he worked on are: Gerry the Germ, Prodigy, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Ninja 2, Time Machine, First Samurai and the development system for the C64GS.

http://www.c64.com/?type=4&id=40

PSID64 v1.1

PSID64 converts PSID files into executables, written by Roland Hermans the program allows users to play PSID files (originally used by the PlaySID program) on a real Commodore 64 computer or emulator

ChangeLog: update changelog for version 1.1

- src/libpsid64/psid64.cpp: always initialize m_songlengthsPage to prevent reusing incorrect data from previous conversion

- configure.ac: Use subdir-objects option for automake

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=139014

Diagnostic Carts C64/128

Jani has collected loads of information and manuals about commodore 64 diagnostic cartridges and placed them on a website for your perusal.

http://blog.worldofjani.com/?p=164

GLINK-LT

GLINK-LT is a modern day clone of the Commodore VIC-1011A RS232 User port adapter it supports 2400 Baud for BASIC and 9600 Baud for Novaterm and Striketerm, the device also has a reset button.

http://gglabs.us/node/530

C64 Fun Programming

Steve Morrow has started a series of videos to teach programming in BASIC on the Commodore C64. In this videos: are the following :Variables, Strings, Calculating numbers, IF, READ, FOR/NEXT and GET.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNMGCEkiBzqXjQ-AQoktfhLrpWAfoewbm

JSIDPlay2 v3.6

JSIDPlay is a Commodore C64 cycle-exact emulator optimized for sound reproduction. It is also a SID player for music collections like HVSC and CGSC. In this recently released version there have mostly been improvements for performance and some bugs have been removed.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jsidplay2/

Game Corner Q1/2015

Games Corner is an English language disk magazine about new games and game cracking.

In this edition are : Cracky Thoughts, Game Watchtower, Cracked Stuff and the World of first releases.

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=138930

C64 12V DC

Adrian Kurek has adapted a Commodore C64 to operate on 12 VDC. Doing so makes it possible run the machine on a battery.

Other modification on the machine include: SD2IEC, Mini LCD screen, stereo amplifier and speakers with SID and JiffyDOS OS.

http://wpqrek.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/my-c64-use-12v-dc-battery-power-source.html

C64 PLA Viewer/Tester

Geo Anas has developed a control system developed for the PLA in a Commodore 64.

The device shows which part of the C64 is selected in real-time, PLA VIC-II (Red), 6510 I / O (Blue), CharROM (Yellow), Kernal (Green), Basic (Yellow), CasRAM, Game and ExROM (white).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb4airxZliY

MG Tracker V0.71

The MG Tracker is a music editor that uses the Commodore Matt Gray 64 Dominator Replayer. Recent changes in the software are: New UI design Isildur / Samar !, New keyboard quick keys, dialog windows and multi-platform. The program is available for Windows, Linux and MacOS.

http://csdb.dk/release/index.php?id=138493

Hoxs64 v1.0.8.8

David Horrocks has released an updated version of its Hoxs64 commodore 64 emulator. Recent updates include:. Improvements for the drive VIA emulation sound (Coma Land 2014 demo) and the Windows GUI

Features

- Cycle based CPU, CIA, VIC and SID.

- 1541 Disk drive.

- Tape deck.

- Full screen mode.

- Configurable keyboard and joystick.

- TAP PRG P00 D64 G64 FDI T64 file support.

http://www.hoxs64.net/default.aspx

Propaganda Issue 29

Propaganda is an English language disk magazine for the Commodore scene.

In this edition are: Latest News, tables, an interview with Jonas Hulten - Bruce Lee II, sought reactions, diverse, and the awards list.

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=138340

View64 v1.58

View64 can view original C64 images without using an emulator or a real C64. The program is Open source support many commodore image formats (70+), PAL / NTSC S-Video and RGB display, Scanline, shadow mask, chroma leakage simulation, Multicolour interlace de-interlacing and has the ability to save the image as a BMP file.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/view64/

1541 - Why so complicated?

Ilejs has posted on his blog an entry about the Commodore 1541 disk drive. He comments that the device is slow suggesting it’s even slower than the 1540 VIC20 disk drive. He also comments about other drives and there benefits over this device

https://ilesj.wordpress.com/2014/05/14/1541-why-so-complicated/

IECATA

Edu Arana has created a IECATA interface for the Commodore C64. This interface is based on the IECATA interface developed in 2002 by Asbjørn Djupdal. The Specifications for his device are: ATA hard drives up to 128GB. Support for standard kernel commands, PRG, SEQ and sub directories.

http://arananet-net.kinja.com/como-construir-una-controladora-iecata-instalar-un-disc-1700248851?rev=1430068736304

Lighthammer

This snapshot of an smack-a-mole arcade cabinet shows the new input device, called the "Lighthammer". This game and input device were demonstrated at the Commodore meeting in Maarssen (the Netherlands) on June 20, 2015.

http://www.commodore-news.com/foto/Lighthammer_Smack_a_Mole_C64_big.jpg

ACID 64 Player Pro V3.6

Wilfred Bos released an updated version of ACID 64 Player Pro. Changes include: Support for 3SID, Network SID Device and SIDBlaster USB device. Improvements for PSID, search, device selection, emulation, file indexing and other small improvements.

http://www.acid64.com/

Vandalism News Issue 64

A new version of the Disk magazine Vandalism news has been released, this is an English language magazine with the following content: The Charts, News, World of Demos, History of SID, SIDTracker64, Interviews: Rock, Sphinx and Hedning, Ramblings of an Madman, RGCD, Gubdata 2015, Bruce Lee II, Revision 2015 and the list.

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=138976

Gravitrix

Gravitrix is a game for the Commodore C64 developed by Nils Hammerich. You most combine stones of four different gravity directions to solve each of the 120 levels. But be careful with the colour changers, conveyor belts, teleporters and other hazards. You can download and try the demo version for free..

Gravitrix features:

- Hours of puzzle-solving action!

- Two 5.25" floppy disks worth of artwork and music!

- Password save system!

- Super-fast loading (512KB cartridge version only)!

- Full NTSC/PAL support!

http://rgcddev.itch.io/gravitrix

Kim Pong

the Fair and Democratic Tele-Football

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=137655

- official follow-up model of the "Pong Machine" for 1-4 players

- 108 variations of difficulty (ball speed, bat speed, bad size and gaol size)

- and other options and effects

- 2 game modes: TELE-FOOTBALL championship and goalkeeper tournament

For 3-4 players you will need a "4-player interface" like this one:

http://www.protovision-online.de/shop/product_info.php?products_id=34

PETSCII Editor 4.6

Released by: Abyss Connection

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=137650

As the name would suggest it is a PETSCII art program, some suggest this is the best PETSCII program ever written although it does only run on a PAL machine that limits its usefulness, although you could run it in an emulator

Important improvements

- ability to use up to eight full-screen PETSCIIs

- new menu system

- now supports exporting sequential files for basic users.

- jiffy dos support

BMP2MC V2.1

A bitmap to C64-multicolor converter (16 colours or 5 grey / black and white, with export to .prg).

The Output format is in standard "Koala" or ".prg"

It´s possible to save the "remapped" picture as a bitmap

The .prg button will export to a C64 executable file!

The "split" function will split the data into three files (bitmap, charmem and colormem data) - just like in my versions before.

Released by: C64 Club Berlin

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137650/BMP2MCV2_1.7z

Bruce Lee II V1.9

Released by: Jonas Hultén

This update contains the following changes from the initial version.

- There was a place where you could be spawning and fall to your death immediately. This has been removed.

- You can skip the intro with the Commodore key to force kernal loading without seeing the entire intro.

- Sprite graphics was overwritten after a first playthrough. This is no longer the case.

- You can climb up from the water in the cage room.

- The drive detection has been improved to fall back to kernal loading instead of failing in case an error occurred.

- Bruce can no longer stand still on the edge of a travelator.

In 2013, Bruno R. Marcos released a successor to the original Bruce Lee game, Bruno’s game runs on Windows and Linux but it was created to look like games for the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Last year, a port of Bruce Lee II was created for the Commodore 64. The game is finished and available as free although the game looks simplistic it (says the author) really pushes the commodore 64 to its limits in terms of graphics

http://kollektivet.nu/brucelee2/

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137449/brucelee2.d64

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137452/brucelee2_ef.crt

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137451/brucelee2.d81

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137747/brucelee2.zip

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137746/brucelee2_md.crt

C64 Charset Minion V0.8 beta

Released by: Skid Row

A character set editor for windows pc`s

Requirements: any Windows O/S with .NET Framework 4.5 or higher installed

- supports 1x1, 1x2, 2x1 and 2x2 C64 charsets

- hires & multicolour

- rotating & flipping a char

- possibility to convert True Type Fonts (char by char) which the user has got installed on his system

- no installation routine for this tool, simply delete the file when you want to get rid of it

- a Linux version will be available as well once the program leaves beta status

V0.8 beta

- Font Converter: added the possibility to choose other font styles than regular only

- Font Converter: settings are saved after closing the converter window

- toolformsize adjusted to a smaller size so user with a tiny screen should be able to properly use this tool now

Bug fixes:

- Fixed a bug were the colour of the 2nd multicolour ($D023) wasn't properly displayed on the icon.

- Pixels were not affected by this bug.

- Fixed a bug in the font converter when the regular style of a True Type Font wasn't available.

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137435/C64+Charset+Minion+v0.8+beta.exe

FunkPaint 0.43b

Released by: Singular

FunkPaint is a multi-format editor supporting hires, multi, multicolour interlaced and DTV pictures. It runs on a Commodore 64/128 or DTV and supports various input devices and memory expansions.

http://singularcrew.hu/funkpaint/

K&A Plus #01 [Polish/English]

Released by: KAplus

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16069876/files/KAP/K&A_Plus_01_EN.pdf

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16069876/files/KAP/K&A_Plus_01_PL.pdf

A new English & Polish Commodore scene magazine called ‘K&A Plus’ has been released.

This will be a quarterly magazine and currently contains 72 pages of news, game reviews, an interview with Iranian C64 Community Contributor, and more!

Break 64

Break64 a new game for the Commodore C64, released by Wanax, of course it’s a Break out clone The game has 35 levels, and you can save the highest score, as you would expect the game supports paddles.

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138007/Break64+[Wanax+2015].d64

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138016/Break64+[Wanax+2015]+Dir+Fix.d64

Simple Writer V1.1

Released by: Delta Machine

A Simple Noter program, the zip file contains the history as a txt file and also a document on how to create notes using the application

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139243/simple-writer-1.1.zip

Station64 V2.0

Released by: DJ Indikator

Use a Commodore 64 as an external synth module accessed via Misi Containing over 20000 code lines of pure 6510 assembler. Tested with PASSPORT/SEQUENTAL/KERBEROS midi interfaces.

You can Use the computer keys as keyboard if you don’t have a midi interface! You can play single notes (with 3 voices max poly) or play pre-programmed pieces of SID commands blocks as ARPs.

Main features:

- 3 voice polyphony or unison for fat sounds

- full 3 osc control via midi

- use midi channel -> SID osc mapping for flexible control

- fine tune for each osc

- 2 lfo/env (4 stage) with apply to pitch/pulsewidth/filter cut

- total monitoring all midi activity

- advanced glide and pitchwheel control

- fast on-screen help

- zero latency (on real Commodore)

- tested on C64 / C128 (in c64 mode)

- works with 8580/6581 on PAL/NTSC (auto detection) machines

- screen-off for more clean sound from SID

- configurable with any MIDI cartridge - works with any disk drive (+some additional features for SD2IEC users) to load/save created programs banks

- 16 programs (can change from external midi too)

- 100% original code, without any KERNAL use

- software reset to machines without reset button

- nice intro with cute gradients

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139150/sta64.prg

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139151/sta64.txt

http://djindikator.net/c64/sta64.txt

http://djindikator.net/c64/sta64_quick.txt

http://djindikator.net/c64/sta64.prg

P0 Snake [64kb cartridge]

Released by: Antonio Savona

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139110/P0+Snake+(C64+Binaries+Only).zip

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139197/P0+Snake+(C64+Binaries+Only)+-+CIA+FIX.zip

I am not 100% convince by this release of the classic snake game, you basically you just press the fire button to make the snake change direction. Maybe I am just too old and like the original game play, the graphics make the game stand out and the sampled speech is very clear! I think old people just don’t like change

The text file says

Wind your way through 30 levels of arcade-action insanity in this specially enhanced version of the game that took the trophy in the 2014 RGCD 16KB Game Development Competition.

Featuring eight additional screens, an all-new intro sequence, improved sound samples, bug fixes and other minor tweaks, RGCD is proud to present this final version of Antonio Savona's P0 SNAKE!

