It was released a new OS Update for the Everdrive N64 Flash Cartridge (Nintendo 64) by Krikzz. The upgrade instructions can be found here.

Changelog:

• After reset, file browser returns where you was before than run the game, instead of just go to the root.
• Users can change default save type in save_db.txt
• ED64-V3 support.
• Fixed default save type for some games.
• Changed save memory initialization, it fix the problems with some games.
• Fixed possible problems with sram and flash ram saves.
• Fixed ramnom hangs after reboot.
• Self test function. Cart stability diagnostic.
• Improved eeprom implementation.

Download: Everdrive N64 - OS Update v2.05 (1205)

source: krikzz.com

Ikari has released a new firmware for the SD2Snes Flash Cartridge (Super Nintendo/Famicom). The upgrade instructions can be found here.

Full Changelog:

It addresses some issues reported with v0.1.7 preview (and some others).

• Satellaview works again. BSX alters the original interrupt vectors at run time. The original interrupt vectors are now saved per hook call, not only once when loading the ROM.
• In game buttons now work with MSU1, too.
• Automatic hook method choosing: NMI is default but switched to IRQ when no NMIs are triggered. If both occur, NMI has priority. This should enable the in-game buttons for games that previously did nothing.
• The hook routine saves some CPU time when auto joypad read is enabled by the game – it will just reuse the result instead of doing its own controller scanning. Also the controller is now only scanned every 8 frames. This helps alleviate some glitches, e.g. Secret of Mana now starts up correctly. There are still some glitches left which can’t be eliminated fully.
• Auto region patching works again without having to delete the sd2snes.cfg.
• BSX now emulates Type 1 memory packs instead of Type 2. Apparently the BSX BIOS is buggy with Type 2 packs when they contain HiROM games that are supposed to be run from PSRAM. So, at least Bomberman works now, and probably others too.
• Fixed BSX PSRAM shadowing for HiROM.
• Files and directories with “hidden” or “system” attributes are now actually hidden from the file browser.

Download: SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.7 Beta/Preview Rev 2 (1617)

source: sd2snes.de

The Prism QL 14 is a Color Monitor for Sinclair QL. The monitor has an Scart input (RGB) but unfortunately that is not fully compatible with other devices that use the Scart output as video.

Some photos of the monitor cleaning:

I thank my friend Giacomo Vernoni for having given me this console that i was looking for a long times. This the link of the Giacomo blog where you can find a complete review of this console with some beautiful photos.

Gallery:

12►

Following Commodore’s acquistion of MOS technologies (famous for producing the later 6502 chip for the PET), the Pong-like TV Game consoles 2000K and 3000H made their appearance.

The 3000H console features two paddles (sliders), one internal and one connected by wire (with 2 additional optional sliders); 9VDC or battery power (6 AA batteries required, yes it can run on batteries!).  It generates its own sound with the built-in speaker and can play 4 games: Tennis, Target (with an optional light gun), Football and Squash.  There is also a gage for difficulty level (handicap), and another for the number of players and other settings.

The cool thing is that the core chip, the MOS 7601 (the last of MOS’s Pong-chip line) read game instructions from a special ROM which appears to be internal to the chip, making it stand out from the other Pong-clones that had the game hard-coded into the system’s logic

However, because graphics and sound are also generated directly by the 7601 and are hardwired into the chip’s logic, it meantthat special variants had to be created if a special display was required for an arbitrary application. Thus, the 7601 in the TV Game series, while being programmable in a crude sense, is hardwired to generate the graphics for the TV Game series’ internal games only and cannot be used into drawing other kinds of shapes.

Games available were the following four:

• Game mira (playable with an optional optical gun )
• Tennis
• Football
• Squash

source: computinghistory.org.uk

Ikari has released a new firmware for the SD2Snes Flash Cartridge (Super Nintendo/Famicom). The upgrade instructions can be found here.

