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A free to download Magazine dedicated to Commodore computers.<br />

<strong>Issue</strong> <strong>89</strong><br />

Interview With R.M. Smedley<br />

Vic Listing Website<br />

Interview with Sean Peck<br />

Creator of Kipperterm 128<br />

NEW CASE BY Terry Raymond<br />

INTERVIEW WITH STEVE REED FROM<br />

WWW.C64COPYPROTECTION.COM AND CLOAN NEWS-<br />

LETTERS<br />

Various Games Reviews


Editorial Page 3<br />

CONTENTS<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Interview with Sean Peck Page 41<br />

Creator of Kipperterm 128<br />

General News Page 6<br />

NEW CASE BY Terry Raymond Page 44<br />

Commodore 64 News Page 11<br />

Amiga News Page 22<br />

REVIEW METEOR DEFENDER AMIGA Page 45<br />

BY Bartosz Debski for Commodore Free<br />

ABYSSONAUT COMMODORE 64 GAME REVIEW Page 46<br />

Vic 20 and Plus 4 News Page 34<br />

INTERVIEW WITH STEVE REED FROM Page 38<br />

WWW.C64COPYPROTECTION.COM<br />

AND CLOAN NEWSLETTERS<br />

INTERVIEW WITH R.M. Smedley Page 47<br />

www.vic20listings.freeolamail.com<br />

Commodore Free Game review 10x10 Page 51<br />

For the Amiga Reviewed by Bartosz Debski<br />

Xplode Man for the Plus 4 review Page 40<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 2


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Editorial<br />

With holidays and a death of a friend recently, things haven’t<br />

gone to well with the publication. I started work many times but<br />

didn’t seem to have the energy to finish what I was doing, and<br />

most times I sat with the majority of this time looking at a blank<br />

screen. Powered on more by determination, and some nice<br />

comments from readers, things like “when’s the next issue out”<br />

and “have I missed an issue” I decided to actually get myself motivated<br />

and produce an issue. I am way behind schedule but unfortunately<br />

real life has got in the way again.<br />

For the people concerned about the issue, don’t worry I am still<br />

working on it, it was just a lapse, and I am well under way for<br />

the next issue as some people came to my rescue and released<br />

text for me to use.<br />

So without much waffle I present the latest issue, latest in the<br />

very real sense of the word, I hope you like it and feel free to<br />

comment.<br />

Regards<br />

Nigel (editor)<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Editor<br />

Nigel Parker<br />

Spell Checking<br />

Peter Badrick<br />

TXT, HTML & eBooks<br />

Paul Davis<br />

D64 Disk Image<br />

Al Jackson<br />

PDF Design<br />

Nigel Parker<br />

Contributors<br />

Website<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Email Address<br />

commodorefree@commodorefree.com<br />

Submissions<br />

Articles are always wanted for the magazine. Contact us<br />

for details. We can’t pay you for your efforts but you are<br />

safe in the knowledge that you have passed on details<br />

that will interest other Commodore enthusiasts.<br />

Notices<br />

All materials in this magazine are the property of<br />

Commodore Free unless otherwise stated. All copyrights,<br />

trademarks, trade names, internet domain names or<br />

other similar rights are acknowledged. No part of this<br />

magazine may be reproduced without permission.<br />

The appearance of an advert in the magazine does not<br />

necessarily mean that the goods/services advertised are<br />

associated with or endorsed by Commodore Free<br />

Magazine.<br />

Copyright<br />

Copyright © 2015 Commodore Free Magazine<br />

All Rights Reserved.<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 3


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 5


www.commodorefree.com<br />

General News<br />

BBC MICRO REPAIR ENGINEERS WANTED<br />

Fancy working on the repair of the BBC micro range of machines,<br />

well if you can handle a soldering iron The National<br />

Museum of Computing (TNMOC) needs help to maintain the<br />

stock of BBC machines it uses in education programmes<br />

and exhibits and need peoples help with the exhibits maintenance<br />

and upkeep, read that as repairs<br />

Read more here<br />

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33291036<br />

Commodore Pet returns<br />

In a vain effort to cash in the old Commodore name, manufacturers<br />

seem desperate to put the commodore name onto<br />

anything, as in this case, a generic Android phone, with<br />

some old emulation software and a strange Commodore<br />

Pet name. It even looks nothing like a Commodore or a Pet.<br />

Still the specification seems good as long as the price is<br />

right it could be tempting. Although younger readers may<br />

wonder what all the fuss is about<br />

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/15/commodore_<br />

pet_returns_as_android_phablet/<br />

Amiga 500 - LEGO<br />

Fbsarts has created an amazing LEGO version of a Commodore<br />

Amiga 500 computer. This creation is created in scale,<br />

with all the keys, disk drive and ports in the right places.<br />

you can even open the top to check the motherboard.<br />

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/82519<br />

The 68000 Wars<br />

Jimmy Maher is writing a story all about the 68000 CPU, as<br />

used in the Commodore Amiga, Apple Macintosh and the<br />

Atari ST. He writes about introduction of the Amiga and the<br />

people who worked on it, including the problems and successes<br />

of the computer<br />

http://www.filfre.net/2015/03/the-68000-wars-part-1-<br />

lorraine/<br />

AmiArcadia - v23.04<br />

AmiArcadia is a emulator of early game consoles like the<br />

PHUNSY, Elektor TV Games Computer, Interton VC 4000,<br />

Emerson Arcadia 2001, Central Data 2650 and others. The<br />

emulator is available for the 68k Amiga, Amiga OS4, MorphOS<br />

and Windows.<br />

TOSEC (The Old School Emulator Center)<br />

http://amigan.1emu.net/releases/#amiarcadia<br />

TOSEC, (The Old School Emulation Center), is a group dedicated<br />

to the preservation of games and programs for home<br />

computers and console system. New to the sited are the updates<br />

of 14 new, 117 updated and 13 removed programmes.<br />

http://www.tosecdev.org/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 6


www.commodorefree.com<br />

General News<br />

WIFI joystick<br />

Solo761 is working on a WIFI connected joystick.<br />

The system comprises of 2 parts with each use a AT-<br />

Mega 8 microcontroller and NR24L01 send and receive<br />

module. The receiver uses the power of the<br />

computer and the transmitter uses a USB connection<br />

for power. Solo761 says”At the moment it supports<br />

joysticks with two buttons, although DB9 connector<br />

has pin for third button I don't know if any game actually<br />

uses it...”<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-rE1DHK3Yc<br />

Turrican met twee piano's<br />

A German concert with two pianos where you could listen to the<br />

music of Chris Hülsbeck: The music played: Welcome to Turrican,<br />

Loading Screen 1, Thunder Plains, Loading Screen 2, The Great<br />

Bath, Loading Screen 3 Laser and Enemies, Loading Screen 4, Tower<br />

of Morgul, The Final Fight and Credits.<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6jcoFnerHQ<br />

You may also like<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dJrsmt9BOY<br />

Komoda & Amiga Plus #001<br />

C64 Scene for iPad 1.1<br />

Komoda & Amiga Plus is a pdf magazine in English<br />

for Commodore users. In this edition: Alter Ego, Aviator<br />

Arcade, Little Sister Sara Trilogy, The Vice Squad,<br />

X-Force Evil Wizard Wacky Waste, Arctic Shipwreck,<br />

Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory, Memento, History<br />

Line:. 1914-1918, Tetris, C64Persian, Stars and Planets<br />

a'la Commodore, Mortal Kombat, computer hardware<br />

emulation.<br />

Released by: Mr. SID<br />

http://www.twinbirds.com/c64_scene/C64_Scene.ipa<br />

http://www.twinbirds.com/c64_scene/C64Scene-1.1-source.zip<br />

This app lets you Browse and watch all C64 scene productions available<br />

on CSDB directly on your iPad.<br />

See http://csdb.dk/release/index.php?id=130115 for more details.<br />

https://dl.dropbo<br />

xusercontent.com<br />

/u/16069876/file<br />

s/KAP/K&A_Plus_<br />

01_EN.pdf<br />

Scene World Podcast <strong>Issue</strong> 7<br />

Tess & Tel: Tess Fries and Jeroen Tel<br />

Jeroen Tel is one of the most prolific and famous game music<br />

composers on the planet. With singer and dancer Tess<br />

Fries, the two are moving music forward with their new Pixel-Pop<br />

genre.<br />

http://sceneworld.org/blog/2015/05/21/podcast-episode-<br />

7-tess-and-tel-tess-fries-and-jeroen-tel/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 7


www.commodorefree.com<br />

General News<br />

Return <strong>Issue</strong> 21<br />

C64Studio v4.3 released<br />

Return magazine is a German magazine featuring 8-bit computers.<br />

In this issue: 20 Years PlayStation, Dynamite Headdy<br />

(Mega Drive), Donkey Kong Junior (C64), Tim Wright (Cold<br />

Storage), AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, RGCD 16K (C64), Lindwendture<br />

(C64), Einhänder<br />

(PlayStation)<br />

Sys Check II (Atari XL),<br />

Tiger Heli, Gamescom<br />

2014 Remix: Fist II -<br />

The Legend Continues,<br />

Crossover:. Street Fighter<br />

II, Pixel Art: Art Design<br />

and many more,<br />

https://www.returnmagazin.de/<br />

KIM Kenner archive<br />

pdezoete@dottyflowers.com Have scanned the Dutch<br />

computer magazines KIM Kenner, Kenner 6502 and uP<br />

Kenner and made ​<br />

available on its<br />

web page. All the<br />

computer<br />

magazines have<br />

now been<br />

converted to PDF,<br />

and are free to<br />

download<br />

http://kimkenner.<br />

dottyflowers.com/<br />

The Games-Coffer<br />

On the "Games Coffer" web page hosts games, demos, animations,<br />

slideshows, diskette magazines, history, FAQ, emulators,<br />

reviews and advert Scans for Amiga and Commodore<br />

64 machines. New games recently added are : AmigaDOS Tutor,<br />

Catch Song, Count and Spell, Climbing Up, Personality<br />

Analysis, World History,<br />

A Matter of<br />

Time, Atomic Food<br />

Chess, Bouncer,<br />

Climbing Up, Crillion,<br />

Masquerade,<br />

Pixie Kingdom,<br />

Ramify, Jetstrike,<br />

Jetstrike AGA, Jetstrike<br />

Junior and<br />

Base Jumpers.<br />

http://www.games<br />

coffer.co.uk/<br />

C64 Studio is a machine language development<br />

environment that works with VICE. Recent changes:<br />

Alternative BG colour for the map editor, True drive<br />

adjustable Emulator option, Undo for map editor, editor<br />

charset and the sprite editor. Improvements EasyFlash<br />

creation PETSCII dialogue table, and Tiles builds.<br />

New Features:<br />

Fix: Colours on startup with new settings are now set to<br />

sensible values<br />

Fix: Replaced Scintilla in most places with a pure .NET<br />

control. A big step towards better cross platform. Also<br />

better syntax colouring<br />

Fix: !ifs inside<br />

macro<br />

definitions<br />

now work<br />

Fix: Big<br />

speed up on<br />

preparsing<br />

when<br />

opening<br />

multi file<br />

projects<br />

http://www.<br />

georgrottensteiner<br />

.de/en/index.<br />

html<br />

Retro Commodore<br />

Retro Commodore has many high quality scans. Amongst<br />

dome of the latest additions are: Computer <strong>Issue</strong> 10<br />

(Danish),Mastering the Commodore 64,Amiga Intuition Reference<br />

Manual, IC Run Oct 1987 (Danish), Amiga System<br />

Programmers Guide, Grafik og Data Commodore 64 / 128,<br />

Piccoline, Partner (Danish), Commodore 64 Disk Companion,<br />

Amiga Bogen (Danish), Brugerporten på Commodore<br />

64/128 (Danish), Amiga og PC-tilbehør '92 Katalog and<br />

Markt & Technik CP/M Software commercial (German).<br />

http://www.retro-commodore.eu/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 8


www.commodorefree.com<br />

General News<br />

List of Commodore Products<br />

This is a very comprehensive list of Commodore equipment.<br />

The list was originally started by Jim Brain and is now being<br />

maintained by Bo Zimmerman. If you can add information<br />

to this list please contact Bo with your additions or amendments<br />

http://www.zimmers.net/commie/docs/cbm-products.txt<br />

Commodore: The Early Years<br />

And Commodore Amiga Years<br />

Brian's Kickstarter campaign has been a huge success so far<br />

so take a look at it and provide your support for an accomplished<br />

Commodore author by purchasing his new books at:<br />

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146275<strong>89</strong>59/com<br />

modore-the-amiga-years-book/<br />

Take a look at Brian's promo video for the new Amiga book:<br />

https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/1875854<br />

/video-544399-h264_high.mp4<br />

Hello! I’m Brian Bagnall and I want to tell you the story of<br />

Commodore during the Amiga years. Commodore produced<br />

my favourite computers in the eighties and for years I waited<br />

for someone to write a book about those incredible times.<br />

Strangely, it seemed like publishers were only interested in<br />

talking about Apple, Microsoft and IBM. It’s time to give the<br />

Commodore Amiga some credit as the first commercially<br />

successful multimedia computer.<br />

Vasm 1.7b released<br />

Vasm is a portable and retargetable assembler to create linkable<br />

objects in various formats or absolute code. Multiple<br />

CPU-, syntax and output-modules can be selected. Many<br />

common directives/pseudo-opcodes are supported (depending<br />

on the syntax module) as well as CPU-specific extensions.<br />

The assembler supports optimizations (e.g. choosing the<br />

shortest possible branch instruction or addressing mode)<br />

and relaxations (e.g. converting a branch to an absolute<br />

jump when necessary). Most syntax modules support macros,<br />

include directives, repetitions, conditional assembly<br />

and local symbols.<br />

The following CPUs are supported: M680x0, ColdFire, 80x86,<br />

PowerPC, ARM, Jaguar RISC, Z80, C16x/ST10, 6502 and the<br />

6800.<br />

Take a journey from Amiga's beginnings in 1982 to when<br />

Commodore filed for bankruptcy in 1994. Dozens of brilliant<br />

and motivated engineers produced a computer with<br />

graphics, sound and multitasking capabilities years ahead of<br />

Apple and IBM. A lot happened in that decade, and this book<br />

will describe to you the most relevant parts in a definitive<br />

history of the Amiga story and Commodore’s final descent..."<br />

http://sun.hasenbraten.de/vasm/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 9


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 10


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore 64 News<br />

Last Ninja 2 - LEGO<br />

Mevlut Dinc - Interview<br />

Ozgurbarka has created the opening scene from the Commodore<br />

64 game “Last Ninja 2” in LEGO. The game was released<br />

by System 3 for a number of 8 bit systems in 1988.<br />

The game had superb game play, amazing graphics and animated<br />

characters and stunning music.<br />

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/97019<br />

The C64.com has an interview with Mevlut Dinc. Mevlut who<br />

created many games for the Commodore C64, Spectrum and<br />

Amstrad computers. The games he worked on are: Gerry the<br />

Germ, Prodigy, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Ninja 2,<br />

Time Machine, First Samurai and the development system<br />

for the C64GS.<br />

http://www.c64.com/?type=4&id=40<br />

LEGO COMMODORE 64<br />

Made entirely out of Lego this design is in SCALE, it has everything<br />

on it (keys, led and logo), and if you open it... you<br />

can see the various chips and circuitry, as far as possible in<br />

Lego. For more information go to the website<br />

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/82511<br />

PSID64 v1.1<br />

PSID64 converts PSID files into executables, written by Roland<br />

Hermans the program allows users to play PSID files<br />

(originally used by the PlaySID program) on a real Commodore<br />

64 computer or emulator<br />

ChangeLog: update changelog for version 1.1<br />

- src/libpsid64/psid64.cpp: always initialize<br />

m_songlengths<br />

Page to prevent<br />

reusing incorrect<br />

data from<br />

previous conversion<br />

- configure.ac:<br />

Use subdir-objects<br />

option for<br />

automake<br />

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=139014<br />

NIBTools<br />

Diagnostic carts C64 / 128<br />

Pete Rittwage has released a new version of NIBTOOLS, this<br />

is a system for transfer data from original diskettes to a G64<br />

or D64 disk image formats. The images can be used with emulators<br />

or can be used to<br />

create new (real) diskettes.<br />

Changes in this version<br />

are: Update for the<br />

SRQ code. SRQ nibbling is<br />

now the default. And a<br />

verify option (-V) for read<br />

and write.<br />

http://c64preservation.com/<br />

Jani has collected<br />

loads of information<br />

and<br />

manuals about<br />

commodore 64<br />

diagnostic cartridges<br />

and<br />

placed them on a<br />

website for your<br />

perusal.<br />

http://blog.worldo<br />

fjani.com/?p=164<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 11


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore 64 News<br />

GLINK-LT<br />

Game Corner Q1/2015<br />

GLINK-LT is a modern day clone of the Commodore VIC-<br />

1011A RS232 User port adapter it supports 2400 Baud for<br />

BASIC and 9600 Baud for Novaterm and Striketerm, the device<br />

also has a reset button.<br />

http://gglabs.us/node/530<br />

Games Corner is an English language disk magazine about<br />

new games and game cracking. In this edition are : Cracky<br />

Thoughts, Game Watchtower, Cracked Stuff and the World<br />

of first releases<br />

http://csdb.dk/<br />

release/?id=13<br />

<strong>89</strong>30<br />

C64 Fun Programming<br />

Steve Morrow has started a series of videos to teach programming<br />

in BASIC on the Commodore C64. In this videos:<br />

are the following :Variables, Strings, Calculating numbers, IF,<br />

READ, FOR/NEXT and GET.<br />

C64 - 12V DC<br />

Adrian Kurek has adapted a Commodore C64 to operate on<br />

12 VDC. Doing so makes it possible run the machine on a<br />

battery . Other modification on the machine include: SD2IEC,<br />

Mini LCD screen, stereo amplifier and speakers with SID<br />

and JiffyDOS OS<br />

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNMGCEkiBzqXjQ<br />

-AQoktfhLrpWAfoewbm<br />

http://wpqrek.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/my-c64-use-12vdc-battery-power-source.html<br />

