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News
SUB HUNTER available to pre order
---------------------------------
Subhunter is available to preorder from
Psytronic software:
http://www.binaryzone.org/retrostore/
index.php?main_page=product_info&
cPath=82&products_id=430
A scientific experiment to increase
the size & number of fish in the sea
has gone terribly wrong & now the
oceans have been taken over by mutant
fish. You must destroy the fish &
save the swimmers who have become
stranded in their midst. Watch out for
agent subs that will do anything to
keep this a secret.
You are the SUB HUNTER!
Here's your chance to pre-order the
fantastic new C64 game from Richard
Bayliss & Frank Gasking - SUB HUNTER!
The game features 25 levels of sub-
aquatic action, amazing multi-layered
parallax scrolling, superb detailed
graphics, varied missions including
shoot 'em up levels, rescue missions
and terrifying boss encounters.
SUB HUNTER will be released on the
Commodore 64 in October 2008 (exact
release date to be confirmed). The
game will be available for the
Commodore 64 on tape & will be
presented with specially produced
full-colour inlay artwork. For a
taster of the game you can download a
4 level preview from the Psytronik
Software webpage!
** SUB HUNTER GAME CREDITS **
Programming - Richard Bayliss
Graphics + loader screen artwork -
Frank Gasking
Music - Richard Bayliss (Intro music)
and Thomas Mogensen
Inlay design by Jason Kelk & Jason
Kenz Mackenzie
Tape loader - Paul Hughes
Digital Talk #83
----------------
Digital talk electronic magazine
number 83 is available to download
from
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/
release/?id=69160
Individual Computers AGA flicker fixer
--------------------------------------
http://www.jschoenfeld.com/
New product: Indivision AGA
During the 80s, it was common to build
computers in a way that there picture
could be output onto a domestic a TV
set. This was, in order to reduce the
overall system cost for the user. TV
sets work with lower frequencies
compared to today's monitors,
therefore the picture flickers. A
flickerfixer converts the signal in a
way that a modern VGA monitor or
TFT-display can be used in place of
the TV. The name flickerfixer was
mainly created because the problem of
a flickering picture is solved. Here
at Individual computers we already had
a very successful product called
Indivision in 2002, indivision was
connected to the monitor output of the
computer, but the product has been
sold out since 2006.
Flickerfixers are still in high
demand, one unit of our external
flickerfixer Indivision has recently
been sold on an internet auction
platform for more than 900 US Dollars.
That's amount is more than four times
the last retail price! This shows are
products are popularity, stable &
provide value for money. We have
already started the development of a
new improved flickerfixer the
development work began in November
2007, this work is now completed!
The first flickerfixers for the Amiga
were first available over 17 years
ago, since that time all flickerfixers
- including ours - have been using the
same basic principles: The picture
frequency was doubled, This is not
enough for most modern VGA monitors
and TFT-displays, because the picture
of a computer with a PAL standard was
only displayed at slightly less than
50Hz. Most monitors require 60Hz or
even more these days.
With Indivision AGA, we're striking a
new path. As the product name
suggests, this is a flickerfixer very
closely tied to the Amiga AGA chipset.
This could only be realized by placing
the flickerfixer inside of the
computer. The product is mounted over
the Video-Chip "Lisa". The VGA display
is then connected directly to the
flickerfixer, further connections are
not necessary.
Listing all features of the
flickerfixer would go beyond the scope
of this news item. You can find the
complete technical data in a
PDF-overview on the website.
The most outstanding features are:
-24 Bit colour resolution in all
screenmodes
-Support for super hires modes
-Highgfx support up to 1024x768 pixels
-All screenmodes can be displayed at
60Hz or more
-no adjustments necessary
-Two options have been added for the
retro-gaming enthusiasts that allow a
step-by-step approximation of the
display from an old TV set: Vertical
synchronisation allows reducing the
output frequency down to 49.9Hz, which
will eliminate tearing-effects. In
addition to that, a scanline-emulation
can be switched on, This will emulate
the dark lines in-between the
scanlines of a TV screen.
Development & production of this
extremely complex product is very
expensive. Our trade partners, who
have been serving the Amiga-market for
many years, have made considerable
financial contributions to the
production. To account for this,
Indivision AGA is exclusively
available only from these resellers
until January 1st, 2009: (alphabetical
order)
AmigaKit (England)
GGS-Data (Sweden)
Software Hut (USA)
Vesalia (Germany)
Production has already started, &
the flickerfixer will presumably be
shipped to our trade partners during
the first week of September. The
suggested retail price is 129- EUR
including 19% VAT. This version
currently only supports the Amiga 1200
range of computers, although we are
already working on a version that will
work for other Amiga systems with the
AGA chipset.
VICE VERSION 2 Released
-----------------------
http://www.viceteam.org/#vice
Changes in VICE 2.0
===================
General
-------
VICE development has moved to public
services:
http://sf.net/projects/vice-emu You
can read the latest development in the
Subversion repository, file bug
reports, & similar things. Check it
out!
- New Openserver 5.x, Openserver 6.x
and Unixware ports.
- New AROS64 port.
- New QNX 4.x port.
- New HPUX (HPPA & IA64) ports.
- New SkyOS port.
- New Atari Mint port.
- New Solaris Express aka OpenSolaris
aka Solaris 11 port.
C64/C128 changes
----------------
- Improved $01 behaviour with regards
to unused bit fall-off.
- New experimental NEOS & Amiga
mouse support.
- Added a working RTC to the emulation
of the IDE64 cartridge.
- New more precise PAL emulation,
works only with double size & double
scan.
- Added support for the Action Replay
4 & StarDos cartridges.
- Improved REU compatibility
- Fixed CPU timing bug introduced in
1.22 (demo "Borderless").