Full Changelog:

• In-game button combinations are in effect. See the table below for the key mapping. Note that some games show glitches with the in-game functions in place. I added an additional feature to temporarily disable them in case of game glitches (e.g. Secret of Mana hangs at the Squaresoft logo, displaying only garbage). I’m not entirely happy with the button choice but it will do for now. ;)
• LED blink codes for file system errors – e.g. in case the SRM file cannot be saved this will tell you that something’s gone wrong. The blink codes are yet to be listed.
• Also the sd2snes will retry saving until it works so you have the chance to swap out the SD Card. In that case the directory structure must be present where the sd2snes expects to save the file.
• “Screen saver” – in the menu, the screen is darkened after some idle time to reduce wear on CRT and plasma screens.
• Memory sharing between SNES and the sd2snes CPU is greatly simplified (The FSM is reduced to only 5 states instead of 18) and timing is more relaxed. This should help with stability on a wider range of consoles.
• On-the-fly file browsing. Also shows a little “loading…” window when loading directories/files.
• Windows are now blue so they stick out better in front of yellow directory listings.
• Cx4 data ROM is now embedded in the FPGA configuration – no more need for the external file cx4.bin.
• Initial Satellaview clock is back to 18:00:00 from 18:05:30.
• SD cards can be hotswapped. Currently there is no automatic refresh of the file list so tapping reset on the SNES or changing the directory is necessary to get the new contents.
• The status line is moved upward a few pixels so hopefully it doesn’t get eaten by overscan.
• Navigation: When scrolling page-wise with the right D-pad arrow, the end of the file list is now aligned to the bottom of the screen.
• Navigation: The shoulder buttons can be used to jump to the beginning/end of a directory listing.
• Bugfix: some compatibility issues with a number of games. (Super Play Action Football (S-RTC interference), GP1 Part II (WRAM initialization), Human Grand Prix (mapper detection bug))
• Bugfix: properly initialize FPGA state machine (on some consoles the menu failed to start at all)
• v0.1.7 final will contain menu items for various configuration settings and a cheat interface.

In-game button mappings:

• L+R+Select+Start = Reset game
• L+R+Select+X = Reset to sd2snes menu
• L+R+Start+B = Disable cheats
• L+R+Start+A = Enable cheats
• L+R+Start+Y = Kill in-game routines (in case they interfere with game operation).
• L+R+Start+X = Temporarily kill in-game routines (~10 seconds – if you need to get past a glitch but don’t want to lose in-game buttons)

Download: SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.7 Beta/Preview (1496)

source: sd2snes.de

I must thank my friends which have contributed to the growth of my Repair Laboratory with donations of spare parts.

Donated items:

• 2 x Sega Dreamcast
• 1 x Sinclair 128+
• 2 x Amiga 500 Memory Expansion
• 1 x Amiga Powersupply
• 1 x Philips Multi Voltage Power supply
• 1 x Commodore CBM/PET Power supply (complete and working)
• 1 x 8088 Motherboard (Clone)
• 1 x Floppy Drive Controller (ISA Card)
• 1 x MDA/Parallel Controller (ISA Card)
• 1 x PC Clone (8088) Power supply
• 6 x Unknown Adapter/Interface
• 1 x Atari 7800 Motherboard
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k Motherboard
• 1 x Pong Clone Motherboard
• 1 x Amstrad CPC 464 Motherboard
• 1 x Commodore 6499
• 1 x Power Supply C64/VIC20 (Clone)

Some new games or tools (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups.

Titles:

• Bozo’s Night Out +7HDG
• Vallation +6HD
• Foren Huren +Docs [pal/ntsc]
• Mag Max +8DGH +Pic
• Burnin’ Pen ’64
• Zappy Bird +2
• Ugh! +5DGM
• Eelona Preview +2
• Beyond the Night Run +3H
• Spike’s Peak 101% +7DGM
• I Can Remember +D
• Batman – The Caped Crusader USA + [ntsc/pal]
• Space Action 2 Preview
• Game Preview #1
• Game Preview #2
• Mad Ninja Preview
• Slug +30D +Fix
• King’s Valley Preview
• Burnin’ Pen ’64 [bugfix]
• Total Eclipse II -JEWEL-
• Mission Omega +1D

Download: All Games in One Archive (3180)

This is another adapter (here the previous one) to replace the MPS 6550 RAM. This adapter replace a single MPS 6550 RAM chip in a Commodore PET 2001 with a standard 2114 RAM chip.

source: dasarodesigns.com

These are my two Commodore PET 2001-8C (Chiclet). They are two different models, below i will list the differences.