JSIDPlay2 - v3.6<br />

JSIDPlay is a Commodore C64 cycle-exact emulator optimized<br />

for sound reproduction. It is also a SID player for music<br />

collections like HVSC and CGSC. In this recently released<br />

version there<br />

have mostly<br />

been improvements<br />

for performance<br />

and<br />

some bugs have<br />

been removed.<br />

C64 PLA viewer / tester<br />

Geo Anas has developed a control system developed for the<br />

PLA in a Commodore 64. The device shows which part of<br />

the C64 is selected in real-time, PLA VIC-II (Red), 6510 I / O<br />

(Blue), CharROM (Yellow), Kernal (Green), Basic (Yellow),<br />

CasRAM, Game and ExROM (white).<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb4airxZliY<br />

http://sourcefor<br />

ge.net/projects/<br />

jsidplay2/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 12


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore 64 News<br />

MG Tracker V0.71<br />

IECATA - C64<br />

The MG Tracker is a music editor that uses the Commodore<br />

Matt Gray 64 Dominator Replayer. Recent changes in the<br />

software are: New UI design Isildur / Samar !, New keyboard<br />

quick keys, dialog windows and multi-platform. The<br />

program is available<br />

for Windows, Linux<br />

and MacOS.<br />

http://csdb.dk/rele<br />

ase/index.php?id=1<br />

38493<br />

Hoxs64 v1.0.8.8<br />

David Horrocks has released an updated version of its<br />

Hoxs64 commodore 64 emulator. Recent updates include:.<br />

Improvements for the drive VIA emulation sound (Coma<br />

Land 2014 demo) and the Windows GUI<br />

Features<br />

- Cycle based CPU, CIA, VIC and SID.<br />

- 1541 Disk drive.<br />

- Tape deck.<br />

- Full screen mode.<br />

- Configurable keyboard and joystick.<br />

- TAP PRG P00 D64 G64 FDI T64<br />

file support.<br />

Edu Arana has created<br />

​a IECATA interface<br />

for the Commodore<br />

C64. This interface is<br />

based on the IECATA<br />

interface developed<br />

in 2002 by Asbjørn<br />

Djupdal. The Specifications<br />

for his device<br />

are: ATA hard drives<br />

up to 128GB. Support<br />

for standard kernel<br />

commands, PRG, SEQ<br />

and sub ​directories<br />

Lighthammer<br />

This snapshot of an smack-a-mole arcade cabinet shows the<br />

new input device, called the "Lighthammer". This game and<br />

input device were demonstrated at the Commodore meeting<br />

in Maarssen (the Netherlands) on June 20, 2015.<br />

http://www.hoxs64.net/default.aspx<br />

Propaganda <strong>Issue</strong> 29<br />

Propaganda is an English language<br />

disk magazine for the Commodore<br />

scene. In this edition are: Latest<br />

News, tables, an interview with Jonas<br />

Hulten - Bruce Lee II, sought<br />

reactions, diverse, and the awards<br />

list.<br />

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=138340<br />

1541 - Why so complicated?<br />

Ilejs has posted on his blog an entry about the Commodore<br />

1541 disk drive. He comments that the device is slow suggesting<br />

it’s even slower than the 1540 VIC20 disk drive. He<br />

also comments about<br />

other drives and there<br />

benefits over this device<br />

https://ilesj.wordpress.<br />

com/2014/05/14/1541<br />

-why-so-complicated/<br />

http://arananet-net.kinja.com/como-construir-una-<br />

controladora-iecata-instalar-un-disc-<br />

http://www.commodorenews.com/foto/Lighthammer_Smack_a_Mole_C64_big.jpg<br />

View64 - v1.58<br />

View64 can view original C64 images without using an emulator<br />

or a real C64. The program is Open source support<br />

many commodore image formats (70+), PAL / NTSC S-Video<br />

and RGB display,<br />

Scanline, shadow<br />

mask, chroma<br />

leakage simulation,<br />

Multicolour<br />

interlace de-interlacing<br />

and has the<br />

ability to save the<br />

image as a BMP<br />

file.<br />

http://sourceforge.net/projects/view64/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 13


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore 64 News<br />

ACID 64 Player Pro V3.6<br />

Vandalism News issue 64<br />

Wilfred Bos released an updated version of ACID 64 Player<br />

Pro. Changes include:<br />

Support for<br />

3SID, Network SID<br />

Device and SIDBlaster<br />

USB device. Improvements<br />

for PSID,<br />

search, device selection,<br />

emulation, file<br />

indexing and other<br />

small improvements<br />

http://www.acid64.<br />

com/<br />

Gravitrix - C64<br />

A new version of the Disk magazine Vandalism news has<br />

been released, this is an English language magazine with<br />

the following content: The Charts, News, World of Demos,<br />

History of SID,<br />

SIDTracker64, Interviews:<br />

Rock, Sphinx<br />

and Hedning, Ramblings<br />

of an Madman,<br />

RGCD, Gubdata<br />

2015, Bruce Lee II,<br />

Revision 2015 and<br />

the list.<br />

http://csdb.dk/rele<br />

ase/?id=13<strong>89</strong>76<br />

Gravitrix is a game for the Commodore C64 developed by<br />

Nils Hammerich. You most combine stones of four different<br />

gravity directions to solve each of the 120 levels. But be<br />

careful with the colour changers, conveyor belts, teleporters<br />

and other hazards. You can download and try the demo version<br />

for free..<br />

GRAVITRIX features:<br />

- Hours of puzzle-solving action!<br />

- Two 5.25" floppy disks worth of artwork and music!<br />

- Password save<br />

system!<br />

- Super-fast loading<br />

(512KB cartridge<br />

version only)!<br />

- Full NTSC/PAL<br />

support!<br />

http://rgcddev.itch<br />

.io/gravitrix<br />

Kim Pong - the Fair and Democratic Tele-Football<br />

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=137655<br />

- official follow-up model of the "Pong Machine" for 1-4 players<br />

- 108 variations of difficulty (ball speed, bat speed, bad size<br />

and gaol size)<br />

and other options and effects<br />

- 2 game modes: TELE-FOOTBALL championship and goalkeeper<br />

tournament<br />

For 3-4 players you<br />

will need a "4-player<br />

interface" like<br />

this one:<br />

http://www.proto<br />

visiononline.de/shop/pr<br />

oduct_info.php?pro<br />

ducts_id=34<br />

FunkPaint 0.43b<br />

Released by: Singular<br />

FunkPaint is a multi-format editor supporting hires,<br />

multi, multicolour interlaced and DTV pictures. It<br />

runs on a Commodore 64/128 or DTV and supports<br />

various input<br />

devices and<br />

memory expansions.<br />

Simple Writer V1.1<br />

Released by: Delta Machine<br />

A Simple Noter program, the zip file contains the history as a<br />

txt file and also a document on how to create notes using<br />

the application<br />

http://csdb.dk/ge<br />

tinternalfile.php/<br />

139243/simplewriter-1.1.zip<br />

http://singularc<br />

rew.hu/funkpai<br />

nt/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 14


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore 64 News<br />

Bruce Lee II V1.9<br />

Released by: Jonas Hultén<br />

This update contains the following changes from the initial<br />

version.<br />

* There was a place where you could be spawning and fall to<br />

your death immediately. This has been removed.<br />

* You can skip the intro with the Commodore key to force<br />

kernal loading without seeing the entire intro.<br />

* Sprite graphics was<br />

overwritten after a<br />

first playthrough.<br />

This is no longer the<br />

case.<br />

* You can climb up<br />

from the water in the<br />

cage room.<br />

* The drive detection<br />

has been improved to<br />

fall back to kernal<br />

loading instead of failing in case an error occurred.<br />

* Bruce can no longer stand still on the edge of a travelator.<br />

In 2013, Bruno R. Marcos released a successor to the original<br />

Bruce Lee game, Bruno’s game runs on Windows and Linux<br />

but it was created to look like games for the<br />

Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Last year, a port of Bruce<br />

Lee II was created for the Commodore 64. The game is finished<br />

and available as free although the game looks simplistic<br />

it (says the author) really pushes the commodore 64 to<br />

its limits in terms of graphics<br />

http://kollektivet.nu/brucelee2/<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137449/brucelee2.d64<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137452/brucelee2_ef.crt<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137451/brucelee2.d81<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137747/brucelee2.zip<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137746/brucelee2_md.crt<br />

PETSCII Editor 4.6<br />

Released by: Abyss Connection<br />

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=137650<br />

As the name would suggest it is a PETSCII art program, some<br />

suggest this is the best PETSCII program ever written although<br />

it does only run on a PAL machine that limits its usefulness,<br />

although you could run it in an emulator<br />

important improvements<br />

-ability to use up to<br />

eight full-screen PET-<br />

SCIIs<br />

-new menu system<br />

-now supports exporting<br />

sequential files for<br />

basic users.<br />

-jiffy dos support<br />

BMP2MC V2.1<br />

A bitmap to C64-multicolor converter (16 colours or 5 grey<br />

/ black and white, with export to .prg).<br />

The Output format is in standard "Koala" or ".prg" It´s<br />

possible to save the "remapped" picture as a bitmap The<br />

.prg button will export to a C64 executable file! The "split"<br />

function will split the data into three files (bitmap, charmem<br />

and colormem data) - just like in my versions before.<br />

Released by: C64 Club Berlin<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137650/BMP2MCV2_1.7z<br />

C64Warez.com<br />

Many new programs have been added as well as a facelift<br />

some of the recent additions are: Rescratch, CBM Command<br />

v2.3, C64 Colour Term v.5d, Cadgers Noter v4.3, v3.0 Meganoter,<br />

WinVICE-2.2-x86 Flyer Network Users Guide, Quick-<br />

Start Cheat Sheet, Telnet64 and Client v1.02, v1.54 I-Port, Lt.<br />

Kernal / Read, Unzip 128 & 64 v1.80, C64S Game Archiver,<br />

KCS Power Cartridge, CCS64 DOS v1.09,<br />

http://c64warez.com/<br />

Project Sidologie<br />

Project Sidologie by Marcel Donné - this luxury box set features<br />

Commodore 64 music remakes with classic JARRE and<br />

Vangelis soundscapes<br />

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c64audio/projectsidologie-jarre-stylecommodore-64-music-r<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 15


Commodore 64 News<br />

C64 Charset Minion V0.8 beta<br />

Released by: Skid Row<br />

A character set editor for windows pc`s<br />

Requirements: any Windows O/S with .NET Framework<br />

4.5 or higher installed<br />

- supports 1x1, 1x2, 2x1 and 2x2 C64 charsets<br />

- hires & multicolour<br />

- rotating & flipping a char<br />

- possibility to convert True Type Fonts (char by char)<br />

which the user has got installed on his system<br />

- no installation routine for this tool, simply delete the file<br />

when you want to get rid of it<br />

- a Linux version will be available as well once the program<br />

leaves beta status<br />

V0.8 beta<br />

- Font Converter: added the possibility to choose other font<br />

styles than regular only<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

- Font Converter: settings are saved after closing the converter<br />

window<br />

- toolformsize adjusted to a smaller size so user with a tiny<br />

screen should be able to properly use this tool now<br />

Bug fixes:<br />

- Fixed a bug were the colour<br />

of the 2nd multicolour<br />

($D023) wasn't properly displayed<br />

on the icon.<br />

Pixels were not affected by<br />

this bug.<br />

- Fixed a bug in the font converter<br />

when the regular<br />

style of a True Type Font<br />

wasn't available.<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfi<br />

le.php/137435/C64 Charset Minion v0.8 beta.exe<br />

Station64 V2.0<br />

Released by: DJ Indikator<br />

Use a Commodore 64 as an external synth module accessed<br />

via Misi Containing over 20000 code lines of pure 6510 assembler.<br />

Tested with PASSPORT/SEQUENTAL/KERBEROS<br />

midi interfaces. You can Use the computer keys as keyboard<br />

if you don’t have a midi interface! You can play single notes<br />

(with 3 voices max poly) or play pre-programmed pieces of<br />

SID commands blocks as ARPs<br />

Main features:<br />

- 3 voice polyphony or unison for fat sounds<br />

- full 3 osc control via midi<br />

- use midi channel -> SID osc mapping for flexible control<br />

- fine tune for each osc<br />

- 2 lfo/env (4 stage) with apply to pitch/pulsewidth/filter<br />

cut<br />

- total monitoring all midi activity<br />

- advanced glide and pitchwheel control<br />

- fast on-screen help<br />

- zero latency (on real Commodore)<br />

- tested on C64 / C128 (in c64 mode)<br />

Break 64<br />

Break64 a new game for the Commodore C64, released by<br />

Wanax, of course it’s a Break out clone The game has 35 levels,<br />

and you can save the highest score, as you would expect<br />

the game supports paddles.<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138007/Break64<br />

[Wanax 2015].d64<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfi<br />

le.php/138016/Break64<br />

[Wanax 2015] Dir Fix.d64<br />

- works with 8580/6581<br />

on PAL/NTSC (auto detection)<br />

machines<br />

- screen-off for more clean<br />

sound from SID<br />

- configurable with any<br />

MIDI cartridge - works<br />

with any disk drive<br />

(+some additional features<br />

for SD2IEC users)<br />

to load/save created programs banks<br />

- 16 programs (can change from external midi too)<br />

- 100% original code, without any KERNAL use<br />

- software reset to machines without reset button<br />

- nice intro with cute gradients<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139150/sta64.prg<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139151/sta64.txt<br />

http://djindikator.net/c64/sta64.txt<br />

http://djindikator.net/c64/sta64_quick.txt<br />

http://djindikator.net/c64/sta64.prg<br />

K&A plus #01 [Polish/English]<br />

Released by: Kaplus<br />

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16069876/files/KA<br />

P/K&A_Plus_01_EN.pdf<br />

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com<br />

/u/16069876/files/KAP/K&A_Plus<br />

_01_PL.pdf<br />

A new English & Polish Commodore<br />

scene magazine called ‘K&A Plus’<br />

has been released. This will be a<br />

quarterly magazine and currently<br />

contains 72 pages of news, game reviews,<br />

an interview with Iranian<br />

C64 Community Contributor, and<br />

more!<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 16


Commodore 64 News<br />

P0 Snake [64kb cartridge]<br />

Released by: Antonio Savona<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139110/P0 Snake (C64<br />

Binaries Only).zip<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/139197/P0 Snake (C64<br />

Binaries Only) - CIA FIX.zip<br />

I am not 100% convince by this release of the classic snake<br />

game, you basically you just press the fire button to make<br />

the snake change direction. Maybe I am just too old and like<br />

the original game play, the graphics make the game stand<br />

out and the sampled speech is very clear! I think old people<br />

just don’t like change<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

THE TEXT FILE SAYS<br />

Wind your way through 30 levels of arcade-action insanity<br />

in this specially enhanced version of the game that took the<br />

trophy in the 2014 RGCD 16KB Game Development Competition.<br />

Featuring eight additional screens, an all-new intro sequence,<br />

improved<br />

sound samples, bug fixes<br />

and other minor<br />

tweaks, RGCD is proud<br />

to present this final<br />

version of Antonio<br />

Savona's P0 SNAKE!<br />

That Weren't 64 Updated<br />

Games That Weren’t 64 is a digital preservation project and<br />

archive of unreleased/incomplete/cancelled games and<br />

prototypes for the Commodore 64 computer. Currently featuring<br />

many review entries with scans, screenshots, downloads,<br />

videos, interviews and more.<br />

9 new entries added<br />

Colorasaurus, Deadly Summer, Fall Guy V1, House of Changes,<br />

Number Stumper, Pony Express, Ronin, Show Jumping, Sqaut Bot<br />

22 updates added<br />

Bloody Kids, Catch 23, DDT: Dynamic Debugger, Fantasy,<br />

Flok, Food Feud, Gremlins, High Memory, Jet Boat Simulator,<br />

Lethal Xcess, Mindbending Aliens From Hyperspace, Nefarious,<br />

Paranoid Pete, Prototype, Samurai Dawn, Snare V1,<br />

Space Monkeys, Spirit Of Adventure, Strobe, Trigger Happy,<br />

Vitrus, Wolf<br />

http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/<br />

Enchanted Forest – SID<br />

Samar Productions Enchanted Forest with 3 great SIDs for<br />

the Commodore C64. The code was written by Don Kichote,<br />

the music of Gaetano<br />

Chiummo, the graphical<br />

portion of Isildur<br />

and JSL, the idea and<br />

concept of Yogi Bear,<br />

the character of CRT<br />

and Ramos.<br />

http://csdb.dk/releas<br />

e/?id=137402<br />

Commodore game Break 64<br />

Released by: Wanax<br />

A breakout clone with<br />

some lovely bouncy<br />

music and great<br />

graphics, I love the<br />

scrolling backgrounds<br />

very swish!<br />

http://csdb.dk/release/?i<br />

d=138021<br />

SEUCK games competition<br />

A number of games have been released for the SEUCK 2015<br />

competition amongst them are<br />

Payback Time - Scoff - The Ocean<br />

Ninja - META14 Shamai Return of<br />

the Myths - TUFO - Naait Raaider<br />

For a list of them all and descriptions,<br />

the results of the competition and also links to download<br />

the games head to the official SEUCK 2015 competition<br />

pages listed there.<br />

http://tnd64.unikat.sk/Seuck_Compo_2015.html<br />

C64 game Outlaw<br />

Released by: Vial<br />

Not too sure about this, use a joystick in port 1 to control the left player<br />

and joystick in port 2<br />

for the right player, the<br />

graphics look very basic<br />

and there doesn’t seem to<br />

be any sound. You just<br />

try to shoot each other<br />

http://csdb.dk/getintern<br />

alfile.php/137844/Outl<br />

aw by Vial.prg<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 17


Commodore 64 News<br />

Bitfire 0.3<br />

Released by: Oxyron<br />

Bititfire is a fixed interleave loader system with depacker<br />

and an image writing tool. Aim was to make the loader as<br />

fast as possible while being as tiny as possible. So at some<br />

points size and speed had to be traded against each other.<br />

An own, however d64-compatible (bam copy is sufficient);<br />

file format is introduced to make the code less complex and<br />

loading faster. Also, functions that are not used regularly<br />

(like turn disk detection) are available as statically linkable<br />

functions and thus make the resident part on c64 side even<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

smaller. Being that tiny ($86 to $1ee bytes, depending on<br />

configuration) and still fast makes it perfect for being used<br />

in demos. The imaging-tool creates disk images with all<br />

demo files and a dirart on it. Also it is accompanied by an<br />

lz-packer based on doynamite, however smaller in code and<br />

a bit faster than that, while yielding nearly the same results<br />

The packer supports output of both, sfx as well as level<br />

packed files suitable for Bitfire (--bitfire switch)<br />

You can extract the file with 7 zip<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138351/bitfire_0.3.tar.gz<br />

