

.......COMMODORE FREE MAGAZINE.......
........Issue 24 October 2008........
........www.commodorefree.com........
......Free to download magazine......
...Dedicated to Commodore Computers..

Available as Text, Html, PDF, SEQ and
   Commodore 64 D64 disk image

Editor
http://www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk

I am sure I mentioned this before but
as it happened again and I think the
comments made prove a point I thought
I would repeat myself.

Recently I was watching an old Doctor
who series on DVD, well ok the dvd was
new but the Doctor who series was from
some time ago, for any Doctor who fans
it was the pilot episode called an
unearthly child nothing unusual there,
I know many Commodore fans are also
SCI-FI fans. My wife came in the room
looked at the Tv and said something
like "how can you watch these old
programmes", they arent even in
colour. I gazed up looked back at the
Tv and though "your absolutely right
its in black and white The point here
is a good program is a good program, I
was so engrossed I didnt notice the
program was in black and white and
this is my point, although long winded
in explanation.

I know games manufacturers have
deadlines and programmers have time
limits etc but I have still to find
anything that I get hooked on as much
as some of the old 8-bit games. I know
some were samey and we can all be
accused of not putting in 100% as I am
sure many readers notice sometimes,
Issues of Commodore Free are rushed,
only scanned quickly for errors.

So what is a good game? What makes a
good program? What makes a good piece
of music? What has all this got to do
with Commodore Free magazine? Well the
answer is "I dont know" I presume if I
knew all these answers I would be a
very rich man. I have had a thought
but dont have the knowledge or
contacts here is the idea and remember
its copyrighted to me so if you make
vast sums of money, you need to send
me commission

IDEA
Design a game on an 8-bit system and
give the game away for free, monitor
the downloads and create a blog for
comments from users, find the best
game ie the game receiving the most
downloads and comments, then license
or convert the game to every and any
other platform and charge the standard
fee, so convert to mobile, playstation
x-box etc. This will ensure its
already a classic and a buzz has been
created for the game, as it was an
8-bit game, the format change to
mobile phone should not present any
problems (although I am not a
programmer so its more of a guess)
Maybe we could recreate the hey day of
programming (to my mind) when people
who were just ordionary people decided
to write games and even start there
own companies, names springing to mind
are Tony Crowther and Jeff Minter

Well thats my thoughts, I think the
main element of a game is the
"gameplay" graphics sound dont matter
to me, heck how many people have
played rolpay games where its just a
dice and a piece of notepaper to
record scores, yep I am guilty to
that, although I cant see it as a
crime, imagination can create any
image you like any sound and it costs
nothing. So where is this leading us.
Well in the words of the tv presenter
this leads us neatly into the news
section of Commodore Free for no real
reason other than its the next page

Thanks
Nigel
======================================

Readers Comments
================

From: Lorenzo Tonanni (in Italy)
Subject: Commodore Free
To: Commodore Free Magazine

Hi,

I'm a C64 & Commodore user from the
70-80's. and I've discovered Commodore
Free magazine. I found the magazine
very interesting! I live in Italy, You
know surely that there are a very
large number of Commodore fans. I
think it would be Wonderful to share
your magazine in other languages, like
Italian for example...Do You think is
a good idea? I can offer my
collaboration in this...

Lorenzo Tonanni
Pisa, Italy


COMMODORE FREE

Lorenzo
I unfortunately only speak English, so
its impossible for me to create
another language version of the
magazine. Also because I only speak
English its impossible for me to check
the content; I wouldnt know if the
translation was accurate,

I would however welcome other versions
of the magazine in different languages
Spanish and German especially. I can
trial an issue if you wish, and see
what feedback comes from users, what
version would you be able to produce a
PDF or text issue?

Many thanks for your comments, you
realise though it is a large amount of
work translating and checking
magazines :-)

Best regards
Nigel
www.commodorefree.com

      ===================
I realise that English may not be
everyones preferred language of choice
but as this is the only language I can
write and speak in (sometimes with
grammatical errors and spelling may
not be to everyone elses standard) If
I had a choice I would prefer someone
to proof read my editing and get
Commodore Free in English to a very
high standard rather then branching
out into multiple languages. I realise
that this isnt possible without other
readers help, and that many readers do
not have the time to devote to
proofreading and its commitments
preferring rather just to read the
magazine, let me say though that
without readers there would be no
point creating a magazine, so even
readers have a valid input to its
creation.

However, as a reader you may like to
send the odd link or news item, that
maybe I missed during the magazine
production, or suggest someone in the
Commodore community for an interview
with.

Back to the language versions,
I know for example many websites are
in existence that translate text sites
into other languages (you will need to
search for these but websites like
bablefish and even Google can
translate text to some extent), this
was the main motivation In producing a
text and later a html version of the
magazine, hoping to obtain more reader
base from international readers, who
dont speak or read English, So If you
feel the commitment to translate
Commodore free into other languages
than feel free to send me an issue and
I will (if web space permits) host
this version of the magazine, lets try
it as a test, although I realise that
it takes a large effort and time
dedication to translate technical text
so I dont expect a great number of
people who will write in.

Also talking about writing in what
happened to all the readers comments,
you guys nothing to say?

Thanks
Commodore Free
======================================

NEWS
=====
64JPX - JoyPad eXpander
for Commodore and Atari compatible
systems

OVERVIEW
64JPX is a small interface designed to
rejuvenate the way with which you play
your favourite games on the Commodore
or Atari system.

Whilst joysticks were all the range in
the 70s and 80s,the 1990s saw a move
towards joypad style controllers with
more buttons and ergonomic feel. 64JPY
not only allows you to safely connect
Sega Genesis/MegaDrive 3 and 6 button
controllers to your retro system, it
enhances game play with a number of
on-the-fly selectable play modes.

64JPX will give your favourite old
games a new lease of life, and may
actually make you play better!

Note: an SNES version of 64JPX is also
under development.

FEATURES
-Simple to use plug-in smart interface

-Safely connect Sega MegaDrive/Genesis
3 and 6 button joypad, and other
controllers
-Enhances game play with a number of
on-the-fly selectable gaming
enhancement modes
-Works out-of-the-box with Commodore,
Atari and other compatible systems

CONNECTIVITY
-Provides diode protection to
Commodore and Atari systems
-Provides signal conversion from Sega
joypads (via adaptors) Provides
connection to other controllers such
as PC Wheels, flight yokes, 8-button
joypads, and more...

ENHANCEMENT MODES (SEGA):
-default: A=fire, B=rapid fire1,
C=rapid fire2
-racing: A=fire, B=up, C=down
-waddle: A=fire, B=waddle1, C=waddle2
-creep: A=fire, B=creep left, C=creep
right

FURTHER INFO
Additional information can be found in
the preliminary user manual which can
be downloaded here
http://www.64hdd.com/64jpx/64jpx.pdf
(PDF format)

64jpx Update
The PCB has gone out for manufacture.
The final PCB ended up being very
similar in size to the prototype
shown.
Now I need to finalise orders for the
parts; the micro being the most
expensive - and so I am hoping to
avoid ending up with a huge stockpile
of them!

Plans are to support a variety of
versions based on feedback. Currently
on the list to offer are:

-Sega only
-Sega/PCanalog combo
-Sega/SNES/NES combo
-SNES/NES enhanced combo

I was surprised by the interest in the
older NES controller since it doesn't
have many extra buttons, but due to
the interest I have decided to support
the controller.

Note: SNES/NES controllers have a
specialised connector. The cheapest
hack is to splice a DB9 connector into
the original controller cable.
Instructions will be supplied for
this, but will require some soldering
skills. eBay has SNES/NES extension
cables for sale. I have a limited
number which I can also provide as
pre-made pin-adaptors on a
first-come-first- served basis.

I will be working on finalising the
software whilst I await the components
from suppliers. Last chance for some
brainstorming if people want extra
enhancement functions!

A dual-ported version worked out to be
more expensive than two individual
interfaces, so has been dropped.

Website has been updated with some
extra pictures.
http://www.64hdd.com/64jpx/

Discount pricing will be given to
those that pre-order by 28 Aug 2008.
The early pre-order information you
supply will help me estimate and
budget for the parts that need to be
purchased.

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

The Aztec C Website
The Aztec C Website has been updated
and now has its own domain:
http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/

The history has been revised and since
Harry Suckow (who holds the
Copyrights) has given permission for
the site the conditions of use have
been revised and clarified. More
updates and complete revamping and
expansion of the site are planned in
the near future, but this update and a
dedicated domain was long overdue. The
site can still be accessed through the
previous links as well, since both
point to the same server. Also getting
theirown domains are:

http://www.appleoldies.ca/ and
http://www.c64classics.ca/

These sites are related to Aztec C in
a big way and will also see major
changes and expansion in the near
future.
Have Fun! Bill Buckels

PS - any of you "Philadephia Lawyers"
who have made uncharitable comments
about the Aztec C site's legitimacy
and my own as well in this effort can
now return to normal programming.

-------------

Programming protection manual
I found a book called "Program
protection manual for the C-64 Volume
I" by TN Simstad. I have two
questions:
- The book mentions a floppy disk. Is
anyone willing to share the D64 of
this with me?
- "Volume I" implies that there is a
volume 2. Can anybody confirm this
and, even better, share a PDF of it
with me?

I wish, but it's unlikely a part 2 was
every written. I remember I read about
this underground pubblication around
1987 in mags when did my first steps
about game cracking and drooled at the
idea of getting a copy of this
"phantom" book. :D Now I found that
contains nothing more than I have
learned by myself, just had to spend
years to collect all these infos ;) On
my turn I'm willing to share the PDF
of this book. was already posted here
and it's hosted there:
http://70.116.30.93:6809/
ppm1.pdf 37.9 MB
ppm1_36.pdf 3.63 MB

---------------

C64 Coding: IRQ Coding Tutorial
C64 Coding: IRQ Coding Tutorial
Using the Monitor feature of "Action
Replay Version 6" Cartridge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-AINpOu
lGs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfkcmBpw
axI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIwqrVT1
guU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cefYKc7
ziU&feature=related

Here is a nice tutorial on how to code
an IRQ (Interrupt Request) for the
Commodore 64
Here is the code copied from the
Program for people without access to
YouTube, and has been documented by
the creator and checked to ensure my
typing was accurate. The Creator has
also added some comments about how to
use action replay and has turned into
a mini tutorial in its own right.

On the you tube video; the tutor loads
a file using action replay fast loader
this is a music PRG file, action
replay reports the memory location of
the file, Here is a note from the You
tube IRQ coding creator "Conrad" who
describes each line of the program

"Conrad"
This is a simple tutorial, taking the
reader through the creation of a
simple IRQ music player. This player
will run under interrupt outside of
BASIC or of any other assembler
programs, leaving your machine free
for other tasks.

Level type: Novice
In this example, we will the use
ACTION REPLAY cartridge (particularly
version 4-6 or you can use the MMC
Replay version) to allow programming
with a quick and dirty monitor and
dissembler.

