Commodore Is Awesome

What got you into the scene?

Photon — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:08:14 +0000

Another great question :)

In 1982 I sold all my Lego to buy a TI-99/4A from a neighbour. I had my own computer! My first one was a borrowed Acorn Atom.

Around 1984 I visited my friend Daniel who showed me Exploding Fist on his Spectrum and consequently my next computer was a C64, because I had seen Exploding Fist on it. But I liked the games on Spectravideo so much more I sold it and bought a SV-328. Shortly later, I got a SVI-738 MSX instead, which was both good and disappointing.

The fantastic architecture of the Amiga in 1987 is what got me into the scene. So much so that I programmed my first demo on my MSX and built a sampler to sample the ‘Ei’ instrument on it :)

It quickly became perfectly obvious to me that Amiga could do things NO other home computer could do. I drooled over crack intros, Barbarian and Nebulus, Protracker, Dpaint and beautiful ladies in colorful hats chewing on pencils. Jaw hung ajar.

I probably would have discovered the Amiga too late if Paul Stuart hadn’t let me spend pretty much every day of Xmas holiday 87/88 hanging out and playing on his Amiga, cos they were pretty pricey at the time, and I hadn’t saved up for one yet.

Some colas and pizzas later (why does that seem to be the intrinsic property of hanging out & enjoyable times???) sure enough, we’d formed a group ;) Paul and Johan as swappers, I was coder, and a 3 years older bloke Jonas who had made some great music! B.R.A.I.N.S. was born. :P

The fundamental discovery was that people had coded so called “demos” *just* for bragging rights. And bragging rights fits right in with the megalomaniacal knowitall nature of a 15-16yo mind. ;) And when you could code all these wonderful new things where previously there were only the usual character grids and sprites… how exciting and promising!

Amiga was something else, Amiga was a bright new future, and the possibilities were endless… this was the start of all dreams of wonder and delusions of grandieur. Because it was unexpectedly great.

Rare Game “Paradise Lost” Now Available for Download

Kitty — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:20:47 +0000

A previously unknown game (to most people), Paradise Lost, was intially sent to HOL by the developer Mert Börü with the request to include the game in HOL in April 2013. Mert included two releases of the game in his upload that the HOL team used to take the screenshots. One version was the original 4 disk release of the game and another one was included with a built-in unlimited energy trainer.

Mert Börü kindly gave permission to host both releases directly on OAGD.net, so everybody can experience this long lost Turkish game ;-)

Source: http://oagd.net

WinUAE 2.6.0 released

Kitty — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:23:49 +0000

WinUAE 2.6.0 (16.05.2013)

New features:
– Full 68030, 68040 and 68060 MMU emulation. Amix, Linux, NetBSD, Enforcer, WHDLoad MMU option and more fully working.
– Game Ports panel Remap GUI rewritten, more intuitive, supports manually added events.
– SCSI and ATAPI (IDE) CD drive emulation.
– Built-in full CHD CD and HD image support. HD image support is read-only.
– Partial partition hardfile on the fly eject/replacement support, requires filesystem that has removable drive support.
– Multiple Direct3D shader filters can be enabled simultaneously, optionally shader can be now run after scaling and filtering.
– Directory filesystem shortcut (.lnk) and symbolic links are mapped to Amiga soft links.
– Added support for mountlist-like hardfile configuration files.
– 100Hz+ vsync mode black frame insertion support, reduces LCD motion blur.

Updates:
– A590/A2091/A3000 SCSI emulation compatibility improved. (Amix, NetBSD etc..)
– A2065 network adapter compatibility improved. (Early NetBSD versions)
– Multithreaded IDE and SCSI emulation, slow read or write operations won’t temporarily pause the emulation anymore.
– When CPU double faults, emulated CPU is halted instead of forcing instant emulated hardware reset.
– Custom chipset emulation improved.
– Full Amiga file timestamp resolution (1/50s) support on FAT directory filesystems.
– Max supported resolution increased to 8192*8192 (NV Surround/AMD Eyefinity)
– CD32 CD detection works again in JIT mode.
– AROS ROM replacement updated.

Bug fixes:
– If display mode switched from RTG to native (or vice versa) and WinUAE window had no focus: emulation incorrectly started receiving keyboard input.
– 1.5M chip ram option didn’t work.
– GamePorts panel Swap Ports button cleared custom mappings.
– 68060 CPU and More compatible checked was unreliable.
– 68040/68060 no FPU/FPU disabled exception stack frame fixed.
– A2024 and Graffiti emulation memory leak fixed.
– FPU rounding mode was reset when using filters.
– Some USB game controllers had ghost events (move axis, button event is triggered or vice versa)
– CD32 CDs with multiple tracks didn’t boot.

Download: [Installer] [zip-archive]
Source: http://www.winuae.net

Cloanto Releases Amiga Forever and C64 Forever 2013

Kitty — Wed, 15 May 2013 21:58:21 +0000

May 10, 2013 – Cloanto released today Amiga Forever 2013 and C64 Forever 2013, the latest versions of the award-winning Commodore-Amiga preservation, emulation and support suites for Windows.