On the left:

• Different front Label.
• PET Motherboard ASSY 320132
• Different Copyright Label on motherboard (1978)
• Uses the 2114 ram ic for the Main memory and for the Video ram.
• CRT tube with green phosphor.
• The transformer, the big electrolytic capacitor and the power connector are different.
• Datassette Motherboard ASSY 320275-B (1978)

On the right:

• Different front Label.
• Motherboard ASSY 320008
• Different Copyright Label on motherboard (1977)
• Uses the MOS 6550 ram ic for the Main memory and for the Video ram.
• CRT tube with white phosphor.
• The transformer, the big electrolytic capacitor and the power connector are different.
• Datassette Motherboard ASSY 320109.E (1977)

Hi all, like one year ago Manosoft amazes us again, this time he did a great job of merging the ITS TAP Player module with the C64SD and from this merger comes the Princess, an interface with both previously released interfaces.
The Princess interface is elegant as only Manosoft can do, the box color has changed and is a white sand that matches perfectly with the whole 8-bit Commodore Home Computer series.

In addition to the color were also added new controls and visual led. Below the instructions of each command on the front/back side of the Princess interface.

Front side:

• [1] Play/Stop switch for TAP file.
• [2] Reset button.
• [3] Disc Change button. (down/autoswap.lst)
• [4] LED:
  • Yellow – Virtual Motor of the Tape.
  • White – Reading.
  • Red – General Error.
  • Green – Power.
• [5] Floppy Drive Connector (IEC) Computer side.
• [6] Connector Cassette side Computer
• [7] Auxiliary Power 9v.

Back side:

• [1] SD Card slot.
• [2] Red Button – Setpoint tap file / (up/autoswap.lst)
• [3] Dip Switch for selecting the Floppy drive Device (SD2IEC).
• [4] Audio volume (monitor function) TAP Player.
• [5] Mini DIN 8-pin connector to be connected to the tape port of the Commodore 264 series.
• [6] Auxiliary Power 9v.
• [7] Pass-through Floppy Drive Connector (IEC)
• [8] Pass-through Tape connector to use with a Datasette 1530 or 1531 with a another adapter.

Like the previous C64SD v2.0 interface, the Princess has a pass-through connector for the cassette recorder and one for the Floppy Disk Drive.

I don’t forget to speak about the nice addition, a small Piezo Speaker to hear the sound of the bytes that are loaded with the TAP Player and also a nice “beep” that warn if the interface on power up working correctly.

Damiano alias “Manosoft” is a good manufacturer of 8 Bit peripherals and also a great friend. I take the opportunity of this article to greet Damiano and congratulate for this new interface for the 8-bit Commodore Home Computer series.

Soon will be available on the Manosoft website two new software packages (C64 and AIO)

“AIO” is an innovative system that will allow the creation of the SD Card of 4GB or higher in a few minutes from an image file created ad hoc.

On the Commodore 64 side was also written a new program called “MENU” with some utilities like the initialization of the SD Card for the Princess C64SD v3.0 interface.

The development of the TAP Player firmware with the SD2IEC protocol has been made possible thanks to the collaboration of Hawui1 promoter and developer of the ITS Module and some other things.

The Princess C64SD v3.0 interface will be available for sale in the next months on the Manosoft site.

Princess C64SD v3.0 Video Preview:

Gallery:

12►

This is a disk interface system made by Micro Peripherals Ltd which was later badged by Sinclair as their “official” disc system.

It used its own software (written by Richard Miller) and did not conform to the QJump “FLP” system used by most companies at the time (it used the name FDK to access the disk drives). The fact that the device name was not “FLP” put a lot of users off. The unit does not support direct sector access.

The interface had an 8K onboard EPROM providing the device driver and toolkit extensions, which included:

• DGET – Load sector into an array
• DPUT – Save an array to a sector
• MSET, FSET – Toggle microdrive emulation mode
• VSET – Rename the disk device (the interface normally uses the drive name FDK rather than the FLP used by most other QL disk systems)

Plus several other extensions similar to those in other disk interfaces, and some utility programs such as a disk and memory editor were supplied on disk.