IMPORTANT NOTE!
Make sure that the music file you use
is NOT a .SID file, but a standard
.PRG file.

1.)  From start-up, Go into FASTLOAD
mode on the Action Replay menu by
pressing (F7).

2.)  Load a music file with the start
at address of $1000 (4096 decimal)
making sure that the init address is
$1000 and the play address is $1003.
To check this, use a decent SID player
on Windows like SidPlay2/w to check
the technical information of the .sid
file.

3.)  When the file is loaded with the
Action Replay fast-loader, it will
display the end address of the file,
you need to keep a note of this
address for use later in this
tutorial.
 
4.)  Open up the monitor by typing the
command "MON" and then press return.
On the first line within monitor mode,
type "A $0F00" and press return, this
will start assembling at the memory
location $0F00

5.)  Enter the following code
(excluding the comments)

SEI   	; Set the interrupt flag,
          disabling interrupts
        ; needs to be done or the 
          cpu will crash during
      	; execution of an IRQ set-up

LDA#$37 ; For this example tutorial, 
          make sure the    
STA$01  ; Kernal is enabled by 
          configuring the mem config 
          register.

LDA#$00 ; Initialise music by loading 
          A with zero (song
JSR$1000; number for most players) and 
          call the address.

LDA#$01 ; Set raster IRQ compare flags
          , needed during
STA$D01A  ; and IRQ execution.
STA$D019  ;

LDA#$7F   ; Set CIA register bits
            to check for IRQ
STA$DC0D  ; interrupt during each
            frame.
LDA$DC0D  ; Latch $DC0D register.

LDA#$0F   ; Set the IRQ vector
            addresses with the address
STA$0315  ; of the interrupt
            execution program. This 
            example is
LDA#$30   ; memory location $0F30.
            $0315 stores the most
STA$0314  ; significant byte, where
            $0314 stores the least.

LDA#$68   ; Set target interrupt 
            raster line. This will    
STA$D012  ; be the raster position
            when an interrupt detected.

LDA#$1B   ; Set gfx mode to text view
            and MSB of raster to
STA$D011  ; zero.

CLI       ; Clear Interrupts

RTS       ; Return from Subroutine
            (back to point of caller)

LDA$D012  ; Check the raster line is
            equal or over the    
CMP$D012  ; target raster line before
            continuing, BNE$0F33 
          ; branching back if not 
            equal. "$0F33" represents
            the jump address.

DEC$D020  ; Decrease border colour 
            by 1
JSR$1003  ; Call music play address
            to play music each frame.

INC$D020  ; Increment border colour
            this will show a change
          ; in the border colour and
            show how many raster lines
            used in the music player

LDA#$01   ; Reset Raster irq flag
            to run another raster      

STA$D019  ; IRQ check at the frame.
 
JMP$EA31  ; Jump to Kernal routine
            that loads registers to     
          ; original states and 
            returns from interrupt.

            
5.)  To get the start address of this
program in decimal, type "N $0F00" to
take note of the decimal output, which
in this case is 3840.

6.)  To save this assembler program,
type the following:
 
.S "IRQ MUSIC PLAYER",8,$0F00,$????

where "$????" equals the end address
of the music you loaded previously.
The program will then be saved to
disk.

7.)  Exit the monitor by typing "X" to
return to basic.

8.)  Type "SYS 3840" to start the
assembly program we have entered. To
stop the IRQ from running, hold
"RUN/STOP" and press "RESTORE".


Spectrum VIC20 Emulator
http://simonowen.com/spectrum/vic20emu/

Features
- Full 65C02 emulation
- Base memory + 3K RAM expansion
- High resolution graphics mode
- Approximate colour mapping to VIC
palette
- 4 channel sound
(bass/alto/soprano/noise)
Mapped keyboard and Kempston
joystick input

The emulator runs at 1/10th the speed
of a real Vic 20 and is actually a
port of the SAM Coup emulator
available from here
http://simonowen.com/sam/vic20emu/

SAM Coup version Vic 20 Emulator
Features
Full 65C02 emulation
Base memory + 3K RAM expansion
High resolution graphics mode
16 colour VIC palette
4 channel sound
(bass/alto/soprano/noise)
Full keyboard and joystick input
Running speed is around 1/7the the
speed of a real machine

------------------------

CCS64 V3.6
http://www.computerbrains.com/ccs64/

CCS64 V3.6 has been released and can
be downloaded from here
http://www.computerbrains.com/ccs64/
The following bug-fixes/enhancements
have been made:

- FIX: To fix an array over-flow error
in the re-implemented
collision-detection routine, which
meant that collisions at the
right-hand side of the emulated screen
were not being detected properly.

- FIX: To re-implement the DirectX
drawing routines, using off-screen
graphical buffering, due to some
graphics drivers being
poorly-implemented, causing low frame
rates to be observed.

- FIX: Corrected the C64 character
display of the D64 image file title.

- FIX: Corrected some minor T64 image
filename display issues.

- ADD: Experimental automatic
detection of joystick ports in use.
(So the user can use the cursor keys
for Joysticks in Port 1 and/or Port 2
and still use the cursor keys normally
in BASIC. Joystick inputs are only
triggered when the C64 program
actively checks for it. Works OK for
most games.)

- ADD: To make the Graphics Filter
option "Scale" work with higher screen
resolutions.

--------------------------

Cloanto Releases Amiga Forever 2008
"RP2",
Announces C64 Forever

Cloanto released this week Amiga
Forever 2008 "RP2", the latest version
of the award-winning Amiga
preservation, emulation and support
suite for Windows and other platforms,
and a first batch of 10 games in the
new RP2 format. Both the RP2 update
and the new games are a free download
for current users.

Amiga Forever 2008, the most
significant release in the Amiga
Forever series, already set new
references in usability while more
than tripling the featured content and
providing easy access to a universe of
free downloads. The "RP2" update (from
RetroPlatform Player, the technology
used by Amiga Forever) adds support
for the new RP2 file format and
content delivery, recognition and
configuration framework.

RP2 is a simple and
standards-compliant wrapper format,
essentially a ZIP archive containing
one or more disk image files and an
XML manifest. Full information is
being shared with download sites and
other partners. Does the emulation
world really need a new format? Well,
RP2 does not aim to replace the
existing disk image files: there will
always be ADFs, etc. Cloanto's project
involving automatic identification of
disk images and automatic
configuration of the emulation system
also remains ongoing, and will soon
flow into RP2. The new format aims to
solve another aspect, i.e. how to
easily download, organize and play
sets of multiple disks, and treat each
game as a single file, just as users
do with MP3s. Today, ZIP archives can
be downloaded from games sites, but
they still won't play automatically.
ADFs might do that (with Amiga Forever
they already do), but this wouldn't
work with games that need more than
one disk image. That's where RP2 aims
to deliver, making playback of an .rp2
Amiga game file as simple as playing
an .mp3 music file: one file, one
game, nothing else to remember or
configure. And users will be free to
rename or reorganize the files, while
existing investment in Amiga disk
images will be preserved by means of
automated conversion options.

Amiga Forever is still far from
perfect, and we know that. Thanks to
the precious support of our customers,
we keep working on other fronts, which
include:

- Merge the current heuristic
configuration logic with the
autoconfiguration library
- Make it possible to create, edit and
share configurations
- Make it easier to add or remove
content from the player lists (Games,
Demos, etc.)
- Improve online search
- New partnerships

The RetroPlatform player and content
framework were designed from the
beginning to be modular and
platform-neutral. The Amiga alone,
while full of memories and passion,
remains a risky "niche" for a software
house. In order to achieve better
stability and growth potential for the
project as a whole, we decided to
support a second platform which we all
love and know well from our past. This
means that Amiga Forever will soon get
a little 8-bit brother (or sister), to
be named C64 Forever. More information
will be released soon at
www.c64forever.com.

Your Amiga Forever Team

LINKS

Amiga Forever Home Page
http://www.amigaforever.com

Screenshots
http://www.amigaforever.com/screenshots
/

Premium Edition Box Shots
http://www.amigaforever.com/tour/af_box
_premium.html

New Features
http://www.amigaforever.com/whatsnew/

Quick Tips for Upgraders
http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/5-121.ht
ml

RP2 Format Information and First 10
Sample Games
http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/5-122.ht
ml

Adding or Removing Content
http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/5-123.ht
ml

Amiga Forever Cataloging Effort
Reaches 10K Milestone
http://www.amigaforever.com/news-events
/20071214cataloging.html

----------------------------
8 Bit Weapons Commodore 64 Remix album
"Confidential 2.0"

5 years in the making, 8 Bit Weapons
Commodore 64 Remix album "Confidential
2.0" is now available with 5 bonus
songs and all tracks completely
Remastered! The album is available as
a digital album in FLAC and MP3 (note
the "whole album" download), but 64
limited edition signed and numbered
copies in a 5.25" disk sleeve are
available too.

Track Listing:
Times of Lore Intro (Remix)
Neuromancer Ending (Warhol Edit)
M.U.L.E. (Bitblaster Mix)
Inspector Gadget (GOGO Mix)*
Crazy Comets (Orbital Decay Mix)
Chimera (Miles Mix)
Spy vs Spy II (Drunk n Basement Mix)
Bards Tale II - Sanctuary Score
(Ybarras Mystic Mix)
Defender of the Crown (Royalty Remix)
Movie Monsters Game (Disco Terror Mix)
I.G.U.S.T.R.A.*
Commodore C64 (Bit Blitz Mix)
Boulder Dash (Dubby Dirt Mix)*
Acidgroove (Orchestral Mix)
Arkanoid (Bonham Beat Mix)*
Mars Saga (MrJetlands Slow Jam Mix)
Defender of the Crown (On the Romance
Tip) *
Times of Lore Title (Epic Hendrix Mix)

* Previously Unreleased
Get your copy here:
http://www.c64audio.com

------------------------

IDE64 Information
On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 4:33 AM,
Ferenc Veres wrote: on the IDE mailing
list

Although it has not been announced on
this list yet!
Josef Soucek attended the Hungarian
8bit meeting (Arok Party) last
weekend, he and Soci presented the new
IDE64 V4.1 card and sold a small
amount on the party. The IDE64 has a
Clock Port, where you can connect an
MP3 player and an Ethernet card from
the Retro Replay cartridge, which has
the same clock port.

The IDE64 has a USB connector and
ideserv already supports pclink
transfer over this Usb connection. the
Ide64 has 128kb Flash memory. Soci
said, he will start using this feature
when he has more time for developing
the IDE DOS. I am not sure what will
happen to 64KB Flash owners, I hope
there will be some support. (I asked
after the presentation, but the answer
was uncertain.) It's Version 4.1
anyway, not V4. That version number
was skipped.:-)

We need to ask Josef about who will
sell the device and when, But I did
see the card in action and it worked
at the officially presentation of the
Arok. party:-)

http://www.ide64.org/ide64v41.html

Regards,Lion

IDE64 V4.1
Four years after the IDE64 V3.4 was
release, the IDE64 Project staff comes
up with a new IDE64 device.
IDE64 V4.1 is the long awaited
successor to the IDE64 V3.4 built
using present-day technology.

