I received this computer to be repaired for a friend some days ago. The computer displays only a black screen and some times a random character without any sound beep at the startup boot.

I have replaced the PLA IC 324745-01 (UE5) and 324744-01 (UE6) with two EPROM 27C512 70ns (suitably programmed), the Universal PLA adapter was kindly donated by Manosoft.

The computer also had another defect, apparently the fault was not only in the two PLA. The computer starts with the classic beep but the screen remain black, the faulty is the IC 6545 (CRTC) and that was replaced.

This model uses a ROM daughterboard instead of a single 23128 ROM (EPROM 27C128 pinout compatible). I have made an adapter to preserve the original state of 8296 and allow the insertion of the daughterboard after the replacement of the two PLA that are different (in size) to the original one.

HermIRES it’s a cross-platform hires bitmap (Art Studio 1 format) editor for the Commodore 64.

The format has some restrictions, here are the rules:

• The maximal resolution of the picture is 320×200
• Only 16 fix C64 colours can be used (no gradient either)
• In a 8×8 pixel-block only 2 colours can used to be displayable by C64 (this is detected in HermIRES, but .hbm files can be saved with clashes too.)
• On a real C64 the PAL will blur the screen-content a bit, should check on CRT, or at least VICE emulator’s CRT simulation.

Changelog:

Added:

• Color swapping fast-button – Tilde “`” button (BitBreaker’s idea)
• Show pen-diameter preview circle if diameter is bigger than the default
• *dense (pixel-scale) grid toggleable (in bigger magnifications too).
• *added ‘Deny painting’,'Reuse existing colour’ and ‘Set block colour’ mode to ClashTest – different settings on/off in case clash would happen…
• *showing zoomed area in the preview, allow going to area in zoomed mode when left-clicking on preview
• Showing ongoing progresses by text/graphics (loading/converting/drawing…)
• Selectable CRT emulation for Preview/Grid only… (for faster operation on slow machines)
• Undo step number displayed (should undo history also be saved?)

Fixed:

• Control/shift/alt stucked in Win7 with allegro devpak 4.2… -> using allegro devpak 4.4.2 version instead!
• Reduced overall CPU usage – refined timed and pixelling/detection events
• iI Windows it was slow (especially in CRT emulation) -> wrote optimized software CRT-emul.pixelling for GridDrawer, not relying on hw-acceleration
• *pressing F1..F4 fucked up (enlightens) toolbar sometimes – solution: timing stabilizer / thread safety check solved it
• Preview-zoom title-text was overwritten by Grid-Zoom-text in the smallest resolution mode with 2-digit magnifications
• *there was ‘allegro error #11′ and ‘segmentation fault’ at lower than required resolution – it was logical mistake in resolution-decider loop
• Made dithered and big-pendiameter filled rectangle/circle drawing faster (set the steps according to pen-diameter)
• *allegro filename-extension detection was wrong – if ‘.’ used in filename and no extension given, only the name before was saved to disk! -> used ustrcmp & strcat instead
• *C64-executable format name-tag (caption) now editable (deleting it disables it)

Download:

• HermIRES v1.25 (Linux) (977)
• HermIRES v1.25 (Windows) (1101)

source: hermit.netne.net

NAV, is a new file browser for the C64. NAV can use a mouse in Port 1, joystick in Port 2, or the keyboard. NAV can work with up to five drives and has been tested with the following drive types:

1541, 1571, 1581, uIEC, IDE64

Browsing through directories and disks is just point and click! Drives like the uIEC that can store gigabytes of software can be tedious and frustrating to navigate. NAV lets you easily work with D64/D71/D81/DNP/M2I disk images as well as “real” Commodore disks and the IDE64. Up to five drives at a time!

Just click a drive to browse it!Pressing the “@” key brings up a command line that acts just like the good ol’ DOS Wedge. In addition, there are a few additional commands that can be entered on the command line. Just type “@HELP” to get the complete list.

Download: NAV (D64) (1143)

source: commodoreserver.com

Have been replaced 4 tantalum capacitors short-circuited with 4 electrolytic capacitors. The computer has been tested and works perfectly.

This is a calendar in PDF format made by Marcin Dworaczek (a.k.a. mOOnie / MSB) for the new, 2013 year.

All the graphics were presented on the latest SV2k12 edition, and come from the following authors: Piesiu, Ripek, Rocky, Ooz, Ukko, Templeton, Odyn1ec and Bracket.

Download: SillyVenture 2013 calendar (1406)

source: sillyventure.eu

Altirra is an Atari 8 bit Emulator on the Windows/DOS platform. Altirra emulates several models of the 8-bit Atari computers. This includes the the 800, 800XL, and 130XE versions.

It has a lot of options, and compatibility is decent especially given the emulator’s early stages. It also supports some copy protected games properly in emulation.

Download: Altirra v2.20 (964)

source: virtualdub.org

Some new games (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups: Genesis Project, TRIAD, Really Proud Lamers and Laxity.

Download:

• Tone-Loco + 100% [pal/ntsc] (1252)
• SRogue v1.0 &D (1011)
• Tone-Loco (995)
• Gorf [max machine] +2D (1021)
• Blok Copy PETSCII Edition +3H (1047)
• Computer TitleBout +D [ntsc/pal] (1028)
• S-Blox (Beta 2) (1018)
• All Games in One Archive (2466)

source: csdb.dk

After 3+ years of suffering and curses, some days ago i have leave one of the worst (cheap) shared web hosting on the net.

I’m talking about Dreamhost.

The site Nightfallcrew.com / Retrocomputermania.com / Retrothings.org now runs on a dedicated server virtualized with Proxmox (KVM).

HermIRES it’s a cross-platform hires bitmap (Art Studio 1 format) editor for the Commodore 64.

The format has some restrictions, here are the rules:

• The maximal resolution of the picture is 320×200
• Only 16 fix C64 colours can be used (no gradient either)
• In a 8×8 pixel-block only 2 colours can used to be displayable by C64 (this is detected in HermIRES, but .hbm files can be saved with clashes too.)
• On a real C64 the PAL will blur the screen-content a bit, should check on CRT, or at least VICE emulator’s CRT simulation.

Download:

• HermIRES v1.2 (WINDOWS) (972)
• HermIRES v1.2 (LINUX) (903)

source: hermit.netne.net