C64Warez.com

Many new programs have been added as well as a facelift some of the recent additions are: Rescratch, CBM Command v2.3, C64 Colour Term v.5d, Cadgers Noter v4.3, v3.0 Meganoter, WinVICE-2.2-x86 Flyer Network Users Guide, QuickStart Cheat Sheet, Telnet64 and Client v1.02, v1.54 I-Port, Lt. Kernal / Read, Unzip 128 & 64 v1.80, C64S Game Archiver, KCS Power Cartridge, CCS64 DOS v1.09,

http://c64warez.com/

Games That Weren't 64 Updated

Games That Weren’t 64 is a digital preservation project and archive of unreleased/incomplete/cancelled games and prototypes for the Commodore 64 computer. Currently featuring many review entries with scans, screenshots, downloads, videos, interviews and more.

9 new entries added

Colorasaurus, Deadly Summer, Fall Guy V1, House of Changes, Number Stumper, Pony Express, Ronin, Show Jumping, Sqaut Bot

22 updates added

Bloody Kids, Catch 23, DDT: Dynamic Debugger, Fantasy, Flok, Food Feud, Gremlins, High Memory, Jet Boat Simulator, Lethal Xcess, Mindbending Aliens From Hyperspace, Nefarious, Paranoid Pete, Prototype, Samurai Dawn, Snare V1, Space Monkeys, Spirit Of Adventure, Strobe, Trigger Happy, Vitrus, Wolf

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/

Enchanted Forest SID

Samar Productions Enchanted Forest with 3 great SIDs for the Commodore C64.

The code was written by Don Kichote, the music of Gaetano Chiummo, the graphical portion of Isildur and JSL, the idea and concept of Yogi Bear, the character of CRT and Ramos.

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=137402

Project Sidologie

Project Sidologie by Marcel Donné - this luxury box set features Commodore 64 music remakes with classic JARRE and Vangelis soundscapes

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c64audio/project-sidologie-jarre-style-commodore-64-music-r

Abyssonaut

Abyssonaut was created by Anthony Stiller. Is a horizontal scrolling shoot 'em up in which involves rescuing endangered whales from the poachers who have been putting nets over the poor guys. There' also some nice features inside the game which involves assorted fish. There's also a big fight at the end of the game, which you'll need to play through in order to find out what the final fight is

ABYSSONAUT was built in the Sideways SEUCK engine (created by Jon Wells) for the RGCD SEUCK 2015 competition run by Richard Bayliss and is Anthony`s second attempt at a game using this engine You may remember last issue I reviewed Sopwiths & Pterrordons, and although it gained a lukewarm reception, I suggested that he keep going and working, this latest release is a superb effort

http://tnd64.unikat.sk/Seuck_Compo_2015.html

Dungeon Crawl

Released by: TWW

Dungeon crawl, using the keys AD WS to control your man through the dungeon, you have options to Attack, or Defend and collect keys to open doors to other areas. Quite simplistic but absorbing

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138705/DungeonCrawl.prg

View64 V1.58

Released by: Singular

This Commodore 64 Tool opens and saves a vast number of C64 related picture files

- Open source, mostly portable C using FLTK/SDL2/SDL1.2 GUI

- Separate library for image decoding (libview64)

- Supports lot of image formats (70+)

- Some image formats are recognized without extensions

- PAL/NTSC S-Video and RGB rendering

- Scanline, shadow mask, chroma leakage simulation

- Multicolour interlace de-interlacing

- view64pnm for use with netpbm and dumping to bmp

http://sourceforge.net/projects/view64/files/binaries/view64-1.58.zip/download

The Marlo Files - Remastered Edition

Released by: Binary Legends

On the disk are two Sammy Marlo text adventures that were created with Jon Mattson's Questwriter. You can use a joystick in port 2, a 1351 mouse in port 1,

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138382/ rhe_marlo_files_remastered_edition.d64

Bitfire 0.3

Released by: Oxyron

Bititfire is a fixed interleave loader system with depacker and an image writing tool. Aim was to make the loader as fast as possible while being as tiny as possible. So at some points size and speed had to be traded against each other. An own, however d64-compatible (bam copy is sufficient); file format is introduced to make the code less complex and loading faster. Also, functions that are not used regularly (like turn disk detection) are available as statically linkable functions and thus make the resident part on c64 side even smaller. Being that tiny ($86 to $1ee bytes, depending on configuration) and still fast makes it perfect for being used in demos. The imaging-tool creates disk images with all demo files and a dirart on it. Also it is accompanied by an lz-packer based on doynamite, however smaller in code and a bit faster than that, while yielding nearly the same results.

The packer supports output of both, sfx as well as level packed files suitable for Bitfire (--bitfire switch)

You can extract the file with 7 zip

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138351/bitfire_0.3.tar.gz

SEUCK Games Competition

A number of games have been released for the SEUCK 2015 competition amongst them are

- Payback Time

- Scoff

- The Ocean Ninja

- META14

- Shamai - Return of the Myths

- T-UFO

- Naait Raaider

For a list of them all and descriptions, the results of the competition and also links to download the games head to the official SEUCK 2015 competition pages listed there.

http://tnd64.unikat.sk/Seuck_Compo_2015.html

C64 Studio 4.3

Released by: Endurion

C64 Studio

C64 Studio is a Windows Forms based IDE for C64 development on a Windows system. It is specifically made for writing games and targets the hobby developer.

In the current incarnation C64 Studio is .NET 2.0 based and is currently only tested on Windows.

C64 Studio provides code editors for assembler and Basic V2. In conjunction with Vice debugging through the assembler code is available with these features:

- Breakpoints

- Watches

- Memory View

- Register View

Additional tools exist for game specific development:

- Character Set Editor

- Sprite Set Editor

- Graphic Screen Editor

- Character Screen Editor

- Map Editor

Emulation specific tools are:

- Media Manager (Tape and Disk)

http://www.georg-rottensteiner.de/en/index.html

Break 64

Released by: Wanax

A breakout clone with some lovely bouncy music and great graphics, I love the scrolling backgrounds very swish!

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=138021

Outlaw

Released by: Vial

Not too sure about this, use a joystick in port 1 to control the left player and joystick in port 2 for the right player, the graphics look very basic and there doesn’t seem to be any sound. You just try to shoot each other.

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137844/Outlaw+by+Vial.prg

1K Games

Run Little Man

This is a 1k game, move the joystick left or right, I am unsure what’s happening when you fire anyway avoid the sides , it’s hard because they joystick movements seem to be slow to respond, although I think this is deliberate, there is sound by means of an explosion.

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138258/32RUN.PRG

Other recent 1k games released at Nomam 2015

http://www.abbuc.de/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=8314

are (in no particular order)

3peak x 10lines

Released by: Brataccas

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138257/30_3PEAK.PRG

Schifoan

Released by: Hexworx

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138256/23SCHI.PRG

Can-map

Released by: e5frog

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138255/18CANMAP.PRG

Pear Picker on Ice

Released by: Naufr4g0

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138254/16PEAR.PRG

Stay Alive

Coder Unknown

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138253/14STAY.PRG

C64 Reloaded

Individual Computers have started delivering the C64 Reloaded. This is a brand new design of the C64 motherboard with the original chips - 6510, VIC2, SID, CIA – And as they say is fully compatible with the Commodore 64

The box includes:

- C64 Reloaded motherboard

- CSG8701 replacement circuit (PAL, pre-installed)

- Video chip 6569 or 8565

- CIA chips 6526 or 6526A

To make it a full computer, you need to add:

- Processor 6510 or 8500

- PLA chip 906114-01, SuperPLA or RealPLA

- SID chip 6581 or 8580

- case

- keyboard

- 12V DC power supply

- metal side-bracket (if you want to use the breadbox-type case)

https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/product/c64-reloaded.html

Fire in Factory C64 Housings

Dallas Moore reported that the factory where the new C64c housings were being made caught fire raged. Fortunately, he reported, the moulds were not damaged, but the new transparent enclosures have been lost.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/original-commodore-64c-computer-housing-in-new-coo/posts/1243399?ref=backer_project_update

VIC 20 News

Ohne Dich

Unexpanded Vic Demo

A Streaming Audio Demo from the VIC's Datasette

Description: Music demos streaming digital audio from datasette, operable like a regular music cassette.

Requirements: Unexpanded VIC-20 + datassette

Lyrics, vocals & code: pixel

Guitar, bass & drums: Lukas Ramolla, Berlin

Download (TAP & WAV, NTSC & PAL):

http://hugbox.org/pixel/external/denial/ohne_dich.zip

YouTube video, thanks to Kurt Johns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PahhRvIVdVM

Source code:

https://github.com/SvenMichaelKlose/nipkow/

Discussion & denial:

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7416

pouet.net entry:

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=66244

The System IIII Game Catalog 1986-1990

For the unexpanded Vic 20

Author: Ghislain (Adventure World made by original System IIII member "Nanuq")

Requirements: Unexpanded VIC-20. A joystick is required for the games made in 1990

Download link:https://sites.google.com/site/gdbsite5000/main/SYSTEM41986-1990.D64?attredirects=0&d=1

Discuss here:http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7600

Ghislain Writes

ADVENTURE WORLD (1986 by Nanuq): A very simple text-based RPG adventure. Included in the collection for posterity.

MS. VIC-MAN (1990): There were so many VIC-MAN games out there, I figured that a 4-maze sequel inspired from the arcade should be made, so here it is.

OPERATION: NATO (1990): Three simple action war games combined into one.

SPACE DESTRUCTOR (1986): A one or two player shoot'em up inspired by those VIC-20 manual type-in programs that were made by Duane Later.

SUMO SMASHER (1986): Should be renamed KEYBOARD SMASHER. Each player uses their respective action keys to bow at the beginning of the sumo match and then proceed to repeatedly abuse said keys to win.

VIC BOXING ASSOCIATION (1986): A PETSCII version of PUNCH-OUT!! You can't just mindlessly press the punch keys to knock out your opponent here -- you have to counter their moves. If the opponent nudges slightly to the left or to the right, you can throw a quick punch to tag him. If the opponent telegraphs a punch by moving widely to the left or right, you should then dodge first and then hit him repeatedly with punches.

VICEYE THE ARCADE GAME (1990): Think of this as a COMPUTE!'s Gazette type-in version of the Popeye arcade game. Tip: make sure that you are facing your enemy Pluto when he throws a bottle at you--only then can you punch it. The fire button does not control punching -- you can only punch when you successfully punch a bottle or move towards the cans of kale at the top of the screen.

VIDEO QUEST (1986): My earliest RPG game. I also had an idea to make a sequel to this that would feature an overland map, cities, and people to talk to. The game engine wouldn't be as elaborate as Realms of Quest III & IV, but it would have really pushed the boundaries of the unexpanded VIC-20. I might make VIDEO QUEST II some day, but I need a couple of free weekends to do so.

Borray Gammon

For The 16K Expanded VIC 20

Author: Boray

Requirements: Vic-20 with 16K of expansion RAM

Web Page:http://www.boray.se/commodore/gammon/

Discussion: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7497

The website says

Boray Gammon

In a few shameless words: The very best backgammon game for Commodore Vic-20. If you have tried the competition, you probably know what I mean ;-)

Features

- Plays a fairly intelligent backgammon. It's not a grandmaster, but it should be able to win single games against any player with a bit of luck.

- You can play against the computer, play with a friend or let the computer play against itself.

- You can either use the internal random generator for dice, or use external ones (which is useful if you want to make it play against other programs).

- Score counting

- Three levels of difficulty

Lack of features

- No doubling cube

Video:

https://youtu.be/fKv3EQ86D88

Shifted

For the unxepanded VIC 20

Author: Revival Studios (http://www.revival-studios.com)

Released: On Cassette Tape and as Digital Download

Requirements: Unexpanded VIC-20 + Joystick.

Description: Shifted is an action puzzle game that requires quick thinking and quick responses. You have to shift columns up and down to make combinations of gems on the centre row. The higher the combination, the more points you will earn. How long can you keep shifting?

http://www.revival-studios.com

Rush

For the unexpanded VIC 20

Author: Revival Studios (http://www.revival-studios.com)

Released: 14-april-2015 , On Cassette Tape and as Digital Download

Requirements: Unexpanded VIC-20 + Joystick.

Description: A heist has gone wrong and now you are being chased! Escape the police by running and jumping from rooftop to rooftop, while grabbing leftover cash wherever you can Now run!

http://www.revival-studios.com

Chiptunes Volume 1

R'zo has released Chip Tunes Volume 1 for the non-expanded VIC 20 with a SD2IEC or run under VICE emulation. You can listen to 10 pieces of music:. Looper, Resurrection, Revenge, Viral, Redemption, Return, TVC, Movement, Mindstroyer and AD

https://r-zo.bandcamp.com/

http://gator3293.hostgator.com/~sleeping/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7427&p=79980

Cygnis

For the unexpanded VIC 20

Author: Freshlamb

Requirements: Unexpanded machine

Description: 4 linked text adventures

The website says

You are in the Cygnis system, and COMMAND has missions for you. You land on each planet and receive your mission. Danger and excitement lie in the solutions to the quests on these strange far away planets. Four text adventures.

