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News 2001...
| 28/12/2001...
LUnix Next Generation V.20 released. LUnix Next Generation is a operating system for the bare Commodore64, Commodore128 and some Atari computers. It has support for TCP/IP, PPP, SLIP networking and clients for ftp, telnet and pop3. You can download sourcecode and precompiled binaries for C64 and C128 from sourceforge (or from my private web site): [http://www.heilbronn.netsurf.de/~dallmann/lunix/lngsrc] The news in short:
Todd Elliott writes: I have finally cracked that tough VIC-II nut wide
open, coaxing it in displaying a *full-screen* FLI mode,
including the first three columns. Just when a sane, ordinary Commodore
hardcore demoscener thinks all is right in his universe, comes along an
high wire act like me with all CMD toys to whack their VIC-II concepts
asunder.
[http://videocam.net.au/~eyeth/] Basically, the ZIP archive contains a README file and two versions of the Coca Cola Santa Claus with a personal message from yours truly. The Coca Cola Santa Claus is rendered in full screen highresolutionFLImode or multicolorFLI mode, depending on which version you load/run. What I mean by full screen is that the first three columns, hitherto therefore inaccessible, now contain viewable graphics data. Note further that I am not using 6502 tricks or sprites to cover such blemishes occurring in the first three columns of the FLI screen. So, if you have a NTSC Commodore and a
SuperCPU,
why don't you visit my page, download my Coca Cola Santa Claus demo and
enjoy your holiday season?
In so closing, I wish to impress upon my fellow demoscene brethren to at least consider the possibilities of more VIC-II banging that only the SuperCPU can provide. I would simply love to see a SuperCPU specific demo coded by those European savants like Graham, Crossbow, DeeKay, etc. It would have truly pushed the boundaries of the Commodore 64 platform. So, hopefully you'll cave into the 'Dark Side' and get a SuperCPU. :) Enjoy.
15/12/2001... Attention CMD HardDrive owners. News from Maurice Randall: On Wednesday, I started up a CMD-HD for the first time with my new HD BootROM. It was a bit buggy at first, but after a day of debugging, it's now starting the drive up and getting the DOS running just fine. For informational purposes, the CMD-HD contains a 64K computer inside the case with a 6502A processor. This computer is what makes up the SCSI controller as well as the interface to the 64/128 through the serial bus and the parallel port of the RAMLink. Just like the 64/128's have an operating system in rom, so does the CMD-HD. But what's in rom is very basic, for the most part the BootROM is used to start the machine up and access the SCSI drive mechanism which will then load in the main HD-DOS. The rom is then switched out and the DOS which is loaded into ram is then put to use. The BootROM is also used during any reconfiguration operation such as when installing a new hard drive mechanism or creating a new partition. Today, I was able to get the new HD-DOS booted up from the hard disk as well. Being new, it's naturally got a few problems that I need to work out. But over the next few days, those problems will get corrected and then I can continue working on the new features. A good share of the print spooler code is already implemented. This will allow the CMD-HD to act as an intelligent printer interface. It will trap any data being sent to device 4 and will store the data in a print buffer partition. While data is being received from the computer, it will begin to spool it out through the auxiliary port to the real printer or printer interface. Since it can receive print data quickly, and buffer it on the hard drive, you will be able to return to working on the 64/128 sooner, especially with those large print jobs. At the same time as the HD is sending print data out the auxiliary port, you will still be able to access the HD to load and save data normally. So, you won't be slowed down with disk access either. The new BootROM is built just like a JiffyDOS chip that goes inside a 1541. It's a dual rom system with a switch that can mount on the back of the HD. With the switch in one position, you'll have the new BootROM in use, but if you flip the switch the other way and press the reset button, it will switch to the original V2.80 BootROM which was the latest one that CMD produced. The older BootROM will boot up the older V1.92 HD-DOS while the newer BootROM will boot up the newer HD-DOS. This will prevent any incompatibility problems that might arise with a rare utility or two. Although it's very likely you'll never need to switch to the older BootROM. Once the BootROM module code is finalized and the print spooler is finished, I'll begin shipping the new HD-DOS package to everyone who has ordered it thus far. And at that time, all new CMD-HD's will ship with the new BootROM module installed and both HD-DOS's installed in the system partition. Of course, I'll continue working on the HD-DOS and will send out updates as they become available. The main HD-DOS can be upgraded easily since that part is all done through software. The BootROM isn't as easy to upgrade, so I plan to make sure that part is completely ready before shipping. As far as upgrading the software portion of HD-DOS, that's only about a 3 minute job to run the installer software, press the reset button and you're done. In addition to the current programs on the HD Utilities disk, I plan to introduce some similar utilities that will run from within the GEOS and Wheels environment. Later on, similar software will be made available for the FD and RAMLink as well. All CMD-HD's shipped since August 2001 will receive this HD-DOS package upgrade for free. If you change your address, be sure to inform me. For all units shipped prior to August 2001, the HD-DOS upgrade will be available for $40 plus shipping. -Maurice