The new IDE64 can be used with the
variety of up-to-date or archaic
devices, this makes the IDE64 V4.1 the
most versatile peripheral device for
Commodore 64. The device supports Hard
Disks, CDROMs, DVDs, ZiP drive,
LS-120, CompactFlash (CF) and more.
Contrary to the successor that
supported only 2 devices, the IDE64
can serve three devices in the same
time. When used with CF, IDE64 doesn't
need any additional power supply, CF
has a low power consumption (including
IDE64 approx. 140mA). And Of course
the IDE64 can be used with standard
ATA hard disk drives or CD/DVD ROMs
together with a CF or without CF
option.

Short information about IDE64 history
and presen
First IDE64 controller V1.1 this was
publicly available in December 1997,
but development process goes back to
1994 when the first experiments began.
Until now there have been four major
updates. Together with the hardware,
operating system and utilities
contained in the cards the 'firmware'
has been continually developed.
Firmware updates are released freely
and users are able to update the card
and take the benefits of new features
and bug fixes. Beside the IDE64 native
and DOS file system support the IDE64
contains a freezer function and a
Machine Code Monitor and the stunning
File Manager application.

The current IDE64-DOS V.90 is very
mature, completely reworked from
scratch and offers many new features
including support of partitions,
relative files, large capacity media
and together with the redesigned IDE64
architecture offers incredible speed,
as an a example this enables users to
stream hi-resolution video at the 25
fps! See 'Rush'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knZyPXce
lYM
created by Singular Crew for
Console/Real Wild compo at Breakpoint
2008.

The IDE64 is compatible with
alternative operating systems, GEOS
and WiNGS the same as hardware
SuperCPU and RAMLink. For real-time
data interchanging between C64 (IDE64)
and PC, IDE64 offers built-in USB 1.1
/ USB 2.0 PC-Link system. Additional
peripherals can be connected to IDE64
using the IDE64 proprietary ShortBUS
or 'Amiga Clock Port'. DUART -
industrial designed dual port RS-232
card and 10Mbit Ethernet card ETH64
(Contiki drivers are available) and
much more.

More info on the IDE64 page soon.
http://www.ide64.org/

====================================
 
Raymond Computer...
http://www.raymondcomputer.com

The Store
Raymond Computer began in the mid
1980s as Jack's Computer Shack in
Spring Lake Park, MN. After several
years of operation there the store was
moved to a location on Johnson St. in
N.E. Minneapolis, MN. In the early
1990s the store was moved to its first
location at 898 Raymond Ave. in St.
Paul, MN. Not long after the move Jack
Turner, the original owner, sold the
store to Ray Bryan, the current owner.
In 1995 the opportunity arose to move
to the store's current location at 795
Raymond Avenue.

During its entire existence the store
has supported Commodore and Amiga
computers and continues to do so
today. In the process of doing
business today we have expanded into
service of both DOS based PCs and the
Macintosh computers. We also will do
training in computer skills in both a
one-on-one and group settings.

Our Staff

Ray Bryan, Owner
Ray collected most of his electronics
training from the U.S. Navy, but
admits to periods of destructive
experimentation on various old
electronic items that came his way
during his early youth. Guess you
could call it the hands-on part of his
training. Ray has been a long time
Commodore user from the mid 1980s on.
Ray gained a huge part of his
practical Commodore experience through
creating several computer installation
art pieces culminating in one
interactive, inter-media installation
art piece he created
_The_Dao_and_Zen_of_Metal_Art_
and_Computer_Music_ shown at Wilensky
Arts in 1991. Ray is a past Vice
President of the Minnesota Commodore
Users Association (MCUA) and is
currently a member of the Twin Cities
A.M.I.G.A. User Group.

Jack Sheldon, Service
Jack has been involved in electronics
for almost 50 years. Jack worked for
over twenty years at Control Data as a
test tech and in manufacturing. In his
early years he worked in both
commercial television and broadcast
radio, helping build KNXR FM Stereo in
Rochester, MN. Currently Jack works
for the St.Paul Public Schools as a
computer technician as well as the
Service Department at Raymond
Computer. Jack is a past co-chair of
the Twin Cities Osborne Computer Group
(TCOG). First licensed in the mid
1950s as K0PSI, Jack now holds the
call KB0QIK and enjoys poking around
on both 2 meters and 70cm. You can
often find him on the 3M 2 meter
repeater.

Others, Who Support Us
We Must take a minute to thank both of
our families who have made it possible
for us to keep Raymond Computer moving
forward. They also have served when
drafted for that special project when
we have needed them. We also need to
thank the many members of our Raymond
Computer extended family who have
given of their time and experience
when we have needed them. Without you
all we would not be here!

RAYMOND COMPUTER
Raymond Commodore Amiga
795 Raymond Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55114
(651) 642 9890 voice
(651) 642 9891 fax

Raymond Computer is a full service
computer store specializing in sales
and service of both the Commodore and
Amiga computers. Raymond Computer
store also provide software that is
new, used, and consignment for the
Commodore and Amiga computers. We can
also special order items that might
not have in stock. Special orders
generally take 5-8 days provided our
supplier has the item(s) you want in
there stock.

How To Find Us...
The Easiest Way -
If you know where the original KEY's
Restaurant on Raymond Ave. is located
we are 8 or 9 doors north of them. If
not, then read on below to find your
way to the store.


If You're Coming From The North -
Take I35W South to where it joins with
Hwy 36 and Hwy 280. Take Hwy 280 South
looking for the exit for Territorial
Road and University Ave. Take this
exit; when you reach the top of the
ramp you will be at Territorial Road
at the West end of the bridge over Hwy
280. Take a left on to Territorial
Road and drive East 2 blocks to the
stoplight. This is Raymond Ave.
crossing at right angles to you. Turn
right. We are the third door from the
corner at 795 Raymond Ave.. There is
parking behind our building reached by
a driveway along the South side of our
building. Park along the fence.

If You're Coming From The East -
Take I94 West as though you were
heading for Minneapolis. After you
pass under Snelling Ave. start
watching for the Cretin-Vandalia exit.
Take the Cretin-Vandalia exit and at
the stop at the top of the ramp turn
right and go North to University Ave.
Turn left on University and drive West
to Raymond Ave. There is a First Bank
on the corner of Raymond. Turn right
on Raymond Ave. and drive North toward
the first stoplight. We are 3 doors
South of the light on your left at 795
Raymond. There is parking behind our
building reached by a driveway along
the South side of our building. Park
along the fence.

If You Are Coming From The South -
There are two ways to reach us from
the South. If you are coming from the
South up I35E come North to I94 and
get on I94 headed West then follow the
directions for coming from the East.

If you are coming from the South up
I35W come North to I94 and get on I94
headed West then follow the directions
for coming from the West.

If You Are Coming From The West -
Get to I94 and head East. You'll come
past the U of M exits and cross the
Mississippi River and the next exit is
for HWY 280 and you want to take it.
BTW - It exits from the left lane so
you want to be sure to move over. So,
take the Hwy 280 exit and watch for
the exit for University Ave. and
Territorial Rd. Take this exit. You'll
come to the first stoplight which is
Franklin Ave. Straight ahead one block
North is a second light which is
University Ave. Go straight North
through both lights and you will come
to a stop sign. This is Territorial
Road. Turn right and go to the first
stoplight. This is Raymond Ave. Turn
right, we are 3 doors South of the
light at 795 Raymond Ave. There is
parking behind our building reached by
a driveway along the South side of our
building. Park along the fence.

We accept payment by Visa, Master
Card, Discover, BidPay or PayPAL. If
you see something on this site that
you want to buy please contact us
before you go to PayPal (phone, fax or
email raycomp@visi.com).
Store Hours:

Sun. - Closed
Mon. - Closed
Tue. - 12 Noon to 6:00pm
Wed. - 12 Noon to 8:00pm
Thu. - 12 Noon to 6:00pm
Fri. - 12 Noon to 8:00pm
Sat. - 12 Noon to 6:00pm

NOTE: All times are CST or CDT

=====================================
 
Interview with Raymond Bryan
Owner of Raymond computer store
http://www.raymondcomputer.com

Commodore free
Please introduce yourself to our
Readers

Ray Bryan of Raymond Commodore Amiga
formerly 795 Raymond Ave now at (as of
1 September 2008) 2402 University
Avenue, Suite #405; Saint Paul, MN
55114  http://www.raymondcomputer.com

CF. Can you explain some of the
services you sell for Commodore users?

RB. I have Commodore (and Amiga)
software and hardware for sale (some
of it hard to find items - a lot of
the common items as well); I have been
servicing old Commodore (and Amiga)
hardware for 15 years since buying the
store from Jack Turner of Jack's
Computer Shack.

CF. What machines do you support and
do you support machines other than
Commodore?

RB. I have a number of PET machines
but I do not do much fixing of these.
I have and can service Vic 20s, C64s,
SX64s, C64c, Plus/4 and C128/C128D. I
also have a few C16s and a stash of
chips for the C16 & Plus/4. I still
have many of the chips for the C64 (no
SIDs and no PAL chips that I know of)
and chips some for the C128.

CF. This is a store our reader could
walk into and purchase items as well
as over the internet?

RB..It has been a store-front store up
to now but economic down times have
necessitated moving into a warehouse
space where I am trying to decide if
it is viable to still maintain support
for walk-ins. I guess responses from
Commodore users will be the deciding
factor. I have listings of many (not
all) of the items in store inventory
on the web page
http://www.raymondcomputer.com.

CF.  Are the items new second-hand or
a mixture of the two?

RB.. There are still some new items of
software and a few of hardware but
naturally many more items are
second-hand.

CF. Do you make a living out of this
company or do you run the service as a
part time job?

RB. The store is my only source of
income but the profit centre for the
past several years is in service work
especially out-call services on site
and for the evil-machines; sometimes I
get to fix Unix or Macs in the
site-calls however much of the work is
printers (laser, thermal, transfer,
colour, all-in-one, faxes & inkjet
only in plotters) and I am as a last
resort call for a number of businesses
with older impact/line printers - a
speciality picked up from the
Commodore and compatible 3rd party
impact printers.

CF. Can you give our reader a brief
history of the store, how you started
what motivated you etc?

RB. Mr. Jack Turner started the store
(part-time) in a part of the Commodore
repair business of Frank Gerard in
Spring Lake Park, MN in about 1986. I
met Mr. Turner shortly after that
while trying to use my Commodore 128
in computer controlled installation
art sculptures. In March 1993, Mr.
Turner was ready to leave the business
and I was ready for a new challenge.
So we came to terms agreeable to both
parties and Jack's Computer Shack then
at 898 Raymond became Raymond
Commodore Amiga. In 1995, I moved the
store to 795 Raymond Ave a larger
space that gave more room to work on
computers, but a lot more space to
display Commodore/Amiga software and
hardware.