The Marlo Files - Remastered Edition<br />

Released by: Binary Legends<br />

On the disk are two Sammy Marlo text adventures that were<br />

created with Jon Mattson's Questwriter. You can use a joystick<br />

in port 2, a 1351 mouse in port 1,<br />

http://csdb.dk/geti<br />

nternalfile.php/138<br />

382/rhe_marlo_file<br />

s_remastered_editi<br />

on.d64<br />

Abyssonaut - C64<br />

Abyssonaut was created by Anthony Stiller. Is a horizontal<br />

scrolling shoot 'em up in which involves rescuing endangered<br />

whales from the poachers who have been putting nets<br />

over the poor guys. There' also some nice features inside<br />

the game which involves assorted fish. There's also a big<br />

fight at the end of the game, which you'll need to play<br />

through in order to find out what the final fight is<br />

ABYSSONAUT was built in the Sideways SEUCK engine (created<br />

by Jon Wells) for the RGCD SEUCK 2015 competition<br />

run by Richard Bayliss and is Anthony`s second attempt at a<br />

game using this engine You may remember last issue I reviewed<br />

Sopwiths & Pterrordons, and although it gained a<br />

lukewarm reception, I<br />

suggested that he keep<br />

going and working, this<br />

latest release is a superb<br />

effort<br />

http://tnd64.unikat.sk/S<br />

euck_Compo_2015.html<br />

View64 V1.58<br />

Released by: Singular<br />

this Commodore 64 Tool opens and saves a vast number of<br />

C64 related picture files<br />

-Open source, mostly portable C using FLTK/SDL2/SDL1.2 GUI<br />

-Separate library for image decoding (libview64)<br />

-Supports lot of image formats (70+)<br />

-Some image formats are recognized without extensions<br />

-PAL/NTSC S-Video and RGB rendering<br />

-Scanline, shadow mask, chroma leakage simulation<br />

-Multicolour interlace de-interlacing<br />

-view64pnm for use<br />

with netpbm and dumping<br />

to bmp<br />

http://sourceforge.net/<br />

projects/view64/files/<br />

binaries/view64-<br />

1.58.zip/download<br />

Dungeon Crawl<br />

Released by: TWW<br />

Dungeon crawl, using the keys AD WS to control your man<br />

through the dungeon, you have options to Attack, or Defend<br />

and collect keys to open<br />

doors to other areas.<br />

Quite simplistic but absorbing<br />

http://csdb.dk/getintern<br />

alfile.php/138705/Dung<br />

eonCrawl.prg<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 18


Commodore 64 News<br />

C64 Studio 4.3<br />

Released by: Endurion<br />

C64 Studio is a Windows Forms based IDE for C64 development<br />

on a Windows system. It is specifically made for writing<br />

games and targets the hobby developer In the current<br />

incarnation C64 Studio is .NET 2.0 based and is currently<br />

only tested on Windows C64 Studio provides code editors<br />

for assembler and Basic V2. In conjunction with Vice debugging<br />

through the assembler code is available with these features:<br />

-Breakpoints<br />

-Watches<br />

-Memory View<br />

-Register View<br />

1k games<br />

Run Little Man<br />

This is a 1k game, move the joystick left or right, I am unsure<br />

what’s happening when you fire anyway avoid the sides , it’s<br />

hard because they joystick<br />

movements seem<br />

to be slow to respond,<br />

although I think this is<br />

deliberate, there is<br />

sound by means of an<br />

explosion<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinte<br />

rnalfile.php/138258/3<br />

2RUN.PRG<br />

Other recent 1k games released at Nomam 2015<br />

http://www.abbuc.de/community/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=8314<br />

Additional tools exist for<br />

game specific development:<br />

-Character Set Editor<br />

-Sprite Set Editor<br />

-Graphic Screen Editor<br />

-Character Screen Editor<br />

-Map Editor<br />

Emulation specific tools are:<br />

-Media Manager (Tape and Disk)<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

http://www.georg-rottensteiner.de/en/index.html<br />

are (in no particular order)<br />

3peak x 10lines Released by: Brataccas<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138257/30_3PEAK.PRG<br />

Schifoan Released by: Hexworx<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138256/23SCHI.PRG<br />

Can-map Released by: e5frog<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138255/18CANMAP.PRG<br />

Pear Picker on Ice Released by: Naufr4g0<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138254/16PEAR.PRG<br />

Stay Alive Coder Unknown<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/138253/14STAY.PRG<br />

C64 Reloaded<br />

Individual Computers have started delivering the C64 Reloaded.<br />

This is a brand new design of the C64 motherboard<br />

with the original chips - 6510, VIC2, SID, CIA – And as they<br />

say is fully compatible with the Commodore 64<br />

The box includes:<br />

- C64 Reloaded motherboard<br />

- CSG8701 replacement circuit (PAL, pre-installed)<br />

- Video chip 6569 or 8565<br />

- CIA chips 6526 or 6526A<br />

Fire in factory C64 housings<br />

Dallas Moore reported that the factory where the new C64c<br />

housings were being made ​caught fire raged. Fortunately,<br />

he reported, the moulds were not damaged, but the new<br />

transparent enclosures have been lost.<br />

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1670214687/origi<br />

nal-commodore-64c-computer-housing-in-newcoo/posts/1243399?ref=backer_project_update<br />

To make it a full computer, you need to add:<br />

- Processor 6510 or 8500<br />

- PLA chip 906114-01, SuperPLA or RealPLA<br />

- SID chip 6581 or 8580<br />

- case<br />

- keyboard<br />

- 12V DC power supply<br />

- metal side-bracket (if you<br />

want to use the breadboxtype<br />

case)<br />

https://icomp.de/shopicomp/en/shop/product/c<br />

64-reloaded.html<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 19


AMIGA FOREVER AND COMMODORE 64 FOREVER<br />

Amiga Forever<br />

http://www.amigaforever.com<br />

http://www.facebook.com/AmigaForever<br />

C64 Forever<br />

http://www.c64forever.com<br />

http://www.facebook.com/C64Forever<br />

RetroPlatform Project<br />

http://www.retroplatform.com


Commodore Amiga News<br />

DirectoryOpus 4.18.42 - AmigaOS 4<br />

There is a new version of Directory Opus, available. The<br />

Changes in this version include: Improvements for the iff<br />

definitions and Dopus_print. Added the pack pragma directives.<br />

Update the application library interface, configuration<br />

file, and history files.<br />

http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=uti<br />

lity/filetool/dopus4.lha<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

3D printed parts for Commodore / Amiga<br />

Tommes has started “printing” new parts for Commodore<br />

and Amiga computers using a 3D printer, you can buy the<br />

pre printed parts from the website for a very reasonable<br />

amount. A few Examples of the parts available are of the<br />

parts are: Expansion Slot Cover for the Amiga 1000, Interlock<br />

Knobs for the SX-64, Commodore Monitor 1901 cover,<br />

F-Keys for C64C, etc.<br />

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/Pixelwizard<br />

Amigatronics Podcast 2x03<br />

The Amigatronics Podcast is a Spanish pod-cast for the Amiga<br />

user. Information in this issue includes: Intro, News,<br />

Hardware: AMIGA FPGA, Software: Adpro, Games: Pinball<br />

Dreams, Fantasies and Illusions / Dynablaster, Demoscene:<br />

Amiga PPC Productions and Retro Zone: Arcades - Gauntlet<br />

/ Sly Spy<br />

https://amigatronics.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/amigatronicsthe-podcast-2x03/<br />

TAWS (The Amiga Workbench Simulation)<br />

TAWS is a JavaScript emulation of Amiga-Workbench<br />

for your web browser. Created by Michael<br />

Rupp this emulation is running Amiga Workbench<br />

4.1 Final, If you look under SYSTEM – TAWS you<br />

will find a html history information page that’s<br />

worth a read, also “future plans” makes an interesting<br />

read, I haven’t played with it much but the<br />

emulation is very fast on a modern PC, also under<br />

the PRESETS you will find various erm presets to<br />

emulate Amiga 1.X upwards<br />

http://www.taws.ch/WB.html<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 22


Commodore Amiga News<br />

EdiSyn v0.53- AROS<br />

EdiSyn in an editor with Tabs and Syntax highlighting (at<br />

the moment for C/C++, HTML and Pascal) for AROS, written<br />

in FreePascal with Lazarus. Base on the SynEdit Component<br />

of LCL and the ATTabs Component<br />

Features:<br />

- Highlighter, C/C++, HTML, Pascal<br />

- Tabs<br />

- Recent files, Export Text as HTML (with Properties from<br />

Highlighter)<br />

- Jump to Line<br />

- Search, Replace, Search in Files, Search in Directory, Regex<br />

- Copy, Cut, Paste<br />

- Undo, Redo<br />

- Free configurable<br />

highlighter,<br />

key<br />

binding, user<br />

commands<br />

- Output parser<br />

for GCC and<br />

Freepascal<br />

(jump to positions)<br />

http://blog.alb4<br />

2.de/edisyn/<br />

AMIcast issue 4<br />

AMIcast is an English podcast all about the world of Amiga.<br />

In issue 4 are : An Interview<br />

with Pascal Papara on AEROS<br />

and AROS - Another look at the<br />

future of the Amiga. Music:. ​<br />

Murdilokustra and Nobody's<br />

Home<br />

http://amicast.ppa.pl/<br />

880 Gamer issue 6<br />

This is an English pdf<br />

magazine for Amiga<br />

users. In the magazine<br />

are the following articles:<br />

News, Cover Disk,<br />

30 Years Amiga, Game<br />

On: Street Fighter II,<br />

Pang!, Super Hang On,<br />

Silkworm and Toki.<br />

Bleeding eyes: World<br />

of Commodore, Ray of<br />

Hope and Faktory.<br />

Cheats and Talk-back.<br />

http://www.users.on.net<br />

/~stanners/<br />

Help my Cat! – Amiga GAME<br />

Help My Cat! is a small<br />

puzzle platform game<br />

developed by Bugala. In<br />

the game you should try<br />

to get a cat out of a tree.<br />

The game is available<br />

for Amiga OS3 / 4,<br />

AROS, MorphOS, Windows,<br />

Mac and Linux<br />

computers.<br />

Download the game<br />

http://aminet.net/search?query=help+my+cat<br />

Currently available from Indiego! Appstore:<br />

http://aros-broadway.de/indiego//marketplace/<br />

For Amiga, Pc, Mac and Linux.<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Video van Help my Cat!<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdwEtm5gLIE<br />

WinUAE Upgrade<br />

A new version of WinUAE is available. Changes in this version<br />

are: Emulation improvement for SCSI-hosts, IDE-controllers<br />

and CPU-cards. Support for, AVideo 12 / 24, HAM-E<br />

(+), DAC 18, FireCracker 24, Toccata Zorro II sound card,<br />

Nordic Power v3.2 and Pro Access v2.17. Visit the WinUAE<br />

web page for more details.<br />

http://www.winuae.net/<br />

AmigaRemix<br />

Here you listen to remixes of Amiga MODS. The following<br />

Amiga music has recently been added: Cream of the Earth<br />

(vs. Romeo Knight), Super Twintris "Those 3" Tunes Up-Mix,<br />

Risky Woods - "El Pueblo" Cover Version, Kid Gloves [ Castle<br />

] The Toe-tapper's Up-Mix, Hyperbased 2015, Lethal Xcess -<br />

Ruins of Methallycha, Einstein 2d6 - Wings of Victory<br />

(Spacetrip Mix), Total Eclipse (Main Theme Remix), MegaLo-<br />

Mania title, Agony - Loading Forest (TITAN Deep Blue Mix)<br />

and Defender Of The Crown (title).<br />

http://www.amigaremix.com/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 23


Commodore Amiga News<br />

Crates! – AROS<br />

The text from the archive says<br />

Crates is a three dimensional puzzle game. It consists of missions<br />

that consist of levels. To pass a level, you must<br />

move player to the exit by interacting with the different<br />

kinds of crates in the level. Before that you must also collect<br />

all the keys and toggle all the toggles that the level might<br />

contain. Every level has a password that makes it possible<br />

to continue playing<br />

from that level whenever<br />

you want, but if<br />

you want to get your<br />

name in the hall of fame,<br />

you must play the<br />

whole mission at one<br />

go. On that case, the<br />

faster you are, the better<br />

is your position in<br />

the hall of fame.<br />

DOWNLOAD<br />

http://archives.arosexec.org/?function=showfile&file=game/puzzle/crates.i386<br />

-aros.zip<br />

HOMEPAGE<br />

http://www.octaspire.com/crates/<br />

A1200 Audio Filter<br />

RetroGameModz has made a video about the audio filter in<br />

the A1200 showing how to troubleshoot and track down the<br />

problem where the audio filter switching doesn't work as it<br />

should.<br />

HE SAYS<br />

Like all other Amiga models, the Amiga 1200 has a low-pass<br />

filter in hardware which can be found directly on the motherboard.<br />

This audio filter can be turned on and off in software.<br />

In case of the audio filter being stuck in either the ON<br />

or OFF state, how would we go ahead and troubleshoot the<br />

problem? Although not being a repair in itself, this video<br />

serves as a little troubleshooting guide on how to track<br />

down the problem in a case where the audio filter switching<br />

doesn't work as it should.<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8d_OInQkLc<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Ago – AROS<br />

VoR is a quick action<br />

game where you drive a<br />

space ship and try to<br />

avoid crashing into<br />

rocks. Current information<br />

about VoR can be<br />

found on the<br />

homepage:<br />

http://jasonwoof.org/v<br />

or<br />

developed by Jason Woofenden and Josh Grams and is available<br />

for AROS, AmigaOS 4, Linux and Windows<br />

http://archives.aros-<br />

exec.org/?function=showfile&file=game/misc/vor.i386-<br />

aros.zip<br />

Amiga Future issue 114<br />

The English and German Amiga magazine Amiga Future issue<br />

114 is available.<br />

Previews:<br />

Playfield, HGui<br />

Reviews:<br />

Swamp Defense 2, Solomon's Key 2, Jet Hunt, London Rain<br />

Matrix, Pac Boy, Scorpio, Oldtimer, BetterWB, Blankers, Hollywood<br />

6.0, AmiKit 8.3.<br />

Special:<br />

WD MY Cloud Mirror, Smart Home, Classic Reflections Part<br />

21 Haage & Partner, Demoscene.<br />

Workshops:<br />

Programming AmigaOS 4 Part 12<br />

Others:<br />

Interview<br />

Cherry Darling<br />

Teil 2, Interview<br />

Alastar<br />

Murray, News,<br />

Editorial, Content,<br />

Imprint,<br />

Content Cover-<br />

CD, Letters to<br />

the editor, Preview<br />

http://www.ami<br />

gafuture.de<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 24


Commodore Amiga News<br />

Amiga Image Storage System" (AISS). Updated v4.19<br />

Martin Merz has released a new version of his "Amiga Image<br />

Storage System" (AISS). The Amiga Image Storage System<br />

(AISS) offers a photo-illustrative icon style for toolbar images<br />

- it approaches the realism of photography but uses the<br />

features of illustrations to convey a lot of information in a<br />

small image. AISS is an environment to store, access and<br />

maintain this toolbar images<br />

http://www.masonicons.info/index.html<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

The Game<br />

Developed by David Erikssonal though work started some time<br />

ago and still not completely<br />

finished although<br />

playable .<br />

Recent changes: Improvements<br />

for the title<br />

screen, sprites, the<br />

death counter and<br />

more support for the<br />

CD32.<br />

http://driar.se/thegame/<br />

EvenMore v0.86 - Amiga<br />

EvenMore is a text viewer for AmigaOS. featuring proportional<br />

font support, multi-coloured text, file conversion plugins,<br />

and more. Recent changes to the software include: For<br />

the FinalWriter/Copy-Plugin there is now support for<br />

strike-through text<br />

http://www.evenmore.co.uk/<br />

Meridian V3.11 – AmigaOS<br />

Meridian is doing exactly this! Meridian is a small commodity<br />

to create virtual hotkeys by using the mouse. You draw a<br />

symbol and Meridian<br />

is starting<br />

the requested action.<br />

Since the<br />

starting point<br />

and the direction<br />

is also important,<br />

there are countless<br />

combinations<br />

you can use<br />

http://geit.de/en<br />

g_meridian.html<br />

Calimero v0.14 - MorphOS<br />

Calimero is a powerful Desk Top Publishing program for<br />

MorphOS. You can import and export many different formats.<br />

With the program supporting multi page layouts, columns,<br />

headers, footers, separators, hyperlinks, text-warp,<br />

table of contents, background texture and more. Changes in<br />

this latest version are: Layer - system for objects. Copy / Cut<br />

objects to clipboard,<br />

paste objects from<br />

clipboard. Clone objects<br />

and two separate<br />

(context) menus<br />

in the edit mui class<br />

http://aminet.net/searc<br />

h?query=calimero<br />

Assist v2.1 - AmigaOS 4<br />

Featuring all the content<br />

from the "Get<br />

the most out of your<br />

AMIGA" PDF guide,<br />

short-cuts and links.<br />

Assist helps with<br />

downloading and unpacking<br />

of software,<br />

plays YouTube videos<br />

and it has AmiUpdate<br />

support. In this<br />

latest version are<br />

many optimisations and 5 new articles.<br />

http://www.os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=uti<br />

lity/misc/assist.lha<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 25


Commodore Amiga News<br />

AROS Vision 2.9.2 online<br />

New or updated<br />

Build again from scratch based on newest AROS 68<br />

Netsurf updated<br />

Free Pascal updated<br />

Theme can be changed by menu<br />

MUI classes updated<br />

Hollywood plugins updated<br />

AppStore client updated<br />

it should be faster<br />

screenblanker added<br />

In development:<br />

AROS Vision ECS (for real 68k hardware and FPGA)<br />

AROS Vision X86<br />

AROS Vision X86 is based on Windows hosted making it<br />

easy to start from Windows (without any installation). Disadvantage<br />

right now no network and sound<br />

http://www.aros-platform.de<br />

The 68000 Wars, Part 1: Lorraine<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

From the Article<br />

"The Amiga was the damnedest computer. A riddle wrapped<br />

in a mystery inside an enigma, then all crammed into a plastic<br />

case; that was the Amiga. I wrote a book about the thing,<br />

and I’m still not sure I can make sense of all of its complications<br />

and contradictions.<br />

The Amiga was a great computer when it made its debut in<br />

1985, better by far than anything else on the market. At its<br />

heart was the wonderchip of the era, the Motorola 68000,<br />

the same CPU found in the Apple Macintosh and the Atari ST.<br />

But what made the Amiga special was the stuff found<br />

around the 68000: three custom chips with the unforgettable<br />

names of Paula, Denise, and Agnus. Together they gave<br />

the Amiga the best graphics and sound in the industry by a<br />

veritable order of magnitude."<br />

AN ONGOING HISTORY OF COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT<br />