The 2013 editions for Windows had a focus on making the software easier to use, while providing new and more powerful features for advanced users and content creators. For example, the packages are easier to download and install, and emulated systems can be “repaired” with one click after unintended changes. Power users can now build ISO images and portable USB drive environments, use the visual Screen Clip Editor to better blend old screen modes into modern systems, or experiment with the new WinFellow emulation plugin or with a fresh build of the AROS Research OS. Outside the player, the RP9 thumbnail handler adds a new level of eye candy to File Explorer.

“One of the most fascinating challenges of user interface design has to be how to please both novice and sophisticated users. The attempt to keep things as simple as possible often limits learning and can be perceived as a ‘dumbing down’ by a more demanding audience,” noted Cloanto’s Mike Battilana.

“Even looking at recent versions of Windows, Mac OS and Linux, you can feel the pain of some choices. In today’s search engines, queries that used to work reliably have become less precise. Word processors won’t let you select the exact characters you want. Lacking perfect artificial intelligence, we are increasingly being ‘autocorrected’ beyond recognition.

C64 Forever brings us back to an era in which users knew that they were, or could be, in complete control of the machine, rather than vice versa. Tens of millions of home computers came with a powerful reminder of this, as they included a programming manual. Even today, the Amiga continues to inspire for how it elegantly met the needs of different audiences, leaving a feeling of freedom rather than one of artificial limitations. In addition to preserving access to a digital culture of tens of thousands of games, demoscene creations and other titles, we are trying to introduce new generations to these different angles, as we are convinced that this deeper perspective can help achieve a better view of the future.”

In Amiga Forever and C64 Forever 2013, the same interface transparently connects to three different emulation engines, giving consistent access to more than 25 computer models, all with fully licensed operating systems. The shared RP9 file format makes titles easily portable across computers and software versions. While novice users only need to press Play, advanced users can Edit titles and browse through options that are designed to also help understand how the software works.

Amiga Forever 2013 is available now in three editions:

Value Edition (downloadable installer)

Plus Edition (downloadable installer with option to build DVD ISO image)

Premium Edition (downloadable Plus Edition plus boxed software and additional videos on 3 DVDs)

C64 Forever 2013 is available now in three editions:

Free Express Edition (feature-limited version)

Downloadable Plus Edition (downloadable installer with option to build CD ISO image)

Boxed Plus Edition (downloadable Plus Edition plus boxed CD)

Amiga Forever and C64 Forever passed official Windows 8 logo tests on both x86 and x64 systems. Prices for both Amiga Forever and C64 Forever start from $9.95 (special upgrade offers).

Website: http://www.amigaforever.com

CSDb Latest Releases

Kitty — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:09:54 +0000

Latest releases over at CSDb are as follows:

Gubbdata Chronicles 2013, Rattus Norvegicus, Troll, Predator, 1987, rulez!, Bank Run, Green Delicious Apple-1 Emulator, C64-Archiv 3.5, MatrixUnloaded, UFO, For Leon 13, Radar Simulation +D, f:l:o:w:e:r, CheeseCutter 2.5.0, We haz ze powa, Unichorn with horn in the head of a woman (Yazoo killer), Freddy for FFFF and Regenerator 1.3.

Source: CSDb

Real instrument versions of classic C64 tunes

Kitty — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:17:08 +0000

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Hornanvasara from Finland sent us an email regarding his real instrument versions of classic C64 Tunes. So far he has created his own versions of Ocean Loader 3, Ocean Loader 4 and also the loading music to Rambo which is my personal favourite so far. Ocean Loader 2 is soon be added to his YouTube page so keep an eye out for that, it’s gonna be good! If your reading this Hornanvasara please can you also do a version of Ocean Loader 5, cheers mate ;-)

WinUAE 2.6.0 Beta 21 (RC2)

Kitty — Wed, 15 May 2013 02:15:04 +0000

Beta 21 (RC2) (1-2 days)

– Ultimate Body Blows CD32 pad button problem fix. Hopefully this last minute update does not break anything else ;-)

Download: winuae_2600b21.zip
Source: http://www.winuae.net

Icaros Desktop 1.5.2

Kitty — Wed, 15 May 2013 01:39:25 +0000

Paolo Besser released a new version of Icaros Desktop. Changes in this version: Updated: Nouveau, audio and network drivers, wireless manager, FlexCat, codesets library and additional Zune classes, AROS shell manual, libgtk-mui and Sqrxz3. New: Boot preference program, Pushover, HELP utility for CLI commands, ntpsync and SFSundelete.

Website: http://www.icarosdesktop.org
Source: http://www.richardlagendijk.nl

GB64 v10 released!

Kitty — Wed, 15 May 2013 00:55:39 +0000

The team of Gamebase 64 are proud to announce that Version 10 of the Gamebase64 database has just been released – adding 500 Games to a new total of 23500 entries!

SYS 64738, LOAD “$”,8 and Enjoy!

Source: http://www.gb64.com

Dave Needle and the Story of the Amiga Computer

Kitty — Wed, 15 May 2013 00:46:45 +0000

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The Amiga computer was ahead of its time yet never fully embraced by consumers because of the lack of available apps. Dave Needle the original hardware architect is interviewed in this piece by Rick Spence that pays a small tribute to the Amiga and how it helped pave the way for later innovations in computing.

Source: http://www.youtube.com