Commodore Free 27/Commodore_Free_Issue_27_2009_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/nigel

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 10KB | 326 lines

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       Commodore Computer Club
            2nd Meeting
       ------------------------

Nigel:
Loading up slow process for me just
one item at a time! The 2nd official
Commodore Computerclub U.K. Meeting
www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk was
held on the 23/24/25th of January
2009

Still suffering from back problems, I
was only able to attend the main
meeting event on the Saturday 24th, I
loaded up the clubs "for sale" Items
into my car, as we had some hardware
this was a slow process as I had to
transfer each computer one at a time
from one box to another, it took me
two whole days to move all the items
downstairs, not constantly but I
moved a small amount of items one at
a time. Of course if you have any
good back cures now is the time to
let me know!

With the car loaded up, & the wife
dropped off at work, the postcode was
punched into SatNav. It told me that
the journey would take around 1 hour
& 45 minuites from Blackburn. I drove
down the very clear motorway setting
off at 8am. The journey went well &
my back felt good. I stopped several
times to streech & ensure I did my
specific excersises I have been
assigned by the osteopath & physio.

Eventually the tones on my SatNav
informed me "You have reached your
destination" & I started for the
house of Shaun Bebbington. I was more
or less at the door so turned off the
SatNav locked the car & wandered
over.

Shaun open the door welcoming me - he
was glad I had made the effort to
come down & also gladd I had with me
the cash to pay for the hall &
drinks. Shaun showed me into his
house that seemed stuffed with retro
items in every cravess of every room
- a PET here & Commodre there, & of
course a 128 setup with a RAMLink,
SuperCPU, laser printer, CMD HD & FD
4000 floppy drive with some other
items littered around.

Shaun introduced me to Peter Badrick,
having never met except in the
virtual world he looked taller than I
had imagined him, we shook hands &
then set about looking at Pete's DTV
that was faulty. We replaced the
batteries & would you belive the
device sprung into life! Pete had
purchased the device second hand & it
was a NTSC version, we looked at some
of the hidden gems & the interlaced
picture of the creatur Jeri
Ellsworth. Shaun's telly would only
display NTSC in monochrome but that
didn't stop us playing a few of the
games. This was the first NTSC model
of the DTV I had seen. Shaun was keen
to point out the differences, we
chatted about the DTV & I made
comments about the colours being
inaccurate & the sound problems with
the device (I am sure everyone will
hate me now, its good but its not
like playing on a real c64, I expect
most people don't notice the
difference). [Of course, there are
ways to fix the colour problems,
Nigel. You just need to be good at
soldering, which I am not great at -
Shaun].

Shaun gave me a tour of some of the
C= PETs, they look so good, just what
you would call a real retro computer.
Pete had been offered one of the
rarer models by Shaun, but commented
that if he took it home his wife
would leave, so it was the PET or
wife, I hope Pete enjoys his
Commodore & doesn't miss his wife to
much!

Chris Snowden of www.commodore16.com
said that Patrick was also attending
from Holland (Patrick Bakker is one
of the moderators at commodore16.com
& also writes for
http://commodore-gg.hobby.nl) & may
have to pick him up because he always
gets lost in the UK.

Shaun put his young baby girl into
the push chair & we set off to the
shops for the clubs supply of tea &
coffee, all 3 of us chatting eagerly
about Commodore & before we had
walked 5 steps, Ruby Mae fell asleep
in the pram. We collected the
sundries from a local shop & set of
back to Shauns house. We then loaded
up our 3 cars full of goodies & set
off to the Hall a short drive away.

In the hall we paid the lady for our
5 hour stay, excepted the hall rules
& set about lining up tables &
putting out a sign for others to find
the way, & curious people who might
pass by past wondering what the C=
logo was all about. Everyone beavered
away except for myself as I couldn't
lift heavy boxes & felt guilty asking
people to do work for me but little
by little the hall was set up & ready
to go.

The next person to arrive was Mile
Dailly, everyone greeted him & Mike
kindly donated three boxes of junk to
the club. These were various machines
working/not working & other small
pieces of hardware that we could use
a spares or sell of for club funds as
we thought fit. Chris noticed some
rare books for the C16/+4 & wanted to
purchase them, then Patrick bought a
boxed lightpen adding to club funds &
also became a member. Other items
were sold through the day & we didn't
do to badly even with the cost of the
hall. The shop is certianly now well
stocked anyway!

Chris repaired Pete's broken Plus/4,
replacing & testing various chips
from a "stock" of working items he
brought with him on the day. Pete
also gained a transplanted keyboard
from a spare Chris had. Other
machines were tested & badged as
working or dead & dealt with
appropriately. Tea coffee & biscuits
were on hand provided by Shauns
girlfriend, who manned the
refreshments area of the hall.

