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Commodore Free Magazine
http://www.commodorefree.com/
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Issue 87

Free to download magazine
dedicated to Commodore computers
Available as PDF, ePUB, MOBI, HTML,
TXT, SEQ and D64 disk image

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CONTENTS
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* Editorial
* General News
- Portable KIM-1
- Matt Gray Last Ninja 2 Remake
- CBM PRG Studio v3.2.1
- VirtualC64 0.9.8
- CES 30 Years Ago
- Smallest Chess Code
- Erasure 'In My Arms' 8-Bit Cover
- RetroWiki Magazine 10
- How many Star Trek games?
- Tetris in 6502 Assembler
- Revival Studios News
* C64/128 News
- Back in Time Brighton '15
- Sid Doing Paula
- Dragons Lair On The C64
- Lightning
- Calculate It II
- Twist It Game
- Longer II
- RGCD 2014 16KB Game Compo Results
- Commodore 65 Sold On eBay
- C64SD Princess v3.0 Firmware
- Commodore 817 Released
- Zombi Terror
- Contact V2.0
- Rocket Smash EX [64kb cartridge]
- Hot Style Issue 1 [Polish]
- Afterlife Issue 16 Released
- 2K Game Melting Trail
- Lotek64 Issue 50
- Matt Gray Interview On C64.com
- C64FC
- HVSC Updated To 62
- SID Known v1.09 Released
- Ambient SID Music Competition
- VDC Mode Mania V1.1
- SEUCK Compo 2015
- PlayIt64 V0.9
- Kick Assembler v3.37
* VIC 20 News
- VIC-20 Listings Website Launched
- CONTACT V1.0
- Tau Ceti
* C16 and Plus/4 News
- Blackjack / Twenty-One - Plus/4
- Plus/4 Game Endings
- Commodore Free News
* Amiga News
- Fish Supper - AROS
- Amiga: 30 Years
- AmigaAMP v3.16 - AmigaOS 4
- 880 Gamer Issue 5 Released
- SimpleMail 0.41 - Girlfriend
- AmigaRemix Update
- Hall Of Light Updated
- AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition
- CD32 - CDR Adjustment
- Cadog Adventures - Waiting
- Assist v2.0 - AmigaOS 4
- Amiga External Disk Drive
- Amiga Future Issue 112 Released
- Cloanto Workbench Disk Pack
- BetterWB v3.8
- Gotek Floppy Emulator
- WHDLoad
- Flashtro Amiga
- Gigalomania v0.27
- Amiga 1200 Compact Flash
- Clockport Expander II
- PortablE
- Update of the Amiga Games List
- zTools 1.3 Available on AMIStore
- AROS Vision 2.9 Online
- Personal Paint 7.3a Available Now
- Obligement's Birthday: Now 18!
- AmiKit 8.1 Released
- AISS 4.18 Available
- New 2015 Calendar for Amiga Fans
- Workbench CANDI Update
- A-EON Acquires Aladdin4D
- EasyNet Pro Available
- Mplayer Altivec Optimization
- AmiKit Real Update 8 Released
- Amiga Mania Issue 8 Released!
- Kickstart 3.9.1 68k
- Mediator Multimedia CD Update 2.3
- Fractals For SketchBlock 1.5
- Calimero 0.2
- PCMCIA Right Angled Adapter
- Saku 2014: Reports and Highlights
- Amiga Games Reviewer Wanted
* A Few More 'Instant Music' Scraps.
* Let the Magic Begin Anew
* Review: UK1541
* Amiga Buyers Guide
* Review: Stairrunner
* Review: Rush - PET Game
* Review: Scramble
* Review: Rocket Smash
* Review: Xain'D Sleena
* Review: Brick Buster!
* Review: Penultimate Fantasy V1.1
* Review: Tutti Frutti 64
* Review: Battle Khaos II

=====================================

EDITOR
Nigel Parker

SPELL CHECKING
Peter Badrick
Bert Novilla

TXT, HTML & E-BOOKS
Paul Davis

D64 DISK IMAGE
Al Jackson

PDF DESIGN
Nigel Parker

CONTRIBUTORS
Michael Braisher
Lenard R. Roach
Bartosz Debski

WEBSITE
www.commodorefree.com

EMAIL ADDRESS
commodorefree@commodorefree.com

SUBMISSIONS

Articles are always wanted for the magazine. Contact 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 other Commodore enthusiasts.

NOTICES

All materials in this magazine are the property of Commodore Free unless otherwise stated. All copyrights, trademarks, trade names, internet domain names or other similar rights are acknowledged. No part of this magazine
may be reproduced without permission.

The appearance of an advert in the magazine does not necessarily mean that
the goods/services advertised are associated with or endorsed by Commodore
Free Magazine.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2015
Commodore Free Magazine
All Rights Reserved.


