If you are interested in BASIC programming for the C-64, then you have probably used a BASIC Extension at some point.  Most of us are familiar with Commodore’s  Simons’ BASIC cartridge.   Unfortunately, most of these extensions aren’t very useful.  Simons’ BASIC, for example, has a pretty lousy set of commands.

Many of them are basically (pun) useless.  It’s also a very confusing set of commands — there are no consistent conventions used, making it necessary to constantly refer to the manual.

Further, a program written with Simons’ BASIC can only be run on a C-64 with a Simons’ BASIC cartridge.  Pretty limiting.

DotBASIC Plus is similar to other extensions in one way: you get a lot of new commands (or DotCommands, of course) — over 100 so far.  But that’s where the similarities end.

source: 8bitcentral.com

This game is a Manic Miners style game with extra sub-games. It is programmed by Jason Fox and Adam Gilmore did the graphics and music. The game is actually more than 20 years old but was never released.

source: commodore-gg.hobby.nl gtw64.retro-net.de

Scalos is a workbench replacement for the Amiga computer. In this new version a lot of bug fixes and improvements.

source: scalos.noname.fr

SD2IEC is a hardware mass storage device using an SD/MMC card and interfacing with the IEC bus. It is based on the ATmega644 microcontroller from the Atmel AVR microcontroller family. The most prominent use of SD2IEC is emulation/replacement of a Commodore-1541 disk drive for a C64.

Hardware and the microcontroller’s firmware is available as open source (GPL).

Changelog:

2009-03-20 – release 0.6.7a

• Unknown.

source: sd2iec.de gitweb forum thread

From homepage: This version fixes some critical bugs.

Changelog:

• Fixed crash when changing sampling frequency of audio device before playing a tune.
• Fixed error handling when syncing a collection that has been deleted and replaced with a file.
• Added load address to tune details panel of info window.
• Playlists now end correctly after the last tune if repeat is turned off.
• Fixed incorrect timing on playback of many different tunes.
• Small performance improvements.
• Fixed deleting of playlist items, if playlist is not sorted by index.
• Playlist item count is updated immediately when items are removed from a playlist.
• Fixed filter settings when exporting multiple tunes.

source: sidmusic.org

Hi all!, after 13 years we are back Online via Telnet.

The Hidden Power BBS is working with all the statistics (bullettins) and calls (callerslog) of a time, and nothing was removed, all accounts (login / password / nup / telnet login) are the same as 13 years ago.

If you want to try, Click the Magic Link on the upper right corner (you need Java Macromedia Flash for the FlashTerm Telnet Client).

• Amiga 1200.
• 64mb FastRam.
• 2mb ChipRam.
• 60gb 2.5″ IDE HD (DH0: FFS / DH1: SFS).
• Phase5 Blizzard 1230 IV (68030 / 50mhz)
• Kick 3.1 (blizzKicked ;-D).
• IDE-Fix Express Splitter / Express Adapter.
• Indivision AGA 1200 (FlickerFixer).

The PASSWORD of Telnet D00r (fake Unix login) is: area51 / nup: oldskool

ProTrekkr (formerly known as NoiseTrekker by Juan Antonio Arguelles Rius aka Arguru) is a tracker program combining a software synthesizer together with a traditional samples tracker which can be used to create electronic music (like psytrance, trance goa, hard acid, IDM, chip, techno, etc.) for small sized intros, demos or games.

source: os4depot.net

How to deal with the “not-so-mellow yellow” of old computers and consoles

Anyone who has dug their old computer or console out of the cupboard or loft for some retro gaming will probably have noticed that it maybe hasn’t worn too well with the test of time. The plastics these machines were made of is called ABS and to make it flame retardant (just in case it catches fire after a marathon session) the plastics manufacturers added chemicals that caused the plastic turn yellow or, even worse, brown over a long period of time.

source: retr0bright.wikispaces.com

MultiColor is an image manipulation tool for Commodore 8-bit computers’ graphics formats. It is an old-school painting program for graphicians but not an image converter. Currently VIC-II multicolor bitmap is the only supported image format.

Features:

• Written in C++, so it’s quite fast and no special runtime is required.
• Can be compiled for many platforms, because it uses wxWidgets.
• Can load Koala and Amica, file type is detected independently from file name.
• Behaviour when hitting the color-per-cell-limit can be selected.
• Undo/redo.
• Tools with realtime preview (e.g. Line)
• Basic TV emulation.
• Zoom, with grid at higher zoom factors.

Changelog:

Read more…