CF. Where are you located, and could
users from other counties contact you
about repairs or purchases of hardware
and software?

RB. The store is in St. Paul,
Minnesota about 2 miles south of half
way from the equator to the North Pole
and about a mile north of the river
that divides the continent of North
America into East and West. The bit of
Minneapolis that is north of the
Mississippi River is only a half mile
to the west of the shop. I am often in
contact with Commodore users from
other parts of the world. I cannot do
much to help that one guy who keeps
trying to do things to his
Commodores/Pets at the South Pole
(winter there lasts 'til nearly
January and he is cut off all winter).
But I do what I can to meet the needs
of the Commodore users in OZ, Canada
and Europe. I have not heard from any
one needing Commodore help in Africa,
Central or South America for some
years now.

CF. If a reader had items for sale
would you be interested in purchasing
them for resale?

RB. I don't know what to say to that
at this economic moment.

CF. How has the market changed over
the years?

RB. When I first got my shop the
Commodore market was lively and sales
were the largest share of the business
with Commodore repairs coming next. It
seemed millions of people were getting
their first experience with computers
by using Commodores. Now, there are
dedicated Commodore users who have
stuck with (and pushed the envelope
of) these machines and joining those
are collectors and people who grew up
with a Commodore but now make their
living in the evil-machines-land, yet
want to relax by returning to the
first love for playing games or
writing 8 bit code just for fun.

CF. So Is there still a big demand for
Commodore items? 

RB. If there were a big demand for
Commodore items my shop would not be
the only one between Michigan and Salt
Lake City.

CF. Has Auction sites like EBay taken
business from you, or do you feel
these have added to your business
survival?

RB. I do not know. I did a lot of eBay
as a survival technique from the late
'90s to early '00s but eBay just plain
smurfs and hardly anyone has yet
picked up on Amibay since it started
last fall.

CF. Do you have an EBay or similar
auction site account?

RB. I have an eBay account but have
not held any auctions for about 4
years now. As I said I have things on
my own web site and am moving toward
offering items on Amibay.

CF. What items you can repair, could
you provide some common examples for
our readers to get an idea of price

RB. Let me say it this way, I cannot
repair switch mode power supplies
(C128d, Amiga) and there have been
some other hardware problems from time
to time that have defeated my efforts
to fix (some C128d and Amiga 4000
motherboard/accelerator troubles). I
am not adept at or knowledgeable about
PET or KIM repairs but have fixed
almost every other US Commodore
hardware that has come along after the
Vic20 excluding the MS-DOS ones. I do
give my best effort on every repair. A
lot of times now, I have to give the
Commodores a lower priority because
the evil-machine types are so
demanding and those machines are so
_totally_ fouled-up. As an aside, I
did fix an electric violin yesterday
with no schematic to guide the trouble
shooting or repair, analogue repairs
like that hark back to my days fixing
radar and radios in the navy '65-'69.

CF. Were you a Commodore credited
repair centre?

RB. Yes, until the 1994 bankruptcy
(and I learned a lot from the repair
centre guru Mr. Frank Gerard). I have
accumulated many of the repair manuals
and related technology from some other
authorized repair facilities around
this area as they shifted their focus
of or dissolved their businesses.

CF. I have seen some pictures of the
store on the internet I guess doing an
inventory of stock would be a long
process, how do you keep a record of
all the items?

RB. I do not have time to try to keep
an inventory. When one was done (and
that was not even complete) it was
largely by willing teenagers who just
wanted to be a part of the whole
Commodore milieu. Mr. Turner keeps
threatening to come back as a
volunteer to take inventory of all the
hardware and software I have in the
storage areas but I think he is not
really thinking about this
realistically since there is so much
more inventory than he knows about.

CF. Do you sell the Amiga One, and if
so how big a demand are you seeing?

RB. I did when I could get them. Bill
McEwen said last fall that he was
trying to make some more. But, I did
not have a big demand for them here, I
sold a half dozen but have had only a
small number of requests since those
sold out.

CF. Do you see a big uptake of Amiga
OS 4

RB. No, not here.

CF.Would you like to Comment on the
current state of "the Amiga"

RB. I think "quiet" is the national
motto for the State of Amiga.

CF. Do you think "Jeri Ellsworth"
promoted the Commodore brand and was
this promotion short lived

RB. Well, there was quite a buzz over
the C1 but I do not think the sales of
those machines was very large, however
the Commodore DTV took off for a short
time.

CF.Did you see a big uptake of the
Commodore 64 DTV hardware then?

RB.I only had about 20 to sell but
soon sold out.

CF. How long do you think the store
can survive?

RB. Only so long as demand for the
products and services continue.

CF. Do you have any other comments you
would like to add or to further
promote your services?

RB. I would like to train some others
how to repair these devices before the
knowledge becomes lost. I mean real
"hands on" not just theoretical
knowledge that gets posted to some
/pub/commodore site on the 'net.
De-soldering takes practice and really
well done soldering technique is an
art-craft but troubleshooting is a
state of consciousness, a mental
practice acquired/achieved like
following the lama.

--Ray Bryan

---------------------------------------

Raymond C. Bryan 651-642-9890 vox----
Raymond Computer 651-642-9891 fax----
2402 Univsity Ave  -email: raycomp---
St Paul MN 55114  _at_visi_dot_com---
USA       Amiga - Commodore----------

The battle is sometimes to the small
for the bigger they are the harder they
fall.
 -- James Thurber -- 
---------------------------------------

  http://www.raymondcomputer.com

-=====================================

In the Beginning Chaper 9, 
Lord Ronin from Q-Link

 Back again and into those pesky pokes
and peeks. We did do some of that
already, when we typed poke53280,x
where x is a number between 0-15, this
command Changed the colour of the
screen border. That is a poke, and one
of the first ones you learn. Now I
know that it looks like there are at
the least 53,280 poke places when you
look at the number. Besides what does
each one of them do exactly? Well
those are two questions that I as a
beginner have asked, and not yet found
the book(s) to answer them.

 Keeping that in mind, lets not let
the lack of information dampen our
spirits. Take it as there is a lot one
can learn about the C=. Our next
programme may bum you out when you run
it, I know it did that to me the first
few times I entered it. I will explain
the what and why afterwards just type
in this program as shown.

new

10 forba=0to15
20 forbo=0to15
30 poke53280,ba
40 poke53281,bo
50 forx=1to2000:nextx
60 nextbo:nextba

 Run this and you will have the screen
and border change colour, you may
think you entered the programme
listing incorrectly, the screen
changes colour. But what about the
border colour as it Seems to stay the
same. That is what many of the members
of the user group thought over the
years. To tell the truth so did I for
a time, that is until I tried to tear
apart the programme and find out what
was happening. To save you the
frustration it is in line 60, you need
to read that line a few times
remembering how the next command works
in a for next loop. Have you seen it
yet? 

Well I didn't for a time. What happens
here is that the for that comes first
that is the one for the BA variable,
will do its thing starting at line 10.
OK got that part. Now see line 60 here
BA is going to do its thing until the
set amount, then go back in 10 with
the 0 to15 part. Right the screen
changes 16 times before the border
will change or the other way round,
depending what you put in first. I did
it both ways. In line 10 and in line
60. Mess with the placement of the BA
& BO variable and you will see what I
mean.

I think We have played enough with the
FOR NEXT loop to catch most of the
lines in some form. Line 50 is the
delay. Right I know your question now.
"2000 what?" for the delay. Can't tell
you for rock certain, but I have been
told by most people that it is a
"jiffy"; No that isn't a silly term.
Actually it is a unit of measurement
for time, here a jiffy is 1/60th of a
second. PAL users have a different one
or so I have been told. Simple
electronics here. Current/Voltage what
ever term works best for you. Changes
from a + to a - <seen on an
oscciloscope> 60 times a second. This
is called the line frequency and is
used a lot in crystals in circuits,
for timing and other things I have
long forgotten. OK that is more than
enough on that part. Just want you to
see the relationship there with the
jiffy being 1/60th of a second. Unless
what I was told was wrong.

 With a little experimenting you can
shorten those lines down and make the
programme run faster. You can also fix
it to have the border and the screen
flash at about the same time. Probably
you can guess that to make it run
faster, all you need to do is change
that delay in line 50. Now how to make
both border and screen flash at the
same time? Not gonna tell ya <EG> But
I'll give you some hints. Make just
one FOR variable for the value 0 to
15. Put the two poke codes on the same
line with the : symbol between them
and use the same variable. I'll let
you play around with this and see what
you can make.

 All Right! Been bugged enough to drop
back a session and tell you how to
find those 8 other colours for that
colour bar. Simply use the command
PRINTASC("X"). X here will be you
typing in the C= key and one of the
number keys. Press return and it will
tell you the code number. That is what
you use for the rest of the lines in
that colour bar programme. User Group
members and Girl Friends can be such a
pain in the Tucus. <G>

 Back to that programme. Add the
following line.

25 ?chr$(147);"border
=";peek(53280)and15, "background =
";peek(53281)and15

Fits on about 1.8 lines of your
screen, shorter if you use more
shortcut codes. What happens here is
the screen clears and at the top will
be the words "border and background".
Then after the = symbol, you will see
the colour number from 0 to 15 for
each one (border or screen). Tip, if
you play with this programme and have
short end it up a bit. Make certain to
have this programme line happen after
the poke codes. If not you stand a
chance of being one number off, this
happened to the students and to me in
the process of our learning.

 Now we enter a new bit and this one
is more complicated. Personally I
think its made to have you ask more
questions than it gives, while trying
to make you more interested in
programming. This trick may have
worked in the 80s. These days, the
lack of in depth information, has
turned some people off. Being
frustrated with no more information.
You may see what I mean at this point.

Screen Graphics, doesn't mean what you
may expect it to mean, at least at
this level. Remember this is from the
users book that came with the C=64,
short and allegedly simple, only three
short paragraphs. The book talks about
how we have placed characters on the
screen using the PRINT command, all
printing has been sequential. The book
speaks about moving to a specific spot
on the screen using print and cursor
commands. We haven't done that much.
Oh we did do that one to make the
bouncing ball go down a certain number
of lines. Most people at the beginning
level of programming, like me, use
cursor commands to move to a specific
point on the screen. I have copied
type in books that do the same thing.

 What that would look like in a type
in book would be something on the
lines of PRINT"(cursor down 10)";
"(cursor right 5)". Taking the
starting point of what you are doing
down 10 rows and over 5 columns. What
you type in the computer would be 10
times pressing the cursor down key.
Getting the symbol on the screen each
time. Then 5 presses of the right
cursor key, also getting the right
symbol on screen. Right there we have
15 key strokes on a programming line.
There has got to be a better way? I
mean this is long and takes up
programming space. The book says just
about the same thing.