BY JIMMY MAHER<br />

http://www.filfre.net/2015/03/the-68...rt-1-lorraine/<br />

AmiKit updated<br />

AmiKit is a free project that turns your computer, tablet or<br />

phone into legendary Amiga. It includes more than 350 applications.<br />

updated components in this 8.4 release.<br />

-MUI4 new pointers<br />

-WHDLoad,<br />

-System libraries.<br />

-improved Polish and Russian language support<br />

http://amikit.amiga.sk<br />

REV'n'GE! <strong>Issue</strong> 30<br />

REV'n'GE! is a PDF Fanzine that reviews, compares vintage<br />

games and multimedia software for any platform, so a various<br />

platform to read and see thanks to link to Retro Trailer.<br />

SendSpace: https://www.sendspace.com/file/7xqsuc<br />

Mega:<br />

https://mega.co.nz/#!29Mz2QoR!J4CTUH...0deVNlyYPmTy<br />

vA<br />

RetroTrailers:<br />

http://www.amigapag<br />

e.it/index.php?pl=int<br />

ro<br />

AmigaDem Mania:<br />

http://www.amigade<br />

mo.tk<br />

Video Channel:<br />

http://www.youtube.c<br />

om/user/pippos34<br />

Demo Movie:<br />

http://xoomer.virgilio.<br />

it/tuxcam/recensioni/<br />

flash1.html<br />

Retro Trailer Blog:<br />

http://www.amiga.org<br />

/forums/blog.php?u=2<br />

066<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 26


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore Amiga News<br />

AMIStore: Workbench CANDI updated<br />

Announcement<br />

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that Workbench<br />

CANDI has now been updated and is available to<br />

download from AMIStore App Store. This update is free of<br />

charge to all customers that have bought CANDI from AMIStore.<br />

Any new customers who want to purchase CANDI can<br />

now do so from AMIStore.<br />

A new Easter bunny theme has been created in addition to<br />

other changes required for future enhancements. The lite<br />

version of CANDI has now been replaced by a tooltype<br />

which can be used to select LOWCPU option for less capable<br />

hardware. Once again, our special thanks go to Kevin Saunders<br />

and Entwickler-X who have done some wonderful<br />

work in realising this update for A-EON.<br />

The new animated Easter theme is added to the collection of<br />

other themes already included in CANDI. Watch out for<br />

white bunnies suddenly appearing in the green grass gently<br />

blowing in the wind on your Workbench backdrop!<br />

Other updates:<br />

* Automatically switch between CANDI animations by double-clicking<br />

on a CANDI icon.<br />

* Double clicking on the same CANDI icon switches the<br />

Workbench animation off.<br />

* CANDI animation goes to sleep if the Workbench goes behind<br />

another active screen.<br />

* New tooltypes to select LOWCPU option for less capable<br />

hardware (removing the need for a LOWCPU CANDI version).<br />

* ResetWB option now works when CANDI is running.<br />

* Each CANDI can now be controlled by an external<br />

program/utility. (coming soon).<br />

http://www.a-eon.com/<br />

http://www.amistore.net/<br />

AMIStore: Warp3D Radeon HD Southern Islands<br />

New 3D Drivers for AmigaOS 4.1: Warp3D for Southern<br />

Islands Graphics Cards<br />

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that the first<br />

release candidate of Radeon HD Southern Islands<br />

Warp3D driver is now available to purchase and download<br />

from AMIStore App Store.<br />

PDF News Release<br />

http://www.a-eon.com/PDF/News_Release_Warp3D_SI.pdf<br />

Warp3D-SI Features:<br />

-Supports larger textures (up to 16384x16384 memory permitting).<br />

- Performance is less dependent on resolution than previous<br />

drivers, including rendering at HD resolutions.<br />

- Submits vertices to the GPU via vertex buffers rather than<br />

directly in the command stream (one of the bottlenecks of<br />

the old Radeon drivers).<br />

- Uses the RadeonHD_RM.resource for VRAM allocation, providing<br />

more efficient memory management than own system.<br />

- Accumulates small vertex arrays into larger buffers to provide<br />

faster performance where lots of tiny render operations<br />

are performed<br />

- Doesn't lock the entire graphics system between<br />

3D_LockHardware() / W3D_UnlockHardware(), so an<br />

application or game crash is less likely to freeze the entire<br />

system<br />

Warp3D Radeon HD Southern Islands Requirements:<br />

An AmigaONE or AmigaOS 4.1 compatible computer with:-<br />

- AmigaOS 4.1 “Final Edition”<br />

- Radeon HD V1.4 or V2.7<br />

- MiniGL - version 2.20 or later<br />

Containing one of the following Radeon HD or Radeon<br />

Rx Southern Island graphics cards:<br />

- Radeon HD 7750-7970 series graphics card (excluding the<br />

Radeon HD 7790)<br />

- Radeon R7 250X/265 (excluding R7 250)<br />

- Radeon R9 270/270X/280/280X<br />

www.a-eon.com<br />

AMIStore: New Radeon HD v2.7 and v1.4 available<br />

A-EON Technology Ltd announced new Radeon HD v2.7 and<br />

v1.4 drivers that are available to download from AMIStore<br />

App Store Any customers who have bought the Radeon HD<br />

v2 driver previously may download the new v2.7 update for<br />

free. Any customers who have bought the Radeon HD v1<br />

driver previously may download the new v1.4 for free.<br />

A-EON Technology Ltd<br />

www.a-eon.com/radeonhd<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 27


Commodore Amiga News<br />

hw4cubic 6.0 now available<br />

Michael "Clyde Radcliffe" Jurisch's Hollywood add-on for Cubic<br />

IDE has been updated to support the full Hollywood 6.0<br />

command set, there have been bug fixes and also optimizations.<br />

The hw4cubic plugin uses Cubic IDE as an IDE for Hollywood.<br />

The complete Hollywood command set is imported<br />

into Cubic IDE so you'll get syntax highlighting, quick command<br />

information, hotkey links to the documentation for<br />

command under cursor, function list, direct access to the<br />

compiler, auto complete and intellisense functionality and<br />

much more.<br />

Also wordfile for the popular Windows text editor UltraEdit<br />

is available to download on the official Hollywood portal.<br />

This wordfile lets you edit Hollywood scripts on Windows<br />

using UltraEdit.<br />

All downloads are available from the official Hollywood portal.<br />

http://www.hollywood-mal.com/<br />

Acuario 2015<br />

An updated version of the Acuario<br />

screen saver is available<br />

from Morgue Soft, this<br />

version has been compiled<br />

with Hollywood 6.0. Available<br />

for MorphOS, AmigaOS4<br />

and Windows, the only Acuario<br />

with mermaids<br />

Downloadable here:<br />

www.morguesoft.eu<br />

Turrican Anthology - The complete Turrican collection<br />

available for the Amiga CD32!<br />

Earok has just announced the release of the very famous<br />

Turrican series, Turrican Anthology for the Amiga CD32.<br />

First developed for the Commodore 64 by Rainbow Arts and<br />

Factor 5 in the early 90's and ported to other systems later.<br />

Turrican and its sequels such as Turrican II is a game series<br />

that is set in the heart of millions of Retro fans across the<br />

world. They all had great shooting action, amazing game<br />

play and the most<br />

awesome of sound<br />

tracks by Chris<br />

Hülsbeck!<br />

http://www.indieret<br />

ronews.com/2015/0<br />

6/turrican-anthology-completeturrican.html<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

AMIcast Episode 2<br />

Second episode of AMIcast. With guest Epsilon - blogger and<br />

Amiga X1000 user, talking about projects, Amiga NG, software<br />

and emulation, also a thread about thirty years old<br />

Amiga computer.<br />

http://radzikpl.blogspot.com/2015/03...2-epsilon.html<br />

http://amicast.ppa.pl<br />

https://itunes.apple.com/de/podcast/...961455301?l=en<br />

AMIcast - Episode 3 - Petro Tyschtschenko<br />

Petro Tyschtschenko! Is interviewed in the 3rd episode. His<br />

story is always linked with Amiga and fighting for Amiga<br />

computers.<br />

http://radzikpl.blogspot.com/2015/04...henko.html?m=1<br />

http://amicast.ppa.pl<br />

AMIcast - Episode 4 - Pascal Papara<br />

Featuring Pascal Papara. Who talks about AEROS and AROS -<br />

Another look at the future of the Amiga. Also about AROS,<br />

open source solution for NG Amigas. AmiCloud, Indiecoins<br />

and Indiego - all connected with Pascal Papara. the future<br />

and development in the community and software like Hollywood.<br />

There are modules by Moby: (02) Murdilokustra; and<br />

at the end: (03) Nobody's Home from Album: Dusting off the<br />

Amiga<br />

http://radzikpl.blogspot.com/2015/05/amicast-episode-4-pascalpapara.html<br />

http://amicast.ppa.pl<br />

MultiViewerNG Released on AMIStore<br />

Announcement<br />

MultiViewerNG Released on AMIStore<br />

The ultimate Next-Generation AmigaOS file viewer<br />

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that Multi-<br />

ViewerNG is now released and available on AMIStore App<br />

Store. It is currently priced at GBP £6, EUR 8.40, USD $9.30<br />

(excluding local taxes and transaction processing fee Multi-<br />

ViewerNG is a datatype viewer for the AmigaOS 4. It features<br />

many extra features such as:<br />

- Toolbar icons which user can hide<br />

- File list which user can hide<br />

- Tabs mode which user can switch on/off<br />

- Can run from Shell or Workbench<br />

- File and image editing hotlinks<br />

- Mark mode for copying sections of image to clipboard<br />

- Image zoom and rotate (supports mouse wheel)<br />

- Powerful ARexx interface with scripts menu<br />

- Save images in various file formats<br />

- Slideshow mode for sequentially viewing files (customisable<br />

delay)<br />

A-EON Technology Ltd<br />

www.a-eon.com<br />

http://apps.amistore.net/multiviewer/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 28


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore Amiga News<br />

A-EON Technology acquires DvPlayer<br />

Announcement<br />

A-EON Technology acquires DvPlayer The premier multimedia<br />

player for AmigaOS 4<br />

Cardiff 14th June 2015<br />

A-EON Technology are pleased to announce that, a year after becoming<br />

the sole distributor of DvPlayer, we have now secured<br />

the exclusive rights from its developer Stephen Fellner<br />

As part of the agreement A-EON Technology has acquired a<br />

world-wide, exclusive, perpetual and irrevocable license to develop,<br />

publish and distribute the full Dvplayer source code, binaries<br />

and plugins. A-EON has also acquired the DvPlayer web<br />

content and exclusive rights to all trade names for product marketing,<br />

promotion and branding for the AmigaOS and Amiga-related<br />

operating systems including emulation. Meanwhile<br />

Stephen Fellner will retain non-exclusive rights to elements of<br />

his original source code for potential future projects. The current<br />

version of DvPlayer runs under AmigaOS 4.1 and supports<br />

the following video formats:-<br />

MPEG-1/2 video streams<br />

MPEG-1/2 system streams<br />

MPEG audio files<br />

VideoCD and SVCD<br />

DVD Video<br />

AVI files (inc.OpenDML extens.)<br />

ASF/WMV files<br />

AIFF audio files<br />

GL Galore 1.0 released<br />

Airsoft Softwair released GL Galore, the ultimate<br />

OpenGL® scripting solution for Hollywood!<br />

GL Galore is a plugin for Hollywood that allows you to access<br />

the OpenGL(R) 1.1 command set directly from Hollywood.<br />

This makes it possible to write scripts that utilize the<br />

host system's 3D hardware to create high-performance, butter-smooth<br />

2D and 3D animation that is calculated completely<br />

in hardware by the GPU of your graphics board. This<br />

leads to a huge performance boost over the classic Hollywood<br />

graphics API which is mostly implemented in software.<br />

Especially systems with slower CPUs will benefit<br />

greatly from hardware-accelerated drawing offered by<br />

OpenGL.<br />

http://forums.hollywood-mal.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1119<br />

Download<br />

http://www.hollywood-mal.com/<br />

DvPlayer also supports many audio and video codecs via<br />

avcodec.library, including MPEG Video 1/2, DivX, XVID, MJPG,<br />

Cinepak, Indeo Video, PCM, MPEG Audio (Layer1-3) and more.<br />

It uses fast direct-rendering algorithms for every possible<br />

HiColor and TrueColor display mode and separate rendering<br />

routines for half scale and 16:9 movies so that they are correctly<br />

displayed at the correct aspect ratio. DvPlayer uses a new triple<br />

buffering technique which is only available in OS4.0+. There<br />

are numerous other features including:- keyboards shortcuts, a<br />

skinnable GUI, full screen and windowed displays, Amidock support,<br />

DVD and VideoCD playback, subtitle support, support for<br />

external plugins, a visual audio scope and many, many more.<br />

DvPlayer was developed by Steven, who is himself an Amiga<br />

enthusiast, to deliver the ultimate multimedia experience for<br />

AmigaOS 4.1. Matthew Leaman, commented on the latest addition<br />

to A-EON’s growing software catalogue, “DvPlayer has always<br />

been a favourite amongst AmigaOS 4 users and we are<br />

pleased to secure it for the future”. To which Stephen Fellner<br />

added, “Amiga was the first home computer to deliver a true<br />

multimedia experience. My goal with DvPlayer was to continue<br />

that legacy. Now it's time to take it to the next level and I'm very<br />

happy to have A-EON bring new life to this project.” A beta version<br />

of DvPlayer is currently being tested which supports the<br />

Radeon HD v2 driver’s hardware accelerated video playback using<br />

the graphics card’s own GPU. DvPlayer is available from<br />

AMIStore.<br />

For more information please visit http://dvplayer.amistore.net/<br />

boldly taking DvPlayer into the future<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 29


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore Amiga News<br />

Kickstarter launch date for<br />

Commodore: The Amiga<br />

Years announced<br />

Brian Bagnall has setup a Facebook<br />

page for his long-delayed<br />

but finally-forthcoming<br />

book "Commodore: The Amiga<br />

Years", the sequel to "Commodore:<br />

A Company On The<br />

Edge<br />

https://www.facebook.com/pag<br />

es/Commo...59<strong>89</strong>3914051909<br />

Brian has also announced the<br />

launch date for the Kickstarter campaign, and tells me there<br />

will be lots of cool backer rewards.<br />

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/146275<strong>89</strong>59/commodorethe-amiga-years-book<br />

Hollywood Player 6.0 released<br />

Airsoft Softwair announced that Hollywood Player is now<br />

also available in version 6.0 for all platforms supported by<br />

Hollywood (AmigaOS 3, AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, WarpOS,<br />

AROS, Windows, Mac OS PPC & x86, Linux PPC & x86 &<br />

ARM). With the Player software authors can choose to distribute<br />

their programs as applets instead of stand-alone executables.<br />

In contrast to stand-alone executables, Hollywood<br />

applets are universally executable which has the advantage<br />

that you don't have to compile your programs for as much<br />

as almost a dozen of different platforms<br />

The Hollywood Player is now available for free download<br />

from the official Hollywood portal<br />

http://www.hollywood-mal.com/ for a wide range of architectures<br />

and comes with three demo applets to show its capabilities.<br />

A-EON Technology acquires TuneNet Announcement<br />

A-EON Technology Ltd is pleased to announce that it has<br />

purchased the rights to TuneNet, the multi-format Music<br />

Player and Internet Radio Streamer for AmigaOS 4 from its<br />

developer, Paul Heams.<br />

As part of the agreement A-EON has acquired the exclusive<br />

rights to the full TuneNet source code, binaries and plugins<br />

along with the worldwide exclusive rights to publish and<br />

distribute the software and its plugins.<br />

A-EON has also acquired the TuneNet web domain and<br />

exclusive rights to all trade names for product marketing,<br />

promotion and branding for the AmigaOS and Amigarelated<br />

operating systems including emulation. Meanwhile<br />

Paul Heams will retain the non-exclusive rights to the<br />

"audio re-sampling class" source code for other projects.<br />

TuneNet is a modular multi-format player which was<br />

developed from the ground up by Paul Heams in 2004. It<br />

supports a range of music formats through special plugins<br />

and includes recording and Shout/Ice-cast broadcasting. It<br />

also includes a system GUI along with a customisable<br />

miniature dock facility and XML drive skinnable interface.<br />

Over the years, TuneNet has received many notable<br />

upgrades. It was made freely available on OS4Depot and<br />

was also bundled as a third-party contribution with<br />

AmigaOS 4.1<br />

In recent years, due to changing work commitments, Paul<br />

hasn’t been able to devote time to support and update<br />

TuneNet. Rather than let his creation stagnate Paul said,<br />

“I’ve realised for quite a while that TuneNet needed a new<br />

home. I just did not have the time to give it the attention it<br />

deserved and I’m really pleased that A-EON have taken up<br />

the challenge to drive it forward”. Matthew Leaman added,<br />

“TuneNet is quality AmigaOS software and we look forward<br />

to building on Paul’s excellent legacy”.<br />

For more information please visit:<br />

www.a-eon.com<br />

www.tunenet.co.uk<br />

A bounty for our developers 2015<br />

To support the developers of non-commercial software for<br />

MorphOS having achieved a portage, developed or updated<br />

something since the beginning of the year. The bounty ended<br />

on June 30th, 2015 and will be shared equally between<br />

the developers listed below(*):<br />

- Fab (E-UAE 1.0.0 JIT)<br />

- naTmeg (AmigaMark, exFATfs)<br />

- BSzili (LÖVE, FreeCiv)<br />

- pegasossigi (ShowVector, Calimero)<br />

- OffseT (ACE)<br />

- Thomas Igracki (gTranslator, yWeather, AddShortcut)<br />

- Templario (Acuario 2015, VAMP, SirenaPlayer)<br />

- Geit (SimpleCat)<br />

- widelec (KwaKwa, jabber.module, gg.module)<br />

- Stefan Haubental (Abbaye des Morts, cabextract, Stella, amath,<br />

uBee512)<br />

- Lázár Zoltán (PDFToolKit, SQLMan)<br />

- Rob Cranley (SMBMounter, InstallerGen)<br />

- realstar (Hu-Go!, FCEU)<br />

- James Jacobs (AmiArcadia, WormWars, Saga, Africa, ReportPlus)<br />

- Guillermo Amat (toram)<br />

You can send your donation via the PayPal button available<br />

in the box "Bounty for dev" on www.warmup-asso.org website.<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 30


Commodore Amiga News<br />

A-EON Technology and ACube Systems<br />

strengthen strategic alliance<br />

Announcement<br />

Following a series of meetings held over three days in late<br />

April at A-EON Technology's Cardiff headquarters, the two<br />

companies agreed a joint development plan to ensure the<br />

future of Classic and Next-Generation Amiga hardware and<br />

software development. In particular they agreed a new hardware<br />

and software development roadmap which both companies<br />

will jointly fund and support. Their plans include a<br />

series of exciting new hardware and software projects starting<br />

with the Minimig Plus, an updated version of ACube System's<br />

highly successful Amiga 500 FPGA implementation,<br />

based on Dennis van Weeren original design concept.<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

During the summit the companies also visited Ultra Varisys,<br />

the developers behind A-EON Technology's Nemo and Cyrus<br />

64-bit PowerPC motherboards, to discuss future hardware<br />

trends and opportunities. Max Tretene, ACube's technical<br />

guru commented, "During our meetings we had very good<br />

MiniMig Plus prototype ideas about near future hardware<br />

and software development, really can't wait to realize all of<br />

them." While Enrico Vidale, ACube's business manager added,<br />

"This strategic alliance can only be good for the whole<br />

Amiga community."<br />

Meanwhile A-EON Technology's Managing Director, Matthew<br />

Leaman commented, "The combined technical and financial<br />

resources of A-EON & ACube should help secure<br />

future success." Trevor Dickinson added, "I'm more optimistic<br />

now about the future Amiga scene than I have been for a<br />

very long time. All I can say is, bring it on!"<br />

note: the full press release is available<br />

http://www.a-eon.com/PDF/News_Release_Summit.pdf<br />

A-EON Technology acquires Ringhio Messaging System<br />

Announcement<br />

As part of our strategic alliance with ACube srl we are<br />

pleased to announce that we have purchased the exclusive<br />

rights to the Ringhio messaging system from its developer<br />

Max 'm3x' Tretene.<br />

As part of the agreement Max has granted A-EON<br />

Technology a worldwide, exclusive, perpetual and<br />

irrevocable license to develop, publish and distribute<br />

Ringhio for the Classic and Next-Generation Amiga<br />

operating systems. Also included in the agreement is the<br />

exclusive ownership to all source code and binaries and the<br />

right to use the Ringhio name in all product marketing,<br />

promotion and branding of the Classic AmigaOS and Nextgeneration<br />

AmigaOS versions.<br />

Ringhio is the advanced system wide messaging and<br />

notification system developed by Max for AmigaOS 4.1.<br />

Ringhio, which has been in development since 2009, is<br />

Italian word for “growl” and in many ways it is similar to the<br />

OS X application of the same name. With the Ringhio server<br />

running, registered applications can inform the user via<br />

notifications displayed in a small pop-up box on the<br />

Workbench that a particular event has occurred.<br />

These are sometimes called Ringhio messages because the<br />

server provides means through which the messages are<br />

communicated visually (in other words, Ringhio handles the<br />

actual display of messages sent by the Application Library).<br />

The Ringhio message window is very similar to an info<br />

requester, only it does not<br />

require user interaction.<br />

The message is displayed<br />

for a short while then<br />

disappears. The short-lived<br />

pop-up notification<br />

window is displayed on the<br />

Workbench informing the<br />

user, for example, that an<br />

e-mail was received, a new<br />

tune was loaded for<br />

playback in TuneNet, or a<br />

program is being installed<br />

by AMIstore.<br />

A-EON Technology has<br />

commissioned Max to create a new AmigaOS 4.1 version to<br />

add new capabilities and features. Plans for a Classic<br />

AmigaOS version are also in the works. On finalising the<br />

agreement with A-EON Technology, Max said, “I am very<br />

excited to work with A-EON for the benefit of AmigaOS<br />

software enhancements and securing Ringhio's future<br />

development". Matthew Leaman added, “It is a pleasure to<br />

work with Max, who is a long established, experienced and<br />

respected Amiga developer. We are looking forward to the<br />

progressive new features that Ringhio will offer for all of A-<br />

EON's software catalogue”.<br />

full press release is available<br />

http://www.a-eon.com/PDF/News_Release_Ringhio.pdf<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 31