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EDITORIAL
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Hello, and welcome to another issue of Commodore Free. I wish to
personally thank all of the people who submitted articles for this month's issue - and also thank them for their patience as they have waited so long
for the articles to finally arrive in printed format. It's great to see
your work published for others to read; however, it does take time (even
for me!) to throw a magazine together.

In this issue, buried amongst the news sections, are articles for new users about the Amiga - a buyer's guide with all you need to know about the
various models and their capabilities, what to look for, and some simple upgrades to obtain more from the machines. Thanks goes to Bartosz Debski
for submitting this.

Michael Braisher continues where he left off in Issue 83 with a follow-up article he calls Instant Music Scraps. To give you an idea of what can be achieved, Mr. Braisher has included links to some of his experiments,
which are in MP3 format. I know a number of readers found the original
article very interesting (and have been asking for more) so I hope Michael again gets your excitement levels pumping.

Lenard Roach has an article called "Let the Magic Begin Anew," which he
says is Commodore fiction based on real events.

Tailing on at the end of the issue, I look at a number of game releases for
the Commodore 64. I also have a review of the UK1541, a piece of hardware which is, as you may have guessed - a Commodore 1541 disk emulator. The
UK1541 uses SD cards as its media format, yet this particular piece of
hardware is very different because it uses a full-colour screen to show
disk contents, rather than loading a menu style program and launching from there. It handles disk swaps really well and seems to be very compatible
with the real 1541 drive.

I still haven't had any takers for the Amiga Games reviewer position, so if you're interested please send me an email. For me the problem is the time needed to review everything, which is impossible. However, it's good news
for a brand that most seem to think is dead. In fact, I was so strapped
for time I almost forgot to write the editorial, and I know one person who reads it, so I presume he would be quite angry if I forgot the most
important section in the magazine!

Best regards
Nigel
Editor
www.commodorefree.com


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GENERAL NEWS
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PORTABLE KIM-1
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Scott Lawrence has created a portable computer KIM-1. He used an old
plastic housing of a hamfest and a display from a surplus store. The
computer itself is an Arduino Uno R3 micro board with Seed Studio proton
loved. You can follow the whole construction process on his blog.

geodesicsphere.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/kim-uno.html


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MATT GRAY TO REMAKE
LAST NINJA 2 AUDIO
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Exclusive Last Ninja2 and other classics. To be reworked. Check out his Kickstarter project.

Reformation will be a definitive set of Matt Gray C64 games, soundtrack remakes, produced by the acclaimed C64 musician himself.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1289191009/reformation-c64-track-remakes-by-m att-gray-last-ni?ref=nav_search


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CBM PRG STUDIO V3.2.1
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Arthur Jordison has released a new version of CBM PRG Studio. Changes in
this version: Improvements to the screen designer, assembler, sprite
designer PRG generation, code indentation, and comments. Several bug fixes
for code to re-format negative numbers in BYTE and WORD groups, and numbers
in strings in BYTE and TEXT groups.

WHAT IS IT?

CBM PRG Studio is a Windows IDE which allows you to type a BASIC or machine code program and convert it to a '.prg' file, which you can then run in an emulator or on real hardware. It also includes character, sprite, and
screen editors, as well as a fully featured 6510/65816 debugger.

The following machines can be developed for:

* Commodore 64 (and SuperCPU)
* Commodore 128
* Commodore VIC 20
* Commodore 16
* Commodore Plus/4
* Commodore PET BASIC 2 machines, e.g. PET 2001
* Commodore PET BASIC 4 machines, e.g. PET 4000/9000

What CBM PRG Studio isn't is a front-end for tok64, cbmcnvrt, bastext or
any other tokeniser/detokeniser/assembler. It's all been written
completely from scratch.

www.ajordison.co.uk/


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VIRTUALC64 0.9.8
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Dirk Hoffmann has released an updated version of his VirtualC64 emulator.
Using the emulator on your Mac (OS X), you can transform the machine into a Commodore C64. Changes in this version: Support for multiple keyboard
layouts & joystick, improvements for the VIC II and USB devices. Visit
Dirk's web page for full details.

www.dirkwhoffmann.de/virtualc64/


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CES 30 YEARS AGO
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The most important electronics expo in the USA, the CES Consumer
Electronics Show. Bil Herd reminisces about the time when Commodores new computers were introduced at CES. Those days were very hectic for the Commodore employees, and you can read all about it on Bil's blog.

hackaday.com/2015/01/10/making-the-ces-show-thirty-years-ago/


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ZX81 BEATEN AT LAST AS DEV CLAIMS
SMALLEST CHESS CODE CROWN
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Not Commodore-related, but interesting all the same.

Boot Chess needs just 512 bytes of memory, beating 1982's 1K ZX Chess

www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/29/zx81_record_falls_as_dev_claims_smallest_ chess_code_crown/

Developer Olivier Poudade claims he's beaten a 33 year-old record for the smallest working Chess program.

The previous record-holder, 1K ZX Chess, ran on the seminal Sinclair ZX81, which shipped with just 1K of RAM. 1K ZX Chess was lousy at the game, but
its mere existence bestowed a little gravitas on the easy-to-ridicule ZX81.