GoeZIP V.7 is released! Here's a list of the updates: * The close
icon has been made a tad larger. Should make most myopic users happy
:)
You can Download GeoZIP at: [http://www.cs.tut.fi/~albert/Dev/gunzip-geos/] Todd Elliot
05/12/2001... Malte Mundt writes: CLiPS and JOS join forces - WiNGS is born! Officially announced on the recently held VISION party: In an effort to develop an efficient and feature-rich operating system for the Commodore 64 with SuperCPU, Protovision strikes back with another major breakthrough: The two formerly competing products, CLiPS and JOS, now join forces! PROTOVISION brought together the main coders of both systems, Jolse Maginnis (JOS) and Chester Kollschen (CLiPS), who virtually shook hands on committing their power to one common project! This means more efficient development, a bigger platform for applications to base on and finally a much better final product for the C64 community. JOS already features:
CLiPS already features:
Now imagine the BEST OF BOTH WORLDS:
Visit these websites for more information: [http://www.protovision-online.de] 16/11/2001... New JOS binaries released! Jolse Writes: It turns out that my ISP decided to change their DNS server's IP addresses, which in turn has stranded Jos users because their DNS no longer worked. So now the PPP will try and negotiate with your ISP and ask for it's DNS servers. If not the default server should work now. Also the default naming scheme has changed (thanks to Nate for the
idea), so that you can tell what each drive is from it's name. e.g.
In other news, I've finally got round to writing an ISO9660 filesystem driver, so Jos will be capable of reading CDROM's with IDE64 and CMDHD soon. If you've got any problems or bug reports, email me. jmaginni@postoffice.utas.edu.au Jolse
11/11/2001... E-Mail to JTR - LOST! Hi to all who sent a mail to JTR (Jakob Voos) of Protovision and are still waiting for a reply. Due to technical problems some mail got lost on the mail server. So to anyone who has sent a mail to JTR and still waits for a reply, please send again - to:
JOS Tips and Tricks! Jos Fan and Guru Mihai "Michael" Barbat has put on his site some very usefull info on sending and recieving Files between JOS users online or to and from JOS to a Unix shell that has Netcat installed. While your there why not grab the latest JOS Binaries ;) For more info check out Michael's site: [http://www.videocam.net.au/~hannibal/]
26/10/2001... Malte Mundt writes: After the mega hit NEWCOMER, PROTOVISION presents you now the second hit game of the year: * IT'S MAGIC 2 * It did take longer than originally planned, but now It's Magic 2 is
officially available and can be obtained at Protovision as the one
and only original version.
[http://www.protovision-online.de] Or the secondary page: [http://home.t-online.de/home/bundyman] with lots of additional infos and screenshots! and inform yourself about the game and how to order it in the corresponding
section.
17/10/2001... New JOS binaries released!! Jolse writes: I Haven't posted any news lately, but there's been plenty of work on Jos and quite a lot of testing. Anyway the latest binaries and source are on the site, there's been tonnes of changes. * New binary format (Allows for programs with more than 64k of
code)
Check out Jolse's site for more info: Or see you on IRC #jos most Saturdays after 20.00GMT (using JOS)
08/10/2001... Taken from Maurice Randalls Site:- Coming soon...[CMDRKEY.COM] The online webstore for complete online ordering of all the CMD hardware products, the full GEOS software line and all the Click Here Software products. 23/09/2001... JOS the Operating System of the Future? I have put up a JOS Article, Originally Written By Michael Barbat For the [Lucky_Report] It has been updated and English corrected By Greg Nacu in conjunction and by permission of Michael for submission to another Commodore Publication and this Site. Michael talked me into trying JOS, and cant stress enough how cool this new Opertaing System is. During my first experience with JOS, I had two Telnet connections running and was chatting on IRC.. Whow! Colin.
18/09/2001... PROTOVISION invites you to the "Vision 2001"-Party! The C64 game producer crew PROTOVISION for the first time has decided to open one of their internal meetings to the public. Result is the "VISION 2001", a C64 conference party near Hamburg! The following info should be interesting for you: - The "Vision" is a pure C64/128! Other systems are not allowed!!