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore Amiga News<br />

AROS Vision 2.9.3 online<br />

Major changes are that MESA/Gallium is activated by default<br />

and it uses Zune instead of MUI (MUI can be activated<br />

if necessary). MESA/Gallum needs 256 MB RAM and works<br />

with greater than 16bit colour depth although is slow.<br />

Changes:<br />

-all system files updated<br />

-Zune and MESA/Gallium activated<br />

-Netsurf updated (much faster)<br />

-Themes added<br />

-Development (GCC) updated<br />

-most files from contrib/ports (AROS) integrated<br />

-Zuneview added<br />

-FlashMandelNG added<br />

-Free Pascal updated (to 3.1)<br />

-Amiblitz updated (newest snapshot)<br />

-WHDLoad updated<br />

LoView 2.80 released<br />

LoView was an easy to use viewer designed to let the user<br />

choose what to do in a fast and comfortable way. Supports<br />

many file format(depending on DataTypes you have installed)<br />

and may save in JPG, PNG, IFF or BMP file format,<br />

so you can also delete/copy/move/ rename/save a rotated<br />

or flipped image for example or maybe only convert an image<br />

in another format you like...<br />

Here a list of changed/new features:<br />

- Fixed some really annoying bugs, Reworked Exif reading<br />

routine with support for some Pentax Makernote TAGs added<br />

some new more standard TAGs to be shown, Added a<br />

complete preferences editor with also an easy installation<br />

procedure, now the LoView menu was a system friendly<br />

menu when LoView works in windowed mode, now preferences<br />

was stored in ENVARC:LoView/ and no more in the<br />

LoView icon(the old ones can be imported from old LoView<br />

icon while installing), The SlideShow routine was now completely<br />

reworked to grant the user a full immersive new<br />

mode(now you can switch SlideShow in complete FullScreen<br />

and change also background colour if you like)so you<br />

can nicely slide your honeymoon or trips or whatever you<br />

like photos to your friends/parents with your Amiga on<br />

your home TV :), Added a NEW prefs "Load ALL" that can be<br />

selected to pass the entire file list to LoView without prescan<br />

directory for valid files in that way the image will be<br />

Download and download-condition from:<br />

http://www.aros-platform.de/downloads/Aros_Vision.zip<br />

loaded same time than with SinlgePic pref selected but you<br />

have the whole filelist available in the Jump To window to<br />

choose(wrong files will be eliminated while loading), now<br />

the Crop function doesn’t draw a fixed crop area but that<br />

can be resized<br />

clicking on the borders while using the hand-pointer, Added<br />

the new preferences NoOutpuError that skips silently unsupported<br />

files(really useful if you load huge directory with<br />

not so much supported files and use tighter the LoadALL<br />

preferences), added iconify functionality from the menu,<br />

added the ability to drag drawers over the LoView icon in<br />

AmyDock instead of only single files.<br />

*** The LoView experience was now 10/15% faster thanks<br />

to new Hollywood 6! ***<br />

http://os4depot.net/index.php?function=showfile&file=gra<br />

Ancient Amiga Running School Aircon<br />

One Ancient Commodore Amiga Runs the Heat and AC for<br />

19 Public Schools. The 30-year-old computer has been running<br />

day and night for decades. Somewhere in Grand Rapids,<br />

Michigan, there is an ancient Commodore Amiga that is hard<br />

at work. For over a quarter century it has been controlling<br />

the heat and air conditioning at 19 different schools and running<br />

nonstop. It's still kicking, for now anyway.<br />

Read more here<br />

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a1<br />

6010/30-year-old-computer-runs-school-heat/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 32


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore Amiga News<br />

Amiga Mania issue 9<br />

Amiga Magazine with Lots of new stuff, interviews, tests,<br />

guides and an exclusive review of a forthcoming amazing<br />

game...<br />

They say<br />

Produced in the Hungarian language only, and will definitely<br />

remain till the 30th birthday celebration of our beloved<br />

computer family. Later on things may change, but we're on<br />

our way for the 10th release to get it in time...<br />

Warning it’s a large download some 108MB !<br />

PDF:<br />

http://amigamania.amigaspirit.hu/Ami...009_OnLine.pdf<br />

Flash:<br />

http://issuu.com/amigamania/docs/amiga_mania_09_online<br />

A small surprise as a bonus :)<br />

http://amigamania.amigaspirit.hu/Ami...09_24-25EN.pdf<br />

Amiga 30th anniversary celebration in Amsterdam<br />

Filmed at the June 27 Amiga 30th anniversary celebration in<br />

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, here are videos of the CBM engineers<br />

and others who were/are involved in the development<br />

of Amiga computers.<br />

They also talk about Commodore Business Machines back in<br />

the day, how CBM self-destructed, and more.<br />

RJ Mical introduction at Amiga30.eu<br />

http://youtu.be/VHgGdiWExUs<br />

Battilana speaks at Amiga30.eu<br />

http://youtu.be/-e_zD4MaX1s<br />

Trevor Dickinson speaks at Amiga30.eu<br />

http://youtu.be/ZlzHskPYSfM<br />

David Pleasance speaks at Amiga30.eu<br />

http://youtu.be/8GbHzRfWhDA<br />

Dave Haynie speaks at Amiga30.eu<br />

http://youtu.be/pOG1yqyOVw8<br />

Carl Sassenrath speaks at Amiga30.eu<br />

http://youtu.be/ZlPhPQxQKRc<br />

RJ Mical, Carl Sassenrath, Dave Haynie speak at Amiga30.eu<br />

http://youtu.be/fur2quOIufs<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 33


Commodore VIC And Plus 4 News<br />

Ohne Dich Unexpanded Vic Demo<br />

A Streaming Audio Demo from the VIC's Datasette<br />

Name: Ohne Dich<br />

Description: Music demos streaming digital audio from datasette,<br />

operable like a regular music cassette.<br />

Requirements: Unexpanded VIC-20 + datassette<br />

Lyrics, vocals & code: pixel<br />

Guitar, bass & drums: Lukas Ramolla, Berlin<br />

Download (TAP & WAV, NTSC & PAL):<br />

http://hugbox.org/pixel/external/denial/ohne_dich.zip<br />

YouTube video, thanks to Kurt Johns:<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PahhRvIVdVM<br />

Source code:<br />

https://github.com/SvenMichaelKlose/nipkow/<br />

The System IIII Game Catalog 1986-1990 For the<br />

unexpanded Vic 20<br />

Name: The System IIII Game Catalog 1986-1990<br />

Author: Ghislain (Adventure World made by original System<br />

IIII member "Nanuq")<br />

Requirements: Unexpanded VIC-20. A joystick is required<br />

for the games made in 1990<br />

Download link:<br />

https://sites.google.com/site/gdbsite5000/main/SYSTEM4<br />

1986-1990.D64?attredirects=0&d=1<br />

Discuss here:: http://sleepingelephant.com/ipwweb/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7600<br />

Ghislain Writes<br />

ADVENTURE WORLD (1986 by Nanuq): A very simple<br />

text-based RPG adventure. Included in the collection for posterity.<br />

MS. VIC-MAN (1990): There were so many VIC-MAN games<br />

out there, I figured that a 4-maze sequel inspired from the<br />

arcade should be made, so here it is.<br />

OPERATION: NATO (1990): Three simple action war<br />

games combined into one.<br />

SPACE DESTRUCTOR (1986); A one or two player<br />

shoot'em up inspired by those VIC-20 manual type-in programs<br />

that were made by Duane Later.<br />

SUMO SMASHER (1986): Should be renamed KEYBOARD<br />

SMASHER. Each player uses their respective action keys to<br />

bow at the beginning of the sumo match and then proceed<br />

to repeatedly abuse said keys to win.<br />

VIC BOXING ASSOCIATION (1986): A PETSCII version of<br />

PUNCH-OUT!! You can't just mindlessly press the punch<br />

keys to knock out your opponent here -- you have to counter<br />

their moves. If the opponent nudges slightly to the left or<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Discussion & denial: http://sleepingelephant.com/ipwweb/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7416<br />

pouet.net entry:<br />

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=66244<br />

to the right, you can throw a quick punch to tag him. If the<br />

opponent telegraphs a punch by moving widely to the left or<br />

right, you should then dodge first and then hit him repeatedly<br />

with punches.<br />

VICEYE THE ARCADE GAME (1990): Think of this as a<br />

COMPUTE!'s Gazette type-in version of the Popeye arcade<br />

game. Tip: make sure that you are facing your enemy Pluto<br />

when he throws a bottle at you--only then can you punch it.<br />

The fire button does not control punching -- you can only<br />

punch when you successfully punch a bottle or move towards<br />

the cans of kale at the top of the screen.<br />

VIDEO QUEST (1986): My earliest RPG game. I also had an<br />

idea to make a sequel to this that would feature an overland<br />

map, cities, and people to talk to. The game engine wouldn't<br />

be as elaborate as Realms of Quest III & IV, but it would<br />

have really pushed the boundaries of the unexpanded VIC-<br />

20. I might make VIDEO QUEST II some day, but I need a<br />

couple of free weekends to do so.<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 34


Commodore VIC And Plus 4 News<br />

BORRAY GAMMON FOR THE 16k EXPANDED VIC 20<br />

Name: Boray Gammon<br />

Author: Boray<br />

Requirements: Vic-20 with 16K of expansion RAM<br />

Web Page: http://www.boray.se/commodore/gammon/<br />

Discussion: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7497<br />

The WEBSITE says<br />

Boray Gammon<br />

In a few shameless words: The very best backgammon game<br />

for Commodore Vic-20. If you have tried the competition,<br />

you probably know what I mean ;-)<br />

Features<br />

- Plays a fairly intelligent backgammon. It's not a grandmaster,<br />

but it should be able to win single games against any<br />

player with a bit of luck.<br />

- You can play against the computer, play with a friend or let<br />

the computer play against itself.<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

- You can either use the internal random generator for dice,<br />

or use external ones (which is useful if you want to make it<br />

play against other programs).<br />

- Score counting<br />

- Three levels of difficulty<br />

Lack of features<br />

- No doubling cube<br />

Video:<br />

https://youtu.be/fKv3EQ86D<br />

88<br />

SHIFTED FOR THE UNXEPANDED VIC 20<br />

Name: Shifted<br />

Author: Revival Studios (http://www.revival-studios.com)<br />

On Cassette Tape and as Digital Download<br />

Requirements: Unexpanded<br />

VIC-20<br />

+ Joystick.<br />

Description: Shifted<br />

is an action puzzle<br />

game that<br />

requires quick<br />

thinking and quick<br />

responses. You<br />

have to shift columns<br />

up and down to make combinations of gems on the<br />

centre row. The higher the combination, the more points<br />

you will earn. How long can you keep shifting?<br />

http://www.revival-studios.com<br />

RUSH RELEASED FOR THE UNEXPANDED VIC 20<br />

Name: Rush<br />

Author: Revival Studios (http://www.revival-studios.com)<br />

Released: On<br />

Cassette Tape<br />

and as Digital<br />

Download<br />

Requirements:<br />

Unexpanded VIC-<br />

20 + Joystick<br />

Description:<br />

A heist has gone<br />

wrong and now<br />

you are being chased! Escape the police by running and<br />

jumping from rooftop to rooftop, while grabbing leftover<br />

cash wherever you can Now run<br />

http://www.revival-studios.com<br />

Chiptunes Volume 1 - VIC20<br />

R'zo has released Chip Tunes Volume 1 for the non-expanded<br />

VIC 20 with a SD2IEC<br />

or run under VICE emulation.<br />

You can listen to<br />

10 pieces of music:. ​<br />

Looper, Resurrection,<br />

Revenge, Viral, Redemption,<br />

Return, TVC, Movement,<br />

Mindstroyer and<br />

AD<br />

https://rzo.bandcamp.com/<br />

http://gator3293.hostgator.com/~sleeping/ipwweb/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7427&p=79980<br />

YAPE v1.0.7 Released<br />

YAPE is a Windows emulator for the Commodore Plus/4<br />

and 16 range of machines.<br />

The changes in this release<br />

are<br />

- adjustable sound latency<br />

(20-200 msec)<br />

- preset window sizing shortcuts<br />

(Alt+number)<br />

- removed P4S and direct ZIP<br />

support<br />

- some fine tuning on the NT-<br />

SC hues<br />

- monitor and D-PAD bugs fixed<br />

- CRT & TED fixes<br />

http://yape.plus4.net/<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 35


Commodore VIC And Plus 4 News<br />

Cygnis RELEASED FOR THE UNEXPANDED VIC 20<br />

Name: Cygnis<br />

Author: Freshlamb<br />

Requirements: Unexpanded machine<br />

Description : 4 linked text adventures<br />

The website says<br />

You are in the Cygnis system, and COMMAND has missions<br />

for you. You land on each planet and receive your<br />

mission. Danger and excitement lie in the solutions to the<br />

quests on these strange far away planets. Four text adventures.<br />

There are four text adventures, each has its own objective.<br />

You move and act in this world by typing one, two word<br />

combinations. N or north will move you north if is it is possible,<br />

and works for all the directions. I or Inventory, T or<br />

Time will work for some games. Look, Use ,Go, Get are good<br />

common verbs. Many of the objects (nouns) you can interact<br />

with are easily spotted. Because they are all under 4K<br />

they will not respond to every word combination. If you<br />

press L at the beginning of one planet you will skip to the<br />

next<br />

check it out here:<br />

http://www.rufnoiz.com/Net%20Cat/a91.html<br />

discuss here: http://sleepingelephant.com/ipwweb/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7408<br />

PET DRAW FOR THE Plus 4<br />

David Murray has released PetDraw for the plus 4 , with<br />

the software you can create drawings using the PETSCII<br />

characters and the text-mode colour. Although the program<br />

is still in development and this version is not fully<br />

functional. Load/Save routines DO work, but you cannot<br />

see what you are typing on the screen. if you blind-type<br />

and press return it will<br />

load/save to device 8. Text<br />

mode is currently broken.<br />

This is due to kernel differences<br />

between the C64 and<br />

Plus/4 and how the cursor<br />

and char-out routines work.<br />

it will require significant<br />

re-write of some sub routines<br />

to make it functional.<br />

At the moment the program has the following features:.<br />

Draw mode, pixel mode and a colour picker<br />

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/PetDraw<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

ADDRESS BOOK FOR THE UNEXPANDED VIC 20<br />

Name: Address Book<br />

Author: Jeffrey Daniels<br />

Requirements: Unexpanded<br />

Vic-20, Vic Modem<br />

and tape drive<br />

optional<br />

Description: Store and<br />

organize your contacts<br />

(phone number & email<br />

address) on datassette<br />

with future cloud backup support via the Vic Modem.<br />

Sadly Jeff says he is “no longer making games” and instead<br />

focusing on productivity software, to be hones I<br />

would prefer a mix of both as his games were not only<br />

unique, playable, incredibly fast but were very addictive<br />

The website says<br />

The program is written entirely in BASIC (with optional tape<br />

drive and Vic Modem support). It allows you to store contacts<br />

(phone numbers and email addresses) on tape and access<br />

them on demand. This is a convenient way to keep all<br />

of your friend and business associate information organized.<br />

Download:http://www.sleepingelephant.com/denial/addressbook.prg<br />

Discussion: http://sleepingelephant.com/ipwweb/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7369<br />

Looter - Plus / 4<br />

Looter is a new game for the<br />

Commodore 16 /Plus 4. This is a<br />

clone of the Commodore C64 version<br />

created ​by OnlineProf2010.<br />

The game consists of you collecting<br />

all the treasure and avoid the<br />

blobs and orcs. You can improve<br />

your health in the game by collecting<br />

hearts.<br />

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Looter<br />

Knaecketraecker – TED<br />

Knaecketraecker is a new cross-platform TEDsound tracker<br />

developed by Degauss. The options are: Multi-speed, partial<br />

or global playback. Export<br />

to .asm / .BIN / .PRG files.<br />

Load / save of separate instruments<br />

to build a sound<br />

database. Virtual 3rd voice<br />

editor and a keyboard<br />

mode for easy import of<br />

musical notes. It’s not a<br />

standalone EXE you have to<br />

install the software and<br />

seems to be just available for the windows platform<br />

http://plus4world.powweb.com/tools/Knaecketraecker<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 36