The interface was supplied with either one, or a pair of DSDD 720KB drives, the first of which took its power from an external transformer via a 6-way power connector, and the second took its power from the DC output of the first drive via a 5-way connector, plus a ribbon connector from one drive to the other.

The interface had switch-selectable options via a series of jumpers to format single or double sided, and 3ms or 6ms track to track time. Another jumper could be set to make the QL boot from an ‘mdv’ named disk.

Powersupply Pinout:

Download:

• Micro Peripherals Floppy Disk Interface Manual (1721)
• Micro Peripherals Ltd Floppy Interface ROM v5.3 (Italian) (1486)

source: rwapadventures.com

This is a screenshot from the Talk, a demonstration made by a Friend to explain how they worked the BBS. On the photo “Hidden Power / Nightfall WHQ’

A new demo for Commodore 64 by Algorithm/Onslaught.

Download: Variable Offset Amplitude (VOA) by Algorithm (1177)

source: csdb.dk

CBM prg Studio Version 3.1.0 is released. There are a lot of new features in this version. I’d really appreciate it if you report any bugs you find or have any suggestions/comments.

CBM prg Studio allows you to type a BASIC or Machine Code program in using a nice Windows environment and convert it to a ‘.prg’ file which you can run on an emulator, or even a real C64 / VIC20 or PET if you’re feeling brave and have the right kit.

CBM prg Studio is the result of merging C64PrgGen and VIC20PrgGen. Adding new features and fixing bugs in two apps which were 95% similar was a bit of a nightmare so merging them made sense.

It was also a good opportunity for a face lift and to add some new features, such as:

• Programs are project based, meaning all related source files, sprite files etc. are kept in one place and multiple source files can be linked more easily.
• Tabbed MDI.
• Syntax highlighting.

What CBM prg Studio isn’t is a front-end for tok64, cbmcnvrt, bastext or any other tokeniser / detokeniser / assembler. It’s all been written completely from scratch.

New features:

• Code Snippets.
• Improved VICE debugger support.
• New tutorial for mixing BASIC and machine code.
• Support for the Plus/4 in the screen code builder tool.
• Syntax colouring can be disabled.
• BASIC 8 support for C128 projects.
• Return to ‘jump to destination’ in basic programs.

Bug Fixed:

• Assembler:
  • Zero page optimisation ignored if address contained arithmetic.
  • Arithmetic with cheap labels ignored.
  • GenerateTo ignored if wrapped in ifdef..endif
  • Arithmetic would fail if using binary variables.
  • Unknown labels in WORD sequences ignored.
  • Incbin would fail with certain parameters and comments.
  • Problems generating a .prg to a disk image.

• Screen Designer:
  • 1×1 rectangle could throw exception in screen designers box tool.
  • Mixed mode (multicolour and hires) screen designer (VIC20).
  • Fill for rectangle tool.

• Debugger:
  • SBC, ADC and RTI instructions not working.
  • Improved cycle counting.

Download: CBM prg Studio v3.1.0 (1184)

source: ajordison.co.uk

I must thank my dear friend Andrea and all friends which have contributed to the growth of my Repair Laboratory with donations of spare parts.

Donated items:

• 1 x Commodore 128
• 2 x Sinclair QL
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum +
• 1 x Spectravideo SV-318
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2
• 1 x Philips MSX VG-8010
• 1 x Philips MSX VG-8020
• 1 x Olivetti Prodest PC 128
• 2 x Olivetti Prodest PC 128/S
• 1 x Amstrad CPC 464
• 1 x Amiga 600 without Floppy Drive
• 1 x Commodore CDTV
• 1 x Atari Floppy Drive 1050
• 1 x Atari Tape Recorder 1010
• 1 x 512k Expander Ram from Miracle for Sinclair QL
• 2 x Floppy Disk Drive 3.5″ for Sinclair QL (*)
• 1 x QLFDC Floppy Disk Drive Interface v5.1 from Miracle for Sinclair QL
• 1 x Floppy Disk Drive 3″ + Interface for Sinclair QL
• 1 x Centronics Interface for Sinclair QL
• 1 x Power Supply for 3.5″ Floppy Disk Drive
• 2 x Cables

(*) Needs to be made a Aesthetic Restoration.