There are four text adventures, each has its own objective. You move and act in this world by typing one, two word combinations. N or north will move you north if is it is possible, and works for all the directions. I or Inventory, T or Time will work for some games. Look, Use ,Go, Get are good common verbs. Many of the objects (nouns) you can interact with are easily spotted. Because they are all under 4K they will not respond to every word combination. If you press L at the beginning of one planet you will skip to the next

Check it out here:

http://www.rufnoiz.com/Net%20Cat/a91.html

Discuss here:

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7408

Address Book

For the unexpanded VIC 20

Author: Jeffrey Daniels

Requirements: Unexpanded Vic-20, Vic Modem and tape drive optional

Description: Store and organize your contacts (phone number & email address) on datassette with future cloud backup support via the Vic Modem.

Sadly Jeff says he is “no longer making games” and instead focusing on productivity software, to be hones I would prefer a mix of both as his games were not only unique, playable, incredibly fast but were very addictive

The website says

The program is written entirely in BASIC (with optional tape drive and Vic Modem support). It allows you to store contacts (phone numbers and email addresses) on tape and access them on demand. This is a convenient way to keep all of your friend and business associate information organized.

Download:

http://www.sleepingelephant.com/denial/addressbook.prg

Discussion:

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7369

C16 and Plus/4 News

PetDraw

David Murray has released PetDraw for the plus 4 , with the software you can create drawings using the PETSCII characters and the text-mode colour. Although the program is still in development and this version is not fully functional. Load/Save routines DO work, but you cannot see what you are typing on the screen. if you blind-type and press return it will load/save to device 8. Text mode is currently broken. This is due to kernel differences between the C64 and Plus/4 and how the cursor and char-out routines work. it will require significant re-write of some sub routines to make it functional. At the moment the program has the following features:. Draw mode, pixel mode and a colour picker

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

Majesty Of Sprites

Majesty Of Sprites is a new game for the Commodore Plus/4.

The game is not completely finished but is playable. The game features multi-colour graphics software sprites and colourful backgrounds. You can play on 12 different screens that are distributed 6 worlds. The game was developed by Mad, Nero, Decca and Degauss.

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

Knaecketraecker

Knaecketraecker is a new cross-platform TEDsound tracker developed by Degauss. The options are: Multi-speed, partial or global playback. Export to .asm / .BIN / .PRG files. Load / save of separate instruments to build a sound database. Virtual 3rd voice editor and a keyboard mode for easy import of musical notes.

It’s not a standalone EXE you have to install the software and seems to be just available for the windows platform

http://plus4world.powweb.com/tools/Knaecketraecker

Mr. Angry Dude

Mr. Angry Dude AKA(Mika (Misfit )has released a new platform game for the Commodore Plus/4.

In the you control Mr. Angry Dude over 8 levels. The game is written in machine language and can be played on an NTSC or PAL 16 K machine.

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

Club-Info

From: webmaster@club-info.org
To: commodorefree@commodorefree.com

Hello there,

This relates to the Commodore 264 series, i.e. C16 - 116 - Plus/4 and its dedicated magazine "Club-Info".

The long-lasting German disk magazine Club-Info now runs a website again: www.club-info.org

As far as I know, Club-Info is the only Commodore related disk magazine worldwide left which is still spread on genuine 5.1/4" diskettes – like all the other disk mags were distributed back in the 80s and early 90s.

The German language magazine is now in its 25th year. For the time being, approx. 4 issues per year are being sent to the subscribers by "snail mail".

Each issue consists of an editorial, hints & tips for software & hardware, a buy & sell corner, notifications of forthcoming retro meetings & events, a so-called "Games Guide" which contains manuals, cheats, etc. for newly published games, manuals for application software, and many other stuff. Each disk is full on both sides. The aforementioned articles are on side A, and side B consists of games, demos, hardware diagrams, applications, etc.

Since quite a number of subscribers have just their little black Commodore equipment but no PC, Mac or else and, of course, no internet access, we do not run an internet forum. All communication between the subscribers and the publisher (who is Erich of the Commodore user group "Unlimited") is done by changing diskettes - like it was common 25 and more years ago.

The objective of www.club-info.org is to be an archive of all Club-Info diskettes (the actual issue is No. 138, published early May 2015), and pay a tribute to all former German diskette magazines by offering them for download. After a new Club-Info issue has been sent out to the subscribers, it's available for download from www.club-info as well.

As said before, Club-Info is made up in German language. So, it's mainly dedicated to Commodore C16-116-Plus/4 friends in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland - and of course to anyone on the planet who understands German.

Feel free to have a look at www.club-info.org!

Happy computing from

Hans.

I am not sure about this for a review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyJfVHiyB-o

Botticelli Bilderdisk Issue 40

Erich has recently released a new Botticelli Bilderdisk for the Commodore C16 and the Plus/4.

This is a double-sided diskette filled with a mix of handmade and digitized pictures in the Botticelli format. The Magica viewer is used to display the pictures.. Just put in the disk and load it, the use Space bar to change the picture.

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Botticelli_Bilderdisk_40

YAPE v1.0.7 Released

YAPE is a Windows emulator for the Commodore Plus/4 and 16 range of machines.

The changes in this release are

- adjustable sound latency (20-200 msec)

- preset window sizing shortcuts (Alt+number)

- removed P4S and direct ZIP support

- some fine tuning on the NTSC hues

- monitor and D-PAD bugs fixed

- CRT & TED fixes

http://yape.plus4.net/

HVTC Update

High Voltage TED Collection is an attempt to seek the pure TED music into any program, and take out the cleanest code which generates it, in order to have a well structured archive of re-usable TED sounds.

The available files are the original programs that produce music using the music TED chip. At present there are 426 files in the database.

http://plus4world.powweb.com/features/High_Voltage_TED_Collection

Looter

Looter is a new game for the Commodore 16 /Plus 4.

This is a clone of the Commodore C64 version created by OnlineProf2010. The game consists of you collecting all the treasure and avoid the blobs and orcs. You can improve your health in the game by collecting hearts.

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

Amiga News

DirectoryOpus 4.18.42 - AmigaOS 4

There is a new version of Directory Opus, available. The Changes in this version include: Improvements for the iff definitions and Dopus_print. Added the pack pragma directives. Update the application library interface, configuration file, and history files.

http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=utility/filetool/dopus4.lha

3D Printed Parts For Commodore/Amiga

Tommes has started “printing” new parts for Commodore and Amiga computers using a 3D printer, you can buy the pre printed parts from the website for a very reasonable amount. A few Examples of the parts available are of the parts are: Expansion Slot Cover for the Amiga 1000, Interlock Knobs for the SX-64, Commodore Monitor 1901 cover, F-Keys for C64C, etc.

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/Pixelwizard

Amigatronics Podcast 2x03

The Amigatronics Podcast is a Spanish pod-cast for the Amiga user. Information in this issue includes: Intro, News, Hardware: AMIGA FPGA, Software: Adpro, Games: Pinball Dreams, Fantasies and Illusions / Dynablaster, Demoscene: Amiga PPC Productions and Retro Zone: Arcades - Gauntlet / Sly Spy.

https://amigatronics.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/amigatronics-the-podcast-2x03/

EdiSyn v0.53 - AROS

EdiSyn in an editor with Tabs and Syntax highlighting (at the moment for C/C++, HTML and Pascal) for AROS, written in FreePascal with Lazarus. Base on the SynEdit Component of LCL and the ATTabs Component.

Features:

- Highlighter, C/C++, HTML, Pascal

- Tabs

- Recent files, Export Text as HTML (with Properties from Highlighter)

- Jump to Line

- Search, Replace, Search in Files, Search in Directory, Regex

- Copy, Cut, Paste

- Undo, Redo

- Free configurable highlighter, key binding, user commands

- Output parser for GCC and Freepascal (jump to positions)

http://blog.alb42.de/edisyn/

880 Gamer Issue 6

This is an English pdf magazine for Amiga users.

In the magazine are the following articles:

News, Cover Disk, 30 Years Amiga, Game On: Street Fighter II, Pang!, Super Hang On, Silkworm and Toki. Bleeding eyes: World of Commodore, Ray of Hope and Faktory. Cheats and Talk-back.

http://www.users.on.net/~stanners/

Help my Cat!

Help My Cat! is a small puzzle platform game developed by Bugala. In the game you should try to get a cat out of a tree. The game is available for Amiga OS3 / 4, AROS, MorphOS, Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

Download the game

http://aminet.net/search?query=help+my+cat

Currently available from Indiego! Appstore:

http://aros-broadway.de/indiego//marketplace/

For Amiga, Pc, Mac and Linux.

Video van Help my Cat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdwEtm5gLIE

TAWS (The Amiga Workbench Simulation)

TAWS is a JavaScript emulation of Amiga-Workbench for your web browser. Created by Michael Rupp this emulation is running Amiga Workbench 4.1 Final, If you look under SYSTEM – TAWS you will find a html history information page that’s worth a read, also “future plans” makes an interesting read, I haven’t played with it much but the emulation is very fast on a modern PC, also under the PRESETS you will find various erm presets to emulate Amiga 1.X upwards

http://www.taws.ch/WB.html

AMIcast Issue 4

AMIcast is an English podcast all about the world of Amiga. In issue 4 are : An Interview with Pascal Papara on AEROS and AROS - Another look at the future of the Amiga. Music:. Murdilokustra and Nobody's Home ,

http://amicast.ppa.pl/

Crates! – AROS

The text from the archive says

Crates is a three dimensional puzzle game. It consists of missions that consist of levels. To pass a level, you must move player to the exit by interacting with the different kinds of crates in the level. Before that you must also collect all the keys and toggle all the toggles that the level might contain. Every level has a password that makes it possible to continue playing from that level whenever you want, but if you want to get your name in the hall of fame, you must play the whole mission at one go. On that case, the faster you are, the better is your position in the hall of fame.

Download

http://archives.aros-exec.org/?function=showfile&file=game/puzzle/crates.i386-aros.zip

Homepage

http://www.octaspire.com/crates/

Ago – AROS

VoR is a quick action game where you drive a space ship and try to avoid crashing into rocks. Current information about VoR can be found on the homepage:

http://jasonwoof.org/vor

Developed by Jason Woofenden and Josh Grams and is available for AROS, AmigaOS 4, Linux and Windows

http://archives.aros-exec.org/?function=showfile&file=game/misc/vor.i386-aros.zip

Amiga Future Issue 114

The English and German Amiga magazine Amiga Future issue 114 is available.

Previews:

Playfield, HGui

Reviews:

Swamp Defense 2, Solomon's Key 2, Jet Hunt, London Rain Matrix, Pac Boy, Scorpio, Oldtimer, BetterWB, Blankers, Hollywood 6.0, AmiKit 8.3.

Special:

WD MY Cloud Mirror, Smart Home, Classic Reflections Part 21 Haage & Partner, Demoscene.

Workshops:

Programming AmigaOS 4 Part 12

Others:

Interview Cherry Darling Teil 2, Interview Alastar Murray, News, Editorial, Content, Imprint, Content CoverCD, Letters to the editor, Preview

http://www.amigafuture.de

Amiga Image Storage System (AISS) v4.19

Martin Merz has released a new version of his "Amiga Image Storage System" (AISS). The Amiga Image Storage System (AISS) offers a photo-illustrative icon style for toolbar images - it approaches the realism of photography but uses the features of illustrations to convey a lot of information in a small image. AISS is an environment to store, access and maintain this toolbar images

http://www.masonicons.info/index.html

The Game

Developed by David Erikssonal though work started some time ago and still not completely finished although playable . Recent changes: Improvements for the title screen, sprites, the death counter and more support for the CD32.

http://driar.se/thegame/

WinUAE Upgrade

A new version of WinUAE is available. Changes in this version are: Emulation improvement for SCSI-hosts, IDE-controllers and CPU-cards. Support for, AVideo 12 / 24, HAM-E (+), DAC 18, FireCracker 24, Toccata Zorro II sound card, Nordic Power v3.2 and Pro Access v2.17. Visit the WinUAE web page for more details.

http://www.winuae.net/

AmigaRemix

Here you listen to remixes of Amiga MODS. The following Amiga music has recently been added: Cream of the Earth (vs. Romeo Knight), Super Twintris "Those 3" Tunes Up-Mix, Risky Woods - "El Pueblo" Cover Version, Kid Gloves [ Castle ] The Toe-tapper's Up-Mix, Hyperbased 2015, Lethal Xcess - Ruins of Methallycha, Einstein 2d6 - Wings of Victory (Spacetrip Mix), Total Eclipse (Main Theme Remix), MegaLoMania title, Agony - Loading Forest (TITAN Deep Blue Mix) and Defender Of The Crown (title).

http://www.amigaremix.com/

Calimero v0.14 – MorphOS

Calimero is a powerful Desk Top Publishing program for MorphOS. You can import and export many different formats. With the program supporting multi page layouts, columns, headers, footers, separators, hyperlinks, text-warp, table of contents, background texture and more. Changes in this latest version are: Layer - system for objects. Copy / Cut objects to clipboard, paste objects from clipboard. Clone objects and two separate (context) menus in the edit mui class.

http://aminet.net/search?query=calimero

Assist v2.1 – AmigaOS 4

Featuring all the content from the "Get the most out of your AMIGA" PDF guide, short-cuts and links. Assist helps with downloading and unpacking of software, plays YouTube videos and it has AmiUpdate support. In this latest version are many optimisations and 5 new articles.

http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=utility/misc/assist.lha

A1200 Audio Filter

RetroGameModz has made a video about the audio filter in the A1200 showing how to troubleshoot and track down the problem where the audio filter switching doesn't work as it should.