- Fixed bugs in the CIA emulation
(demo "So-phisticated", W. Lorenz
testsuite).
- Fixed various bugs in VIC-II
emulation: Sprite x-positioning, Latch
X/Y, video mode changes, DEN bit
handling, raster IRQ, NTSC sprites &
sprites in full/debugging border mode
(list of fixed demos/games too long to
mention here).
- RESTORE key is handled differently
now, fixing an NMI bug because the NMI
was asserted too long before.
VIC20 changes
-------------
- Added unconnected c-bus floating
byte support.
- New more precise PAL emulation,
works only with double size & double
scan.
PET changes
-----------
- Added support for toggling CB2 sound
output line.
PLUS4 changes
-------------
- New more precise PAL emulation,
works only with double size & double
scan.
Drive changes
--------------
- Fixed block allocation &
interleave.
Unix changes
------------
- Broken DGA1/DGA2 code removed
- XRandR fullscreen implemented for
all (but CRTC/VDC) videochips.
- XRandR/Fullscreen can now toggle the
Statusbar/Menu
- Fixed unix mouse for single sized
display.
- Fixed mouse grab & xaw menu popup.
- After a CPU jam user can select to
resume emulation without reset.
MS-Windows changes
------------------
- Fixed the reverse logic of the
-confirmexit/+confirmexit &
-singlecpu/+singlecpu command-line
options.
- Added the ability to copy & paste
text from & to the VICE window.
- Added the ability to paste text into
the VICE window by right-clicking on
the VICE window.
- Keyboard shortcuts are definable in
the configuration file
win_shortscuts.vsc
- After a CPU jam user can select to
resume emulation without reset.
- Fixed volume slider behaviour when
switching full screen mode.
- Key repeat is eliminated OS-wise.
This way, the RESTORE key is not used
with auto repeat.
BeOS changes
------------
- Fixed to also run on Haiku.
- Lots of fixes to the dailogs.
- Fixed the joystick system.
- Added warning dialog when the
monitor is accessed without having an
open console window.
- Added the ability to copy & paste
text from & to the VICE window.
AmigaOS changes
---------------
- Fixed the reverse logic of the
-confirmexit/+confirmexit command-line
options.
- Added the ability to copy & paste
text from & to the VICE window.
- After a CPU jam user can select to
resume emulation without reset.
OS/2 changes
------------
- After a CPU jam user can select to
resume emulation without reset.
Miscellaneous changes
---------------------
- Added support for more 3rd party
basic extenders to petcat.
- Extended BMP saving to support
24bit.
- Fixed the joystick code of all
emulators to handle state changes on
both joysticks at the same time.
- New monitor commands & features.
- New memmap feature which allows
tracking of memory accesses, activated
by the configure option enable memmap.
- Fixed bug in ffmpeg/FFV1 driver.
Should be really lossless now.
VIC20 TETRIS
------------
Another version of the popular puzzler
TETRIS has been released for the VIC
20 & can be downloaded from here
http://one.xthost.info/nbla000/tetris/
REU PROGRAMMING REFERENCE
-------------------------
Wolfgang Moser
in the past three months I have
written a technical reference guide
about the Commodore REU's controller
chip, the CSG8726R1. The main
intention of the document was to help
emulation authors improving their REU
compatibility. Actually I recieved
feedback from Gideon Zweijtzer &
Spiro Trikaliotis who were able to
improve the REU compatibility of the
1541-Ultimate 1.1 & VICE 2.0 from
early pre-release versions of the
documentation. Bo Zimmerman was so
nice to put an archive up to the
"Funet" archive (now hosted at
zimmers.net), it consists of the
mastered document in OpenOffice
format, the published format as PDF
and also a readme file. The whole
document is covered by the GNU Free
Documentation License:
Look it up at:
http://zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/
documents/chipdata/
CSG8726TechRefDoc-1.0.zip
These files are contained in the
download:
- CSG8726R1-TechnicalReference-1.0.pdf
- CSG8726R1-TechnicalReference-044.odt
The article consists of a technical
description & discussion of the
hardware register interfaces of the
Commodore RAM Expansion Unit (REU).
This technical documentation tries to
describe the hardware implementation
aspects of the 8726R1 controller chip
of the Commodore REU as they show up
to a programmer.
Sincerly yours,
Womo
Bil Heard phone interview
-------------------------
On Thu, July 24, 2008 2:47 pm, Robert
Bernardo wrote:
CBM engineer Bil Herd suggested the
idea of a video conference into this
year's CommVEx, instead of the usual
pre-recorded, yearly CBM Animals
video. He has rounded up Andy Finkel,
CBM engineer who has worked on the
VIC-20, C64, & Amiga as the focus of
this conference.
Bil said, "I was able to get hold of
Andy Finkel who was head of the games
group the entire time I was there &
went on to do LOTs of Amiga stuff, he
literally knows where some of the
bodies were buried on the Amiga sw."
For those who haven't kept up, the
video interview became a telephone
interview. That 1 hour, 40 minute
telephone interview is now on-line! It
is broken up into 4 parts of about 6-8
megs each (22-30 minutes for each
part).
Go to http://bios.tx0.org/ in order to
download the .mp3's. On the interview
you will hear Bil, Andy, myself,
Cameron Kaiser, & Keith Henrickson.
My thanks to Bil & Andy for giving a
most enlightening look into Commodore
Business Machines, & thanks to all who
came up with questions for the two
engineers.
Good stuff!
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
SCACOM Aktuell issue
--------------------
German magazine SCACOM Aktuell issue 7
is available for Download & to read
Online at www.scacom-aktuell.de.vu.
Also a special Gold Quest 4 magazine
is included & 2 new background images.
You can read 48 pages of content &
additionally 22 pages about "1 year of
SCACOM".SCACOM Aktuell Team