Commodore Vic 20 yellowed but in very good conditions

November 12th, 2009 No comments
Commodore VIC-20, Yellowed but in very good condition

Autopsy:

from Wikipedia:

The VIC-20 (Germany: VC-20; Japan: VIC-1001) is an 8-bit home computer which was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore’s first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units.

The VIC-20 was intended to be more economical than the PET computer. It was equipped with only 5 KB of RAM (of this, only 3583 Bytes were available to the user) and used the same MOS 6502 CPU as the PET. The VIC-20′s video chip, the MOS Technology VIC, was a general-purpose color video chip designed by Al Charpentier in 1977 and intended for use in inexpensive display terminals and game consoles, but Commodore couldn’t find a market for the chip. As the Apple II gained momentum with the advent of VisiCalc in 1979, Jack Tramiel wanted a product that would compete in the same segment, to be presented at the January 1980 CES. For this reason Chuck Peddle and Bill Seiler started to design a computer named TOI (The Other Intellect).

The TOI computer failed to materialize, mostly due to the fact that it required an 80-column character display which in turn required the MOS Technology 6564 chip. However, the chip could not be used in the TOI since it required very expensive static RAM to operate fast enough. In the meantime, freshman engineer Robert Yannes at MOS Technology (then a part of Commodore) had designed a computer in his home dubbed the MicroPET and finished a prototype with some help from Al Charpentier and Charles Winterble.

With the TOI unfinished, when Jack Tramiel was confronted with the MicroPET prototype, he immediately said he wanted it to be finished and ordered it to be mass-produced following a limited demonstration at the CES.

source: wikipedia

Some Pocket Electronics calculators

November 12th, 2009 No comments
Pocket Electronic Calculator

Autopsy:

Short Description:

  • Commodore GL-979D (1975) – 7 Digit green VFD.
  • MD2 888m (1976) – 8 Digit red LED.
  • Texas Instruments TI-30 (1976) – 8 Digit red LED.

source: mycalcdb.free.fr

CBM FileFinder v0.60 v1.0 Beta

November 11th, 2009 No comments

CBM FileFinderLittle tool useful to find a specific file inside common emulator file formats (such as D64, T64, G64, CRT and so on) or information inside SID files.

You can find, for example, SID from Rob Hubbard, or a specific SEQ file in all your files.

It comes with a complete help file.

source: aegsoft.snokie.org

Rob Hubbard’s Best Demo by Crypt

November 10th, 2009 No comments

robHubbardThis is a Rob Hubbard’s Demo by Crypt, one of My Favorite Musicians.

source: noname.c64.org

(Italian) MC-MicroComputer dal 1981 al 2001 Online!

November 9th, 2009 No comments

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Free PaperToys based on obscure UK Videogames of the 1980s

November 8th, 2009 No comments

PaperToysYou can download the PDF of:

  • Rick Dangerous
  • Cybersnake (Switchblade)
  • Hiro (Switchblade)

print them out and have fun with them.

source: simonphipps.com

Working in progress for the new 1541U-II

November 7th, 2009 No comments

1541 Ultimatefrom 1541 Ultimate homepage:

It is about time to release some news about the 1541U-II. I think some of you must be really curious about the extra features and possibilities that the 1541U-II give, and about the progress on production and firmware. To start off with the 1541U-II features, I can tell you that it differs from the ‘standard’ 1541U Plus/Ethernet that:

  • the board itself is about 30% smaller than the 1541U;
  • it has a MicroSD connector, instead of a full-size SD;
  • it has a real-time-clock function, for correct file time and date;
  • it has a larger FPGA, which enables the implementation of more features;
  • it has a USB Host port, which can be used to connect USB-sticks;
  • it is targeted to have a suitable case for the device.

Some of you have written in the forums, that the MicroSD connector is not much of an improvement. But the rationale behind going to MicroSD is mainly the available space on the board is less, and that with the addition of a USB-A port, the average user will use the usb-stick rather than the SD-card.

So the MicroSD-card does not need to be removed from the cartridge very often. However, because at the moment that I announced the 1541U-II, the USB port was not yet tested, I could not reveal this feature as I did not want to make promises that I can’t keep.

1541U-IIThe USB turns out to be quite a bit of work to get it to work, but I can now announce that I managed to implement enough of a host-controller function to be able to talk to USB devices and send the most basic commands to access a mass-storage device. I am quite close to have implemented the ‘read-block’ and ‘write-block’ functions, which is the interface level that the file system module uses. In other words, I expect to be able to access the (FAT) file-system on the USB stick quite soon!

How will it work for the user? My objective is to have one ‘directory’ level above the current root of the SD-card, where you can select which partition you want to browse. There the USB flash drive becomes visible, as well as the MicroSD card, if present.

source: 1541ultimate.net

Atari 1040 STf TOS Eprom Upgrade v1.04

November 6th, 2009 No comments
Yep, it's works!

Some Screenshots :

source: atari-forum.com

EasyFlash Cartridge Tools Collection by P1X3L.net

November 6th, 2009 No comments

Easyflash ToolsThat’s an CRT image with some C00L C64 Utility for the EasyFlash cartridge.

source: noname.c64 org

Commodore Vic 20 Games by Jeffrey Daniels

November 2nd, 2009 No comments

VIC<20 Denial LogoWebpage with some Commodore VIC-20 Games written by Jeffrey Daniels.

source: sleepingelephant.com

Categories: Favorite Links, Today

The shop of the website for8Bits is Open

October 31st, 2009 No comments

for8bits HomepageThis shop offers selected open-source projects in kit form for the classical computers
Commodore C64 and VIC-20.

Like:

  • C-64 EasyFlash.
  • VIC-20 Final Expansion.

source: for8bits.com

Commodore 64 DiskMagazine – Vandalism News #52

October 31st, 2009 No comments

Onslaught / Wrath Designs / Vandalism new stuff, bring you the 52th Vandalism News, released at the Syntax DemoParty 2009.

source: syntaxparty.com noname.c64.org

DTV Keyboard Twister: Enhancement and Fix by abraXxl (forum64.de)

October 30th, 2009 No comments

Keyboard Twister by Shadowolf is an ATtiny45-based hardware solution to fix some issues in the DTV’s keyboard emulation.

A user “abraXxl” on forum64.de has introduced some fix and enhancement of this cool project.

source: forum64.de (only German language)

Categories: DTV, News & Rumors, Today

Update Hidden Power BBS: FlashTerm client

October 28th, 2009 No comments

Hidden Power with FlashTerm

Hidden Power BBS now use FlashTerm client for telnet via web.

A old website with 328 C64 Games in M2i format

October 27th, 2009 1 comment

M2I C64 GamesClick here to jump to the M2i c64 games website. The file estension M2i is used by the SD2Iec interface.

Categories: Favorite Links, Today