He says

Like all other Amiga models, the Amiga 1200 has a low-pass filter in hardware which can be found directly on the motherboard. This audio filter can be turned on and off in software. In case of the audio filter being stuck in either the ON or OFF state, how would we go ahead and troubleshoot the problem? Although not being a repair in itself, this video serves as a little troubleshooting guide on how to track down the problem in a case where the audio filter switching doesn't work as it should.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8d_OInQkLc

EvenMore v0.86

EvenMore is a text viewer for AmigaOS. featuring proportional font support, multi-coloured text, file conversion plugins, and more. Recent changes to the software include: For the FinalWriter/Copy-Plugin there is now support for strike-through text.

http://www.evenmore.co.uk/

Meridian V3.11 – AmigaOS

Meridian is doing exactly this! Meridian is a small commodity to create virtual hotkeys by using the mouse. You draw a symbol and Meridian is starting the requested action. Since the starting point and the direction is also important, there are countless combinations you can use

http://geit.de/eng_meridian.html

AROS Vision 2.9.2

New or updated

- Build again from scratch based on newest AROS 68

- Netsurf updated

- Free Pascal updated

- Theme can be changed by menu

- MUI classes updated

- Hollywood plugins updated

- AppStore client updated

- it should be faster

- screenblanker added

In development:

- AROS Vision ECS (for real 68k hardware and FPGA)

- AROS Vision X86

AROS Vision X86 is based on Windows hosted making it easy to start from Windows (without any installation). Disadvantage right now no network and sound.

http://www.aros-platform.de

The 68000 Wars, Part 1: Lorraine

From the Article

"The Amiga was the damnedest computer. A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, then all crammed into a plastic case; that was the Amiga. I wrote a book about the thing, and I’m still not sure I can make sense of all of its complications and contradictions.

The Amiga was a great computer when it made its debut in 1985, better by far than anything else on the market. At its heart was the wonderchip of the era, the Motorola 68000, the same CPU found in the Apple Macintosh and the Atari ST. But what made the Amiga special was the stuff found around the 68000: three custom chips with the unforgettable names of Paula, Denise, and Agnus. Together they gave the Amiga the best graphics and sound in the industry by a veritable order of magnitude."

An Ongoing History Of Computer Entertainment By Jimmy Maher

http://www.filfre.net/2015/03/the-68000-wars-part-1-lorraine/

AmiKit Updated

AmiKit is a free project that turns your computer, tablet or phone into legendary Amiga. It includes more than 350 applications.

Updated components in this 8.4 release.

- MUI4 new pointers

- WHDLoad,

- System libraries.

- improved Polish and Russian language support

http://amikit.amiga.sk

REV'n'GE! Issue 30

REV'n'GE! is a PDF Fanzine that reviews, compares vintage games and multimedia software for any platform, so a various platform to read and see thanks to link to Retro Trailer.

SendSpace: https://www.sendspace.com/file/7xqsuc
Mega: https://mega.co.nz/#!29Mz2QoR!J4CTUH8AzdUHepSa-gec3g5Jpk_ml0deVNlyYPmTyvA
RetroTrailers: http://www.amigapage.it/index.php?pl=intro
AmigaDem Mania: http://www.amigademo.tk
Video Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/pippos34
Demo Movie: http://xoomer.virgilio.it/tuxcam/recensioni/flash1.html
Retro Trailer Blog: http://www.amiga.org/forums/blog.php?u=2066

AMIStore: Workbench CANDI Updated

Announcement

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that Workbench CANDI has now been updated and is available to download from AMIStore App Store. This update is free of charge to all customers that have bought CANDI from AMIStore. Any new customers who want to purchase CANDI can now do so from AMIStore.

A new Easter bunny theme has been created in addition to other changes required for future enhancements. The lite version of CANDI has now been replaced by a tooltype which can be used to select LOWCPU option for less capable hardware.

Once again, our special thanks go to Kevin Saunders and Entwickler-X who have done some wonderful work in realising this update for A-EON.

The new animated Easter theme is added to the collection of other themes already included in CANDI. Watch out for white bunnies suddenly appearing in the green grass gently blowing in the wind on your Workbench backdrop!

Other updates:

- Automatically switch between CANDI animations by double-clicking on a CANDI icon.

- Double clicking on the same CANDI icon switches the Workbench animation off.

- CANDI animation goes to sleep if the Workbench goes behind another active screen.

- New tooltypes to select LOWCPU option for less capable hardware (removing the need for a LOWCPU CANDI version).

- ResetWB option now works when CANDI is running.

- Each CANDI can now be controlled by an external program/utility. (coming soon).

http://www.a-eon.com/

http://www.amistore.net/

AMIStore: Warp3D Radeon HD Southern Islands

New 3D Drivers for AmigaOS 4.1: Warp3D for Southern Islands Graphics Cards

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that the first release candidate of Radeon HD Southern Islands Warp3D driver is now available to purchase and download from AMIStore App Store.

PDF News Release

http://www.a-eon.com/PDF/News_Release_Warp3D_SI.pdf

Warp3D-SI Features:

- Supports larger textures (up to 16384x16384 memory permitting).

- Performance is less dependent on resolution than previous drivers, including rendering at HD resolutions.

- Submits vertices to the GPU via vertex buffers rather than directly in the command stream (one of the bottlenecks of the old Radeon drivers).

- Uses the RadeonHD_RM.resource for VRAM allocation, providing more efficient memory management than own system.

- Accumulates small vertex arrays into larger buffers to provide faster performance where lots of tiny render operations are performed

- Doesn't lock the entire graphics system between 3D_LockHardware() / W3D_UnlockHardware(), so an application or game crash is less likely to freeze the entire system

Warp3D Radeon HD Southern Islands Requirements:

An AmigaONE or AmigaOS 4.1 compatible computer with:-

- AmigaOS 4.1 “Final Edition”

- Radeon HD V1.4 or V2.7

- MiniGL - version 2.20 or later

Containing one of the following Radeon HD or Radeon Rx Southern Island graphics cards:

- Radeon HD 7750-7970 series graphics card (excluding the Radeon HD 7790)

- Radeon R7 250X/265 (excluding R7 250)

- Radeon R9 270/270X/280/280X

www.a-eon.com

AMIStore: New Radeon HD v2.7 and v1.4 Available!

A-EON Technology Ltd announced new Radeon HD v2.7 and v1.4 drivers that are available to download from AMIStore App Store.

Any customers who have bought the Radeon HD v2 driver previously may download the new v2.7 update for free. Any customers who have bought the Radeon HD v1 driver previously may download the new v1.4 for free.

A-EON Technology Ltd

www.a-eon.com/radeonhd

hw4cubic 6.0 Now Available

Michael "Clyde Radcliffe" Jurisch's Hollywood add-on for Cubic IDE has been updated to support the full Hollywood 6.0 command set, there have been bug fixes and also optimizations. The hw4cubic plugin uses Cubic IDE as an IDE for Hollywood. The complete Hollywood command set is imported into Cubic IDE so you'll get syntax highlighting, quick command information, hotkey links to the documentation for command under cursor, function list, direct access to the compiler, auto complete and intellisense functionality and much more.

Also wordfile for the popular Windows text editor UltraEdit is available to download on the official Hollywood portal. This wordfile lets you edit Hollywood scripts on Windows using UltraEdit.

All downloads are available from the official Hollywood portal.

http://www.hollywood-mal.com/

AMIcast

Episode 2

Second episode of AMIcast. With guest Epsilon - blogger and Amiga X1000 user, talking about projects, Amiga NG, software and emulation, also a thread about thirty years old Amiga computer.

http://radzikpl.blogspot.com/2015/03/amicast-episode-2-epsilon.html

http://amicast.ppa.pl

https://itunes.apple.com/de/podcast/amicast/id961455301?l=en

Episode 3 - Petro Tyschtschenko

Petro Tyschtschenko! Is interviewed in the 3rd episode. His story is always linked with Amiga and fighting for Amiga computers.

http://radzikpl.blogspot.com/2015/04/amicast-episode-3-petro-tyschtschenko.html?m=1

http://amicast.ppa.pl

Episode 4 - Pascal Papara

Featuring Pascal Papara. Who talks about AEROS and AROS - Another look at the future of the Amiga.

Also about AROS, open source solution for NG Amigas. AmiCloud, Indiecoins and Indiego - all connected with Pascal Papara. the future and development in the community and software like Hollywood.

There are modules by Moby: (02) Murdilokustra; and at the end: (03) Nobody's Home from Album: Dusting off the Amiga.

http://radzikpl.blogspot.com/2015/05/amicast-episode-4-pascal-papara.html

http://amicast.ppa.pl

Acuario 2015

An updated version of the Acuario screen saver is available from Morgue Soft, this version has been compiled with Hollywood 6.0. Available for MorphOS, AmigaOS4 and Windows, the only Acuario with mermaids.

Downloadable here: www.morguesoft.eu

A-EON Technology Acquires DvPlayer

Announcement

A-EON Technology acquires DvPlayer

The premier multimedia player for AmigaOS 4

Cardiff 14th June 2015

A-EON Technology are pleased to announce that, a year after becoming the sole distributor of DvPlayer, we have now secured the exclusive rights from its developer Stephen Fellner.

As part of the agreement A-EON Technology has acquired a world-wide, exclusive, perpetual and irrevocable license to develop, publish and distribute the full Dvplayer source code, binaries and plugins. A-EON has also acquired the DvPlayer web content and exclusive rights to all trade names for product marketing, promotion and branding for the AmigaOS and Amiga-related operating systems including emulation. Meanwhile Stephen Fellner will retain non-exclusive rights to elements of his original source code for potential future projects. The current version of DvPlayer runs under AmigaOS 4.1 and supports the following video formats:-

- MPEG-1/2 video streams

- MPEG-1/2 system streams

- MPEG audio files

- VideoCD and SVCD

- DVD Video

- AVI files (inc.OpenDML extens.)

- ASF/WMV files

- AIFF audio files

DvPlayer also supports many audio and video codecs via avcodec.library, including MPEG Video 1/2, DivX, XVID, MJPG, Cinepak, Indeo Video, PCM, MPEG Audio (Layer1-3) and more. It uses fast direct-rendering algorithms for every possible HiColor and TrueColor display mode and separate rendering routines for half scale and 16:9 movies so that they are correctly displayed at the correct aspect ratio. DvPlayer uses a new triple buffering technique which is only available in OS4.0+. There are numerous other features including:- keyboards shortcuts, a skinnable GUI, full screen and windowed displays, Amidock support, DVD and VideoCD playback, subtitle support, support for external plugins, a visual audio scope and many, many more.

DvPlayer was developed by Steven, who is himself an Amiga enthusiast, to deliver the ultimate multimedia experience for AmigaOS 4.1. Matthew Leaman, commented on the latest addition to A-EON’s growing software catalogue, “DvPlayer has always been a favourite amongst AmigaOS 4 users and we are pleased to secure it for the future”. To which Stephen Fellner added, “Amiga was the first home computer to deliver a true multimedia experience. My goal with DvPlayer was to continue that legacy. Now it's time to take it to the next level and I'm very happy to have A-EON bring new life to this project.” A beta version of DvPlayer is currently being tested which supports the Radeon HD v2 driver’s hardware accelerated video playback using the graphics card’s own GPU. DvPlayer is available from AMIStore.

For more information please visit http://dvplayer.amistore.net/

boldly taking DvPlayer into the future

MultiViewerNG Released on AMIStore

Announcement

MultiViewerNG Released on AMIStore

The ultimate Next-Generation AmigaOS file viewer

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that MultiViewerNG is now released and available on AMIStore App Store.

It is currently priced at GBP £6, EUR 8.40, USD $9.30 (excluding local taxes and transaction processing fee

MultiViewerNG is a datatype viewer for the AmigaOS 4. It features many extra features such as:

- Toolbar icons which user can hide

- File list which user can hide

- Tabs mode which user can switch on/off

- Can run from Shell or Workbench

- File and image editing hotlinks

- Mark mode for copying sections of image to clipboard

- Image zoom and rotate (supports mouse wheel)

- Powerful ARexx interface with scripts menu

- Save images in various file formats

- Slideshow mode for sequentially viewing files (customisable delay)

A-EON Technology Ltd

www.a-eon.com

http://apps.amistore.net/multiviewer/

Turrican Anthology

Complete Turrican Collection for the CD32!

Earok has just announced the release of the very famous Turrican series, Turrican Anthology for the Amiga CD32. First developed for the Commodore 64 by Rainbow Arts and Factor 5 in the early 90's and ported to other systems later. Turrican and its sequels such as Turrican II is a game series that is set in the heart of millions of Retro fans across the world. They all had great shooting action, amazing game play and the most awesome of sound tracks by Chris Hülsbeck!

http://www.indieretronews.com/2015/06/turrican-anthology-complete-turrican.html

GL Galore 1.0 Released

Airsoft Softwair released GL Galore, the ultimate OpenGL® scripting solution for Hollywood!

