Below a short description of the repair.
Commodore PET 2001 (1977) Chiclet Keyboard (#1)
Defect:
- Garbage Screen on boot and partially in a working state.
Diagnosis/Repair:
- The Multiplexer 74LS157 (position D2) had an output (pin 4) always been in low state.
Gallery of the repair:
Commodore PET 2001 (1978) Chiclet Keyboard (#2)
Defect:
- Garbage Screen on boot.
- Memory Problems (1018 Bytes are missing)
Diagnosis/Repair:
- The garbage screen on boot was caused by a poor contact of the sockets where reside the ROMs. Temporarily fixed by inserting a precision sockets above the original socket (very bad quality sockets).
- The problem of the missing memory was fixed by replacing a RAM MPS 2114 (position J1) with a new one.
Gallery of the repair:
Ikari has released a new firmware for the SD2Snes Flash Cartridge (Super Nintendo/Famicom). The upgrade instructions can be found here.
Download: SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.7 Beta/Preview Rev 4 (1519)
Full Changelog:
- Prevent software from using uninitialized DMA ch.0 transfer to corrupt the stack (fixes Nightmare Busters)
- Disable PPU region patching during the menu
- MSU1: Stop audio playback on reset (fixes static buzzing noise in games after soft-resetting out of an MSU1 game)
- Cx4: Add a switch for original/fast mode. “Original” mimics the Cx4 timing better (Megaman doesn’t die in MMX2 attract mode) whereas “Fast” uses a single CPU cycle for every instruction, improving frame rate when drawing polygons (rotating head in MMX2 intro).
- Hide dot files and directories again (Regression in 0.1.7).
- “Stealth Mode” for in-game hook memory area hides the memory region used by in-game routines from games. (Fixes Equinox, Lion King)
- In-game hooks are a bit less intrusive in terms of CPU time, hopefully reducing glitches a bit with problematic games.
- System Information screen shows file system usage on card.
- Slow down DSPx a bit to better match original speed (should have no noticeable effect)
- Font height is reduced by one pixel to increase readability (lines of text are more distinguishable). This has an effect on the font style so some might not like it…?
- Background is greyed out when a window is active in foreground
- Menu now uses the dynamic hierarchical menu system, with automatic calculation of window dimensions, etc. Not much of it can be seen at the moment due to the lack of menu entries.
- Experimental SRAM mapping for Cx4
- FPGA: adjust address sampling time for “end-of-cycle” events. Should help primarily with DSP1 glitches.
- MSU1: initial volume now adheres to the latest spec (initial volume = 0) so it must be initialized by software to the desired level. This actually breaks my own example player I will post an updated version of it shortly.
Read more…
Forth, the Language.
Forth is a different language. It’s aged and a little weird.
What’s cool about it? It’s a very low-level and minimal language without any automatic memory management. At the same time, it easily scales to become a very high-level and domain-specific language, much like Lisp. Compared to C64 Basic, Forth is more attractive in almost every way.
It is a lot more fast, memory effective and powerful. Compared to C, specifically cc65, the story is a little different. It’s hard to make a fair comparison. Theoretically Forth code can be very memory efficient, and it’s possible to make Forth code that is leaner than C code. But it is also true that cc65 code is generally much faster than Forth code.
Download: durexForth v1.4 + Manual (1470)
source: noname.c64.org
Jean-François DEL NERO (who’s behind the HxC SD Floppy Emulator) recently has released a version of the HxC emulator firmware that is compatible with the STM32 chip used in the Gotek floppy emulators.
This means that the great functionality of the HxC SD emulator is now available on cheaper and more widely available hardware.
The bootloader to convert the Gotek floppy drive in HxC compatible must be purchased on the website HXC 2001 by sending an email to Jean-François DEL NERO. The price of the bootloader is one-off 10 Euro per Gotek that you want to update. Future updates of the software are free and can be made from a USB stick
The HXC Usb (Gotek) firmware supports: 
Release notes Firmware USB HxCFloppyEmulator v3.0.5.4a
- Amiga : Extra Disk change delay added. Solve some disk change issues (Protracker 3.15, Defender of the Crown,…).
Download: USB Stick STM32 (Gotek) HxC Firmware v3.0.5.4a (2007)
source: hxc2001.com
SNDH archive v4.5 released - 355 new/updated SNDH files (1731 subtunes).
Ever since the birth of the Atari ST, different chip music formats have had different ways to use them. If you are coding a chip music player for the Atari ST you would have to use dozens and dozens of special ways to replay music.