Commodore VIC And Plus 4 News<br />

Majesty Of Sprites - Plus/4<br />

Majesty Of Sprites is a new game for the Commodore Plus /<br />

4. The game is not completely<br />

finished but is<br />

playable. The game features<br />

multi-colour graphics<br />

software sprites and<br />

colourful backgrounds.<br />

You can play on 12 different<br />

screens that are distributed<br />

6 worlds. The<br />

game was developed by<br />

Mad, Nero, Decca and Degauss.<br />

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Majesty_Of_Sprites<br />

HVTC Update<br />

High Voltage TED Collection is an<br />

attempt to seek the pure TED music<br />

into any program, and take out<br />

the cleanest code which generates<br />

it, in order to have a well structured<br />

archive of re-usable TED<br />

sounds.<br />

. The available files are the original<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

programs that produce music using the music TED chip. At<br />

present there are 426 files in the database.<br />

http://plus4world.powweb.com/features/High_Voltage_TE<br />

D_Collection<br />

Mr. Angry Dude - Plus/4<br />

Mr. Angry Dude<br />

AKA(Mika (Misfit )has released<br />

a new platform<br />

game for the Commodore<br />

Plus / 4 In the you control<br />

Mr. Angry Dude over<br />

8 levels. The game is written<br />

in machine language<br />

and can be played on an<br />

NTSC or PAL 16 K machine.<br />

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Mr_Angry_Dude<br />

Commodore 16 and PLUS 4 Clubworld<br />

EMAIL ..FROM webmaster@club-info.org<br />

TO commodorefree@commodorefree.com<br />

Hello there,This relates to the Commodore 264 series, i.e.<br />

C16 - 116 - Plus/4 and its dedicated magazine "Club-Info".<br />

The long-lasting German disk magazine Club-Info now runs<br />

a website again: www.club-info.org<br />

As far as I know, Club-Info is the only Commodore related<br />

disk magazine worldwide left which is still spread on genuine<br />

5.1/4" diskettes – like all the other disk mags were distributed<br />

back in the 80s and early 90s. The German<br />

language magazine is now in its 25th year. For the time being,<br />

approx. 4 issues per year are being sent to the subscribers<br />

by "snail mail".<br />

Each issue consists of an editorial, hints & tips for software<br />

& hardware, a buy & sell corner, notifications of forthcoming<br />

retro meetings & events, a so-called "Games Guide"<br />

which contains manuals, cheats, etc. for newly published<br />

games, manuals for application software, and many other<br />

stuff. Each disk is full on both sides. The aforementioned articles<br />

are on side A, and side B consists of games, demos,<br />

hardware diagrams, applications, etc.<br />

Since quite a number of subscribers have just their little<br />

black Commodore equipment but no PC, Mac or else and, of<br />

course, no internet access, we do not run an internet forum.<br />

Botticelli Bilderdisk <strong>Issue</strong> 40<br />

Erich has recently released a<br />

new Botticelli Bilderdisk for<br />

the Commodore C16 and the<br />

Plus/4. This is a double-sided<br />

diskette filled with a mix of<br />

handmade and digitized pictures<br />

in the Botticelli format.<br />

The Magica viewer is used to<br />

display the pictures.. Just put<br />

in the disk and load it, the use<br />

Space bar to change the picture<br />

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Botticelli_Bilderdisk_40<br />

All communication between the subscribers and the publisher<br />

(who is Erich of the Commodore user group "Unlimited")<br />

is done by changing diskettes - like it was common 25 and<br />

more years ago.<br />

The objective of www.club-info.org is to be an archive of all<br />

Club-Info diskettes (the actual issue is No. 138, published<br />

early May 2015), and pay a tribute to all former German diskette<br />

magazines by offering them for download. After a new<br />

Club-Info issue has been sent out to the subscribers, it's<br />

available for download from www.club-info as well. As said<br />

before, Club-Info is made up in German language. So, it's<br />

mainly dedicated to Commodore C16-116-Plus/4 friends in<br />

Austria, Germany, and Switzerland - and of course to anyone<br />

on the planet who understands German.<br />

Feel free to have a look at www.club-info.org!<br />

Happy computing from<br />

Hans.<br />

I am not sure<br />

about this for a<br />

review<br />

https://www.yout<br />

ube.com/watch?v<br />

=QyJfVHiyB-o<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 37


INTERVIEW WITH STEVE REED FROM<br />

WWW.C64COPYPROTECTION.COM<br />

AND CLOAN NEWSLETTERS<br />

We are aware of the dancing 1541 grinding its way through<br />

another copy protection system and almost croaking into an<br />

early grave in an effort to fit the scheme and actually load<br />

the game, were these actually useful or more a hindrance to<br />

genuine users, my 1541 was in for repair more times than it<br />

was working, killed by disk copy protection schemes, and<br />

while not every game had the intention to kill your drive, it<br />

may have been to kill you in frustration with a long manual<br />

and various messages like page 5 paragraph 2 word 6<br />

where, you had to try and read the worlds smallest text<br />

printed on bright red tracing paper and type in what you<br />

though it said only to be told you were wrong and had to reload<br />

the game again.<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Steve opened the interview by saying he had “started a new<br />

Parameter Master list<br />

http://www.c64copyprotection.com/steverds-parameter-list/”<br />

and was always looking for more parameters that are not in<br />

his collection, he said he recently helped Lord Crass test his<br />

Revolution-V (V-max) copier and has a number of blogs<br />

So when Commodore free caught up with Steve for a chat,<br />

what was on his mind<br />

blogs:<br />

http://www.c64copyprotection.com/<br />

http://www.stevesarcade.com/<br />

http://poisondartfrogblog.com/<br />

Q. Would you introduce yourself to<br />

our readers<br />

A. My name is Steve Reed and I go by<br />

Steverd online.<br />

Q. How did you get into computing<br />

and Commodore machines?<br />

A. Like many old time users, I got an<br />

Atari 2600 in 1980, then I sold that for a<br />

Colecovision in 1982, and then sold that<br />

for a Commodore 64 with a tape drive in<br />

1983, it was just such a cool machine<br />

back then.<br />

Q. What started your fascination<br />

with copy protection?<br />

A. I feel that I am a collector (or hoarer)<br />

inside, I just wanted all of the new<br />

games back in the 80's.<br />

I very rarely played any of the games, it<br />

was more fun to see if I could copy them,<br />

rather than to play them.<br />

I really don't think that I am an expert<br />

on the subject, just a user that's fascinated<br />

by it all.<br />

Q. Have you looked at protection on<br />

any other 8 or 16 bit system?<br />

A. Well I only focus on the Commodore<br />

64, it's what I grew up with. I did get an<br />

Amiga 500 in 1988, but there were just<br />

so many different copy protection programs<br />

for the Commodore 64, for the<br />

Amiga I used X-Copy, until the hardware<br />

copiers like Syncro Express and Super<br />

Card AMI come out.<br />

Q. So on your website, do you show<br />

users how to break the copy protection<br />

schemes, to make backup copies,<br />

or are you more really into documenting<br />

the various copy protection methods<br />

that were available?<br />

A. I do not show how to break copy protection,<br />

I started this blog at first just to<br />

document the all of the copy protection<br />

programs and their Magazine ads. It has<br />

since grown into different directions since<br />

when I started. I started a new list of<br />

C64 Parameters, which as you know usually<br />

does remove the copy protection<br />

check in the program. I am trying to document<br />

every C64 code wheel released,<br />

and The Clone Newsletters that I just<br />

added also tells persons how and what to<br />

use to copy break certain programs protections.<br />

Q. So what do you consider the websites<br />

primary function is?<br />

The main function was information and a<br />

great reference for C64 copy programs.<br />

Since I had that pretty much covered, I<br />

started expanded to include game code<br />

wheels and code sheets, which are just<br />

another type of copy protection. I know<br />

it's a pretty small group of people that<br />

might find it interesting, but as the site<br />

grows so have the number of visitors!<br />

Q. Well for user now, protecting the<br />

originals is a must, and the annoying<br />

Crack intros frustrate me, anyway<br />

What would you consider the most<br />

unusual copy protection system?<br />

A. I don't know how unusual these are<br />

but Lenslok and Dongles. I hated Dongles,<br />

you could easily lose it and the program<br />

wouldn't load. At least with code wheels,<br />

we could photo copy most of them and<br />

make a backup one.<br />

Q. So what do you consider is the<br />

worst system (i.e. most useless and<br />

easiest to break) and what would<br />

you consider the most aggravating<br />

system for the general user, who<br />

bought the game to play it but cant<br />

because of the protection, or it takes<br />

so long entering various codes etc<br />

you get fed up and load something<br />

else?<br />

A. Personally apart from the dongles, I<br />

felt almost all manual look up protection<br />

was the worst and most frustrating. It<br />

took time and then when asked to enter<br />

the "Second word, in the third line, on<br />

page 5", I mean are they counting the<br />

page title or the blank lines, etc??? I hate<br />

those. Plus my friends photo copied all of<br />

those manuals.<br />

Q. I shudder when loading disk<br />

games with the 1541 dancing and<br />

grinding all over my desk, its no won-<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 38


www.commodorefree.com<br />

der the device failed so many times,<br />

I wasn’t really into copying games<br />

but became interested in having a<br />

“backup” and run this rather than<br />

watching my poor 1541 grind itself<br />

into an early grave on the original,<br />

we used to have a local computer<br />

club, one member would take in a<br />

game and after the 2 hour session<br />

we usually had a cracked version to<br />

hand out to all users, I would play<br />

the game and if it was good I would<br />

buy the original, If it was rubbish it<br />

was a blank for the next meeting.<br />

A. YES, I think all of the 1541 head banging<br />

started a whole new industry of 1541<br />

drive alignment and alignment software.<br />

Q Do you think copy protection<br />

schemes actually stopped or reduced<br />

piracy?<br />

A. No, there were so many copiers out for<br />

the C64 they got really good at making<br />

copies, then when new harder protection<br />

came out like V-Max and Rapidlok, it only<br />

took a few months before a parameter<br />

would be available to copy those programs.<br />

And then came Jim Drew's SUPER<br />

CARD, and it could copy anything. So no<br />

I personally always felt that companies<br />

wasted money on any copy protection, it<br />

was only a speed bump. Most people I<br />

knew only copied the program to say<br />

they copied it, not to play it. If it was a<br />

program or something that I like I would<br />

always go buy it.<br />

Q. Some games were release without<br />

protection at all, the feeling was that<br />

someone would break it so why bother?<br />

A. Yes, people wanted to make backups<br />

of their original disk and they had a right<br />

to it, so it was great when companies did<br />

this, UNLESS that added a code wheel or<br />

manual lookup protection system.<br />

Q. So can you tell our readers about<br />

the Clone newsletter, when was it<br />

started and by whom, where and<br />

how was it circulated and why and<br />

how is it now on your website?<br />

A. I saw the Clone Newsletters in a group<br />

of disk in an auction. I had never seen<br />

them before and after search the Internet<br />

I couldn't find anything about them.<br />

SO that was pretty exciting. It was a<br />

newsletter by the company Micro-W<br />

which make the copy program called 'The<br />

Clone Machine'. It came in the mail and<br />

the first one I have is dated June 1984.<br />

The contain information on how to copy<br />

different games with the Clone Machine.<br />

Plus a few articles, letters from users,<br />

and more. They are now on my blog and<br />

available in PDF format<br />

SUPERCARD<br />

Q. What in your opinion was the<br />

most technologically advanced copying<br />

system, and how would it have<br />

been used, and what was the most<br />

basic of copy protection cracking systems,<br />

come to think of it what was<br />

the most successful?<br />

A.I still feel Jim Drew's Super card was<br />

the most advanced copier when it came<br />

out. I never talked about Isepic and Super<br />

Snapshot which was one of my favourites<br />

as well. If the program checks<br />

for protection during load and then not<br />

again then you could just snapshot the<br />

memory to disk. One of the most basic<br />

protection scheme is that some programs<br />

checked for the write protect tab, you<br />

know that little piece of black tape that<br />

should be on the original (over the notch),<br />

some originals are not even notched. BUT<br />

if the program finds its open, the load<br />

would fail.<br />

Q. Are there still games that people<br />

can’t figure out the protection<br />

scheme used or be able to remove it .<br />

A. I think was one of the hard hold outs<br />

for the C64 was Bounty Bob Strikes Bob.<br />

The experts on Lemon64 did a thorough<br />

eval of it and the Supercard Pro+ can<br />

copy it. As far as I know there is not one<br />

C64 disk that has been figured out.<br />

Q. What’s the fun in finding the protection<br />

scheme, so you find a parameter<br />

that works then what just<br />

document the procedure?<br />

A.I think it just goes back to the fun and<br />

the challenge of trying to copy the disk. I<br />

love Commodore parameters and have<br />

been trying to find ALL of the parameters<br />

released for the C64, which is why I started<br />

a new Master Parameter list.<br />

Q. What tools should a user be looking<br />

for if they become interested in<br />

this topic?<br />

A. Some basic tools are the Supercard<br />

Pro and Super Snapshot. There are<br />

cracked version of just about every C64<br />

game online, you should get a Zoomfloppy,<br />

to transfer the disk images from a PC<br />

to a 1541/1571. Or for more money get<br />

the 1541 Ultimate II cartridge.<br />

Q. Do you actually collect copy protection<br />

hardware and software?<br />

A.No not hardware, but I do have a large<br />

collection of all of the copy software (including<br />

all versions of them). You know<br />

like: Maverick, Kracker Jax, Fast Hack'em,<br />

etc, etc<br />

Q. Is there something you are specifically<br />

looking for?<br />

A.I am looking for ALL copy programs<br />

and magazine ads of the copy programs,<br />

after all that why I started this webpage.<br />

Q. How can readers help?<br />

A.Yes good question, the readers can<br />

contact me with any Copy software magazine<br />

ad that are not on my site already.<br />

Mine are mostly from USA magazines so<br />

I'm sure that I am missing some great<br />

ads from UK magazines, etc.<br />

Q. You also collect arcade machines,<br />

can you expand on that for the benefit<br />

of our readers?<br />

Well It started with me growing up in the<br />

arcades in the early 80's. Then my Donkey<br />

Kong addiction in 1982.<br />

You know when you grow up in that era;<br />

and thought the most amazing thing in<br />

the world would be to<br />

own an arcade, or even an arcade machine.<br />

So after ten years a cheap Space<br />

Invaders crossed my path and<br />

it was the start of my own personal arcade<br />

collection. I did restore a Donkey<br />

Kong shortly after that.<br />

The worse part of collecting arcade and<br />

pinball machines are that they are so<br />

heavy, every time I move one<br />

I think, why don't I collect stamps instead<br />

of arcade machines...<br />

Commodore Free<br />

I found this old How to repair your 1541<br />

disk drive tutorial on YouTube<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjBR<br />

Ds2Hl3Q<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 39


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Xplode Man for the Plus 4 review<br />

This game actually appeared in 2014, however I was at a<br />

friend’s house recently and saw him playing the game, after<br />

enquiring where he obtained said game, I found where to<br />

download it! Great fun! So firstly here is the link<br />

http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Xplode_Man<br />

Title:<br />

Language:<br />

Size:<br />

Machine:<br />

Released by:<br />

Coded by:<br />

Graphics by:<br />

Music composed by:<br />

Xplode Man<br />

English<br />

64K<br />

PAL & NTSC<br />

Assassins (ASN)<br />

V., Gábor (Skoro)<br />

K., Róbert (KiCHY)<br />

P., Csaba (Csabo)<br />

Interestingly Chris Snowdon from www.commodore16 .com<br />

reviewed the game on his YouTube channel here<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M5EESojp2g<br />

And it was also reviewed in Retro Gamer,<br />

http://www.retrogamer.net/ However you will need to buy<br />

the magazine to read it! AS I haven’t read the review I<br />

thought it only right I should write my own. (no offence<br />

Chris or Retro Gamer) anyway I am sure Chris would welcome<br />

the review.<br />

Loading the game gives away its heritage; it’s a bomber<br />

clone, but a clone with a bit of a twist!<br />

The 3D Effects on the loading screen look amazing, showing<br />

For anyone who doesn’t know the plot, you have the ability<br />

to drop bombs that are on a timer and will explode, the explosion<br />

blows up things around you like the brick walls and<br />

also the other people wandering around, blow these guys up<br />

before they blow you up or more realistically bump into you<br />

as you turn into a black charred skeleton and you die!<br />

The twist here and it does add to the game, is that you have<br />

to blow up ALL of the brick walls to move onto the next level,<br />

as well as the bad guys, your also on a timer so don’t dilly<br />

dally around. Unlike other game though the screens aren’t<br />

just square, its not perfect nut very close.<br />

The game starts easy enough and has plenty of power ups to<br />

find and try out, slowly building up pace to a frantic level,<br />

(although some claim its too easy) still the animation is<br />

good colours in game really impress me, and the whole<br />

game plays very well. I think the game is only single player,<br />

more would be welcome if it were 2 players the score would<br />

score a 9 and if it supported more then …….<br />

I am not a fan of the green on green screen, it makes me feel<br />

a little sickly however the game is split into 4 zones each<br />

with its own theme and the first is jungle zone, hence the<br />

green<br />

Game Zones<br />

-Jungle Zone<br />

-Desert Zone<br />

-Factory Zone<br />

-Artic Zone<br />

the colour range of the commodore 16/plus4 with some<br />

nice scrolling banners introducing the levels<br />

The Menu music is superb lovely and bouncy, reminding me<br />

of a number of similar games, this version has a lovely warbling<br />

theme and effective drums.<br />

Anyway pressing fire invites us to enter a passcode or just<br />

press ENTER to move on to level 1<br />

Summary<br />

Solid gameplay<br />

Graphics<br />

Sounds<br />

8/10<br />

9/10 great little<br />

tunes<br />

Gameplay 8/10<br />

Overall<br />

8/10<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 40


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Interview with Sean Peck Creator of Kipperterm 128<br />