GL Galore is a plugin for Hollywood that allows you to access the OpenGL(R) 1.1 command set directly from Hollywood. This makes it possible to write scripts that utilize the host system's 3D hardware to create high-performance, butter-smooth 2D and 3D animation that is calculated completely in hardware by the GPU of your graphics board. This leads to a huge performance boost over the classic Hollywood graphics API which is mostly implemented in software. Especially systems with slower CPUs will benefit greatly from hardware-accelerated drawing offered by OpenGL.

http://forums.hollywood-mal.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1119

Download

http://www.hollywood-mal.com/

Commodore: The Amiga Years

Kickstarter launch date announced!

Brian Bagnall has setup a Facebook page for his long-delayed but finally-forthcoming book "Commodore: The Amiga Years", the sequel to "Commodore: A Company On The Edge".

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Commodore-a-Company-on-the-Edge/159893914051909

Brian has also announced the launch date for the Kickstarter campaign, and tells me there will be lots of cool backer rewards.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1462758959/commodore-the-amiga-years-book

A-EON Technology Acquires TuneNet

Announcement

A-EON Technology acquires TuneNet

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that it has purchased the rights to TuneNet, the multi-format Music Player and Internet Radio Streamer for AmigaOS 4 from its developer, Paul Heams.

As part of the agreement A-EON has acquired the exclusive rights to the full TuneNet source code, binaries and plugins along with the worldwide exclusive rights to publish and distribute the software and its plugins.

A-EON has also acquired the TuneNet web domain and exclusive rights to all trade names for product marketing, promotion and branding for the AmigaOS and Amiga-related operating systems including emulation.

Meanwhile Paul Heams will retain the non-exclusive rights to the "audio re-sampling class" source code for other projects.

TuneNet is a modular multi-format player which was developed from the ground up by Paul Heams in 2004. It supports a range of music formats through special plugins and includes recording and Shout/Ice-cast broadcasting. It also includes a system GUI along with a customisable miniature dock facility and XML drive skinnable interface. Over the years, TuneNet has received many notable upgrades. It was made freely available on OS4Depot and was also bundled as a third-party contribution with AmigaOS 4.1

In recent years, due to changing work commitments, Paul hasn’t been able to devote time to support and update TuneNet. Rather than let his creation stagnate Paul said, “I’ve realised for quite a while that TuneNet needed a new home. I just did not have the time to give it the attention it deserved and I’m really pleased that A-EON have taken up the challenge to drive it forward”. Matthew Leaman added, “TuneNet is quality AmigaOS software and we look forward to building on Paul’s excellent legacy”.

For more information please visit:

www.a-eon.com

www.tunenet.co.uk

A-EON Technology Acquires Ringhio Messaging System

Announcement

As part of our strategic alliance with ACube srl we are pleased to announce that we have purchased the exclusive rights to the Ringhio messaging system from its developer Max 'm3x' Tretene.

As part of the agreement Max has granted A-EON Technology a worldwide, exclusive, perpetual and irrevocable license to develop, publish and distribute Ringhio for the Classic and Next-Generation Amiga operating systems. Also included in the agreement is the exclusive ownership to all source code and binaries and the right to use the Ringhio name in all product marketing, promotion and branding of the Classic AmigaOS and Next-generation AmigaOS versions.

Ringhio is the advanced system wide messaging and notification system developed by Max for AmigaOS 4.1. Ringhio, which has been in development since 2009, is Italian word for “growl” and in many ways it is similar to the OS X application of the same name. With the Ringhio server running, registered applications can inform the user via notifications displayed in a small pop-up box on the Workbench that a particular event has occurred.

These are sometimes called Ringhio messages because the server provides means through which the messages are communicated visually (in other words, Ringhio handles the actual display of messages sent by the Application Library).

The Ringhio message window is very similar to an info requester, only it does not require user interaction. The message is displayed for a short while then disappears. The short-lived pop-up notification window is displayed on the Workbench informing the user, for example, that an e-mail was received, a new tune was loaded for playback in TuneNet, or a program is being installed by AMIstore.

A-EON Technology has commissioned Max to create a new AmigaOS 4.1 version to add new capabilities and features. Plans for a Classic AmigaOS version are also in the works. On finalising the agreement with A-EON Technology, Max said, “I am very excited to work with A-EON for the benefit of AmigaOS software enhancements and securing Ringhio's future development". Matthew Leaman added, “It is a pleasure to work with Max, who is a long established, experienced and respected Amiga developer. We are looking forward to the progressive new features that Ringhio will offer for all of A-EON's software catalogue”.

Full press release is available

http://www.a-eon.com/PDF/News_Release_Ringhio.pdf

A-EON Technology and ACube Systems Strengthen Strategic Alliance

Announcement

Following a series of meetings held over three days in late April at A-EON Technology's Cardiff headquarters, the two companies agreed a joint development plan to ensure the future of Classic and Next-Generation Amiga hardware and software development. In particular they agreed a new hardware and software development roadmap which both companies will jointly fund and support. Their plans include a series of exciting new hardware and software projects starting with the Minimig Plus, an updated version of ACube System's highly successful Amiga 500 FPGA implementation, based on Dennis van Weeren original design concept.

During the summit the companies also visited Ultra Varisys, the developers behind A-EON Technology's Nemo and Cyrus 64-bit PowerPC motherboards, to discuss future hardware trends and opportunities. Max Tretene, ACube's technical guru commented, "During our meetings we had very good MiniMig Plus prototype ideas about near future hardware and software development, really can't wait to realize all of them." While Enrico Vidale, ACube's business manager added, "This strategic alliance can only be good for the whole Amiga community."

Meanwhile A-EON Technology's Managing Director, Matthew Leaman commented, "The combined technical and financial resources of A-EON & ACube should help secure future success." Trevor Dickinson added, "I'm more optimistic now about the future Amiga scene than I have been for a very long time. All I can say is, bring it on!"

Note: the full press release is available

http://www.a-eon.com/PDF/News_Release_Summit.pdf

Hollywood Player 6.0 Released

Airsoft Softwair announced that Hollywood Player is now also available in version 6.0 for all platforms supported by Hollywood (AmigaOS 3, AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, WarpOS, AROS, Windows, Mac OS PPC & x86, Linux PPC & x86 & ARM).

With the Player software authors can choose to distribute their programs as applets instead of stand-alone executables. In contrast to stand-alone executables, Hollywood applets are universally executable which has the advantage that you don't have to compile your programs for as much as almost a dozen of different platforms

The Hollywood Player is now available for free download from the official Hollywood portal http://www.hollywood-mal.com/ for a wide range of architectures and comes with three demo applets to show its capabilities.

A Bounty For Our Developers 2015

To support the developers of non-commercial software for MorphOS having achieved a portage, developed or updated something since the beginning of the year.

The bounty ended on June 30th, 2015 and will be shared equally between the developers listed below(*):

- Fab (E-UAE 1.0.0 JIT)

- naTmeg (AmigaMark, exFATfs)

- BSzili (LÖVE, FreeCiv)

- pegasossigi (ShowVector, Calimero)

- OffseT (ACE)

- Thomas Igracki (gTranslator, yWeather, AddShortcut)

- Templario (Acuario 2015, VAMP, SirenaPlayer)

- Geit (SimpleCat)

- widelec (KwaKwa, jabber.module, gg.module)

- Stefan Haubental (Abbaye des Morts, cabextract, Stella, amath, uBee512)

- Lázár Zoltán (PDFToolKit, SQLMan)

- Rob Cranley (SMBMounter, InstallerGen)

- realstar (Hu-Go!, FCEU)

- James Jacobs (AmiArcadia, WormWars, Saga, Africa, ReportPlus)

- Guillermo Amat (toram)

You can send your donation via the PayPal button available in the box "Bounty for dev" on www.warmup-asso.org website.

AROS Vision 2.9.3

Major changes are that MESA/Gallium is activated by default and it uses Zune instead of MUI (MUI can be activated if necessary). MESA/Gallum needs 256 MB RAM and works with greater than 16bit colour depth although is slow.

Changes:

- all system files updated

- Zune and MESA/Gallium activated

- Netsurf updated (much faster)

- Themes added

- Development (GCC) updated

- most files from contrib/ports (AROS) integrated

- Zuneview added

- FlashMandelNG added

- Free Pascal updated (to 3.1)

- Amiblitz updated (newest snapshot)

- WHDLoad updated

Download and download-condition from:

http://www.aros-platform.de/downloads/Aros_Vision.zip

LoView 2.80 Released

LoView was an easy to use viewer designed to let the user choose what to do in a fast and comfortable way. Supports many file format(depending on DataTypes you have installed) and may save in JPG, PNG, IFF or BMP file format, so you can also delete/copy/move/ rename/save a rotated or flipped image for example or maybe only convert an image in another format you like...

Here a list of changed/new features:

Fixed some really annoying bugs, Reworked Exif reading routine with support for some Pentax Makernote TAGs added some new more standard TAGs to be shown, Added a complete preferences editor with also an easy installation procedure, now the LoView menu was a system friendly menu when LoView works in windowed mode, now preferences was stored in ENVARC:LoView/ and no more in the LoView icon(the old ones can be imported from old LoView icon while installing), The SlideShow routine was now completely reworked to grant the user a full immersive new mode(now you can switch SlideShow in complete FullScreen and change also background colour if you like)so you can nicely slide your honeymoon or trips or whatever you like photos to your friends/parents with your Amiga on your home TV :), Added a NEW prefs "Load ALL" that can be selected to pass the entire file list to LoView without pre-scan directory for valid files in that way the image will be loaded same time than with SinlgePic pref selected but you have the whole filelist available in the Jump To window to choose(wrong files will be eliminated while loading), now the Crop function doesn’t draw a fixed crop area but that can be resized clicking on the borders while using the hand-pointer, Added the new preferences NoOutpuError that skips silently unsupported files(really useful if you load huge directory with not so much supported files and use tighter the LoadALL preferences), added iconify functionality from the menu, added the ability to drag drawers over the LoView icon in AmyDock instead of only single files.

*** The LoView experience was now 10/15% faster thanks to new Hollywood 6! ***

http://os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=graphics/viewer/loview.lha

Amiga Mania Issue 9

Amiga Magazine with Lots of new stuff, interviews, tests, guides and an exclusive review of a forthcoming amazing game...

They say

Produced in the Hungarian language only, and will definitely remain till the 30th birthday celebration of our beloved computer family. Later on things may change, but we're on our way for the 10th release to get it in time...

Warning it’s a large download some 108MB !

PDF: http://amigamania.amigaspirit.hu/Amiga%20Mania%2009_OnLine.pdf

Flash: http://issuu.com/amigamania/docs/amiga_mania_09_online

A small surprise as a bonus :)

http://amigamania.amigaspirit.hu/Amiga%20Mania%2009_24-25EN.pdf

Ancient Amiga Running School Aircon

One Ancient Commodore Amiga Runs the Heat and AC for 19 Public Schools. The 30-year-old computer has been running day and night for decades.

Somewhere in Grand Rapids, Michigan, there is an ancient Commodore Amiga that is hard at work. For over a quarter century it has been controlling the heat and air conditioning at 19 different schools and running nonstop. It's still kicking, for now anyway.

Read more here

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a16010/30-year-old-computer-runs-school-heat/

Amiga 30th Anniversary Celebration In Amsterdam

Filmed at the June 27 Amiga 30th anniversary celebration in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, here are videos of the CBM engineers and others who were/are involved in the development of Amiga computers.

They also talk about Commodore Business Machines back in the day, how CBM self-destructed, and more.

RJ Mical introduction at Amiga30.eu

http://youtu.be/VHgGdiWExUs

Battilana speaks at Amiga30.eu

http://youtu.be/-e_zD4MaX1s

Trevor Dickinson speaks at Amiga30.eu

http://youtu.be/ZlzHskPYSfM

David Pleasance speaks at Amiga30.eu

http://youtu.be/8GbHzRfWhDA

Dave Haynie speaks at Amiga30.eu

http://youtu.be/pOG1yqyOVw8

Carl Sassenrath speaks at Amiga30.eu

http://youtu.be/ZlPhPQxQKRc

RJ Mical, Carl Sassenrath, Dave Haynie speak at Amiga30.eu

http://youtu.be/fur2quOIufs

Interview With Steve Reed

From www.c64copyprotection.com and Clone Newsletters

We are aware of the dancing 1541 grinding its way through another copy protection system and almost croaking into an early grave in an effort to fit the scheme and actually load the game, were these actually useful or more a hindrance to genuine users, my 1541 was in for repair more times than it was working, killed by disk copy protection schemes, and while not every game had the intention to kill your drive, it may have been to kill you in frustration with a long manual and various messages like page 5 paragraph 2 word 6 where, you had to try and read the worlds smallest text printed on bright red tracing paper and type in what you though it said only to be told you were wrong and had to reload the game again.