But in the mid 90′s, BDC of Aura crew became tired of this inelegant system and decided to fix the issue once and for all. He then created the ‘SNDH’ file format. SNDH is actually the original songfile and replaycode with a header bolted on top of the music and replayer. The header has a unified calling interface no matter what type of chip music is hidden beneath it, and it has extended datas about the music.
Download: SNDH Atari ST YM2149 Archive v4.5 (1605)
source: sndh.atari.org
Some new games or tools (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups.
Titles:
- Amaurote +6MD +Pic
- Scramble V1.14 +5H
- Jack the Nipper +4DGFS [pal/90% ntsc]
- Attack the Space
- Labyrinth of Crete 101% &DS &Map [onesided]
- Escape-Man 87 [2015 version]
- Sweatman &E
- China Miner +26D [crazy hack]
- Victor Software Game Pack
- Ghosts’n Goblins Arcade & Commando Arcade SE [easyflash]
- Armer Humin Preview +
- Magic Voice Classics [easyflash]
- Infernal Runner 101% +10DG
- Bionic Ninja +23D Crazy Trainer Hack
- X-Force (Final Sales Version) +6HD
- Abyssonaut (Prize Version) +2DH [seuck]
- Gigablast! (Prize Version) +2H [seuck]
- T-UFO (Prize Version) +2H [seuck]
- Get to the End
- Dark Force Redux +2H [seuck]
- Get to the End [final version]
- Tanium +27D [crazy hack]
- Get to the End +CH
- Get to the End [final version]
- RockMaze +3P &Editor
- Captain Dynamo +11D [crazy hack]
- Pixel Pix +3
- Big Mech Alpha [seuck]
- Big Mech Alpha +2 [seuck]
- Glow Path Basic
- Paperboy USA +3D [ntsc]
- Bigfoot +23D
- Pixel Pix
- Pour Le Merite +2 [seuck]
- Scarabaeus +6DH
Download: All Games in One Archive (3716)
source: csdb.dk
The Bruc 100 is one of the few home computer designed and manufactured in Italy by Frael (Franchi Electronics) . Released in the 1987 it was sold along with the computer courses of the School 2F.
There are two models. The first has no cartridge slot but only one extension BUS. On the second model the extension BUS has been replaced by a cartridge port.
The Bruc 100 is not totally an MSX1 computer. The cartridge port (or the extension BUS) and the cassette tape connector are a bit different. This computer doesn’t support the FM-Pac nor floppy disk controllers, etc because the port does not provide + 12V nor -12V. The cartridge port also has the particularity of having two /SLTSL signals (pin 4 for slot 2 and pin 16 for slot 3).
The Basic of Bruc 100 is not the MSX-Basic but it is very similar. The keyboard is a bit different from a MSX. There are 107 keys which a number pad, shortcut keys and some mirror keys.
Gallery:
Replacement of non polarized plug C7/C8:
source: computerhistory.it msx.org
Jean-François DEL NERO (who’s behind the HxC SD Floppy Emulator) recently has released a version of the HxC emulator firmware that is compatible with the STM32 chip used in the Gotek floppy emulators.
This means that the great functionality of the HxC SD emulator is now available on cheaper and more widely available hardware.
The bootloader to convert the Gotek floppy drive in HxC compatible must be purchased on the website HXC 2001 by sending an email to Jean-François DEL NERO. The price of the bootloader is one-off 10 Euro per Gotek that you want to update. Future updates of the software are free and can be made from a USB stick
The HXC Usb (Gotek) firmware supports:
Flashing the Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware:
Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware (Testing on Amiga Computer):
Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware (Testing on Amstrad CPC computer):
Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware (Testing on Atari ST Computer):
Gotek Audio Track Loader:
The schematics is here
Components:
- 1 x Buzzer.
- 1 x BC547 or similar bipolar transistor.
- 1 x 1k resistor.
I have to thank Jean-François DEL NERO for the support that he gave me for the bootloader programming.
source: hxc2001.com
The High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC) is a freeware hobby project which organises Commodore 64 music (also known as SID music) into an archive for both musicians and fans alike.
The work on the collection is done completely in the Team and contributors’ spare time and is proudly one of the largest and most accurate computer music collections known.
This update features (all approximates):
- 798 new SIDs
- 121 fixed/better rips
- 3 repeats/bad rips eliminated
- 412 SID credit fixes
- 67 SID model/clock infos
- 8 tunes from /DEMOS/UNKNOWN/ identified
- 19 tunes from /GAMES/ identified
- 24 tunes moved out of /DEMOS/ to their composers’ directories
- 22 tunes moved out of /GAMES/ to their composers’ directories
Download:
source: www.hvsc.c64.org
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