Do bulletin boards still exist, is there<br />

still a demand for software to connection<br />

to them, how would you find the<br />

software and why would you want to<br />

run the software on a Commodore 128<br />

instead of any of the other 8 bit machines.<br />

Q Please introduce yourself to our<br />

readers.<br />

A. I am a 43 year old software architect<br />

from Pittsburgh, Pa USA. I am married<br />

with 2 children with a third expected in<br />

August, I have been developing software<br />

professionally and as a hobbyist<br />

for close to 30 years.<br />

Q How were you first introduced to<br />

computing?<br />

I begged my parents for a Commodore<br />

64 and 1541 for Christmas back in<br />

1983 or 84 and was fortunate enough<br />

to get one. The main reason I was I interested<br />

in the c64 was for games,<br />

games played on the machine were far<br />

superior to those for the Atari 2600 I<br />

had. I really didn't have any desire to<br />

program it, but once I opened the owners<br />

manual and started to type in; and<br />

work through the various programs, I<br />

knew this was something I wanted to<br />

know more about.<br />

Q So what exactly is Kipperterm<br />

128?<br />

Kipperterm is a terminal program for<br />

the Commodore 128 it runs in 80 column<br />

mode with an RR-net compatible<br />

NIC card. Supporting PETSCII and most<br />

of the ANSI and VT100 command sets.<br />

Basically it allows you to telnet from<br />

your 128 in 80 column mode.<br />

Q so it’s a re-write of the same name<br />

program for the commodore 64 (albeit<br />

with a 128 on the end) so what<br />

is special about the 128 version?<br />

Well it did start out as a pure port yes, I<br />

just wanted to have a telnet terminal<br />

for the 128 in 80 column mode, and the<br />

codebase for Kipperterm 2 for the c64<br />

was publicly available. But I had never<br />

used Kipperterm for the c64, so as I began<br />

to port and test the software to the<br />

128 and use it, however I found that<br />

the vt100 emulation was incomplete<br />

and that the character set used by the<br />

original Kipperterm code did not support<br />

the common IBM extended sets of<br />

the 80s and 90s. so the program was<br />

limited in its usefulness, if you were to<br />

telnet to old IBM boards and try to play<br />

door games etc.<br />

So it this version supports 80 columns<br />

which the original Kipperterm did not.<br />

It supports (by reasonable translation<br />

to PETSCII) the IBM extended character<br />

set (CP431)<br />

It supports a more complete vt100 escape<br />

sequence, so it works with more<br />

BBSs etc.<br />

It has a just shy of 64k buffer<br />

It support printing screen dumps and<br />

printing of the buffer.<br />

I updated the UI as well to add some<br />

very basic windowing<br />

Obviously things like Blinking characters<br />

which are part of the VDC support-<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 41


www.commodorefree.com<br />

ed functionality are supported which<br />

are not supported in the original Kipperterm.<br />

Q What hardware do you need, do<br />

you have to connect a modem or<br />

does the software support Network<br />

cards, if so what network cards are<br />

supported?<br />

To run the software you would need a<br />

c128 connected to a monitor that supports<br />

its 80 column mode, and any network<br />

card that is compatible with<br />

RRNet.<br />

Q Are the plans to add more card<br />

support?<br />

Well at this point no because the RRNet<br />

seems to be the defacto standard supported<br />

model for NIC interfaces on the<br />

Commodore machine range.<br />

Q So you need a real 80 column monitor,<br />

how does 80 column mode improve<br />

the user experience, weren’t<br />

there pseudo 80 column displays<br />

created on the commodore 64?<br />

You are right yes the C64 does indeed<br />

provide 80 columns via various software<br />

tweaks, but these 80 character<br />

modes consist of characters that are 4<br />

pixels wide by 8 pixels tall, which are<br />

really 3 pixels wide by 7 pixels tall, to<br />

allow for a pixel of space between characters<br />

and are achieved by either<br />

320x200 bit map mode, or by flickering<br />

between 2 character screens every other<br />

screen draw. While these solutions<br />

do provide an 80 column experience<br />

they are less than ideal, and can be<br />

slow to render and scroll etc. A real 80<br />

column display offers far more options<br />

and speed etc. The 80 column mode of<br />

the 128 was one of the biggest noticeable<br />

improvements over the C64. It's<br />

sort of like comparing Novaterm to Desterm,<br />

both were great terminal packages<br />

back in the day but once a serious<br />

online person got their hands on Desterm<br />

and a 128 they could instantly recognize<br />

the limitations of Novaterm<br />

they had never noticed before.<br />

Q This may be a painful question but<br />

why create the software now, how<br />

much demand is there and do you<br />

keep a record of the user or downloads?<br />

Well the reason it happened now was<br />

simple, I was cruising the net one day<br />

and found the network cards had finally<br />

been created for the 64/128. I had<br />

boxed up all my old commodore equipment<br />

in 1994 or so, mainly because<br />

there was no native NIC cards. I had<br />

graduated college and began working<br />

on the Web just as the NCSA/Netscape<br />

browser was breaking the web wide<br />

open. A machine that could not connect<br />

to the Internet directly was no<br />

longer something I could focus on. So I<br />

slowly started to reacquire, through<br />

EBay all the hardware I used to own,<br />

and then some! and ordered a 64Nic+<br />

from Jim Brain and waited in anticipation<br />

for its arrival so I could finally do<br />

something I could not do before.<br />

It arrived, and I scoured the net for software<br />

to use it with, only to find nothing<br />

really existed for the 128 in native<br />

mode for it. Because nothing existed, I<br />

started to look around to see if I could<br />

find some source code for a terminal<br />

for the 64 so I could try to port it to the<br />

128.. Which lead me to Kipperterm and<br />

that is why it came out now.<br />

Q You already mentioned at lease<br />

one 80 column terminal emulation<br />

software package for the Commodore<br />

128 so why not use that?<br />

Yes there were great 80 column modem<br />

terminals back in the Day. I already<br />

mentioned Desterm as being the<br />

most well known. I personally had<br />

hacked a c128 terminal called GWTerm<br />

whose main benefit was to be able to<br />

play Global War faster back when modem<br />

speeds were slow. In fact I actually<br />

ripped some of the features I added<br />

to Kipperterm directly from recompiled<br />

source code from this old program<br />

I had written.<br />

Unfortunately though, none of these<br />

programs ever got ported to support a<br />

NIC card or TCP/IP. In fact as far as I<br />

know even today there are really only<br />

2 terminal programs that support the<br />

NIC card on the C64, one obviously being<br />

Kipperterm and the other is Guruterm.<br />

I am not aware of any others.<br />

Q. So why wasn’t the 128 version of<br />

Kipperterm released along with or<br />

after the C64 version?<br />

The 64 version was written by A gentleman<br />

from Australia named Jonno<br />

Downes, I was fortunate enough to<br />

have talked to him during the course of<br />

my porting of his original work and he<br />

was incredibly helpful in making my<br />

port a reality. I cannot say why no port<br />

to the 128 was done concurrently with<br />

the original development, but I am happy<br />

that I was able to add this to the library<br />

of software out there. The 128<br />

never got as much love as the 64, but it<br />

is a great machine, and I am hopeful<br />

more people will dedicate efforts to<br />

support it.<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 42


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Q. So just why was the software<br />

called Kipperterm?<br />

Furthermore ASCII only defined the<br />

first 127 characters, so various extended<br />

character sets emerged to use all 8<br />

bits or 256 characters. The most relevant<br />

to BBS users back in the day<br />

would be the IBM extended character<br />

set as it defined various graphical characters<br />

in its set to represent various<br />

things and were used highly by IBM<br />

boards. So a pet computer really has to<br />

do more than just deal with the inverted<br />

case of the characters between the<br />

1963 and 1967 standards but attempt<br />

to reasonably represent those extended<br />

IBM character set (CP431) to be useful<br />

when calling IBM BBS's.<br />

disk or disk image, contains all the information.<br />

Well Kipper BASIC is a basic for writing<br />

networking software for the C64. I assume<br />

that this is why the product was<br />

named Kipperterm originally, because<br />

it used code from this codebase, but I<br />

could be wrong. I assume Jonno could<br />

answer this more effectively than myself.<br />

I decided to call my release<br />

Kipperterm128 simply because I originally<br />

intended to do nothing more than<br />

a pure port of the existing Kipperterm.<br />

Q. Do you plan any other ports of the<br />

software to other hardware?<br />

I have a few ideas for things, some<br />

things that I am rolling around are porting<br />

warp copy to native 128 mode, and<br />

adding burst support and D71 support.<br />

Another thing is perhaps adding 80 column<br />

support to the original 64 Kipperterm.<br />

Though I doubt I will start<br />

another retro project soon.. This was a<br />

fun project to work on, but I have lots<br />

of other work and things to keep me<br />

busy at the moment.<br />

Q Apart from PETSCII what other<br />

modes does the software support,<br />

and why were there so many different<br />

standards?<br />

Well Kipperterm 128 supports 3 main<br />

character sets.. Commodore PETSCII,<br />

true ASCII and a reasonable translation<br />

of IBM extended ASCII CP431. I cannot<br />

speak fully to the topic of the PETSCII<br />

vs ASCII issue, but it does go all the<br />

way back to 1963... Pet computers<br />

based their character sets on the 1963<br />

ASCII standards and nearly every other<br />

computer build based their character<br />

sets on the 1967 ASCII standard. This is<br />

the start of the PETSCII vs ASCII differences.<br />

Q. So with all these character set support,<br />

does the software allows you to<br />

connect to a system running on a PC<br />

or Unix system?<br />

Actually, It allows you to telnet to any<br />

system at all! Unix, PC, a router, a retro<br />

machine etc. basically anything that<br />

can be telneted to, and that can negotiate<br />

a successful IAC negotiation with<br />

this, the Kipperterm client can connect<br />

or telnet to it.<br />

Q. Are there many BBS systems still<br />

available, and do they all support<br />

some sort of telnet connection nowadays<br />

rather than dialup using a modem?<br />

Yes there are a surprising number of<br />

BBS systems out there still active today.<br />

You are correct that very few support<br />

true dial up anymore. Most are telnet,<br />

only but a few do still support dial up.<br />

There is a list kept<br />

at http://www.telnetbbsguide.com<br />

Q. For our readers wishing to use<br />

the software, they may question<br />

What does the software cost?<br />

It is free! But I do welcome donations,<br />

and will ship out an actual physical<br />

disk to anyone in the U.S. Or Canada<br />

that donate $25 or more. The documentation<br />

(readme) program on the<br />

Q Do you plan any modifications to<br />

the software?<br />

At this time no, like any piece of software<br />

there are always more things I<br />

could do with it, and I may do some of<br />

them, but at this point, there are no immediate<br />

plans for further modifications<br />

of enhancements but if I do I will update<br />

the d64 file and let the community<br />

know.<br />

download<br />

http://cloud.cbm8bit.com/badco/kipp<br />

erterm128.d64<br />

http://appavenger.com/kipperterm12<br />

8.d64<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.ph<br />

p/139337/kipperterm128.d64<br />

YouTube demo here<br />

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4obRrYZ<br />

vLc<br />

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMXd<br />

o9Iu6IY<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 43


NEW CASE BY Terry Raymond<br />

Awesome I finally did get my new 64C case.<br />

To put your old Motherboard into a new case is very simple,<br />

you might need some canned air<br />

to dust off the Motherboard. It’s Just a reverse assembly on<br />

how the old case is disassembled.<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Just common sense and anybody can put these together, but<br />

I’m willing to post this info to those who may have questions<br />

to help anybody out.<br />

Have a good summer.<br />

To disassemble the NEW and OLD case halves (they snap together)<br />

use a small flat blade screwdriver carefully pry upwards<br />

and both halves should unsnap. The top half cones<br />

off but the keyboard connector has to be unplugged, (don’t<br />

pull the wires you could pull the wires out of the KB connector),<br />

use a screwdriver very carefully to pry the connector<br />

off, be careful not to scrape traces or components on the MB.<br />

Unplug the Led power indicator, the LED and wire has to be<br />

removed from old TOP case half, this just should pull out<br />

without any problem (at least on C64C cases) the older<br />

Breadbox ones I believe are probably glued in I’m not sure<br />

how to remove those.<br />

Terry Raymond<br />

Commodore free<br />

Some more notes are available here<br />

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42565<br />

&sid=87e0d318216e61f23c6efad291b2d54c<br />

You may also appreciate this site<br />

http://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/retrogames/hardware/index.htm<br />

Push the LED back into the NEW TOP case half.<br />

There is a bottom<br />

metal shield,<br />

clean that and<br />

put that in place,<br />

then the Motherboard<br />

etc plug<br />

the Keyboard in<br />

and the power<br />

indicator, now<br />

the keyboard can<br />

be installed, at<br />

the bottom are<br />

tabs were the<br />

bottom part of<br />

the keyboard fits<br />

into the top part<br />

has 2 screws<br />

with smaller<br />

threads, put<br />

those in but<br />

don’t over tighten.<br />

Same with all<br />

Motherboard<br />

screws remember<br />

this is plastic<br />

they can be<br />

stripped out<br />

(use a smaller<br />

screwdriver to<br />

eliminate over<br />

tightening<br />

screws)<br />

Put the included<br />

stickers on that<br />

is simple.<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 44


www.commodorefree.com<br />

REVIEW METEOR DEFENDER AMIGA<br />

BY Bartosz Debski for Commodore Free<br />

Title: Meteor Defender<br />

Author: Ecalius Software<br />

Released: 09 May 2015<br />

This is the first software title from Spanish Ecalius Software<br />

house. As the title may suggest, the aim of the game is<br />

to defend your city from meteors. The Player takes control<br />

of a tank that can move left or right and shoot. You have to<br />

defend a city that is protected by a shield. Meteors are constantly<br />

falling from the sky from various angles, and if they<br />

hit the shield for a long enough period, your city will be vulnerable.<br />

Just one meteor can end your game if shield has<br />

been destroyed. The Idea of the game is quite fun and the<br />

Meteors are of various sizes, but I don’t think that the size<br />

of the meteor makes a difference to the impact it inflicts.<br />

If you hit any of the meteors with just one bullet they explode,<br />

even the big ones. This does take away a lot of fun as<br />

there is no difference really on how big they are and the<br />

firepower needed to destroy one, the size is purely cosmetic.<br />

Bigger objects don’t fall quicker or breaks to smaller<br />

parts. They always explode even if collisions occur between<br />

two or more of them.<br />

the tank seems to not be affected by this. While you move<br />

meteors slow down so you can catch up with ones that can<br />

harm the city. I had to force it to lose and with falling<br />

shield power up it’s even easier to keep your city safe.<br />

Meteor Defender could be a nice arcade game but overall<br />

execution is a letdown.<br />

Game fits on one floppy and it runs also from HDD if copied.<br />

Game Download:<br />

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=78108<br />

The Graphics in the game are very simple and even back in<br />

the Amiga’s heyday would be considered retro, the same<br />

goes for sound effects. There is no music just 8bit sound<br />

effects.<br />

The Gameplay itself is a biggest problem. If you move your<br />

tank or shoot, meteors begin slowing down and screen<br />

starts flickering. This makes the game barely playable as<br />

Graphics 2/10<br />

Sounds 3/10<br />

Gameplay 2/10<br />

Overall<br />

2/10<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 45


www.commodorefree.com<br />

ABYSSONAUT COMMODORE 64 GAME REVIEW<br />

Game Design, Graphics and SFX by Anthony Stiller<br />

Music by Richard Bayliss (Additional support by<br />

Scarzix/Offence)<br />

SEUCK Version: Horizontal Scrolling SEUCK<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137362/ABYSSONAUT.<br />

d64<br />

http://csdb.dk/getinternalfile.php/137363/Abyssonaut.zip<br />

http://tnd64.unikat.sk/Seuck_Compo_2015.html<br />

Written by Anthony Stiller, creator of Reset Magazine's "Sopwiths<br />

and Pterradons", you may remember commodore<br />

Free reviewed this game. The idea of this game is to rescue<br />

endangered whales from the poachers who have been<br />

putting nets over them.<br />

THE STORY<br />

As a Deep Sea Reconnaissance and Rescue Operative aka<br />

ABYSSONAUT, you have volunteered to brave the crushing<br />

depths and violent creatures, free any helpless marine life<br />

you find and discover what has happened to the Crouch End<br />

Research Station. You head out at once, plunging into the<br />

ocean on your DSRRO Manta class seascooter..<br />

You control your Abyssonaut using a joystick plugged in<br />

port 2. The game scrolls from left right using the updated<br />

SEUCK engine. Pressing fire unleashes one of the high explosive-tipped<br />

harpoons currently loaded into your twin harpoon<br />

launchers. Your harpoon launchers reload after a<br />

harpoon has either exploded or reached maximum effective<br />

range. As per DSRRO safety regulations only two harpoons<br />

can be 'hot' at a time.<br />

Downloading the ZIP file gives you a D64 the PRG file and<br />

TAP file and a Word document with instructions and some<br />

hints and tips about the game<br />

The title music is most interesting, very under watery at<br />

first then bashes out into a typical SID tune, with a thrashing<br />

beat and warbling synth lines, to be honest it would have<br />

been better with just the slower under watery section, but I<br />

suppose it builds up on the tension.<br />

In game sound effects are acceptable but the animations are<br />

top rate, to think this is Anthony`s second attempt at a<br />

SEUCK game, in fact lets remove SEUCK from the comments,<br />

as many will not recognise the engine used, the game is<br />

smooth fluid has some good variations, and while not 100%<br />

original stands out well.<br />

In fact I cant only comment on the Score that looks standard<br />

for the engine, someone please write a toolkit to enhance<br />

this for SEUCK! Within the limitations it would have been<br />

nice to see some sort of bubbles and better underwater<br />

physics, parallax scrolling.<br />

However<br />

The game engine doesn’t permit this, well as of this time,<br />

(never say never) however the clever animations (especially<br />

the jellyfish) enhance the game, clever placement of<br />

sprites means the game doesn’t suffer much from the usual<br />

slowdowns plagued by many releases using this engine.<br />

Things do speed up somewhat later on.<br />

Loading the game sees a rather stark title screen<br />

The PRG file doesn’t seem to have any music but the other<br />

versions do!<br />

COLLECT THAT ON THE SHARLK to save it<br />

SUMMARY<br />

2nd game attempt! WOW Very playable and well thought<br />

out game, lovely animations, you can feel the hours that<br />

have been spent working on this.<br />

Graphics<br />

Sounds<br />

Gameplay<br />

7/10 lovely<br />

animations<br />

6/10 music is ok<br />

7/10 nothing new<br />

Overall<br />

7/10<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 46


www.commodorefree.com<br />

INTERVIEW WITH R.M. Smedley<br />

www.vic20listings.freeolamail.com<br />

When someone tells you they have started a website devoted<br />

to VIC20 type in listings, I bet the first thing you do is hit<br />

your head with your open palm up hand making the now<br />

famous Homer Simpson DOH sound ! It's not the first time<br />

Commodore Free have looked at one of these types of websites,<br />

however, with this one devoted entirely to the VIC 20,<br />

it's worth a look. Personally I used to love the type in listings,<br />

but like many people; I wondered if they deliberately<br />

put in errors so you bought the magazine next month...<br />

Q Can you please introduce yourself<br />

to our readers?<br />

Hi everyone!<br />

My name is R.M. Smedley, and I wrote a<br />

couple of programs in the old days.<br />

Nowadays I am studying for a PhD, and<br />

I also run the VIC-20 Listings website.<br />

Q So just what still fascinates you<br />

about the VIC then?<br />

My parents bought us a VIC-20 for<br />

Christmas in the early 1980s, when I<br />

was ten years old. It was an incredibly<br />

expensive present costing far more<br />

than the car that my father drove at the<br />

time. We could not afford to buy many<br />

games, so it came as a revelation to discover<br />

the type-in program listings that<br />

were a common feature in magazines<br />

and books. From then onwards I was a<br />

regular visitor at the local library, looking<br />

for programs that I could borrow<br />

and type in. At first I had no idea how<br />

any of these programs worked, and I<br />

struggled to type them in successfully.<br />

It was very exciting to find out what<br />

each program did, and over the years I<br />

gradually learned how to type and how<br />

to write my own programs. There was<br />

so much to learn, and I discovered<br />

some amazing programs along the<br />

way...<br />

Q Do you own any other Commodore<br />

Machines?<br />

Much later we had a Plus/4, followed<br />

by a C64 and an Amiga. They were all<br />

fantastic computers, but I have especially<br />

fond memories of the VIC-20 and<br />

those type-in programs. It was my first<br />

computer, and it completely changed<br />

my life.<br />

Q I know what you mean about being<br />

life changing, but why specifically<br />

did you start a website about VIC<br />

listings was it purely to relive the<br />

childhood books?<br />

Well several years ago I downloaded a<br />

VIC-20 emulator and wanted to play<br />

some of my favourite type-in games<br />

again. In particular I hoped to find a<br />

game called "Grave Robber" by K Dent,<br />

but I could not remember where the<br />

listing was originally published. When I<br />

searched on the Internet to see if I<br />

could download<br />

any of<br />

these programs,<br />

it<br />

came as a<br />

shock to discover<br />

that<br />

few type-in<br />

programs<br />

have been<br />

archived<br />

and there<br />

was hardly<br />

any information<br />

about them.<br />

Type-in programs are an important<br />

part of the VIC-20 heritage and they<br />

were very important to a lot of people.<br />

It got me thinking, "If only there was a<br />

website dedicated to VIC-20 listings..."<br />

Over the next couple of years I spent a<br />

lot of time searching through scanned<br />

books and magazines, and I eventually<br />

found the listing for "Grave Robber"<br />

(Popular Computing Weekly, 8-14 Mar<br />

1984) along with many, many other<br />

programs. Years later, I realised that<br />

my growing archive of type-in programs<br />

might be of interest to other people,<br />

so I created the website. I wanted<br />

to make all the programs available for<br />

download together with details of who<br />

wrote it, where the listing was published,<br />

any special requirements, and<br />

brief instructions.<br />

GRAVE ROBBER<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 47


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Q Where do the listings come from,<br />