 All is not lost; there are locations
in the computer memory to control
locations where to place text on
screen. Just as there is for colour
work.

There are 1000 areas on the screen, A
screen is 40 columns across by 25 rows
down. I can't make the little grid map
here for you in text but suffice to
say that it is 40 wide and 25 tall;
making 1000 squares in total on the
grid. Graph paper and lining this out
may be of a help to you as a visual
aid. OK here is something that you may
be shocked about. Each one of these
1000 locations can hold a number, a
number between the value of 0 and 255.
Yeah that means you have a choice of
256 numbers for each of the 1000 grid
areas on the screen, it all becomes a
bit mind boggling at this point. <G>

 The way to place things on screen at
this at this stage is with the good
old POKE command. Putting the number
for what ever you decided upon, onto a
specific area of the screen.

 However we have to now deal with some
new numbers. These numbers are the
Screen Memory Map. Being the locations
on the screen to poke things into and
therefore onto the screen. Top left
corner. Being row 0 and column 0 is
location 1024, the bottom row last
column, Or the bottom right end of the
screen is location 2023. Now you can
use the grid map and mark out the
rows. Ah row 0 is 1024 row 24 <the
last row, or 25 if you counted
starting with 1 instead of 0> Starts
out at 1984. Column 0 is the top left.
Top right is column 39. For those that
want to make their own grid chart. I
did this because the one in the book
is too small for my ancient eyes. <G>

 Well of course you can count the grid
squares and find the right screen
memory location, or you could be lazy
and use a simple formula. I'm lazy
these days.

 POINT =1024 + X + 40*Y

 Freaky right? OK it was for me the
first several times that I went
through this part of the book. Didn't
have anyone to talk me through the
entire book.

Tearing this apart from the beginning.
POINT simply means the location on the
screen for what you are putting there,
<gotta work on the grammar>. End
result is going to be a number between
the 1024 start and the 2023 end, block
of numbers. Being the place to insert,
what ever it is you are inserting.
Yeah that was worded better. <G>

 1024 is the start number, being the
one that is at the top left of the
grid. Makes that the base number to
add the rest of the stuff to for the
location.

 X is the column, lets use the one
from the book, they give 20 for the
column.

 Y is the row, and from the book that
is 12.

 Formula would then read...

POINT = 1024 + 20 + 40*12

 OK the book doesn't do that stage and
that did throw off several of my
members over the years. Putting it in
here to keep things linear. This would
then read...

POINT = 1024 +20 + 480

 Finally POINT = 1524, that is the
point on the screen at the junction of
column 20 and row 12. As listed for
the Screen Memory Map.

 Catch your breath after that bit, we
have some more to do, and it isn't in
my opinion giving enough time to go
trough the above.

 Next thing the book wants you to do
is type in ...

poke 1524,81
poke 55796,1

 Got the idea that poke is putting
something into the computer memory
location. From that previous formula
You can see that the 1524 is the
answer to that formula above with the
column of 20 and the row of 12. Guess
you have seen enough of the previous
sections to see that the 81 thing is
what is going into that 1524 area.

55796 is a new thing that is sprung on
you. Sure you know that the 1 thing is
what is going in that area. What is
55796? Out of the range of the Screen
Memory Map so can't be a location, in
that range.

 Saying that you haven't typed that
stuff in as of yet. So you aren't
aware of what the screen does, when
this is completed. I want to point out
that from the colour work we have done
for the screen and the background poke
codes. That you might see the number
above as being close to the poke codes
for the colour location of the border
and screen.

 That isn't correct, but it is close.
The next section of the book is on the
COLOUR MEMORY MAP. They just have you
type the above in to place a ball.
Which is the 81 code and is also the
shifted Q. Why they have you type the
stuff in, will have the ball show up
in close to the centre of the screen.
The next poke will turn that to a
white ball. If that didn't happen
check your type work, see if you are
in the upper case, if the symbol isn't
right. If the colour didn't change,
first thing is to check is if you
typed everything right. Yeah I say
that a lot and am guilty of that in my
typing in of programmes, and more
times than I want to admit. But if it
is correct and the ball didn't change
to white, don't fret, where you in
white text colour in the first place?
I mean was that the last colour that
you were using on the screen? Sounds
silly, but it has happened in the
group.

 Change that 1 to a 2 in the poke that
did the colour. Right the 55796,1
becomes a 55796,2. now the ball
changes to red. Play around a bit with
the colours and with the symbols. Try
different numbers. Changing that ,81
to what ever you like from 0-255. Some
will work as one of the symbols. 32
and 96 are the space command. Right
the one for the spacebar. Oh yeah feel
free, all you space fans to make jokes
about the space BAR. [VBG]


 Tip for you here, you will see that
after 127. Things start showing up in
reverse video. If you know the code
for a symbol, just add 128 to that
code number and it will be in reverse
video.

 Two areas are used in the computer
memory. For creating the symbol and
the colour on the screen. Meaning that
a block of memory from 1024 to 2023 is
for the screen. Colour is from 55296
to 56295. Yuppers another block of
memory for the colour that appears on
the screen.

 In the above poke stuff to place the
ball on the screen and to change the
balls colour. Two poke codes where
used. One to place the ball and the
other to place the colour for the ball
in the right place.

 Saying that in a couple of ways. You
can guess that there is probably
another 1000 square grid map. Right,
there is and the top left part starts
at 55296, and at the bottom right ends
at 56295. Before I go farther, it
should be stated that these areas, the
blocks of numbers can be called memory
locations. There are books that have
what is called the memory maps in
them, where you can see more about the
locations, including some ideas of
what is in there and what can be done
with those areas. This is something
that I am not skilled in, or
understand. I know that it is
important in Basic and it is important
in the Machine Language <ML> form of
programming. We aren't going there in
this series. Just wanted to give you a
heads up on this, as you may be
interested in going farther in
programming than Basic and this little
personal look at the users manual.

 Feel free to make a grid for the
Colour Memory Map. Same as what we
talked about for the Screen one.
Numbers on the left hand side of the
map. Going down the rows, starts at
row 0 and ending at row 24. Goes like
this, start is 55296 for row 0 column
0. Row 24 column 0 is 56256. Row 0
column 39 is 55335. Spending some time
with these coordinates. You can make
the grid map. Naturally there is the
lazy way to figure out where you want
to put the colour on the screen. Yeah
I am still lazy. <VBG>

COLOUR POINT = 55296 + X +40*Y

 Sure looks familiar doesn't it? <G>
the only change is that of the
starting point number. Matching the
top left corner of the colour memory
map grid. So yeah if you retro fit
that above poke thing to put the
colour into column 20 and row 12 it
would look like...

COLOUR POINT = 55296 + 20 + 40*12
COLOUR POINT = 55296 + 20 + 480
COLOUR POINT = 55796

 Poke that in and add the colour of
0-15 spectrum and you have coloured
the character you put at that memory
location. Might seem that this is a
bit of work. At this point it is for
us. Gets better with time and other
things. OK I doubt that with some
tools you can use for making
programmes. Well you may not be doing
this form of math out all the time if
at all. Just see how much hands on
control of things you have with your
ideas for your programmes!

 So then let us clear the screen and
prepare for typing in another
programme. I'm modifying this one for
us. Just a little colour change from
what the book says. Personal taste
here and you should feel free to alter
the colours to it what looks the best
to you. We will be putting in a symbol
here as well, for screen display,
again feel free to alter that to
something else.

 new

10 ?"<shift clear/home>"
20 pO53280,0:pO53281,0
30 x=1:y=1
40 dx=1:dy=1
50 pO1024+x+40*y,81
60 fort=1to10:next
70 pO1024+x+40*y,32
80 x=x+dx
90 ifx<=0orx>=39thendx=-dx
100 y=y+dy
110 ify<=0ory>=24thendy=-dy
120 goto50

 Done most of this already in
different forms, still let us go over
the lines. If you haven't run this
programme yet, this is another
bouncing ball programme. This one
though is different; this version
bounces the ball all over the screen,
being redirected as the ball hits the
border. Sort of like a pool ball.
Which causes me to remember that there
are pool games and pinball games for
the C=. This little thing you typed in
is a far cry from that level of
programming. Still though it is the
same sort of principal and shows you
some animation.

 Line 10 is easy to understand. In
fact the book wants you to type it in
that way. I didn't alter that line
from the chr$(147). They didn't use
that command in this one.

 Line 20 is also easy to understand
after what we have done. Changes the
screen and border colour. OK I did the
short hand code for the poke command.
Also I changed the colours to make the
screen and the border black. Book
colours are 7 for the border and 13
for the screen. Light green screen and
a yellow border.

 Line 30 is a variable set up. Set
here to keep track of the row and
column position of the ball.

Line 40. DX & DY are variables; they
are also the horizontal and vertical
directions of the balls movements. Hey
don't worry if that doesn't sink into
your mind at this time, it doesnt for
me either. Exactly how that works,
point for point is magic to me.

Line 50 is recently familiar. Note
that it is the poke code and formula
to put the ball character onto the
screen. A few things to see here. See
that ,81 part at the far end of the
line. Remembering that previous thing
about putting the ball on the screen?
That was the ,81 remember? Note though
that the formula is the same frelling
thing as this programme line, meaning
that you don't have to figure out the
numbers for the screen placement, this
line does that for you. Using the
existing variables for X and Y. But
see that the 1024 is at the start as
its in the formula. Well when you run
this programme. You will see that the
ball starts out at the top left of the
screen. Goes to the bottom right and
bounces around the screen.

 At line 60 there is the for next
loop, producing a short time delay.
Here is something to notice. Remember
that 2000 we had in the screen and
border change? Here it is a delay of
10. Obviously a much shorter delay.
Here is a lesson not discussed in the
book. Setting the delay for your
programme. Can't really help you on
this part. I can Only say that you may
need to adjust the time delay to fit
yourself and other people. If you find
this 1 to10 one a bit too flickery of
the image of the ball. Try adding to
the number or shortening it to a
smaller value.

Looking at Line 70 we see the same
smegging screen point formula. Again
it is doing all the work for you in
the placement of the ball on the
screen. Except you see that ,32 at the
end. Above I stated in the part where
you where playing with the numbers for
different symbols. Said there that
this 32 was one of the two numbers for
the space. So then what is happening
here is that the formula isn't putting
the ball on the screen. In fact it is
doing the opposite. Erasing the ball
from the screen. REM this line and see
what the programme does <VBG>.

 Next is Line 80 and this line is
adding a direction factor to the X
<vertical>. Taking us to line 90. You
can see that this is an IF THEN
statement. By a simple look the
numbers are 0 and 39 in this line. Hmm
that happens to be the designation
numbers of the 40 columns or the X
factor in this programme. As you see
if X is less than or equal to 0, the
left hand side of the screen. Or it is
greater than or equal to 39, the right
hand side of the screen. That value of
DX suddenly becomes negative with the
value of -DX. Or better said, that
makes the ball bounce off of the sides
of the screen.