Steve opened the interview by saying he had “started a new Parameter Master list http://www.c64copyprotection.com/steverds-parameter-list/” and was always looking for more parameters that are not in his collection, he said he recently helped Lord Crass test his Revolution-V (V-max) copier and has a number of blogs.

So when Commodore free caught up with Steve for a chat, what was on his mind

Blogs:

http://www.c64copyprotection.com/

http://www.stevesarcade.com/

http://poisondartfrogblog.com/

Q. Would you introduce yourself to our readers

My name is Steve Reed and I go by Steverd online.

Q. How did you get into computing and Commodore machines?

Like many old time users, I got an Atari 2600 in 1980, then I sold that for a Colecovision in 1982, and then sold that for a Commodore 64 with a tape drive in 1983, it was just such a cool machine back then.

Q. What started your fascination with copy protection?

I feel that I am a collector (or hoarer) inside, I just wanted all of the new games back in the 80's.

I very rarely played any of the games, it was more fun to see if I could copy them, rather than to play them.

I really don't think that I am an expert on the subject, just a user that's fascinated by it all.

Q. Have you looked at protection on any other 8 or 16 bit system?

Well I only focus on the Commodore 64, it's what I grew up with. I did get an Amiga 500 in 1988, but there were just so many different copy protection programs for the Commodore 64, for the Amiga I used X-Copy, until the hardware copiers like Syncro Express and Super Card AMI come out.

Q. So on your website, do you show users how to break the copy protection schemes, to make backup copies, or are you more really into documenting the various copy protection methods that were available?

I do not show how to break copy protection, I started this blog at first just to document the all of the copy protection programs and their Magazine ads. It has since grown into different directions since when I started. I started a new list of C64 Parameters, which as you know usually does remove the copy protection check in the program. I am trying to document every C64 code wheel released, and The Clone Newsletters that I just added also tells persons how and what to use to copy break certain programs protections.

Q. So what do you consider the websites primary function is?

The main function was information and a great reference for C64 copy programs. Since I had that pretty much covered, I started expanded to include game code wheels and code sheets, which are just another type of copy protection. I know it's a pretty small group of people that might find it interesting, but as the site grows so have the number of visitors!

Q. Well for user now, protecting the originals is a must, and the annoying Crack intros frustrate me, anyway What would you consider the most unusual copy protection system?

I don't know how unusual these are but Lenslok and Dongles. I hated Dongles, you could easily lose it and the program wouldn't load. At least with code wheels, we could photo copy most of them and make a backup one.

Q. So what do you consider is the worst system (i.e. most useless and easiest to break) and what would you consider the most aggravating system for the general user, who bought the game to play it but cant because of the protection, or it takes so long entering various codes etc you get fed up and load something else?

Personally apart from the dongles, I felt almost all manual look up protection was the worst and most frustrating. It took time and then when asked to enter the "Second word, in the third line, on page 5", I mean are they counting the page title or the blank lines, etc??? I hate those. Plus my friends photo copied all of those manuals.

Q. I shudder when loading disk games with the 1541 dancing and grinding all over my desk, its no wonder the device failed so many times, I wasn’t really into copying games but became interested in having a “backup” and run this rather than watching my poor 1541 grind itself into an early grave on the original, we used to have a local computer club, one member would take in a game and after the 2 hour session we usually had a cracked version to hand out to all users, I would play the game and if it was good I would buy the original, If it was rubbish it was a blank for the next meeting.

YES, I think all of the 1541 head banging started a whole new industry of 1541 drive alignment and alignment software.

Supercard

Q. Do you think copy protection schemes actually stopped or reduced piracy?

No, there were so many copiers out for the C64 they got really good at making copies, then when new harder protection came out like V-Max and Rapidlok, it only took a few months before a parameter would be available to copy those programs. And then came Jim Drew's SUPER CARD, and it could copy anything. So no I personally always felt that companies wasted money on any copy protection, it was only a speed bump. Most people I knew only copied the program to say they copied it, not to play it. If it was a program or something that I like I would always go buy it.

Q. Some games were release without protection at all, the feeling was that someone would break it so why bother?

Yes, people wanted to make backups of their original disk and they had a right to it, so it was great when companies did this, UNLESS that added a code wheel or manual lookup protection system.

Q. So can you tell our readers about the Clone newsletter, when was it started and by whom, where and how was it circulated and why and how is it now on your website?

I saw the Clone Newsletters in a group of disk in an auction. I had never seen them before and after search the Internet I couldn't find anything about them. SO that was pretty exciting. It was a newsletter by the company Micro-W which make the copy program called 'The Clone Machine'. It came in the mail and the first one I have is dated June 1984. The contain information on how to copy different games with the Clone Machine. Plus a few articles, letters from users, and more. They are now on my blog and available in PDF format.

Q. What in your opinion was the most technologically advanced copying system, and how would it have been used, and what was the most basic of copy protection cracking systems, come to think of it what was the most successful?

I still feel Jim Drew's Super card was the most advanced copier when it came out. I never talked about Isepic and Super Snapshot which was one of my favourites as well. If the program checks for protection during load and then not again then you could just snapshot the memory to disk. One of the most basic protection scheme is that some programs checked for the write protect tab, you know that little piece of black tape that should be on the original (over the notch), some originals are not even notched. BUT if the program finds its open, the load would fail.

Q. Are there still games that people can’t figure out the protection scheme used or be able to remove it

I think was one of the hard hold outs for the C64 was Bounty Bob Strikes Bob. The experts on Lemon64 did a thorough eval of it and the Supercard Pro+ can copy it. As far as I know there is not one C64 disk that has been figured out.

Q. What’s the fun in finding the protection scheme, so you find a parameter that works then what just document the procedure?

I think it just goes back to the fun and the challenge of trying to copy the disk. I love Commodore parameters and have been trying to find ALL of the parameters released for the C64, which is why I started a new Master Parameter list.

Q. What tools should a user be looking for if they become interested in this topic?

Some basic tools are the Supercard Pro and Super Snapshot. There are cracked version of just about every C64 game online, you should get a Zoomfloppy, to transfer the disk images from a PC to a 1541/1571. Or for more money get the 1541 Ultimate II cartridge.

Q. Do you actually collect copy protection hardware and software?

No not hardware, but I do have a large collection of all of the copy software (including all versions of them). You know like: Maverick, Kracker Jax, Fast Hack'em, etc, etc

Q. Is there something you are specifically looking for?

I am looking for ALL copy programs and magazine ads of the copy programs, after all that why I started this webpage.

Q. How can readers help?

Yes good question, the readers can contact me with any Copy software magazine ad that are not on my site already. Mine are mostly from USA magazines so I'm sure that I am missing some great ads from UK magazines, etc.

Q. You also collect arcade machines, can you expand on that for the benefit of our readers?

Well It started with me growing up in the arcades in the early 80's. Then my Donkey Kong addiction in 1982. You know when you grow up in that era; and thought the most amazing thing in the world would be to own an arcade, or even an arcade machine. So after ten years a cheap Space Invaders crossed my path and it was the start of my own personal arcade collection. I did restore a Donkey Kong shortly after that. The worse part of collecting arcade and pinball machines are that they are so heavy, every time I move one I think, why don't I collect stamps instead of arcade machines...

Commodore Free: I found this old How to repair your 1541 disk drive tutorial on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjBRDs2Hl3Q

Review: Xplode Man

For the Plus/4

This game actually appeared in 2014, however I was at a friend’s house recently and saw him playing the game, after enquiring where he obtained said game, I found where to download it! Great fun! So firstly here is the link

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

Title

Xplode Man

Language

English

Size

64K

Machine

PAL & NTSC

Released by

Assassins (ASN)

Coded by

V., Gábor (Skoro)

Graphics by

K., Róbert (KiCHY)

Music composed by

P., Csaba (Csabo)

Interestingly Chris Snowdon from www.commodore16 .com reviewed the game on his YouTube channel here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M5EESojp2g

And it was also reviewed in Retro Gamer, http://www.retrogamer.net/ However you will need to buy the magazine to read it! AS I haven’t read the review I thought it only right I should write my own. (no offence Chris or Retro Gamer) anyway I am sure Chris would welcome the review.

Loading the game gives away its heritage; it’s a bomber clone, but a clone with a bit of a twist!

The 3D Effects on the loading screen look amazing, showing the colour range of the commodore 16/plus4 with some nice scrolling banners introducing the levels.

The Menu music is superb lovely and bouncy, reminding me of a number of similar games, this version has a lovely warbling theme and effective drums.

Anyway pressing fire invites us to enter a passcode or just press ENTER to move on to level 1

For anyone who doesn’t know the plot, you have the ability to drop bombs that are on a timer and will explode, the explosion blows up things around you like the brick walls and also the other people wandering around, blow these guys up before they blow you up or more realistically bump into you as you turn into a black charred skeleton and you die!

The twist here and it does add to the game, is that you have to blow up ALL of the brick walls to move onto the next level, as well as the bad guys, your also on a timer so don’t dilly dally around. Unlike other game though the screens aren’t just square, its not perfect nut very close.

The game starts easy enough and has plenty of power ups to find and try out, slowly building up pace to a frantic level, (although some claim its too easy) still the animation is good colours in game really impress me, and the whole game plays very well. I think the game is only single player, more would be welcome if it were 2 players the score would score a 9 and if it supported more then...

I am not a fan of the green on green screen, it makes me feel a little sickly however the game is split into 4 zones each with its own theme and the first is jungle zone, hence the green

Game Zones

- Jungle Zone

- Desert Zone

- Factory Zone

- Artic Zone

Scores

Sounds

9/10
great little tunes

Graphics

8/10

Gameplay

8/10

Overall

8.5/10

Summary

Solid gameplay

Interview With Sean Peck

Creator of Kipperterm 128

Do bulletin boards still exist, is there still a demand for software to connection to them, how would you find the software and why would you want to run the software on a Commodore 128 instead of any of the other 8 bit machines.

Q. Please introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a 43 year old software architect from Pittsburgh, Pa USA. I am married with 2 children with a third expected in August, I have been developing software professionally and as a hobbyist for close to 30 years.

Q. How were you first introduced to computing?

I begged my parents for a Commodore 64 and 1541 for Christmas back in 1983 or 84 and was fortunate enough to get one. The main reason I was I interested in the c64 was for games, games played on the machine were far superior to those for the Atari 2600 I had. I really didn't have any desire to program it, but once I opened the owners manual and started to type in; and work through the various programs, I knew this was something I wanted to know more about.

Q. So what exactly is Kipperterm 128?

Kipperterm is a terminal program for the Commodore 128 it runs in 80 column mode with an RR-net compatible NIC card. Supporting PETSCII and most of the ANSI and VT100 command sets. Basically it allows you to telnet from your 128 in 80 column mode.

Q. So it’s a re-write of the same name program for the commodore 64 (albeit with a 128 on the end) so what is special about the 128 version?

Well it did start out as a pure port yes, I just wanted to have a telnet terminal for the 128 in 80 column mode, and the codebase for Kipperterm 2 for the c64 was publicly available. But I had never used Kipperterm for the c64, so as I began to port and test the software to the 128 and use it, however I found that the vt100 emulation was incomplete and that the character set used by the original Kipperterm code did not support the common IBM extended sets of the 80s and 90s. so the program was limited in its usefulness, if you were to telnet to old IBM boards and try to play door games etc.

So it this version supports 80 columns which the original Kipperterm did not.

It supports (by reasonable translation to PETSCII) the IBM extended character set (CP431)

It supports a more complete vt100 escape sequence, so it works with more BBSs etc.

It has a just shy of 64k buffer

It support printing screen dumps and printing of the buffer.

I updated the UI as well to add some very basic windowing

Obviously things like Blinking characters which are part of the VDC supported functionality are supported which are not supported in the original Kipperterm.

Q. What hardware do you need, do you have to connect a modem or does the software support Network cards, if so what network cards are supported?

To run the software you would need a c128 connected to a monitor that supports its 80 column mode, and any network card that is compatible with RRNet.

Q. Are the plans to add more card support?

Well at this point no because the RRNet seems to be the defacto standard supported model for NIC interfaces on the Commodore machine range.

Q. So you need a real 80 column monitor, how does 80 column mode improve the user experience, weren’t there pseudo 80 column displays created on the commodore 64?

You are right yes the C64 does indeed provide 80 columns via various software tweaks, but these 80 character modes consist of characters that are 4 pixels wide by 8 pixels tall, which are really 3 pixels wide by 7 pixels tall, to allow for a pixel of space between characters and are achieved by either 320x200 bit map mode, or by flickering between 2 character screens every other screen draw. While these solutions do provide an 80 column experience they are less than ideal, and can be slow to render and scroll etc. A real 80 column display offers far more options and speed etc. The 80 column mode of the 128 was one of the biggest noticeable improvements over the C64. It's sort of like comparing Novaterm to Desterm, both were great terminal packages back in the day but once a serious online person got their hands on Desterm and a 128 they could instantly recognize the limitations of Novaterm they had never noticed before.

Q. This may be a painful question but why create the software now, how much demand is there and do you keep a record of the user or downloads?

