Switching to Google+

In an effort to minimize duplicating entries and articles, I've started posting everything over on Google+. My public page is here:

https://plus.google.com/114361850887459453753

Better yet, put me in your circles and I will add you to my Commodore group.

Cheers!

Lode Runner on Xbox 360

Lode Runner has changed quite a bit over the years! Lode Runner is definitely in my top five favorites of all time for the Commodore 64. Somehow I missed it making the jump to XBox Live. I downloaded it today. It seems fun, but a lot different. The goal is the same but the graphics and physics are quite a bit different.

Wizard

Played some Wizard this morning on the Commodore 64. This was my first time ever. I don't recall playing this back in the day.

It's a lot like Jumpman, which I did play quite a bit. The twist is you have to grab the key and take it to the lock to progress to the next level. You'll find various treasures along the way and spells you can use. I was able to figure out some of the spells like Invisibility (spacebar), but others, like Teleport, didn't seem to work with the spacebar.

Fun game. I plan on trying to figure out more through the weekend.

Syndicate

Got Syndicate up and running on the Amiga. I should try and find some docs as the gameplay isn't clear. I used to play Syndicate Wars on the PC way back in the day and loved it.

#Amiga #Commodore Perfect General via ADF

Thanks to my Twitter and Google+ friend @pgovotsos for the VGA Adapter. It is a Vue Tech Sync Strainer and allows me to use my LCD flat panel is High Res Mode. Much better than the composite I was using before.

#Amiga #Commodore Vue Tech Sync Strainer

Thanks to my Twitter and Google+ friend @pgovotsos for the VGA Adapter. It is a Vue Tech Sync Strainer and allows me to use my LCD flat panel is High Res Mode. Much better than the composite I was using before.

#c64 Pool Of Radiance

Started playing Pool Of Radiance. This was an Advanced D&D game on the Commodore 64 from 1988. I decided to use VICE instead of the real 64 because it came on 8 floppies and the disk swapping would get a bit outrageous. One of the benefits of the VICE emulator is the "Snapshot" feature which allows you to save the present state without having to go through loading all the disks.

Pool Of Radiance features overhead combat while also using a small 3-D window to show your present view. Playing this game makes me want to revisit Wasteland and Autoduel again.

#Amiga #Commodore PCMCIA CF Card Transfer Kit

Spent time today working on getting my PCMCIA CF Transfer Kit working on the Amiga 1200. Last week I installed the software, formatted the CF card, plugged it in, and NOTHING. I beat my head against it all week and finally this weekend I determined the PCMCIA slot wasn't working at all. I took the Amiga apart and used a flashlight to look inside. Two of the pins were completely bent out of the way. Using a small screwdriver I was able to gently push them back into position. After that it recognized the card, but the formatting was wrong. I had to use a special partition manager to format it for FAT16. Finally, it works. It's been fun working on and learning the Amiga, but it does make me appreciate my Commodore 64 a bit more.

#Commodore #Amiga Accelerator and Floppy

I installed an accelerator in my Amiga 1200 today. It runs for about 30 seconds and then the system locks up or it reboots. I can make it crash by hitting the CF card with a data requests, so I'm pretty sure my PSU isn't supplying enough juice for the Amiga with an expansion card. I'm on the hunt for a stronger PSU.

Meanwhile, I tried using the floppy drive for the first time and it didn't work. After some basic troubleshooting, I found out the eject button is broken. If I manually pull it out when I insert a disk, it engages the floppy and it works like a charm. I will have to dissect the floppy drive when I have time and see if it's just a broken spring. You never know what you're going to run into working on 15+ year old computers!

Here's a pic of the accelerator card:

#Commodore #Amiga New 4gb CF Card

Installed a new 4gb CF card into the Amiga today. WHDLOAD was preinstalled and seemed to work well. Of course, most games won't run on an unexpanded 1200 so I will need to wait until I get an accelerator. I did successfully play Arkanoid and Marble Madness. The new CF card also fixed the issue with the hard drive light not working.

#c64 Denio's Flea Market - Commodore Memories

This past weekend I took my family to Denio's Farmer's Market and Auction. Truthfully, it's more like a large flea market with vendors set up in rows. I hadn't been there in probably 20+ years. My parents would take my family there maybe once or twice a month. We always looked forward to it. We would go fairly early in the morning and then grab lunch on the way back. At the flea market, I would take my allowance and hunt down Commodore 64 games. Several vendors would always have them stocked. Some original games and of course, some vendors would have copied or pirated games available. I remember getting a boxed and shrink wrapped B-1 Nuclear Bomber from Avalon Hill. I also recall getting the boxed version of Elite.

#c64 Downhill Racing on Skate Or Die

Played a bit of Skate Or Die on the Commodore 64 today. This game takes forever to load. I remember owning the original as a kid and walking away from the computer for awhile while it loaded. A lot of fun, though. Here I'm playing the downhill racing competition.

#c64 Spy Hunter

Here's a pic of my son playing Spy Hunter on the 64. I played this a lot as a kid.