Chris then went into detail about the
game he created called "Church of
Death". This is a Plus/4 text
adventure. Chris explained the tools
needed & used for the games creation
& gave a brief demo of how it would
be played, also producing a finished
version on tape with professionally
produced inlay & tape through
Cronosoft

Shaun wanted to know what differences
there were between Commando on the 64
& the Plus/4. Both versions were
loaded side by side & there were
pluses & negatives for both. The
Plus/4 suffers from lack of hardware
sprites & the c64 suffering from
small glitches on screen &
multiplexed sprites disappearing, &
of course the SID was superior, or at
least Shaun thought so.

I suggested we watched the Shades
demo on a real Plus/4, after various
attempts to load the demo on the
1541-III, we managed to finally have
the demo run on Pete's 1541
Ultimate+, must be down to the
quality of hardware emulation, the
other problem of course was we only
had the demo on an SD card & no cable
to create a real disk from the D64
image. The 1541-III was a rare sight
for me but seeing two in one room was
unbelievable, bit like a bus you wait
for one then 2 come all at once, a
nice piece of work with the screen
displaying the time needed to load
each file I thought!

Shaun loaded the old Mathmatica demo
by Reflex on a lonely C64 at the back
of the room. As we watched the demo,
which includes a 3D "Doom-like"
environment my thoughts turned to
Doom on the 64. Mike suggested
everyone was fed up with Doom now &
thought that was why there was little
interest in converting or attempting
a conversion to the c64, I am now
wondering if a cut down version of
Doom for the C64 would be anywhere
near enough to call itself Doom
because so many features would be
removed that it would really be a
poor imitation.

We asked ourselves why demo creators
spend so much time creating a demo
rather than a tool or game. Mike
suggested demo & Games coders are
totally different - needing different
logic & program thinking to do each
task. Mike then demoed Xenon TriOxide
(Xeo3 - http://www.xeo3.com) on the
Plus/4 & then on the C64. Although
its still early days for the game we
had to admit it looked very
promising. I especially liked the c64
version as it appeared to run
smoother Mike said this was down to
the C64 using hardware sprites. Mike
said that the game would probably
take two months to complete, if he
could find the time.

Shaun then demonstrated Metal Dust,
which is still the world's only
SCPU-specific game, by Protovision.
Many people claimed I was to hard on
the review & even Shaun though I was
a little critical. True I am no
programmer, but my comments do stand
in that they spent all the processor
time running the digital music & not
enough time on the game content. I
think that Enforcer 2 looks & plays
better, & that doesn't need a SCPU to
run. I also cant tell what is
background & what is foreground on
the game. Mike commented that the
background should be much darker in
colour. I do feel its a lost
opportunity somehow.

Many of Jasons Kelk's games were
shown & played, like the excellent
ViColumns for the unexpanded VIC-20.
I spent a good amount of time playing
this game. It's another Jason game
where everything works & shows his
attention to detail. Shaun also
showed me a copy of Block Frenzy on a
cartridge (again by Jason), which is
based on a java game recreated on the
C64 (and GS) from RGCD's webshop. It
looked like a professionally produced
cartridge, including a colour box. If
you like tetris type puzzlers then
this is a must purchase, its
difficult to describe the game play
but here goes: you guide a square &
can't touch the edges of the screen,
nor the various shapes that bounce
randomly around the screen - it
sounds simple but is this the most
frustrating game ever, possibly. The
simple task is to last longer than
the last guy to get the highest
score.

Next was the VIC multi-cart was
shown, by Eslapion which is sadly not
currently available. Once the machine
is switched on, a simple menu system
is displayed allowing you to select
from over 100 games which load almost
instantly.

Chris pointed out that it was dark &
all of a sudden the day had come to a
close. Sadly we packed & tidied up
the hall. The CCC UK has more items
for sale now. Shaun & Pete have
donated some cassette games & of
course Mike's odds & sods made it
more than worthwhile. We left the
hall & unloaded cars at Shaun's
place, at that point I had to leave &
so I said my goodbyes & set of back
home. By now the back pain that had
eluded me all day was starting to
creep in, & I couldn't take any pain
killers as it would have made it
unsafe to drive home due to the
strength. I made several stops but
eventually arrived safe at home.
Shaun sent a text to see if I arrived
safe & wish me happy birthday, all in
all an excellent day. Well worth the
time, & showing there is interest in
a UK meeting, we decided that maybe
June would be a good date for the 3rd
official club meeting, more
information as & when it arrives.

...end...