 Next line is line100 and that looks a
bit like line 80. Hey line 110 looks a
bit like line 90. Save for the fact
that this is the Y part. Or the top
and bottom of the screen. Making the
ball bounce. You can bugger this up a
bit by altering the DX and the DY.
Tell you that one member made a
mistype and that made the ball just go
back and forth on the 0 row.

 Well that looks real nice, and it is
an amazing thing to do when you type
it in the first time. Remember that
you did this yourself. This is your
creation. Alter it a bit with a symbol
of your choice. Personally I used the
"\" symbol for the ball.

 Not finished with this one yet. Here
are some lines to add to the
programme.

21 forL=1to10
25 pO1024+int(rnd(1)*1000),166
27 nextL
85 ifpeek(1024+x+40*y)=166thendx=-dx
100ifpeek(1024+x+40*y)=166thendy=-dy

 This does a what? Some of it looks
familiar; some of it looks real
familiar.

First new is a stock for part of a for
next loop. Here I intentionally used
the upper case L as one of the
problems in typing things in from a
book is the confusion of a 1 and a l.
Ok and 0 vs. O as well. Type face or
more commonly they are called fonts.
Are confusing in the books. As it just
don't look like what is on the screen
in the C= font.

Saying that we see that there is only
10 things. We see also that the NEXT
part of this loop is in line 27. So
then what ever happens in that line 25
is done 10 times. As we know it is
going to loop between these lines till
all 10 things are done.

Line 25 sort of looks like the thing
that puts the symbol on the screen. At
least it starts out that way. But we
are then tossed into a different form
of a random number generator and there
are 1000 things? This is what is
happening on this line. Each time it
is run, and that is 10 times from the
for-next loop. One location out of the
1000 possible locations is going to be
generated and is going to be added to
the base number of 1024. Meaning that
this is a line to create something on
the screen at purely random locations.
At the end of the line is that ,166
code. That is the symbol. Ok this
means that the programme will go 10
times through this for next loop.
Generating a screen location and
putting in that location the symbol
for 166. IIRC that is the reverse
video & symbol. I change it each time
I play with the programme. Looks
better if it is the reverse video.
Remember about adding 128 to the code
number to get the reverse video of the
character.

 On the screen will be these 10
symbols. OK so that is nice and what
will that mean? Take a look at line 85
and then at line 105. Look a bit
familiar from a couple of lines in
this programme already? Right, the
difference is the 166 code number. If
this line works like the ones for the
four sides of the screen, then this
must look for that code numbered
symbol on the screen as well, and it
will do the same thing. As you see by
the fact the variable becomes a
negative number. Run it and you have
10 obstacles on the screen, that will
make the ball bounce off of the sides
of the screen and off of these
symbols. Play around with the symbols
and the number of obstacles to see
what you can create. Don't worry about
the colour at this time. If you think
you can figure out how to make the
colour of the ball different from the
obstacles then feel free to give it a
shot. Not really needed at this time.
Good experimentation though.

 Next we move into sprites and a lot
of difficulty in trying to paint a
word picture of what is going on.

 The reason for that statement is
simply that there are some graph
charts in the book. These charts are
drawn in a way that I am not at the
least bit certain I can recreate them
in my word writing programme. I'll
give it my best shot. Hopefully I can
illustrate with words, what I can't
illustrate with the graphics.

 Good news for you is that there isn't
enough space in this instalment to go
into the details of sprites. We will
pick it up in the next session.

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


LLAMASOFT - The Dromedary Years
(Part Two) Article By Michael Bevan

In 1980 the then 18 year old Jeff
Minter was still in unknown quantity
in the fledgling world of home
computer gaming. Within ten years
Minter had founded his own company
'Llamasoft', unleashed a catalogue of
over twenty classic 8-bit games and
the term 'Minter-esque' had entered
gaming lexicon to describe his highly
individual, uniquely psychedelic and
indeed exceptionally hairy style of
game design.

We take up our story a short while
after Jeff has submitted a small
computer program called Gridrunner to
American software publisher HES. What
happened next could never have
occurred to him in his wildest
imagination...

'A week or so later the phone rings at
4AM and I shamble out of bed to answer
the call. I was a little upset, as I'm
the kind of beast who likes to leap
out of bed at the crack of noon. On
the other end, a little blurred by
satellite delay, an American voice
ranted about some game that they've
been playing for eight hours solid.
The voice informed me that I should
expect significant monetary input.
Bemused, I made a few notes on the pad
by the phone and returned to bed.
Waking later, at a time closer to my
usual emergence, I made myself a
really strong cup of tea and
remembered some weird dream, something
about a game... went to the phone,
found the note, and was intrigued'.

Grid Runner peaked at number one in
the US software charts, much to
Minter's surprise, earning Llamasoft
not only its first US bona-fide smash
hit but a significant financial boost.
Exhausted by two years of constant
coding, Minter decided to take a
well-earned holiday to Peru to be with
the llamas. On returning to the UK
Minter would release several more Vic
20 games including Traxx (a Painter
clone) and Metagalactic Llamas Battle
At The Edge of Time (an attempt to
release a game with the silliest title
he could think of and the first to
feature his company's namesake
creature). He followed up Grid Runner
with a new sequel, Matrix, which was
also well received in the US, before
moving on to code for Commodore's new
flagship machine the C64, his own
machine a gift from HES prior to Grid
Runner's huge success. After
converting Attack of the Mutant Camels
and Matrix to the C64, and creating
the Tempest-esque Laser Zone, Minter
started work on what would become one
of his most famous games, if only in
Europe.

'I was feeling well guilty about the
fact that the camels got shot up in
AMC, as camels are in fact lovely
beasties, so I wanted to make a game
where they rose up against their evil
ZZyaxxian masters and fought back. At
the time, people were freaking out
about the fact that Manic Miner had 20
levels, which seemed like a huge
amount back then - so I decided to one
up Manic Miner and put 42 levels into
this game. I could have put more but
42 seemed like a decent number of
levels, especially as 42 is the answer
to life, the universe and everything.'

Revenge of the Mutant Camels was one
of Llamasoft's weirdest, most
psychedelic games to date, and the
first to really make use of the C64's
advanced capabilities such as
raster-interrupt techniques to produce
ultra-smooth scrolling backgrounds and
full multi-channel sound emulation
through SID. It was a hugely well
received game in its native UK,
receiving rave reviews from many
computing magazines, including a
prestigious Game of the Month accolade
from Personal Computer Games magazine.
RMC also marked the point when
Minter's games finally fully developed
the distinctive and surreal Llamasoft
iconography, containing a whole
bestiary of sheep, goats, llamas and
camels, along with the likes of flying
CND symbols, telephone boxes, Rizla
packets and Battlestar Galactica
reject base-stars.

However HES, whose partnership with
Llamasoft had proved so fruitful with
Grid Runner and Matrix, did not like
the game, and refused to distribute it
in the US, forcing Minter to develop
solely for the UK and European
markets, the only one where his games
were still attracting positive press
attention and where he was gradually
starting to accumulate a cult
following. Llamasoft's next title, the
highly entertaining comedy 'mow'-emup
Hovver Bovver was co-designed by one
of Minter's biggest fans.. his father.
Inspired by the 'Painter' concept he'd
already explored in Traxx, it was an
unexpected but very welcome addition
to the Llamasoft canon. Minter then
returned spectacularly to the shoot'em
up genre with a release that was
arguably his best piece of game design
to date.

Sheep In Space was a
horizontally-scrolling shooter
following in the Defender tradition
that featured as its unlikely hero an
Interstellar Space Sheep. The player
piloted their extremely agile ovine
between two opposing planet surfaces,
aiming to prevent enemies from
building up charge on a Planet Buster
gun, which would if activated destroy
the planet and expunge the fleecy
flier into the depths of space. As
well as having to contend with this
potentially catastrophic outcome the
gamer needed to keep their sheep well
fed in order that it did not explode
due to hunger. The game mechanics and
control system of Sheep in Space were
beautifully contrived, with excellent
gravitational and inertial effects as
the player raced frantically against
the clock and their own hunger to
destroy enemy 'charge-carriers' aiming
to prime the planet for destruction.

Minter's next game, Ancipital (known
to fans as simply Cippy - a character
first appearing in Sheep in Space) was
yet another highly ambitious and
original design. Similar in concept to
Ultimate's Attic Attac the player
battled through a grid of one hundred
levels (or rooms) in order to reach
the final chamber. Cippy retained its
predecessor's gravitational anomalies
with players only being able to walk
on floors, ceilings and walls through
use of a totally unprecedented control
system, and once mastered was a
wonderfully surreal and enjoyable
gaming experience. Ancipital
deservedly earned Llamasoft their
second and final PCG Game of the Month
Award and is seen by many as a
spiritual 8-bit predecessor to the
classic Llamatron. Unfortunately sales
figures for the game were not as good
as expected due to distribution issues
which meant the game was far harder to
find in high-street stores than RMC
had been.

Llamasoft's final four C64 releases
mark a period of wild experimentation
as Minter pursued increasingly offbeat
design directions, a move that was to
baffle certain members of the gaming
community who had begun having
difficulty grasping the sometimes
over-ambitious concepts in his games.
Infamously, one of the most well
documented cases of a Llamasoft game
causing such all-round bewilderment
was with the release of Mama Llama. A
sort of semi-sequel to Revenge, this
game had an unusual control mode where
the player did not actually control
the onscreen Llama character and her
family, merely attempting to defend
them by shooting enemies with an
on-screen floating drone. It
introduced a non-sequential level
structure where players could choose
their own path through the game. A
difficult game to master, it's low
level of immediate playability
compared to other Llamasoft titles and
it's subsequent poor review score
(59%) in the debut issue of Zzap! 64
led to a very public and long-running
stand-off between the famous C64
magazine and Minter himself, during
which he allegedly visited the offices
and ceremoniously burnt a copy of the
Zzap! review with staff writer Gary
Penn's own cigarette lighter.

Batalyx, a strange but enjoyable
collection of mini-games, and Iridis
Alpha, an odd and extremely
experimental scrolling shooter played
across two screens simultaneously
scrolling in opposite directions,
restored the rift somewhat, receiving
'Sizzler' awards in subsequent issues
of ZZap! 64, but the games market and
public tastes were changing, and for
the remainder of the 8-bit era
Llamasoft never really recaptured the
popularity that they had around the
release of Revenge of the Mutant
Camels.

'The videogame business was changing
around this time away from something I
could actively participate in' says
Minter regretfully. Although
continuing to experiment with projects
such as the 'Lightsynth' Psychedelia,
and releasing the compilation Yak's
Progress, featuring the best of his
more popular Commodore 64 work,
Llamasoft was finding it increasingly
hard to find distributors and by the
time Ariolasoft, who had marketed
Iridis and Batalyx but had received
limited financial success with them
pulled the plug on releasing Revenge
of the Mutant Camels 2, Minter made
the decision to give the title away
free on a Zzap! cover tape such was
his desire that fans might get
actually get to play it.

