Commodore.news

Commodore C64c mouldings found | Dallas Moore did an incredible find at an old warehouse. He found the original production mouldings for the housing for the Commodore C64c at a business liquidation sale. He bought the steel mouldings, weighing about 5000 pounds, and he wants to use them to produce new plastic cases for the Commodore C64c.

Commodore Amiga 1000 Velvet Rev.03 | Stefan Egger from the Computer Collection Vienna has added an Commodore Amiga 1000 Development System to his collection. The Amiga 1000 is from early 1985 and is a little bit different from the later production models. The Amiga has only 128k RAM, and the chips have different names or codes. Stefan has made many high resolution photos of this special Amiga 1000.

C64 MP3 Player | Timo Voutilainen made an MP3 player that can be controlled by the Commodore C64. The components of the MP3 player are a Funduino Pro Mini, Geeetech VS1053 MP3 board and a user-port connector. All the instructions to built the device are on Timo's web page.

C64 Cartridge - 3D printer | Tore Waldow made a Commodore C64 cartridge case with his 3D printer. The measurements are taken from The Final Cartridge III. This version is updated with embossed lines and room for a label. The files are available for the top part and for the bottom part in smooth or embossed.

Jakadapter v2.1 | With the Jakadapter you can connect two Atari-style joysticks to USB. This new version has the following changes: Both ports have now 8 configurable pins, for better support for other joysticks and paddles. The firmware is upgradeable via a boot-loader for future firmware updates.

Raspberry Pi SID player | The Raspberry Pi SID player is a device which allows you to play music from the Commodore 64 computer using original audio hardware (SID) and the Raspberry Pi. You can play classic game music or home-brew Commodore 64 music.

Bluetooth speech synthesis | VIC-20 Scott Adams adventure games have the option to connect a Votrax type 'n talk speech synthesizer. A rare and expensive device, but now it is also possible to use your smartphone to make the famous adventure games talk. Jan Derogee made an app to make this possible.

UK1541 | UK1541 is a real time disk drive emulator developed by Krzysztof Switajskiwith. Features: cycle-exact 6502 and VIA's emulation. Cortex M0, 48Mhz microprocessor, 16kB Flash ROM, 4kB Ram, SD card (8GB), LCD TFT Screen and compatible with .d64 files (35 / 40 track).

Portable Amiga A1200 | Sébastien Marchand made a portable Amiga A1200 including a monitor, power supply and speakers inside a aluminium briefcase. The A1200 also has a Blizzard 1260, a SCSI-kit and a 8 GB CF card. You can view the pictures of this special A1200 on his Flickr page.

MOS 6502 Laptop | Dirk Grappendorf created a laptop based on a MOS 6502 processor. The features are: 6502 processor, 6522 VIA's, SID, 32 kByte RAM, 32 kByte EEPROM, battery, 4 line / 40 character LCD screen, modified USB keyboard, BASIC interpreter and a 3D printed case.

C64FC | Stian Søreng has developed the C64FC Flash cartridge for the Commodore C64. The cartridge will emulate a 8 kByte EPROM, but you can program the cartridge from your PC. In the last month he has developed an SID jukebox and is working on a GUI for the C64FC. You can read all the details on his blog.

Plipbox | Plipbox is an device that allows to connect Amiga's via Ethernet to your local network. The device uses a an Arduino and connects to the parallel port. Changes in this version: Fast burst protocol with a maximum speed of 235 KiB/s, improved firmware and driver code, and a new test modes to allow detailed benchmarking of all system components.

Princess C64SD v3.0 - Firmware v0.10.4 | For the Princess C64SD v3.0 is new firmware available. The changes in this version are: Improvements for the VICE VIC emulation, and reading tapes with the VIC PAL. And there is a new XF5 option to avoid problems with VICE dumps.

Portable KIM-1 | Scott Lawrence made a portable KIM computer. For this KIM-1 he used an old plastic case he picked-up on a hamfest and a display from a surplus store. The computer inside is a Arduino Uno R3 micro board and a Seeed Studio protoshield. You can follow the whole process on his blog.

External disk drive for Amiga | A new replacement for an external floppy drive for all Amiga computers is being developed by Roman Breński, Jarosław Bieliński and Radosław Kujawa. The features are: Fully compatible with 880kB DD Amiga diskettes. Reads and writes NDOS diskettes. And a new disk drive mechanism.

Retro Invaders Calendar 2015 | Retro Invaders made a calendar for 2015. The calendar is available in the languages: English, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French and Hawaiian. The games are: Nanako in Classic Japanese Monster, Psycho Soldier, Turbo Girl, Barbarian II, Game Over, Elvira II, Mega-Corp, Athena, Phantis, Mystery, Gauntlet and Gothik.