Well the reason it happened now was simple, I was cruising the net one day and found the network cards had finally been created for the 64/128. I had boxed up all my old commodore equipment in 1994 or so, mainly because there was no native NIC cards. I had graduated college and began working on the Web just as the NCSA/Netscape browser was breaking the web wide open. A machine that could not connect to the Internet directly was no longer something I could focus on. So I slowly started to reacquire, through EBay all the hardware I used to own, and then some! and ordered a 64Nic+ from Jim Brain and waited in anticipation for its arrival so I could finally do something I could not do before.

It arrived, and I scoured the net for software to use it with, only to find nothing really existed for the 128 in native mode for it. Because nothing existed, I started to look around to see if I could find some source code for a terminal for the 64 so I could try to port it to the 128.. Which lead me to Kipperterm and that is why it came out now.

Q. You already mentioned at lease one 80 column terminal emulation software package for the Commodore 128 so why not use that?

Yes there were great 80 column modem terminals back in the Day. I already mentioned Desterm as being the most well known. I personally had hacked a c128 terminal called GWTerm whose main benefit was to be able to play Global War faster back when modem speeds were slow. In fact I actually ripped some of the features I added to Kipperterm directly from recompiled source code from this old program I had written.

Unfortunately though, none of these programs ever got ported to support a NIC card or TCP/IP. In fact as far as I know even today there are really only 2 terminal programs that support the NIC card on the C64, one obviously being Kipperterm and the other is Guruterm. I am not aware of any others.

Q. So why wasn’t the 128 version of Kipperterm released along with or after the C64 version?

The 64 version was written by A gentleman from Australia named Jonno Downes, I was fortunate enough to have talked to him during the course of my porting of his original work and he was incredibly helpful in making my port a reality. I cannot say why no port to the 128 was done concurrently with the original development, but I am happy that I was able to add this to the library of software out there. The 128 never got as much love as the 64, but it is a great machine, and I am hopeful more people will dedicate efforts to support it.

Q. So just why was the software called Kipperterm?

Well Kipper BASIC is a basic for writing networking software for the C64. I assume that this is why the product was named Kipperterm originally, because it used code from this codebase, but I could be wrong. I assume Jonno could answer this more effectively than myself. I decided to call my release Kipperterm128 simply because I originally intended to do nothing more than a pure port of the existing Kipperterm.

Q. Do you plan any other ports of the software to other hardware?

I have a few ideas for things, some things that I am rolling around are porting warp copy to native 128 mode, and adding burst support and D71 support. Another thing is perhaps adding 80 column support to the original 64 Kipperterm. Though I doubt I will start another retro project soon.. This was a fun project to work on, but I have lots of other work and things to keep me busy at the moment.

Q. Apart from PETSCII what other modes does the software support, and why were there so many different standards?

Well Kipperterm 128 supports 3 main character sets.. Commodore PETSCII, true ASCII and a reasonable translation of IBM extended ASCII CP431. I cannot speak fully to the topic of the PETSCII vs ASCII issue, but it does go all the way back to 1963... Pet computers based their character sets on the 1963 ASCII standards and nearly every other computer build based their character sets on the 1967 ASCII standard. This is the start of the PETSCII vs ASCII differences.

Furthermore ASCII only defined the first 127 characters, so various extended character sets emerged to use all 8 bits or 256 characters. The most relevant to BBS users back in the day would be the IBM extended character set as it defined various graphical characters in its set to represent various things and were used highly by IBM boards. So a pet computer really has to do more than just deal with the inverted case of the characters between the 1963 and 1967 standards but attempt to reasonably represent those extended IBM character set (CP431) to be useful when calling IBM BBS's.

Q. So with all these character set support, does the software allows you to connect to a system running on a PC or Unix system?

Actually, It allows you to telnet to any system at all! Unix, PC, a router, a retro machine etc. basically anything that can be telneted to, and that can negotiate a successful IAC negotiation with this, the Kipperterm client can connect or telnet to it.

Q. Are there many BBS systems still available, and do they all support some sort of telnet connection nowadays rather than dialup using a modem?

Yes there are a surprising number of BBS systems out there still active today. You are correct that very few support true dial up anymore. Most are telnet, only but a few do still support dial up. There is a list kept at http://www.telnetbbsguide.com

Q. For our readers wishing to use the software, they may question What does the software cost?

It is free! But I do welcome donations, and will ship out an actual physical disk to anyone in the U.S. Or Canada that donate $25 or more. The documentation (readme) program on the disk or disk image, contains all the information.

Q. Do you plan any modifications to the software?

At this time no, like any piece of software there are always more things I could do with it, and I may do some of them, but at this point, there are no immediate plans for further modifications of enhancements but if I do I will update the d64 file and let the community know.

Download

http://cloud.cbm8bit.com/badco/kipperterm128.d64

http://appavenger.com/kipperterm128.d64

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139337/kipperterm128.d64

YouTube demo here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4obRrYZvLc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMXdo9Iu6IY

New Case

By Terry Raymond

Awesome I finally did get my new 64C case.

To put your old Motherboard into a new case is very simple, you might need some canned air to dust off the Motherboard. It’s Just a reverse assembly on how the old case is disassembled.

To disassemble the NEW and OLD case halves (they snap together) use a small flat blade screwdriver carefully pry upwards and both halves should unsnap. The top half cones off but the keyboard connector has to be unplugged, (don’t pull the wires you could pull the wires out of the KB connector), use a screwdriver very carefully to pry the connector off, be careful not to scrape traces or components on the MB.

Unplug the Led power indicator, the LED and wire has to be removed from old TOP case half, this just should pull out without any problem (at least on C64C cases) the older Breadbox ones I believe are probably glued in I’m not sure how to remove those.

Push the LED back into the NEW TOP case half.

There is a bottom metal shield, clean that and put that in place, then the Motherboard etc plug the Keyboard in and the power indicator, now the keyboard can be installed, at the bottom are tabs were the bottom part of the keyboard fits into the top part has 2 screws with smaller threads, put those in but don’t over tighten.

Same with all Motherboard screws remember this is plastic they can be stripped out (use a smaller screwdriver to eliminate over tightening screws)

Put the included stickers on that is simple.

Just common sense and anybody can put these together, but I’m willing to post this info to those who may have questions to help anybody out.

Have a good summer.

Terry Raymond

Commodore Free: Some more notes are available here

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42565&sid=87e0d318216e61f23c6efad291b2d54c

You may also appreciate this site

http://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/retro-games/hardware/index.htm

Review: Meteor Defender Amiga

By Bartosz Debski

Title

Meteor Defender

Author

Ecalius Software

Released

09 May 2015

This is the first software title from Spanish Ecalius Software house. As the title may suggest, the aim of the game is to defend your city from meteors. The Player takes control of a tank that can move left or right and shoot. You have to defend a city that is protected by a shield. Meteors are constantly falling from the sky from various angles, and if they hit the shield for a long enough period, your city will be vulnerable. Just one meteor can end your game if shield has been destroyed. The Idea of the game is quite fun and the Meteors are of various sizes, but I don’t think that the size of the meteor makes a difference to the impact it inflicts.

If you hit any of the meteors with just one bullet they explode, even the big ones. This does take away a lot of fun as there is no difference really on how big they are and the firepower needed to destroy one, the size is purely cosmetic. Bigger objects don’t fall quicker or breaks to smaller parts. They always explode even if collisions occur between two or more of them.

The Graphics in the game are very simple and even back in the Amiga’s heyday would be considered retro, the same goes for sound effects. There is no music just 8bit sound effects.

The Gameplay itself is a biggest problem. If you move your tank or shoot, meteors begin slowing down and screen starts flickering. This makes the game barely playable as the tank seems to not be affected by this. While you move meteors slow down so you can catch up with ones that can harm the city. I had to force it to lose and with falling shield power up it’s even easier to keep your city safe.

Meteor Defender could be a nice arcade game but overall execution is a letdown.

Game fits on one floppy and it runs also from HDD if copied.

Game Download:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=78108

Scores:

Sound

3/10

Graphics

2/10

Gameplay

2/10

Overall

2/10

Review: Abyssonaut

Game Design, Graphics and SFX by Anthony Stiller

Music by Richard Bayliss (Additional support by Scarzix/Offence)

SEUCK Version: Horizontal Scrolling SEUCK

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137362/ABYSSONAUT.d64

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137363/Abyssonaut.zip

http://tnd64.unikat.sk/Seuck_Compo_2015.html

Written by Anthony Stiller, creator of Reset Magazine's "Sopwiths and Pterradons", you may remember commodore Free reviewed this game. The idea of this game is to rescue endangered whales from the poachers who have been putting nets over them.

The Story

As a Deep Sea Reconnaissance and Rescue Operative aka ABYSSONAUT, you have volunteered to brave the crushing depths and violent creatures, free any helpless marine life you find and discover what has happened to the Crouch End Research Station. You head out at once, plunging into the ocean on your DSRRO Manta class seascooter..

You control your Abyssonaut using a joystick plugged in port 2. The game scrolls from left right using the updated SEUCK engine. Pressing fire unleashes one of the high explosive-tipped harpoons currently loaded into your twin harpoon launchers. Your harpoon launchers reload after a harpoon has either exploded or reached maximum effective range. As per DSRRO safety regulations only two harpoons can be 'hot' at a time.

Downloading the ZIP file gives you a D64 the PRG file and TAP file and a Word document with instructions and some hints and tips about the game

Loading the game sees a rather stark title screen

The PRG file doesn’t seem to have any music but the other versions do!

The title music is most interesting, very under watery at first then bashes out into a typical SID tune, with a thrashing beat and warbling synth lines, to be honest it would have been better with just the slower under watery section, but I suppose it builds up on the tension.

In game sound effects are acceptable but the animations are top rate, to think this is Anthony`s second attempt at a SEUCK game, in fact lets remove SEUCK from the comments, as many will not recognise the engine used, the game is smooth fluid has some good variations, and while not 100% original stands out well.

Collect that on the shark to save it

In fact I cant only comment on the Score that looks standard for the engine, someone please write a toolkit to enhance this for SEUCK! Within the limitations it would have been nice to see some sort of bubbles and better underwater physics, parallax scrolling.

However

The game engine doesn’t permit this, well as of this time, (never say never) however the clever animations (especially the jellyfish) enhance the game, clever placement of sprites means the game doesn’t suffer much from the usual slowdowns plagued by many releases using this engine. Things do speed up somewhat later on.

Scores

Sounds

6/10
music is ok

Graphics

7/10
lovely animations

Gameplay

7/10
nothing new

Overall

7/10
2nd game attempt! wow

Summary

Very playable and well thought out game, lovely animations, you can feel the hours that have been spent working on this.

Interview With R.M. Smedley

www.vic20listings.freeolamail.com

When someone tells you they have started a website devoted to VIC20 type in listings, I bet the first thing you do is hit your head with your open palm up hand making the now famous Homer Simpson DOH sound ! It's not the first time Commodore Free have looked at one of these types of websites, however, with this one devoted entirely to the VIC 20, it's worth a look. Personally I used to love the type in listings, but like many people; I wondered if they deliberately put in errors so you bought the magazine next month...

Q. Can you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Hi everyone!

My name is R.M. Smedley, and I wrote a couple of programs in the old days. Nowadays I am studying for a PhD, and I also run the VIC-20 Listings website.

Q. So just what still fascinates you about the VIC then?

My parents bought us a VIC-20 for Christmas in the early 1980s, when I was ten years old. It was an incredibly expensive present costing far more than the car that my father drove at the time. We could not afford to buy many games, so it came as a revelation to discover the type-in program listings that were a common feature in magazines and books. From then onwards I was a regular visitor at the local library, looking for programs that I could borrow and type in. At first I had no idea how any of these programs worked, and I struggled to type them in successfully. It was very exciting to find out what each program did, and over the years I gradually learned how to type and how to write my own programs. There was so much to learn, and I discovered some amazing programs along the way...

Q. Do you own any other Commodore Machines?

Much later we had a Plus/4, followed by a C64 and an Amiga. They were all fantastic computers, but I have especially fond memories of the VIC-20 and those type-in programs. It was my first computer, and it completely changed my life.

Grave Robber

Q. I know what you mean about being life changing, but why specifically did you start a website about VIC listings was it purely to relive the childhood books?

Well several years ago I downloaded a VIC-20 emulator and wanted to play some of my favourite type-in games again. In particular I hoped to find a game called "Grave Robber" by K Dent, but I could not remember where the listing was originally published. When I searched on the Internet to see if I could download any of these programs, it came as a shock to discover that few type-in programs have been archived and there was hardly any information about them.

Type-in programs are an important part of the VIC-20 heritage and they were very important to a lot of people. It got me thinking, "If only there was a website dedicated to VIC-20 listings..." Over the next couple of years I spent a lot of time searching through scanned books and magazines, and I eventually found the listing for "Grave Robber" (Popular Computing Weekly, 8-14 Mar 1984) along with many, many other programs. Years later, I realised that my growing archive of type-in programs might be of interest to other people, so I created the website. I wanted to make all the programs available for download together with details of who wrote it, where the listing was published, any special requirements, and brief instructions.

Q. Where do the listings come from, are they magazines, books or a combination of both?

A combination of both books and magazines.