#c64 New beta version of ChatteRRbox

Downloaded the latest beta version of ChatteRRbox for the 64 and it feels a lot more solid and stable than the previous version. Not a single crash in 40 minutes.

In case you haven't heard, this is a fun "chat room" application that utilizes the RR-NET network adapter to connect to the CommodoreServer.com chat rooms. A fun way to stay connected to Commodore friends.

#c64 Mr. Dig and Frantic Freddy

Found a little time at lunch today to play these two classic arcade style games. Mr. Dig seems to almost be a precursor to Dig Dug. Frantic Freddy is a typical multi level Donkey Kong type of game.

#c64 Wings Of Fury

Playing a classic this morning before work -- Wings Of Fury on the Commodore 64. Looks like a Zero is trying to bomb my Corsair.

#Commodore #Amiga Amiga To-Do List

Haven't had a ton of time to spend with my new Commodore family addition -- the Amiga 1200. I do have a plan of action to-do list.

1. Format the CF card and install Workbench. It works right now, but seems to be a mess.
2. Download and install WHDLOAD and register.
3. Install accelerator card.
4. Clean keys with Retr0bright.
5. Fix left Amiga key.
6. Acquire PCMCIA CF card reader to transfer files

Way down the road, I would like to get the Amiga on the Internet like I did with my 64.

#c64 Battletech

As a high-schooler, I used to play a tabletop board game called Battletech with friends. They made it into a Commodore 64 game which I had completely forgotten about until a conversation I had on Twitter sparked a memory. Today I tried loading it on my 64, but couldn't get the system to recognize the disk images. I was able to successfully get it running on the VICE emulator on my Mac at home. Here are some snapshots of me playing it, trying to figure my way around. 

#c64 ChatteRRbox

I am currently chatting real time with other users using my Commodore 64, rr-net network adapter, and the new ChatteRRbox program at CommodoreServer.com. I am now living in the future from the past!

#c64 A Commodore 64 Walkabout

I received my copy of A Commodore 64 Walkabout by Robinson Mason. I'm eager to begin reading it! Mr. Mason has been extremely helpful to me personally in tracking down games I vaguely recall playing but couldn't remember the title. A big thanks to him. You're an asset to the 64 community.

#c64 Magnetron

While trying to find a different game on Gamebase 64, I came across Magnetron. It's a spacecraft shooter on a scrolling world. The graphics are fantastic, but this has got to be one of the LONGEST games to load, and fastloaders don't seem to work. I need to find instructions, too, as I can see there are special keys that do things like bring up maps, etc. It was published by Broderbund, who released one of my favorites, Raid on Bungeling Bay.

#c64 Thundercats

While testing my Stella adapter within VICE on the Mac, I stumbled across this game. Any fan of the cartoon from childhood will recognize it. The game has really great graphics and good sound. Other than that, it was a pretty tough game -- geting the swing of the sword just right can be difficult. 

#c64 VICE on Mac

I heard on Twitter that POWER 64 will stop working on Macs once LION is installed. To that end, I have installed the latest version of VICE on my Mac. I haven't tested anything beyond tape, disk, and cartridge images, but so far it is working well. Need to figure out how to mount multiple disks and how it will work with my Stella joystick adapter.

#c64 Thrust

Based on a tweet from @c64_endings, I found the T64 image of the game Thrust from Firebird and loaded it up via my 64 and Chameleon. The game is a bit like the old Jupiter Lander style game where you "thrust" your ship around and have to pick up and destroy various objects. The game is quite challenging!

#c64 Victory!

I have been thoroughly enjoying Lords of Conquest as you can see by my complete domination. Of course, it was only level 1. Ha! On to level two!

#c64 Lords Of Conquest

I asked a friend on Twitter (@RobinsonMason) to divulge his top three strategy titles on the 64. I love strategy games -- I remember on the old PC, Perfect General II was one of my all time favorites. But true strategy games were always a bit lacking on the 64. I loved M.U.L.E on the 64 and a few others. It wasn't until I took @RobinsonMason's suggestion and loaded Lords Of Conquest that I suddenly remembered this game. I owned the original as a kid and LOVED it! It's basically Risk on steroids and I had hours of fun playing this as a kid. I loaded it up last night and found scanned docs here: http://www.gamebox64.com/cgi-bin/displaygameboxdetails.pl?GameBox64ID=55&view=Instructions

It was fun. I need some more practice but I think Lords of Conquest is back in my life for good.

#c64 Space Pilot

I was looking through my arcade collection and found a Time Pilot clone called Space Pilot. It was a fun game and pretty faithful to the original.

#c64 Accolade's Hardball!

I was looking for new games to play when I stumbled upon Hardball! I had completely forgotten about this game and haven't played it in over 20 years. It was one of my favorites as a kid. I remember back then thinking, "How could graphics get better than this!?" Ha!

