Commodore Free 35/Commodore_Free_Issue_35_2009_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/iv gideon

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 11KB | 319 lines

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Commodore Free talk to Gideon
Zweijtzer Creator of the 1541Ultimate
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   http://www.1541ultimate.net/

Gideon Zweijtzer took time to speak
to Commodore Free about his love of
Commodore, and the future for his
excellent 1541 Ultimate Plus upgrade.

Many of today's Commodore 64 users,
enthusiasts, fans and so-called
experts will be in their late 20s
through to their mid-30s, and
remember Commodore's mighty 8-bit
from their childhood, especially in
parts of mainland Europe where the
64K 'Bread-bid' did particularly
well. Gideon is no exception to this
rule, introducing himself as "35 and
living in the Netherlands" and
revealing a typical story by
recalling "as a child I was really
hooked to the C64 for many years,
starting at the age of 9. At the age
of 11 I got my first C64 of my own.
For some time, I used it for
everything, including writing fully
laid out documents, using PrintFox,
then the Amiga came, and I switched
over", and regardless of upgrading to
the 16-bit Miggy, it was the 64 that
started his love affair with
computing, and with the Commodore
brand.

Behind all of this is a dark secret,
"the C64 was the first... although I
also secretly played with my
brother's [Sinclair] ZX-81 before the
C64 came." Whilst you recover from
the shock of that revelation, it will
be less surprising to hear what drew
Gideon into using computers in the
first place; "I was often
programming, and I spent hours and
hours copying games, but I never
actually played any of them. Only
Giana Sisters. I was hooked to that!"
So, it was the all-round usability of
the C64, especially as he "used
PrintFox for editing and writing
reports for school. And I enjoyed the
C64 a lot, really. I believed it was
a very good machine for its time."
Now, if only I'd had Commodore's set
up 'for educational purposes' in my
school. Sadly, like most people in
the UK, if I wanted to do school work
on a computer, it'd have to be on a
BBC Micro, something that most people
didn't have at home.

As we talked, Gideon admitted that
his obsession with the Rainbow Arts
game The Great Giana Sisters,
revealing "I was so hooked on [The
Great] Giana Sisters, that I reverse
engineered the code to some extent
and wrote a level editor and created
Giana Sisters II, together with two
friends of mine", although his
version including the level editor
was never made available to anyone
else, his edited game found its way
out: "Giana Sisters II is available.
I was very surprised when I found it
on a 15000-games DVD."

Like many of us, his C64 was dormant
for many years, waiting to be
rediscovered. "My Commodore had been
pretty much 'dead' for me for many
years." It was never forgotten though
- "Professionally I got into
programmable logic, the generic term
for FPGA technology. Then, when I
wanted to do some experiments with
FPGAs for a hobby, I chose the C64 as
a platform. The first thing I did
back in 2000 was write a 6502 in
VHDL, and replaced the 6510 on a real
Commodore with mine, and debugged it
until it booted the kernal. "Then I
wanted to write a 32-bit 6502
replacement, but that project never
got finished, mostly due to the fact
no one would ever write a compiler
for it." A 32-bit 6502 replacement? I
pressed him to tell me more, and
whether or not it was inline with the
65832 I had heard about earlier in
the decade. "My project was the
65GZ032; a CPU that could execute
both 8- bit instructions as well as
32 bit instructions without switching
between modes.", so it was something
different, though would be compatible
with "the 6502" which he "used it in
a project at the university." After
abandoning his 32-bit dream, he
concentrated on a VHDL replacement
for the C64 chipset, as he explained.
"For some years, nothing happened...
at some free evenings I wrote VHDL to
replace the other C64 chips, and
demonstrated a working C64 in one
FPGA chip at my work place, using an
(expensive) FPGA development board. I
did this just for fun, actually. And
the Commodore One from Jeri Elsworth
already existed at that time."

So, how did the idea for the 1541
Ultimate come along then? "Later on,
I talked to a colleague of mine about
what I could do, since others already
developed the C64, so then the idea
came up to implement a 1541 instead.
At first, I demonstrated this using a
development board. I could load a
disk image through Ethernet from a
laptop and demonstrate the operation.
And later, the idea came to implement
this on a cartridge, and use the
C64's VIC chip to display a menu to
select disks. This is how the 1541
Ultimate came into existence." But,
it didn't stop at just implementing a
1541, as this piece of kit can mimic
many cartridges, including the 17xx
Ram Expansion Units from Commodore.
"Actually, it was more of a fun thing
again. I equipped the 1541U with 32MB
of RAM, and thought it must be
possible to implement the REU. So I
took the register description and
added it to the 1541U."