Minter would dabble with the 16 bit
Amiga and Atari ST over the next few
years but, unable to find a publisher
for any new titles, was forced to look
for employment elsewhere. This would
include a seven month stint at Konix
developing Attack of the Mutant Camels
'89 for the company's later
discontinued console, and a two month
game design role for Atari for another
console which failed to get off the
ground, the Atari Panther.
Disillusioned, Minter returned to what
he did best, namely making games he
wanted to play himself. The resulting
ST title, Llamatron, a brilliant
Robotron clone, was released as
shareware, an at the time untested
method of sale for Llamasoft. Unsure
what to expect, Minter was extremely
touched to find himself inundated with
payments from loyal games fans who
enjoyed the game and wanted to pay him
for it. Encouraged by this response
Minter continued releasing shareware
titles on the Llamasoft label while
producing what is his post 8-bit
master-work, Tempest 2000 for Atari's
Jaguar console. In following Tempest
with Defender 2000, again for Atari,
it had all come full circle for the
hairy one after writing the Vic20
program that would become Andes
Attack, and which had led to
Llamasoft's first, albeit small
success back in 1982.

Jeff Minter has recently completed
work on the phenomenal Space Giraffe
for the XBox 360's Arcade Live which
he has released like all his titles
since Llamatron, on the Llamasoft
label for a small 'shareware' style
fee. I wish him the very best of luck.

Sources: 'The History of LLamasoft'
(www.llamasoft.co.uk), Google Tech
Talk - 19.03.07

COMMODORE FREE
thanks to Michael Bevan and RGCD for
permitting the reprint of this article
http://rgcd.co.uk/

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

Hypersid
http://www.hypersynth.com/hypersid.html


Product Overview :

HyperSID is a subtractive synthesizer
with all the C64 SID chip hardware
capabilities besides many new software
based features So you can take
advantage of various Controlling
features of a VSTi and also real
analogue sound with SID character.

Real time integration between software
and hardware makes HyperSID act like
the other VST instruments in your host
application.

HyperSID is Donationware ! For
supporting future developments:
    
Features :
- 3 OSC per key (Monophonic)
- 1 OSC per key (3 Voice polyphonic)
- 4 Waveforms per OSC Tri , Saw, Noise,
 Pulse (combinatorial)
- OSC transpose range +36 to -36
Semitone
- OSC cent range -50 to +50 Cent
- OSC ring modulation
- 3 Amp Envelope ADSR
- Multimode analogue filter
 12dB/Octave HP, LP, BP and
 (combinatorial)
- 1 LFO Part with sync, retrig and
 invert capability
- 1 Step LFO Part with sync , retrig
 and invert capability
- 2 General purpose envelope generator
 with invert capability
- Individual routing for each
 modulation source
- 88 Parameter for controlling overall
 synthesizer (automation recordable)
- Flexible preset manager with save
 and load function
- Built in 64 categorized Factory
 preset.
- Clean sound without any Self
 oscillating in most of the Presets
- Automatic real time synchronization
 between software and hardware
- Independent MIDI out path from host
- Very low CPU usage

Hardware Unit:

HyperSID HW unit is a custom build
synthesizer with internal processor
and a real SID Chip! There is no
emulation here, All the sounds are
generated with a real SID chip.
HyperSID VSTi acts like a software
MIDI controller for this hardware
sound engine.

SID can not mute itself! Its a kind of
bug in the envelope part which can not
force Oscillators to be muted
completely after you release a key.
This bug has been a part of SID
character but many people still hate
it and after 26 years it is fixed in
HyperSID HW Unit!

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

Interview with Hypersynth Team
http://www.hypersynth.com/hypersid.html


COMMODORE FREE.
Please introduce yourselves to our
readers

HYPERSID TEAM
My name is Iman Jalayerian the founder
of Hypersynth. Im an electronic
engineer and also a musician. C64 was
my first computer and actually I
learned programming with this machine
many years ago. Its been about 7 years
ago that I started to design
microprocessor based circuits and
professional audio gear.

CF. Why the Commodore SID chip, what
makes the chip so special, they all
sound different are all susceptible to
changes in temperature and give out
lots of noise so why re-create these
features?

HS. SID accent is characterized by the
special analogue design of its filter
part. Generally all analogue circuits
drift in high temperature and produce
instability, which is in reasonable
amounts not considered as a
malfunction, but in music application,
it would add a special character to
the sound, which cannot be produced or
emulated with digital algorithms.
However, if this phenomenon (drift)
affects the VCO part greatly causing
the sound pitch to detune too much, we
can speak of a negative and
undesirable effect. Since SID VCOs are
operating digitally, these are not
affected by this analogue drift
effect. Although there is a noticeable
amount of noise at the SID output
stage, these can be easily gated out
by most soft or hardware based noise
gates and equalizers.

CF. Can you tell our readers a little
history about Hypersynth

HS. I started the company when I
designed a MIDI controller (MD-8) for
my home studio and decided to make it
commercial, but due to the saturation
of the market of MIDI controllers, we
didnt release MD-8. We wanted to come
up with something unique and useful.
At this point the Idea of HyperSID was
born and Hypersynth became more
official along its development line.
Gradually we scaled up our members and
gathered a well qualified team to
maintain HyperSID and also to design
new products.

CF. How long did the whole thing take
to design, build and test?

HS. It took about 8 months to design
and debug the whole HyperSID project.
To achieve the maximum flexibility we
had to design hardware, firmware and
software (VSTi) all at the same time!

CF. So there is a VST frontend called
HyperSID and a hardware implementation
is controlled by the VST instrument,
the software does nothing on its own
just control the Hardware unit?

HS. Yes, the Software itself does not
generate any sound because our goal
was not an emulation of SID chip.

CF. So the Hardware must be used in
combination with the software?

HS. Yes, both are required; maybe in
the future versions the hardware
itself will be able to store the
presets, but in the current version
the hardware and software must be used
together.

CF. what hardware/software
requirements are needed to run the
software, and does the software run on
any other system?

HS. Minimum system requirements:
Processor: Pentium III/AMD with SSE
support
Processor speed: 1.2 GHz
RAM (Cache): 256 MB RAM
Sound Card: Standard with MIDI port or
any other MIDI interface.
Operating system: Windows 2000, XP or
Vista
Host application: Cubase VST 3.7 or
higher or other VST 2.0 compatible
host software (FL-Studio,Sonar,).

CF. Have you seen the prophet64
hardware device, and did you purchase
one?

HS. Yeah, Ive heard about it but sadly
I didnt get the chance to purchase
one.

CF. But you have given away the
schematics to design the hardware and
the VST instrument is free, hey guys
you wont make much money doing this!

HS. Our intension was not to sell this
project; it was meant to be a "DIY"
project for the electronic hobbyists.
But amazingly we received a lot of
requests from musicians who were
desperate to get their hands on
HyperSID without going through the
difficulty of constructing one, so we
decided to design a limited numbers of
ready to use HyperSID synths, these
units can be purchased from the
website.

CF. How many SID chips can be
installed in the hardware unit?

HS. Only one SID can be installed. As
the SID production line is now
discontinued we must save our stock
for future so it is a great risk to
increase the polyphony. Although
Mini-Moog and Arp2600 (some of the
most powerful analogue synthesizers)
are monophonic!

CF. Can more than one Hardware unit be
controlled at any one time?

HS. Yes, you can open more than one
instance of Software and there is an
option to select the MIDI output
device on the GUI, so every instance
of VSTi can control a specific
HyperSID HW unit but you need to have
a MIDI interface with multiple MIDI
output ports.

CF. Why not just create an interface
to directly connect a C64 to a PC and
control it directly so our readers
doesnt have to remove the SID from his
or her machine?

HS. Our objective with HyperSID was to
have the maximum stability using the
SID chip and to minimize the latency
as much as possible. This would
require direct control over the
hardware hence creating the circuit.
By the way, HyperSID product is
shipped with a SID chip, so users wont
have to look for one or own a C64!

CF. Has anyone from the Commodore
community contacted you and what were
there comments?

HS. Unfortunately, we were not lucky
at this point in time, but the project
it relatively new so we are hoping for
some positive comments.

CF. What further plans do you have for
the Hypersynth?

HS. Beside HyperSID, Several new
products are being developed. Indeed I
can see a brilliant future for our
company. The most significant product
currently being developed is a
synthesizer which is inspired from the
SID chips internal architecture and
perhaps it could become an improved
version of SID with more polyphony and
many new capabilities. So we have a
lot of hard work at our hands.

CF. Do you know of any professional
musicians use the HyperSID?

HS. Commonly professional musicians
use lot of vintage synthesizers, this
also applies to most of our customers.
I would like to mention Mr. Frank
Neumann, a musician with outstanding
activities in C64 scene for several
years. It was Frank who influenced us
to build the rack mounted version of
HyperSID HW unit and giving us hope
and courage to develop this project.
On the other side we have received
offers from well-known sound designers
for building preset bank for HyperSID
with their signature. We hope to
release these preset banks in the near
future.

CF. How was the VST software interface
created?

HS. HyperSID VSTi was created by
Synthmaker, which is a powerful
platform for the modular development
of software synthesizers. Several
people were involved in the software
interface, MIDI engine programming and
GUI design, the project programming
leader was Mr. Aram Azhari who is our
most vital and respectable company
member. Every parameter on the SID
chip was implemented in VST interface
and a custom built protocol was
designed in order to communicate
between VSTi and a dedicated hardware
(HyperSID HW unit) via MIDI port.

CF. Why use both hardware and software
why not just create a VST instrument
modelling the SID chip so no hardware
is needed?

HS. The point is there are many
differences between analogue
synthesizers and the emulated ones.
There are several software based SID
synthesizers but only your ears can
judge between the two. The best thing
about digitally emulated synthesizers
is accuracy and at the same time their
weakest point. The fact that digital
is accurate makes it all look the same
and sound the same. But the analogue
synths sound more unique because of
their special analogue chips
characteristics.

CF. If our user wanted to order the
HyperSID what is the current price
with shipping, and these can be
ordered directly from the website?

HS. Current price for HW unit is 349$
(shipping included) and it can be
ordered from our website at
www.hypersynth.com .

CF. Has the HyperSID been reviewed in
any professionally produced music or
computer magazines?

HS. Yes, you can read some lines in
Sound & Recording magazine. Issue
7/2008, Article "Love The Machines".

CF. Do you still use Commodore
machines, and do you still follow the
Commodore scene?

HS. Unfortunately not, Focusing on the
current projects at our company keeps
us very busy, but if we get a chance
we would love to do that.

CF. Do you think any other Computer
hardware could be utilized this way?

HS. I dont think so, because without
doubt SID is the most powerful
synthesizer chip which was used as a
sound interface for home computers.
The main advantage is the mixed-mode
architecture (Analogue-Digital) of the
SID chip core which is mostly Digital
in other chips.

CF. Finally would you like to add any
of your own comments?