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ERASURE 'IN MY ARMS' 8-BIT COVER
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DITTO "

8-Bit Weapon 8bitweapon.com/ , a fab synth act who make all their music
using simple 8-Bit electronic sounds, often generated by very early microcomputers, are in the process of making an Erasure tribute EP, kicking
off with this instrumental cover of 'In My Arms'...

The website says

It was made with the Atari 800XL microcomputer as well as Commodore 64 and analogue synths, Enjoy!

8bitweapon.com/news/


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RETROWIKI MAGAZINE 10
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RetroWiki is a Spanish PDF retro computer magazine.

In this edition of the magazine are the following articles:

News, Dragon 32, 64 and 200, Thomson MO5, TO7 and TO9, 5 VDC power supply, Uridium, Knight Rider, Shinobi, Commodore Plus: SD2IEC - 1541, improving
your joysticks, and Crazy Balloon.

www.retrowiki.es/rw10/page.php?3


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HOW MANY STAR TREK GAMES WERE
THERE FOR THE COMMODORE?
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With the death of Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and various messages, I thought I
would just clip out a link to Star Trek games as a nodding memory to the
actor.

You can find more details about the actor here (live long and prosper).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy

The games are here

memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Video_games


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TETRIS IN 6502 ASSEMBLER
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Wiebo de Wit has written a blog about programming Tetris in machine
language. He had already released a Tetris clone in 1992, and now tells
how the game was made. For development he uses Kick Assembler, Sublime
Text 3.0, and the VICE emulator.

devdef.blogspot.nl/


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REVIVAL STUDIOS NEWS
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GENERAL NEWS:

* New Revival Studios website now online! (www.revival-studios.com )

* Now on Instagram: www.instagram.com/revivalstudios

NEW RELEASES:

* VIC20 - Down! (2014) and Stairrunner (2014) finally out on tape for the Commodore VIC-20

* VIC20 - Shifted for the Commodore VIC-20

* VIDEOPAC/ODYSSEY2 - Astrododge Versus (Loyalty-program exclusive)

COMING SOON:

* Avalanche for the Commodore 16/+4 and Commodore 64

* Shifted for the Colecovision and MSX systems

* Rush for the Commodore VIC20

IN DEVELOPMENT:

* News about projects currently in development



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C64/128 NEWS
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BACK IN TIME BRIGHTON '15
Live stage show of C64 Music
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This crowd funded project is now a reality!

FEATURING

* Mel Croucher (Automata, Deus Ex Machina)

* Ben Daglish (Last Ninja, Krakout, Trap)

* Marcel Donne (Scorpion, Amyloid)

* David Dunn (Flight Path 747, Finders Keepers, Gilligan's Gold)

* Adam Gilmore (Draconus, Zybex, Afterburner)

* Fred Gray (Mutants, Breakthru, Frankie Goes To Hollywood)

* Matt Gray (Last Ninja 2, Driller, Dominator)

* Jon Hare (Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer, Wizball)

* Chris Huelsbeck (Turrican, Giana Sisters)

* Simon Nicol (Crazy Comets, Mega Apocalypse)

* ... Watch this space!

Commodore music played live with real instruments and in some instances by
the real composers themselves, as well as some "super groups" created to
play live Commodore 64 soundtracks. Set in Brighton, this is always a must attend for any music fan. Head over to the Kickstarter webpage for more details and some exclusive backer offers!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/c64audio/back-in-time-brighton-15-live-stage- show-of-c64-mu


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SID DOING PAULA
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Trooper and Andy Group Arkanix Labs has a compilation of Amiga Paula music
for the C64 SID are:

SidDoingPaula-ArkanixLabs, CrackOrDie, Matkamies, Frequency Shifter,
Bambam, DelicateOooz and Uridium2Loader

csdb.dk/release/index.php?id=135962


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DRAGONS LAIR ON THE C64
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Not sure if it ever was a game but the "classic" Dragon's Lair is soon to appear on the commodore 64

Developed by InuYaksa as a port experiment, you should be able to play the original laserdisc version later this year. You'll need a 16MB REU
extension: Vice, Chameleon or 1541U.

To be honest I was never a fan of the game at all. It's just a case of remembering which direction to press at any key moment, watching people in
the arcades eating food, then turning to the machine and hitting left on
the joystick, and then turning away, soon put the game to shame. Still...

It's an Amazing achievement for the Commodore 64, so Hats off to the programmers.

www.indieretronews.com/2015/02/dragons-lair-laserdisc-appears-on-c64.html


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LIGHTNING
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The programme emulates various light- sources.

After selecting one of the effects from the menu the emulation is
initialized. After the light-source-emulation is activated, press any key
to return to the menu.

Coding and Con

--- MBSE BBS v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux-i386)
* Origin: Dragon's Lair ---:- bbs.vk3heg.net -:--- (39:901/280)