C64FC | Stian Søreng has a working version of his C64FC Flash cartridge for the Commodore C64. The cartridge will emulate a 8 kByte EPROM, but you can program the cartridge from your PC. The C64FC has a ATmega16 micro controller for the USB communication and a IDT7005 RAM chip for the emulation of the 8 kByte EPROM.

MultiMax cartridge | MultiMax is the ultimate cartridge for the Commodore MAX Machine. It contains all 24 games that were released by Commodore for this machine. The cartridge has a power-on menu and a reset button. The cartridge is also compatible with the C64, C64c, SX64 and the C128. The software was created by Rob Clarke and Michał Pleban developed the hardware.

MIST - VIC20 core | MIST is an configurable device that's able to emulate the entire hardware of the computers of the 80's and early 90's. A Commodore VIC20 core is now available for the MIST with support for the PAL VIC20 with 3 or 16 kByte RAM memory.

No More Secrets | No More Secrets is a documents that describes the so called 'illegal' op-codes for the NMOS 6510 microprocessor. The document is maintained by Groepaz and gives you information on op-codes such as: RLA, LAX, ANC, ARR, TAS and many more.

CD32 - CDR adjustment | RetroGameModz made a video about the adjusting the CD-32 to read CD-R discs. In the video you can see: The disassembly. Identification of parts. Explanation of the signal paths. Schematics & block diagrams. The servo system. And the adjustment of FEG, TEG, FEB, TEB and laser power.

Princess C64SD v3.0 - Firmware v0.10.3.F | For the Princess C64SD v3.0 is new firmware available. The changes in this version are: Improved compatibility with Oceanloader C64 tapes. Better immunity when playing back tapes that have not been normalized. Added some small changes to improve usability when dumping a .TAP file back to cassette.

C65 - FPGA | Paul Gardner-Stephen is working on a FPGA version of the Commodore C65. His goal is to make an 8-bit computer for the 21st century. In the last month he has been working on a RAM upgrade from 16 MByte to 128 MByte and a test with a LCD screen.

BX720D project | Steve Gray is working on a new project. In 1983 Commodore wanted to sell a CBM-II BX-256-80 / BX-700 machine, but it never happened. Now Steve want to built one himself. The specifications are: CBM-II 710 computer, 8250LP disk drives, 8088 co-processor board and a few extras.

SD-BOX Cartridge v1.14 | The SD-BOX is a cartridge for the Commodore C64 with an SD card interface. The cartridge has many functions for the disk drive and the Datassette. Recent updates: Faster directory scrolling via the keyboard. You can now use the joystick in the menu and the diskette directory. Updates for the manual and a few small errors are removed.

Clockport Expander II | Matthias Münch released the Clockport Expander II for the Amiga 1200 desktop. This version makes it possible to use the Clock Expander with one of the many expansions such as the BVision, G-Rex PCI Busboard, Delfina Flipper, MP3@64, Silver Surfer, Subway USB, RapidRoad USB, Melody 1200, Prelude 1200 and the VS1011 Card.

Cassiopei - VIC-20 | The Cassiopei now supports VIC-20's that have a memory expansion. The menu program does a small analysis regarding the load-ability of the selected program and relocates the BASIC program where possible. Available are the firmware update (v20141018.hex), a menu program and a user manual.

Amiga 1200 Compact Flash | Amigakit made a kit to install a Compact Flash hard drive in your A1200. The kit includes a IDE to CF adaptor, a plastic rear trapdoor back plate with Compact Flash cut-out and a IDE cable. You can also order a 4 GB Compact Flash hard drive with an complete OS installation.

Furia EC020 v2 | After the success of the first batch of the Furia card, the developer decided to make another batch. The Furia EC020 is an accelerator card for Amiga600 with a Motorola MC68EC020 CPU, Motorola MC68882/40 FPU and 9.5 MB of fast memory. The Furia makes the Amiga over 10 times faster, than the original Amiga 600.

Ultimate II - Blog | Wiebo de Wit is writing a blog (English language) about the Ultimate II cartridge for the Commodore C64. The Ultimate II is an cartridge that can emulate the 1541 disk drive, it has SD / USB storage, a real-time clock, REU emulation, SID player and tape emulation. Wiebo has written the following articles: Floppy Copy, Software!, File use and Hardware.

Memwa Project | The Memwa Project is a hardware project from Staring Lizard. The hardware that he developed is a replacement for the Commodore C64. The MCU is an STM32F407, the display controller is an SSD1963, the memory is a H27UBG8T2BTRBC and a the display is an 7 TFT 4-WRT. The whole C64 is emulated and for the sound a real SID chip is added to the design. You can follow the whole development on his blog.

C64 / C128 Power supply | Ray Carlsen has built a replacement power for the Commodore C64, 128, VIC-20CR and Plus4 power supplies. The specifications are: Input = 120V, 60Hz or 220V, 50 Hz. Output = 5VDC / 5A, 9VAC / 1A. Built-in surge suppressor (Computer Saver). Metal case and a one-year warranty.

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