-Planned:
- Everyone who submits a (serious) contribution to the competition will get an original game of his choice from PROTOVISION! - You will have the opportunity to directly and personally talk to the developers and makers in PROTOVISION. You can take a look at the current Protovision projects like Metal Dust, Pac It, It's Magic 2, Reel Fishing and more. More information you can find on the (simple) "Vision" site:
Questions? Ideas? Submit compo entries? Mail to Courage/Protovision at: 17/09/20001... Open News Portal c64.sk now fully active Malte Writes:
But that's not all what c64.sk has to offer by far. About bigger
events you can read in-depth articles aswell. There you also have the possibility
to give your reaction - ideal to give your feedback to a group or write
your own view to a party report. Furthermore, the famous C64 Graphics Gallery
(best of party compos) is a part of the
If you want to become a regular News Supplier or Article Editor, please contact the initiator of the project, CreaMD/DMAgic - creamd@c64.sk .
12/08/2001... GeoBeap V2.0 released. Bo Zimmerman has just released a new version of GeoBeap. Bo has totally re written this Application and a lot of new features have been added, to many to mention here! To find out more go to: 23/07/2001... Maurice Randalls trip to CMD Want to read all about the trip Maurice made to CMD (Yes he has sealed the deal) Well Sean has put all the posts (that Maurice posted in Homestead) on to his web site and it makes a really good read :) 07/07/2001... More Wave B2.9 news. Maurice Randall has just posted some new info on some more new features in the current release of the Wave B2.9. 01/07/2001... The Wave Beta 2.9 is released. Maurice Randall has just released the latest Beta of the Wave, to find out whats new and see some Screenshots go to the:
27/06/2001... Maurice Randall & CMD Update! "Click Here Software Co" is currently finalizing a deal with Creative Micro Designs in order to take over the licensing, manufacturing, and distribution of their entire Commodore-related product line. We intend to keep these products available for many years to come in addition to continued support of all the existing products through new and exciting upgrades, which include :- HD-Zip drive (complete) HD-DOS upgrade (for existing units) HD-Zip kit without mechanism (includes HD-DOS upgrade) HD-Zip kit with mechanism Check our Maurice's site for more detailed information.. [http://www.ia4u.net/~maurice/cmd.html]
04/06/2001... Jos alpha release... Jolse writes: After a long while, I've finally got together a release which most users should be able to use. (both CMD HD and IDE64). You can find jos.zip and a few zips of mod files for josmod here: [http://www.jolz64.cjb.net/download.html] I hope you can try it out.. Even though it's very alpha still! Jolse.
NEWCOMER now available at PROTOVISION
[http://www.protovision-online.de]
Geozip V 6 is released. Werner Weicht writes:
[http://home.t-online.de/home/wweicht/] or for the Wheels English version : [http://www.cs.tut.fi/~albert/Dev/gunzip-geos/]
28/05/2001... Novaterm 10 Release II Errol writes: I finally present to you my version of Novaterm 10. NT10 including source. What he didn't do was release NT10 with all the stuff I'd done to it! So here it is. It's also BETA (alpha might be more appropriate actually). It might not even work for all I know. It worked for me, I uploaded it, that's it. See Errol's page for downloading & various stuff about it. What you probably want to hear is that it does _PPP with telnet_ on a stock 64 or 128
gunZip v5 for MegaPatch V3 available
Werner Weicht writes: V 5 of gunZip GEOS for MegaPatch V3 is now available. There is a german
and a english version and a new manual for both versions.
[http://home.t-online.de/home/wweicht/] The manual for the german Wheels version (geoWrite and HTML)
now has pictures as does the MP3 versions.
16/05/2001... Todd Elliott has very kindly converted a couple of my Articles into PDF format, available are the MP3 review and the 128D PSU tweaks. You can find them in my:
30/04/2001... C64 Web Server running JOS Jolse Magginis writes: If you hadn't read in comp.sys.cbm, Amund Gjerde Gjendem aka Warlock, has setup his C64 Tower machine with Jos to run as a web server. It's located at: On the site you can also find jpegs of his tower machine, and a guestbook you can sign. The guestbook is written in anscript, which is a new scripting language i've written for Jos, which is dynamically compiled into a bytecode machine language to be run on a virtual machine. It's doesn't contain much interface code as yet (simply opening, reading, writing & closing files, and dealing with web server information), but hopefully it can be turned into a very useful language. Jolse
22/04/2001... Geonut's New Site Dave "geonut" Elliott has just put up his new site, which covers the whole GEOS Commodore Scene disk libary and eventually these disks will be available for D/loading.. Also you must check out his Projects section showing his 128DCR with a built in 3 1/2 drive and an external PC PSU
19/04/2001... C=Hacking Issue #20 Issue #20 of C=Hacking is available at:
18/04/2001... Wheels programs converted to German In the german download section of [Werner_Weicht's_Site] you can download some Wheels programs in the german language, thanks to Donald Zerbe and Werner Weicht Available are: The Wave 64 V1.0More (e.g. Finder V1.1) follow next time. Gunzip V.5 available Pasi Ojalla's site now has gunZip beta 5 for Wheels is available for downloading, now we can create Zipp files in Wheels and soon MP3 ;)
14/04/2001... Jeri's Videocard News Jeri Ellsworth posted on the Homestead Mailing list that she has just put up a web page showing the latest news and pictures of her videocard, select the link below and take a look!