#c64 Mr. Freeze

I was looking for some games to play this weekend and my Twitter friend @CritAnime suggested Mr. Freeze. I didn't have this one in collection so I got it from Gamebase 64. It's a bit glitchy on my system - probably PAL only game, but it's been fun. On to Chiller, as suggested by @C64_endings.

#c64 Geos on the Chameleon 64

I decided to test Geos using the Chameleon 64. I figured this was a good benchmark because GEOS is difficult to get running on anything short of real floppy drives. I got it working well on the uIEC. Surprisingly, it was pretty easy to get working on the Chameleon. I just assigned the primary GEOS disk to Drive 1 and the Apps disk to DRIVE 2. I loaded GEOS via the Commodore prompt, not the Chameleon file manager and I was off to the races. Now I will try to get the emulated GEORam to work.

#c64 Pitfall 2

Continuing the cartridge theme, played some Pitfall 2. I don't recall it being such a poor game, but it's not that fun.

Anyone have good cartridge suggestions?

#c64 Gorf!

I moved my cartridge collection to my Chameleon yesterday and decided to test it with the classic, Gorf. Haven't played it in ages. Brings back memories. I had this for my Vic-20.

#c64 Hyper Viper

Purchased Hyper Viper! A new game for Commodore 64. It's a blast. Don't let the first level fool you - the game gets very challenging. The music is great, too. Order it here: http://t.co/OumFKbZ

#c64 Another BBQ Pic...

Another pic from our 8 bit BBQ of my friend playing Raid On Bungeling Bay.

#c64 BBQ and Soccer

Here's a picture of my six year old son and my best friend from 6th grade playing Commodore Soccer on the 64 during our BBQ. 8 bits were represented well the whole night.

#c64 Evolution

I found this strange little game while hunting through some random Arcade d64 images. Not the worst game - not the best either, but it kept me interested for a good 30 minutes or so.

http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/games/details.php%3FID%3D862

#c64 uIEC issue

Several games and programs I had stored on my SD card started giving me an error after I would load and try to run them. This would happen on my uIEC and Chameleon 64. I took another SD card, formatted it (FAT 32) and saved freshly downloaded games. These, of course, worked. Maybe my SD card was going bad or maybe my Chameleon 64 or uIEC device started corrupting files. Anyhow, it will take some time to bring back my libraries. I might use a slightly different paradigm -- instead of storing everything on the SD card, I might just place the games I'm currently playing on it straight from the PC and see how that goes.

#c64 Microprose Soccer

Continuing my soccer kick, I played Microprose Soccer for the first time today. As you can see by the score, I haven't quite mastered how to play yet, but it plays nice and fast and is a lot of fun. Microprose made some of the best games back in the day, like Gunship, F-19 Stealth Fighter, etc.

#c64 Revisit Silo 64

Played a bit of Silo 64 tonight before bed. An excellent game and it looks like it would be a blast with two players.

#c64 More Commodore Soccer

Had a little time to play more Commodore Soccer today. I played one game on level 5 and tied it 2-2. Such a fantastic game for a quick and dirty arcade style soccer game. When I get time I plan on diving into the Emlyn Hughes Soccer game and learn how to set up whole tournaments and learn the more complex player controls.

#c64 Space Taxi and Coffee

A great Saturday morning ritual...

#c64 Chameleon Opened

Opened the Chameleon 64 cartridge today to install my rr-net. Wasn't too difficult if you start at the connector end with a small screwdriver and GENTLY pry it open. The Chameleon 64 gets better with every beta update.

#c64 New Chameleon Core - Beta 6

It's been awhile since I touched my Chameleon 64. Frankly, in its beta state, it didn't work well on my NTSC 64. I read that a new beta core had been released so I flashed it this morning. The file system and d64 mounting is working much better as shown in the screenshot of me playing Raid Over Moscow. The VGA is still not working with any of the monitors I have, though.

I will probably stick with my uIEC for my main game playing / MSSIAH song saves. However, I have been reading a lot about people flashing Amiga Minimig cores to the device -- I may give that a shot soon.

Amiga Forever #amiga #commodore

After losing an eBay auction for a pristine Amiga 1200, I have reassessed my desire for a physical Amiga 1200. I never owned one of these as a youth. I wouldn't really have any basis in nostalgia for the hardware other than I wanted one when I was a kid and never got one. I was more than happy with my Commodore 64 right up until I got my first IBM PC.

With that thought process, I devoted some time to upgrading my Bootcamp partition on my iMac from XP to Windows 7. I installed Amiga Forever 2011 and toyed around with the configuration and achieved some pleasing results. I toyed around with Amiga OS 4, Workbench 3.1, etc. I got these working very well and had fun. I then found some classic games, like Cannon Fodder 2, Perfect General, Speedball 2, and Obsession Pinball and played those for awhile.

I think I might be able to put off getting an Amiga for a while longer. The emulator has been working flawlessly in Windows 7 and I can avoid the payout for a nice Amiga 1200 system, which was going to run upwards of $300 for everything I wanted.

Here's some screenshots of my accomplishments today.