The books on my website include "More than 32 BASIC Programs for the VIC 20 Computer", "Sixty Programs for the VIC 20", "VIC Innovative Computing" and "Zap! Pow! Boom! Arcade Games for the VIC-20". The 'Sixty Programs' book is particularly well known but, despite what the title suggests, it only contains 57 programs! Most of the books are 100% complete, with every program available to download.

The magazines include Big K, Commodore Horizons, Computer & Video Games, Popular Computing Weekly, Your Commodore, etc. Some of these are 100% complete, while others have missing programs that still need adding. I am always on the lookout for missing programs, so if anybody has any programs that are not on the website then please submit them.

Q. So most people will think magazines deliberately put errors in the listings to make you buy the next months issue to find the corrections, do you think that is true or just an urban myth?

A lot of people think this, and I sometimes wonder when I see syntax errors and other problems in listings. But of the 850+ programs that I have typed in, it is surprising how few of them had corrections printed in a subsequent issue. Some programs were just better written than others.

Q. Are all the listings in VIC BASIC, or do you have some in machine code, with a BASIC header or loader routine that reads the code in from data statements, (wow they were a real pain to type in)?

I would say that most programs are written in BASIC, although a lot of them use data statements for user-defined graphics etc. Some machine code programs are very impressive and rival commercially published games, such as "Tacco" by Richard Weisang & Frank Ammann (Happy Computer, Oct 1984) and "Scram-20" by Nalim Sharma (Your Computer, Jun 1983). In particular, "Scram-20" was later published commercially by Artic Computing.

You are absolutely right though, machine code programs are among the most difficult to get working. There is nothing worse than typing in page-after-page of numbers only to find that you have made a typing mistake somewhere, or that part of the listing is blurred and some numbers are unreadable. It only takes one incorrect number to stop an entire program from working. An example of this is "Millipods" (Your Computer, Mar 1984). There are pages of machine code to type in but some of the numbers are unreadable. I have tried several times but I cannot get it working - if anybody has a working copy then please submit it.

BASIC programs can also be difficult to enter if they have lots of awkward graphic characters. I remember a program called "Map" (Popular Computing Weekly, 24-30 Mar 1983) that used graphic symbols instead of numbers for the data statements, which was an innovative idea but the listing is very difficult to decipher. You look at the listing and think, "Are those vertical lines supposed to be Shift+Y, Shift+H, CBM+M, or something else?" Again, if anybody has a working version then it would be fantastic to see it.

Q. My mum and dad thought that the VIC; and computers in general were a fad, I used to sit on my mums typewriter and type out the listings from various magazines, entering things like HEART and CURSOR LEFT etc. for special control characters, after a few months of me constantly entering code this way and wondering what it would do, I think they knew this was no fad. It’s a long intro to the question but... Do you have any other childhood memories of the VIC you would like to share with readers?

When I was ten years old and saw a machine code program for the first time, I thought it looked like an endless stream of meaningless random gibberish. This gave me the naively embarrassing idea that it might be possible to write a program simply by pressing random keys on the keyboard to produce a suitable stream of random nonsense... As you can imagine, it was about as successful as trying to write an essay by randomly bashing keys - it did not have the slightest chance of working.

Around the same time, a school friend claimed that he was randomly bashing keys on his Sinclair Spectrum when he suddenly found himself connected to the local bank - an unlikely story if ever I heard one, particularly because he did not have a modem. When I asked him to show me how he did it, he was unable to replicate the feat. Strange that!

All of this was before I learned how computers really work and started writing real programs.

Q. So the programs on your website, did you actually type out all the codes or were they sourced from elsewhere, and did you cross check them to make sure they were 100% accurate to the magazine, (apart from said errors) as many people tend to change the code as they type (I know I used to, although maybe not on purpose, more fat fingers or cross eyes)?

I typed most of the programs myself. Before typing in a new program I usually check Gamebase20 and Bo Zimmerman's FTP site www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/vic20/ to see if anybody else has already done it, and I have found some programs that way. But it is staggering how many programs do not appear to be available from anywhere else.

When entering programs I try to keep them 100% accurate to the original listing. Occasionally there is some guesswork involved with unreadable symbols, and sometimes there are typing mistakes or syntax errors that need fixing to make the program work. It takes a surprising amount of time and effort to type each program and get it running.

Q. Have you thought about having the code available as a listing in like pseudo VIC BASIC using something like this http://www.davidviner.com/cbmlister.html?name=CBM+Basic+Lister that can list the special characters, in a way viewable in a pc text editor?

As it happens, I have got all the BASIC programs in that format, but I have not included those files on the website.

I usually use VIC20 Prg Gen http://www.ajordison.co.uk/ for typing in programs, and I always save the source code as a TXT file that can easily be displayed in a text editor. These TXT files are useful for a number of purposes: searching to see if a new program is a modified version of something I have already typed in, seeing how a program works, and also for fixing bugs. Another valuable program that I use is BasEdit www.stojalowski.de/BasEdit/ , which has an extremely useful syntax error checker.

In principle there is nothing to stop me from putting the TXT files on the website, but it would cost money to upload them using dial-up Internet access. At the moment I think most people are only interested in the PRG files. If anybody wants to see the TXT file for a particular program then it is easy to use VIC20 Prg Gen to convert PRG files into TXT format. But you never know what might happen in the future - one day I might upload them.

Q. How do you come across the listings books and magazines, are they donated?

A few years ago somebody kindly gave me several VIC-20 books, including "The Penguin Book of VIC 20 Games" by Paul Copeland and "VIC Innovative Computing" by Clifford Ramshaw. This was fantastic and made it possible to archive lots of programs that might not otherwise have been available. There are lots more books that must exist in people's lofts, but which have not been scanned and are impossible to find.

Most of the listings are downloaded from scanned archives of books and magazines, like DLH's Commodore Archive http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/ and Internet Archive http://archive.org/details/computermagazines. It is always fantastic when people donate items to DLH so they can be scanned and made available to everybody. Without DLH's amazing work, archiving these VIC-20 programs would have been much more difficult.

Q. What's the most unusual program you have come across, and what currently do you consider the best?

There are so many unusual programs on my website that it is difficult to choose just one. "Australia" by Chris Palmer (Popular Computing Weekly, 13 May 1982) turns the screen font upside down, "Mystery" by Andy Horrell (Popular Computing Weekly, 7 Oct 1982) is a fun little game but the listing gives no clue what it does, "Play That Boogie" by Adam Macielinski (Your Computer, Mar 1983) shows two men dancing to a tune, and "Chip Chat 1" by Eric Doyle (Your Commodore, Jun 1986) demonstrates how the CPU works. There are also programs to perform various types of calculation, such as "Moles" by Sarah Cotton (Popular Computing Weekly, 13-19 Sep 1984), which calculates the number of moles in a given quantity of substance.

In terms of unusual games, "Mud Bath" by K Osborne (Personal Computer Games, Apr 1984) is well worth a look. It is a surprisingly good game where you have to catch your clothes as they fall from the washing line.

Q. I know the number of programs is growing all the time but approximately how many programs are on your site and from how many different sources?

Well At the time of this interview there are 912 programs on the website, from 13 magazines and 13 books, with more programs waiting to be uploaded. Somebody recently submitted lots of programs from the German magazine Happy Computer, including the excellent game "Tacco" that I mentioned earlier, so I will add those next time I update the website.

Q. Do you plan to host the magazines the programs are from as well as the programs themselves?

I save scanned copies of the listings, but at the moment I have no plans to put them on the website. It would be too expensive to upload them mainly as I am still using dial-up Internet access. Like with the TXT files mentioned earlier, it might happen at some future point.

Q. What help if any is needed to help maintain these programs?

There are many things people can do to help, if they would like to get involved.

1. If anybody has got working copies of programs that are not currently on the website then it would be fantastic if they could submit them.

2. I have got lots of listings that need typing in. If anybody would like to have a go at typing some programs then please get in touch. I am happy to suggest programs they could enter, and I can send scanned copies of the listings.

3. If anybody finds any broken links on the website, or typing errors in any of the programs, then please let me know.

4. There are lots of books and magazines that have not been scanned and are not available anywhere, but which must still exist in people's lofts. Similarly, some people might have tapes or disks of programs that they typed in as a child, which perhaps they might be able to convert into a modern format like a TAP file or D64 image. It would be great if we could get things like this archived.

Q. What feed back have you had about the website and the programs, has anyone said “hey that was my code I donated to Xyz Magazine”?

To be honest the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and very supportive, which is fantastic.

So far, I have not heard from anybody who wrote any of these programs. It would be great to hear from the original authors, if they would like to get in touch. Perhaps I could even add an 'Interviews' section to the site...

Q. Yes it would be nice to hear from the original creators of the programs, there motivation and what did they receive for having an article printed. Maybe they are all far too famous now! Where do you see the website in lets say 2 years time?

One of the exciting things about the future is that you never know quite what will happen, or how things might develop. There are many books and magazines that are still missing from online archives, and it would be fantastic if they could be found, scanned and preserved.

Q. Would you consider, readers donating VIC BASIC programs to your site, or would they have to be programs from books and magazines, is it more an archiving of programs rather than just collecting VIC BASIC programs?

My website is purely for type-in program listings that have already been published. One day it might expand into other programs, but at the moment there are too many type-in programs that still need to be found and archived.

Interestingly, a small number of listings were published outside of books and magazines. For example, there is at least one type-in listing that was printed on the inlay of a blank computer cassette tape... Programs like these belong somewhere in my archive, but I have not yet decided where and how to include them.

Q. Yes I remember a program on a tape inlay card, I never tried it, very strange, Ok so far What would be your favourite program be and why?

There are so many clever and inventive games that it is difficult to pick out a favourite. Some of my favourite programs include "Tacco" by Richard Weisang & Frank Ammann (Happy Computer, Oct 1984), "Grave Robber" by K Dent (Popular Computing Weekly, 8-14 Mar 1984) "Nibblers" by Dave Shambrook (Your Computer, Sep 1982), and "Snake Byte" by Andrew Dilley (Your Computer, April 1983).

Q. Have you seen any programs from people who later became let's say “famous coders”?

Oh Yes!

It is always a joy to discover type-in programs written by people who subsequently became prominent figures in the industry. Their early programs are often well-written and great fun to play and it is fascinating to see how their work evolved into the later games that made them famous. Some of the programs on my website include:

Shaun Southern - "Brick Blaster" (C&VG, Oct 1982) - Shaun wrote many iconic games including Tutti Frutti (C16), Trailblazer (C16 & C64) and the Lotus trilogy (Amiga).

Martin Holland - "Tunnel Snatch" (C&VG, Aug 1984) and "Egg Eater" (Big K, Mar 1985) - Martin became a famous graphic artist on the C64, and tragically died in Aug 2003 aged just 35.

Mike Singleton - "Crash or Crush" (C&VG, Oct 1983) - Mike wrote many famous games including Lords of Midnight (Spectrum), and sadly died of cancer in Oct 2012 aged 61.

Richard Clark - "Mission X" (Commodore Horizons, Sep 1984) - Richard wrote lots of games including Gun Law (C16) and Cave Fighter (C64).

There are also several other intriguing programs. For example, I wonder if "Brass Envelope" by D Whittaker (Popular Computer Weekly, 1 Jul 1982) might be written by programmer & musician David Whittaker, or if the name is just a coincidence?

Q. Would you consider hosting type-in programs for any other machine, or do you want to keep it just for the VIC, so say maybe C64 and Plus/4 programs?

At the moment I am only interested in VIC-20 programs. There are so many 'missing' programs that it would quickly become overwhelming to do anything else.

Q. Do you have any other comments you would like to add?

"Don't dream it, be it." (Within reason, of course.)

Review: 10x10

For the Amiga

By Bartosz Debski

Author

Coagulus

Released

05 May 2015

10x10 by Coagulus is a puzzle game which at first reminds me a good old Tetris. You play on a 10 by 10 field where you have to put blocks of various sizes to create straight lines. There is no timer, and you play only against your high scores. The game mechanics are simple yet addictive. At the start you have three blocks to put on the grid, and then three new blocks are presented. You continue until there is no way of putting new block on the playfield. There is no way of rotating the selected shape. When a vertical or horizontal line is completed it disappears and your score grows. The Game features a high score board and scores are saved.

Presentation of the game is somewhat basic. A Board on a white background with all possible options buttons on the bottom right side. Your current score is presented against the high score and that is it!

There is nothing wrong with this, but as this is a one screen game I would like to see some interesting backgrounds which can set the mood. There are no sound effects, and you can only switch the music on or off. The Tunes are nothing special but that said they are not bad either.

Overall this is a solid puzzle game and you can’t fault simple but fun mechanics. With a better approach on visual side and some sound effects this could be a very polished production.

The Game can be downloaded on one floppy, and it will also run from the HDD. High scores are saved into S folder within the game. 10x10 will run on any Amiga with 1MB of Ram and was written in Blitz Basic

Game Download is available from here:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=78061

Scores:

Sound

5/10
just music

Graphics

5/10

Gameplay

8/10

Overall

6/10