12/04/2001... LUnix NG 0.19 released Daniel Dallman posted in Comp.sys.cbm that a new release of LUnix NG is available, here are some of the new features/fixes for this release that Daniel posted. Preemptive multitasking (up to 32 tasks, 7 priorities)There is much more!! go and visit To find out more and get precompiled binaries and a downloadable D64 floppy image.
11/04/2001... Metal Dust and Welle:Erdball LIVE on Mekka Symposium Protovision recently announced that the current state of METAL DUST will officially be shown on the upcoming MekkaSymposium 2001 party. The game will be presented on the bigscreen while the band WELLE:ERDBALL will perform the soundtrack live!
03/04/2001... New Protovision homepage online! Protovision has launched their new homepage which contains lots of new information on their SuperCPU game project METAL DUST. New exciting screenshots are available! The development really proceeds. A preview of the Metal Dust soundtrack by Welle:Erdball is also
available as MP3!
02/04/2001... GunzipGEOS_MP3 Werner Weicht has just completed the conversion of GunzipGEOS version .4 to now run under the MegaPatch OS. You can find it in Werners Download Section Concept + V1.0 is ready
Welle:Erdball
26/03/2001... Translator links down :( Unfortunately I have had to change and remove some of the German sites that go via a translator service, for some reason they decided to change things around and the translator would not work!!. Of course I have left the original links there :) New Concept+
20/03/2001... Forever 2001 party over - releases online! Malte Mundt writes:
Also available are the results for all C64 related compos and all the C64 entries for download!
19/03/2001... New Concept+ For that latest version of Concept+
06/03/2001... The Wave B2.8 and Concept + are ready! Maurice Randall has released these Beta versions and they are available to download from his site. If you would like to know a little more on the Wave B2.8 you can read about it in my Wave Section.
18/02/2001... GunZIP GEOS v.4 available Todd Elliott has now released gunZIP GEOS V.4 to the public, you can download the latest version of GunZIP GEOS v.4 from: You can find out more about this Application in my Wave pages, select the link below to get there. Todd is still working on integrating Pasi's PuZIP routines into GunZIP GEOS.
08/02/2001... Concept+ coming soon Maurice Randall writes:
With the big projects I've been involved in (The Wave, PostPrint 2/3, geoFAX, etc), I've needed a programming package that has fewer limitations on such things as the number of symbols, .rel file sizes, etc. Concept+ will give me the features I need and will remove many limitations. Concept+ will be considerably faster since it will load an entire source code file into memory and do the entire assembly in memory. Once finished, it will then write the entire .rel file all at once. Currently, Concept can only read in one geoWrite page at a time. It does this during Pass1 and then repeats the whole process again during Pass2. Same with the linker, the .rel files will be read into memory and the resulting linked file will be written to disk. Development time on any project will be reduced dramatically. As soon as it appears to be stable, I'll make a beta release available for downloading from my web site. This first release is mainly centered around getting up and running in native mode in the SCPU. Versions after this first one will have added features such as the additional 65816 opcode handling. Another reason I need this package is to make life easier for the development of Wheels SC. When Wheels SC is ready to run, I'll make yet another version of Concept specifically for the multi-tasking environment of Wheels SC. Select the link below for the current version of Concept -Maurice
07/02/2001... New Hompage for WELLE:ERDBALL Malte Mundt writes:
More Wave news
05/02/2001... JOS Update Jolse writes: I've started writing a chapter for the programming tutorial about the GUI, it only just scratches the surface, but at least it's a taste of whats to come.
01/02/2001... Maurice Randall continues to work on the Wave, so whats new for the up and coming B2.8? [Click_Here_for_all_the_latest]
31/01/2001... This site is well worth checking out!
15/01/2001 Jolse Magginis has just started a JOS Progrmming section on his site, this is something that should be very helpfull for 6502/65816 programming. Malte Mundt Writes:
03/01/2001 Errol Smith has just released a patch for Unzip64/128 v2.15 Errol writes:
LOAD"unzip64v215",x
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