One thing on the mind of many GEOS
enthusiasts is, will he ever get
around to implementing such devices
as the RAMLink, so I pressed him on
this. "Not yet, but ever since the
sales of the 1541U took off, I am so
swamped with other things than
programming, that it is just a
limitation of my time." There is
quite a wish-list for the hardware,
as he stated, "many people have asked
me to implement many extensions, but
my time is limited." Of course, he is
only one man, and not an entire
industry, or a production line, as we
must remember! He also had his
priorities sorted when I spoke to
him, "at this moment, having a
holiday is the top of my list!! Haha!

As we will all appreciate, he has
needed a holiday, "honestly, since I
am still working full time, the 1541U
project has been wearing me out a
lot", but you can never stop a
workaholic, "technically, when it
comes to the 1541U, I am working on a
new version of the firmware, that
will remove some of the current
limitations in the software design",
although many people have said that
the device is hardly 'limited',
Gideon seems to have something of a
perfectionist in him, as he sees a
lot of room for improvement "the
current firmware is based on a 6502
CPU. This CPU has many limitations.
It can only access 64K at a time, and
as you understand, the 1541U needs to
address more data in its memory. So
there is an extensive memory mapping
scheme in effect that enables the
1541U to do the things it can do now.
But it is a dead end, since the whole
firmware is full of memory mapping
code. In this way, it is the address
bus that has the limitations. The
idea is to use a small 32-bit CPU in
the new firmware. But this transition
involves rewriting a lot of the code!

So, will we have a 32-bit future
then? Surely, if this can be done,
the 1541U really will be the
'Ultimate' cartridge, but he
continued, "I have put some efforts
in creating a new version of the
hardware, which is now announced on
my website. I am trying to make the
new 1541U even more versatile, and
make it more 'ultimate' than the
current one is. But I think that
after this one, I will have to start
looking for other things to do in my
life." I'm sure you will agree that,
when this time comes, we'll be left
with one superb piece of hardware
that will even appeal to the more
casual users.

What of the future for this project
though? I told him about a friend of
mine who said that he fully expected
there to still be Commodore users
beyond the year 2000, though he
wondered what people would be doing
with the old 8-bit other than playing
classic games. Many of you will know
the answer to this, as support came
along for PostScript Laser Printers,
and connectivity to modern networks.
Where did he see the Commodore 64
platform in a decades time?
Teasingly, he said "I think the new
1541U will once again add something
to the C64." So, what exactly? "The
major new addition to the 1541U-II is
a USB-host port. With the right
software support, this port can be
used to attach memory sticks, other
storage devices like hard disks, as
well as printers and other stuff. And
yes, connect a PC to share files
should be possible as well." After
salivating at these thoughts, I came
to my senses again and continue to
press him for more information.

"Well, the power usage of the [new]
cartridge itself will be somewhat
lower [than the 1541U]. But you have
to keep in mind that without the use
of a powered USB hub, the C64 will
power your external USB device, so
this is not recommended. Though I
expect it to be no problem to use a
USB memory stick. Initially, the only
USB support in the firmware will be
for mass storage devices, so that it
can be used for the fundamental 1541U
function. No HUB support at
first."Will we need a separate
Ethernet adapter then? Gideon thinks
not, at least in the medium term. "I
think, that in time, it would be
possible to emulate the CS8900A chip
in the FPGA, and use a USB to
Ethernet adapter to provide Ethernet
functionality to the 1541U-II again.
That is why the Ethernet port has
disappeared." And what about using
USB joysticks? "Yes, indeed. Although
joysticks need to be supported [in
the hardware] as well in the software
running on the C64. This is because
the 1541U cannot replace the 6526 CIA
chip inside the C64; otherwise it
would be possible."

It may seem an obvious question to
ask, but stating the bloomin' obvious
is something that I'm very good at.
1541U-II will keep the Commodore
platform interesting for the next few
years at least? "I hope it will!"
Gideon replied, further explaining
that "the 1541U-II will bridge the
Commodore platform to modern
hardware, which gives a lot of new
possibilities. And since the
Commodore platform is such an open
platform, people might want to create
new, fun applications. I wished I
could have come up with the 1541U ten
years ago" indeed, as do we all. And
so the interview came to a close with
Gideon, humble as ever, leaving
Commodore Free's readers with a
message: "The most important thing I
would like to say to the CF readers
is 'Thank you!' Thank you for so many
of you having interest in the 1541U
project, and for the trust many of
you have shown by paying in advance
and sometimes having to wait for a
long time before I can deliver the
hardware." The future is looking
bright again, and it seems that
through Gideon we have a new CMD;
giving us what we are missing,
functionality, compatibility and
performance, and at a cheaper price
than those coveted 90s upgrades.

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