are they magazines, books or a combination<br />

of both?<br />

A combination of both books and magazines.<br />

The books on my website include<br />

"More than 32 BASIC Programs for the<br />

VIC 20 Computer", "Sixty Programs for<br />

the VIC 20", "VIC Innovative Computing"<br />

and "Zap! Pow! Boom! Arcade Games<br />

for the VIC-20". The 'Sixty Programs'<br />

book is particularly well known but,<br />

despite what the title suggests, it only<br />

contains 57 programs! Most of the<br />

books are 100% complete, with every<br />

program available to download.<br />

The magazines include Big K, Commodore<br />

Horizons, Computer & Video<br />

Games, Popular Computing Weekly,<br />

Your Commodore, etc. Some of these<br />

are 100% complete, while others have<br />

missing programs that still need adding.<br />

I am always on the lookout for<br />

missing programs, so if anybody has<br />

any programs that are not on the website<br />

then please submit them.<br />

Q So most people will think magazines<br />

deliberately put errors in the<br />

listings to make you buy the next<br />

months issue to find the corrections,<br />

do you think that is true or just an<br />

urban myth?<br />

A lot of people think this, and I sometimes<br />

wonder when I see syntax errors<br />

and other problems in listings. But of<br />

the 850+ programs that I have typed in,<br />

it is surprising how few of them had<br />

corrections printed in a subsequent issue.<br />

Some programs were just better<br />

written than others.<br />

Q Are all the listings in VIC BASIC, or<br />

do you have some in machine code,<br />

with a BASIC header or loader routine<br />

that reads the code in from data<br />

statements, (wow they were a real<br />

pain to type in)?<br />

I would say that most programs are<br />

written in BASIC, although a lot of them<br />

use data statements for user-defined<br />

graphics etc. Some machine code programs<br />

are very impressive and rival<br />

commercially published games, such as<br />

"Tacco" by Richard Weisang & Frank<br />

Ammann (Happy Computer, Oct 1984)<br />

and "Scram-20" by Nalim Sharma<br />

(Your Computer, Jun 1983). In particular,<br />

"Scram-20" was later published<br />

commercially by Artic Computing.<br />

You are absolutely right though, machine<br />

code programs are among the<br />

most difficult to get working. There is<br />

nothing worse than typing in page-after-page<br />

of numbers only to find that<br />

you have made a typing mistake somewhere,<br />

or that part of the listing is<br />

blurred and some numbers are unreadable.<br />

It only takes one incorrect<br />

number to stop an entire program from<br />

working. An example of this is "Millipods"<br />

(Your Computer, Mar 1984).<br />

There are pages of machine code to<br />

type in but some of the numbers are<br />

unreadable. I have tried several times<br />

but I cannot get it working - if anybody<br />

has a working copy then please submit<br />

it.<br />

BASIC programs can also be difficult to<br />

enter if they have lots of awkward<br />

graphic characters. I remember a program<br />

called "Map" (Popular Computing<br />

Weekly, 24-30 Mar 1983) that used<br />

graphic symbols instead of numbers<br />

for the data statements, which was an<br />

innovative idea but the listing is very<br />

difficult to decipher. You look at the listing<br />

and think, "Are those vertical lines<br />

supposed to be Shift+Y, Shift+H,<br />

CBM+M, or something else?" Again, if<br />

anybody has a working version then it<br />

would be fantastic to see it.<br />

Q My mum and dad thought that the<br />

VIC; and computers in general were<br />

a fad, I used to sit on my mums typewriter<br />

and type out the listings<br />

from various magazines, entering<br />

things like HEART and CURSOR<br />

LEFT etc. for special control characters,<br />

after a few months of me constantly<br />

entering code this way and<br />

wondering what it would do, I<br />

think they knew this was no fad. It’s<br />

a long intro to the question but …<br />

Do you have any other childhood<br />

memories of the VIC you would like<br />

to share with readers?<br />

When I was ten years old and saw a<br />

machine code program for the first<br />

time, I thought it looked like an endless<br />

stream of meaningless random<br />

gibberish. This gave me the naively<br />

embarrassing idea that it might be<br />

possible to write a program simply by<br />

pressing random keys on the keyboard<br />

to produce a suitable stream of<br />

random nonsense... As you can imagine,<br />

it was about as successful as trying<br />

to write an essay by randomly bashing<br />

keys - it did not have the slightest<br />

chance of working.<br />

Around the same time, a school friend<br />

claimed that he was randomly bashing<br />

keys on his Sinclair Spectrum when he<br />

suddenly found himself connected to<br />

the local bank - an unlikely story if ever<br />

I heard one, particularly because he did<br />

not have a modem. When I asked him<br />

to show me how he did it, he was unable<br />

to replicate the feat. Strange that!<br />

All of this was before I learned how<br />

computers really work and started<br />

writing real programs.<br />

Q So the programs on your website,<br />

did you actually type out all the<br />

codes or were they sourced from<br />

elsewhere, and did you cross check<br />

them to make sure they were 100%<br />

accurate to the magazine, (apart<br />

from said errors) as many people<br />

tend to change the code as they type<br />

(I know I used to, although maybe<br />

not on purpose, more fat fingers or<br />

cross eyes)?<br />

I typed most of the programs myself.<br />

Before typing in a new program I usually<br />

check Gamebase20 and Bo Zimmerman's<br />

FTP site<br />

www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/<br />

vic20/ to see if anybody else has already<br />

done it, and I have found some<br />

programs that way. But it is staggering<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 48


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how many programs do not appear to<br />

be available from anywhere else.<br />

When entering programs I try to keep<br />

them 100% accurate to the original listing.<br />

Occasionally there is some guesswork<br />

involved with unreadable<br />

symbols, and sometimes there are typing<br />

mistakes or syntax errors that need<br />

fixing to make the program work. It<br />

takes a surprising amount of time and<br />

effort to type each program and get it<br />

running.<br />

Q Have you thought about having<br />

the code available as a listing in like<br />

pseudo VIC BASIC using something<br />

like this<br />

http://www.davidviner.com/cbmlis<br />

ter.html?name=CBM+Basic+Lister<br />

that can list the special characters,<br />

in a way viewable in a pc text editor?<br />

As it happens, I have got all the BASIC<br />

programs in that format, but I have not<br />

included those files on the website.<br />

I usually use VIC20 Prg Gen<br />

http://www.ajordison.co.uk/ for typing<br />

in programs, and I always save the<br />

source code as a TXT file that can easily<br />

be displayed in a text editor. These TXT<br />

files are useful for a number of purposes:<br />

searching to see if a new program is<br />

a modified version of something I have<br />

already typed in, seeing how a program<br />

works, and also for fixing bugs. Another<br />

valuable program that I use is BasEdit<br />

www.stojalowski.de/BasEdit/ ,<br />

which has an extremely useful syntax<br />

error checker.<br />

In principle there is nothing to stop me<br />

from putting the TXT files on the website,<br />

but it would cost money to upload<br />

them using dial-up Internet access. At<br />

the moment I think most people are only<br />

interested in the PRG files. If anybody<br />

wants to see the TXT file for a<br />

particular program then it is easy to<br />

use VIC20 Prg Gen to convert PRG files<br />

into TXT format. But you never know<br />

what might happen in the future - one<br />

day I might upload them.<br />

Computing" by Clifford Ramshaw. This<br />

was fantastic and made it possible to<br />

archive lots of programs that might not<br />

otherwise have been available. There<br />

are lots more books that must exist in<br />

people's lofts, but which have not been<br />

scanned and are impossible to find.<br />

Most of the listings are downloaded<br />

from scanned archives of books and<br />

magazines, like DLH's Commodore Archive<br />

http://www.bombjack.org/commodo<br />

re/ and Internet Archive<br />

http://archive.org/details/computerm<br />

agazines. It is always fantastic when<br />

people donate items to DLH so they can<br />

be scanned and made available to everybody.<br />

Without DLH's amazing work,<br />

archiving these VIC-20 programs<br />

would have been much more difficult.<br />

Q What's the most unusual program<br />

you have come across, and what currently<br />

do you consider the best?<br />

There are so many unusual programs<br />

on my website that it is difficult to<br />

choose just one. "Australia" by Chris<br />

Palmer (Popular Computing Weekly,<br />

13 May 1982) turns the screen font upside<br />

down, "Mystery" by Andy Horrell<br />

(Popular Computing Weekly, 7 Oct<br />

1982) is a fun little game but the listing<br />

gives no clue what it does, "Play That<br />

Boogie" by Adam Macielinski (Your<br />

Computer, Mar 1983) shows two men<br />

dancing to a tune, and "Chip Chat 1" by<br />

Eric Doyle (Your Commodore, Jun<br />

1986) demonstrates how the CPU<br />

works. There are also programs to perform<br />

various types of calculation, such<br />

as "Moles" by Sarah Cotton (Popular<br />

Computing Weekly, 13-19 Sep 1984),<br />

which calculates the number of moles<br />

in a given quantity of substance.<br />

In terms of unusual games, "Mud Bath"<br />

by K Osborne (Personal Computer<br />

Games, Apr 1984) is well worth a look.<br />

It is a surprisingly good game where<br />

you have to catch your clothes as they<br />

fall from the washing line.<br />

Q I know the number of programs is<br />

growing all the time but approximately<br />

how many programs are on<br />

your site and from how many different<br />

sources?<br />

Well At the time of this interview there<br />

are 912 programs on the website, from<br />

13 magazines and 13 books, with more<br />

programs waiting to be uploaded.<br />

Somebody recently submitted lots of<br />

programs from the German magazine<br />

Happy Computer, including the excellent<br />

game "Tacco" that I mentioned earlier,<br />

so I will add those next time I<br />

update the website.<br />

Q Do you plan to host the magazines<br />

the programs are from as well as the<br />

programs themselves?<br />

I save scanned copies of the listings,<br />

but at the moment I have no plans to<br />

put them on the website. It would be<br />

too expensive to upload them mainly<br />

as I am still using dial-up Internet access.<br />

Like with the TXT files mentioned<br />

earlier, it might happen at some future<br />

point.<br />

Q What help if any is needed to help<br />

maintain these programs?<br />

Q How do you come across the listings<br />

books and magazines, are they<br />

donated?<br />

A few years ago somebody kindly gave<br />

me several VIC-20 books, including<br />

"The Penguin Book of VIC 20 Games" by<br />

Paul Copeland and "VIC Innovative<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 49


www.commodorefree.com<br />

There are many things people can do to<br />

help, if they would like to get involved.<br />

1. If anybody has got working copies of<br />

programs that are not currently on the<br />

website then it would be fantastic if<br />

they could submit them.<br />

2. I have got lots of listings that need<br />

typing in. If anybody would like to have<br />

a go at typing some programs then<br />

please get in touch. I am happy to suggest<br />

programs they could enter, and I<br />

can send scanned copies of the listings.<br />

3. If anybody finds any broken links on<br />

the website, or typing errors in any of<br />

the programs, then please let me know.<br />

4. There are lots of books and magazines<br />

that have not been scanned and<br />

are not available anywhere, but which<br />

must still exist in people's lofts. Similarly,<br />

some people might have tapes or<br />

disks of programs that they typed in as<br />

a child, which perhaps they might be<br />

able to convert into a modern format<br />

like a TAP file or D64 image. It would<br />

be great if we could get things like this<br />

archived.<br />

Q What feed back have you had<br />

about the website and the programs,<br />

has anyone said “hey that was my<br />

code I donated to Xyz Magazine”?<br />

To be honest the feedback has been<br />

overwhelmingly positive and very supportive,<br />

which is fantastic.<br />

So far, I have not heard from anybody<br />

who wrote any of these programs. It<br />

would be great to hear from the original<br />

authors, if they would like to get in<br />

touch. Perhaps I could even add an 'Interviews'<br />

section to the site...<br />

Q Yes it would be nice to hear from<br />

the original creators of the programs,<br />

there motivation and what<br />

did they receive for having an article<br />

printed. Maybe they are all far too<br />

famous now! Where do you see the<br />

website in lets say 2 years time?<br />

One of the exciting things about the future<br />

is that you never know quite what<br />

will happen, or how things might develop.<br />

There are many books and magazines<br />

that are still missing from online<br />

archives, and it would be fantastic if<br />

they could be found, scanned and preserved.<br />

Q Would you consider, readers donating<br />

VIC BASIC programs to your<br />

site, or would they have to be programs<br />

from books and magazines, is<br />

it more an archiving of programs<br />

rather than just collecting VIC BASIC<br />

programs?<br />

My website is purely for type-in program<br />

listings that have already been<br />

published. One day it might expand into<br />

other programs, but at the moment<br />

there are too many type-in programs<br />

that still need to be found and archived.<br />

Interestingly, a small number of listings<br />

were published outside of books and<br />

magazines. For example, there is at<br />

least one type-in listing that was printed<br />

on the inlay of a blank computer cassette<br />

tape... Programs like these belong<br />

somewhere in my archive, but I have<br />

not yet decided where and how to include<br />

them.<br />

Q Yes I remember a program on a<br />

tape inlay card, I never tried it, very<br />

strange, Ok so far What would be<br />

your favourite program be and why?<br />

There are so many clever and inventive<br />

games that it is difficult to pick out a<br />

favourite. Some of my favourite programs<br />

include "Tacco" by Richard<br />

Weisang & Frank Ammann (Happy Computer,<br />

Oct 1984), "Grave Robber" by K<br />

Dent (Popular Computing Weekly, 8-14<br />

Mar 1984) "Nibblers" by Dave Shambrook<br />

(Your Computer, Sep 1982), and<br />

"Snake Byte" by Andrew Dilley (Your<br />

Computer, April 1983).<br />

Q Have you seen any programs from<br />

people who later became let's say<br />

“famous coders”?<br />

Oh Yes!<br />

It is always a joy to discover type-in<br />

programs written by people who subsequently<br />

became prominent figures in<br />

the industry. Their early programs are<br />

often well-written and great fun to play<br />

and it is fascinating to see how their<br />

work evolved into the later games that<br />

made them famous. Some of the programs<br />

on my website include:<br />

Shaun Southern - "Brick Blaster"<br />

(C&VG, Oct 1982) - Shaun wrote many<br />

iconic games including Tutti Frutti<br />

(C16), Trailblazer (C16 & C64) and the<br />

Lotus trilogy (Amiga).<br />

Martin Holland - "Tunnel Snatch"<br />

(C&VG, Aug 1984) and "Egg Eater" (Big<br />

K, Mar 1985) - Martin became a famous<br />

graphic artist on the C64, and tragically<br />

died in Aug 2003 aged just 35.<br />

Mike Singleton - "Crash or Crush"<br />

(C&VG, Oct 1983) - Mike wrote many<br />

famous games including Lords of Midnight<br />

(Spectrum), and sadly died of cancer<br />

in Oct 2012 aged 61.<br />

Richard Clark - "Mission X" (Commodore<br />

Horizons, Sep 1984) - Richard<br />

wrote lots of games including Gun Law<br />

(C16) and Cave Fighter (C64).<br />

There are also several other intriguing<br />

programs. For example, I wonder if<br />

"Brass Envelope" by D Whittaker (Popular<br />

Computer Weekly, 1 Jul 1982)<br />

might be written by programmer & musician<br />

David Whittaker, or if the name<br />

is just a coincidence?<br />

Q Would you consider hosting typein<br />

programs for any other machine,<br />

or do you want to keep it just for the<br />

VIC, so say maybe C64 and Plus/4<br />

programs?<br />

At the moment I am only interested in<br />

VIC-20 programs. There are so many<br />

'missing' programs that it would quickly<br />

become overwhelming to do anything<br />

else.<br />

Q Do you have any other comments<br />

you would like to add?<br />

"Don't dream it, be it." (Within reason,<br />

of course.)<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 50


www.commodorefree.com<br />

Commodore Free Game review 10x10 For the Amiga<br />

Reviewed by Bartosz Debski<br />

Author: Coagulus<br />

Released: 05 May 2015<br />

10x10 by Coagulus is a puzzle game which at first reminds<br />

me a good old Tetris. You play on a 10 by 10 field where<br />

you have to put blocks of various sizes to create straight<br />

lines. There is no timer, and you play only against your<br />

high scores. The game mechanics are simple yet addictive.<br />

At the start you have three blocks to put on the grid, and<br />

then three new blocks are presented. You continue until<br />

there is no way of putting new block on the playfield.<br />

There is no way of rotating the selected shape. When a vertical<br />

or horizontal line is completed it disappears and your<br />

score grows. The Game features a high score board and<br />

scores are saved.<br />

Presentation of the game is somewhat basic. A Board on a<br />

white background with all possible options buttons on the<br />

bottom right side. Your current score is presented against<br />

the high score and that is it!<br />

There is nothing wrong with this, but as this is a one screen<br />

game I would like to see some interesting backgrounds<br />

which can set the mood. There are no sound effects, and<br />

you can only switch the music on or off. The Tunes are<br />

nothing special but that said they are not bad either.<br />

Overall this is a solid puzzle game and you can’t fault simple<br />

but fun mechanics. With a better approach on visual<br />

side and some sound effects this could be a very polished<br />

production.<br />

The Game can be downloaded on one floppy, and it will also<br />

run from the HDD. High scores are saved into S folder<br />

within the game. 10x10 will run on any Amiga with 1MB of<br />

Ram and was written in Blitz Basic<br />

Game Download is available from her:<br />

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=78061<br />

Graphics 5/10<br />

Sounds 5/10 Just music<br />

Gameplay 8/10<br />

Overall<br />

6/10<br />

Commodore Free Magazine Page 51


Commodore Free Magazine<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Editor<br />

Nigel Parker<br />

Spell Checking<br />

Peter Badrick<br />

Text , HTML & Ebook Conversion<br />

Paul Davis<br />

D64 Disk Image<br />

Al Jackson<br />

ISSUU formatting<br />

Alessandro Di Nepi<br />

PDF Design /Editor /webhost /text collector<br />

Nigel Parker<br />

Website<br />

www.commodorefree.com<br />

Email Address<br />

commodorefree@commodorefree.com<br />

Submissions<br />

Articles are always wanted for the magazine. Contact<br />

us for details .We can’t pay you for your efforts but you are safe in the knowledge that you have passed on details that will interest<br />

other Commodore enthusiasts.<br />

Notices<br />

All materials in this magazine are the property of Commodore Free unless otherwise stated. All copyrights, trademarks, trade names,<br />

Internet domain<br />

names or other similar rights are acknowledged. No part of this magazine may<br />

be reproduced without permission.<br />

The appearance of an advert in the magazine does not necessarily mean that the goods/services advertised are associated with or<br />

endorsed by Commodore Free Magazine.<br />

Copyright<br />

Copyright © 2015 Commodore Free Magazine<br />

All Rights Reserved.

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