HS. It is a great honour for us to
become a part of SID history in
Commodore free magazine, at the end we
just want to thank Bob Yannes and his
team the original designer of SID chip
who never thought his invention would
become so popular in the world of
electronic music production.

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

PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
COMPETITION WINNER

Commodore Free
Finally I had 3 entries to the
competition so the CDs were mailed
out, I have confirmation that the Cds
have been received by these readers so
well done. I picked the best entry and
have reprinted it for your reading
delights, the other two winners would
rather not be named but James has
agreed to the printing of his name and
the article. Thanks to the 3 entrants
for there efforts.

Why I like SID music,
 by James Bray.

This may be just a personal thing, but
to me SID music is better in many ways
than some commercial music being
produced today, or even back in the
day! Commodore Free has already
mentioned about hooking up your
Commodore to an amplifier and
recording SID tunes directly, and I
know various people have created MP3s
of SIDs, which is brilliant.

Recording SID to tape is something I
have done since the heady 1980s. I
would Record my favourite sounds from
games and demos onto audio cassettes
and listen to them in my dad's car or
on my Sony walkman (do you remember
tapes? we used to use them to save
applications on, how times have
changed). Now in a digital age the
music is saved electronically in MP3
format or similar and then copied onto
my music player of choice and carried
around with me wherever I roam.

The SID sound is, and I'm sure that
you would agree with me when I say,
unmistakable and completely unique.
Okay, sometimes it has a little
interference and not all units seemed
to produce the same quality of tone,
probably due to Commodore's various
production methods over the years. I
do however think that is what makes
the sound unique and personal to you.
For example, you and you alone will
remember how a game sounded, and if it
was good to your ear, then hey who
cares if there was interference or
even sounds slightly different on your
friends machine, eh?!?

SID music was special because of the
limitations imposed on the composer,
the amount of processor time or Raster
time the composer took could cause
real problems with the other game
developers involved. So, the musician
had to put careful thought into every
note every slide every arpeggio had t
be clinically tested and checked to
see if it took too much away from the
programmer. Then there is a limitation
about the number of sounds that could
be played together the SID has 3
voices and 1 digital replay device so
3 voices could be used to produce a
full orchestra or group, not an easy
task but with careful manipulation of
the sounds filters and ring modulation
some composers made 3 voices sound
like 6 or more. Furthermore today
remixes have looked at the old SID
tunes and recreated them using modern
computers and synthesisers even on
real instruments drums, keyboards,
bass guitar and so on. The superb
Press Play On Tape are special because
they have added words to the music in
some cases. This music stands on its
own because there is a definite tune,
there is a melody that can and in my
case is hummed and running round my
head, weaving through the brain
connections, sending love to every
brain cortex.

Rather than pick out a handful of
composers or tunes I would rather tip
my hat off to all composers and every
tune, even the truly awful still have
a special meaning to me, a bleeping
one-voice happy Christmas is still a
crafted tune and one just hopes the
composer went on to produce better
works. Hey, I remember when even
commercial games were written in
BASIC!

One thing composers quickly learnt was
that a tune is everything. Without it,
there was little else left for the
overall song, so this is why you lie
in bed humming thing on a spring or
the theme to some shoot-em-up game.
Some composers work was so good the
game sold because they wrote the
music, remember crazy comets awful
game but playable because you wanted
to listen to the tune, I have
purchased many games as other did in
the time just to listen to the
stunning music, then record it 20
times to a C120 tape and carry it
around on my Sony walkman

May be its age or just lack of talent
but how many can remember a tune in
the charts, this is where SID tunes
win because of the melody and
harmonies the composers used, SID is
indeed very memorable for people of my
generation. True classics in every
way, and should be recognised as such
by the wider musical world.

Regards

James Bray.

=====================================
 
Commodore Computer Club Application 

please send it with a cheque payable to
  'Commodore Computer Club', to:

   Commodore Computer Club Treasurer,
 2 Willis Road, Blackburn, Lancashire, 
     BB2 2UA - United Kingdom.

Fees can be arranged electronically 
(via PayPal), or by personal cheque or
postal order. Once you have filled in 
and submitted this membership form, an
invoice will follow with relevant 
payment details, so please don't 
forget to fill in your contact details.

Please sign me up for a membership to 
the CCC (UK)-I wish to be a member for:
[ ] 6 months* at $5.70 
[ ] 1 year* at $9.50 
[ ] life member at $57.02

My personal details:

**Name:

**Address:

**Postal code:

Country(if outsidethe United Kingdom):

**Date of application 
(Please use dd/mm/yy format):

[FOR INTERNAL USE: Date membership 
fee received:                        

If you have already registered on 
the CCC (UK) forums
www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk/forums
please tell us your username here:

Email address:

Please tick or cross the box below 
once you have read and understood
the club's rules and regulations:

**[  ] I declare that I, the named 
applicant above, have read and 
understood the CCC (UK) rules and
regulations, and agree to abide by 
them fully and co-operatively. I 
understand that I am joining this 
club on a personal level
and not as a representative of any 
group, developer, publisher or vendor
that I belong to.

Please tick which computers you own:
[  ] CBM/PET 40 columns 
[  ] CBM/PET 80 columns 
[  ] VIC/VC 20 
[  ] C64/64c
[  ] C64GS 
[  ] SX-64 
[  ] C16/116 
[  ] Plus/4 
[  ] C128/128D
[  ] C64DTV 
[  ] Other Commodore 8-bit 
[  ] Other Commodore 16-bit

If you have ticked 'Other 
Commodore 8-bit' or 'Other 
Commodore 16-bit'
please list these machines below:





Please tick from the list below 
your interests from the following:
[  ] Gaming 
[  ] BASIC programming 
[  ] Machine language coding
[  ] GEOS 
[  ] JOS/WiNGs 
[  ] Tech/scene demos
[  ] Collecting 
[  ] Archiving/preservation 
[  ] Other applications

If you have ticked 'Other applications 
please give details below:




Please tick if you use any of the 
following peripherals below:
[  ] Datasette  
[  ] 1541 compatible disk drive 
[  ] 1581 compatible
[  ] FD2000/4000 
[  ] CMD HD or RAMLink  
[  ] 1351 mouse or compatible
[  ] Commodore REU 
[  ] Other RAM expansion  
[  ] SuperCPU 64/128
[  ] Other accelerator 
[  ] MMC/Retro Replay   
[  ] SwiftLINK/Turbo232
[  ] RR-Net or FB-Net 
[  ] Other networking device 
[  ] 1541Ultimate/+
[  ] Action Replay 
[  ] Trilogic Expert Cartridge 
[  ] Other cartridge upgrade
[  ] Other speed loader 
[  ] Commodore VDU  
[  ] Other hardware

Please list any items not mentioned 
above which you have (especially for 
other Commodore 8-bit machines):



Thank-you for taking the time to 
fill in this membership form. Your 
membership will be processed on 
receipt of the relevant membership 
fee as stated.

* Membership fees for 6 months or 
1 year will be back-dated to the 
beginning of the month that the 
membership application has been made 
and relevant fee has been cleared 
into our account. This can be paid 
either by personal cheque, postal 
order or PayPal. Membership fees 
are currently 3 for six months, 5 per
year or 30 for life membership.

** It is essential that you fill 
these details, otherwise your 
membership will not be processed.

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

Commodore Computer Club (UK)(CCC(UK)).

Club rules:
(1) Membership subscriptions, raising
funds and re-selling items.
(a) All members will pay a membership
fee as follows: \3 for six months, \5
per year and life membership at \30.
This fee will entitle the holder to
free entry to the meetings, and
special limited areas of the website,
such as private forums and exclusive
downloads, should we get anything
exclusive to download. Membership will
always be back-dated to the start of
the month in which the member took out
the subscription, so that everyone
joining in the month of April for one
year will see their membership expire
on the 31st of March the following
year.

(b) We should have a 'Commodore
Computer Club Shop', which will stock
all of the latest hardware mods and
sods for Commodore computers. To stop
the 'Maurice Randall' effect, in which
the club will have to repay people for
not receiving their goods because they
haven't been delivered but have been
paid for, items will only be on sale
if they are in stock.

(c) There will be two prices, one for
members (cost of item + postage and
packing + 10%), and one for none
members (cost + postage and packing +
20%).

(d) Any members that do work for the
club, organising events, donating
items for auction, coding, or are
otherwise active, with exception to
posting on forums and turning up to
meetings, will be considered for free
membership and/or lifetime membership
on merit based only on work they have
done for the club. In certain
instances, will include what they have
contributed overall to Commodore
computing or gaming during their
life-time, should any 'Commodore
legends' show sufficient interest to
join the club.

(2) Events, software and other
developments.
(a) Any money that is raised by the
club should be used primarily for
setting up events, or bolting onto
other events as appropriate. This is
to go towards, or cover costs with van
hire, hotels, food and drink, so the
person or people who are willing to
travelling to these events, man stalls
and generally promote the club and its
work are not be out of pocket as far
as possible.

(b) Profits made from items sold at
events should contribute to cover the
costs of attending, or hosting, and/or
expenses acrude during the event. This
will not include monies raised from
membership subscriptions paid for
during the event.

(c) The club should seek to raise
money for the purpose of developing
hardware and/or software that will
benefit Commodore users in the UK and
world-wide, and that could therefore
be sold through the club Shop.

(d) Payments to developers who are
commissioned to work on behalf of the
club should not be made in advanced or
up front unless otherwise agreed by
the treasurer and chair-person, and
any other two members. This should be
openly discussed with all members
either in private members areas of the
site, or at an organised meeting as
appropriate.

(e) Hardware that is commissioned on
behalf of the club which reaches
production should be sold at a small
profit, and monies raised to put back
into the clubs funds.

(f) If it is agreed that the club
should commission entertainment
software, the productions should be
available to download for free from
the site for members only. Real-media
versions should also be sold through
the shop with non-members able to buy
copies, though at a higher price than
members.

(g) Any software commissioned by the
club will either be purchased
outright, paying the programmer an
agreed fee on completion, or paying a
lesser fee and splitting the profits
at an agreed rate. This should be
discussed on a case-by-case basis. The
chair-person and treasurer, and two
other members, must agree which method
should be implemented.

(3) Meetings and monies
(a) The club should hold an annual
general meeting in which members have
a say in its running, and are able to
make suggestions and table official
club business for the year ahead.
Membership subscriptions should be
reviewed at the annual general
meeting, and any price increases must
be agreed by the chair-person,
treasurer and at least two other
members.

(b) There should be an annual audit of
the clubs finances, with a news-letter
at least every three months. The audit
should be published before the annual
general meeting, and this and the
news-letter should be available to
current members online in the private
member areas. Former members may
request this information, which will
be granted on a case-by-case basis. 

(c) Members will be able to attend any
events that organised and run by the
club for free when ever possible,
whilst non-members will pay a small
signing in fee of at least 2.50. With
agreement with other event organisers,
and at events that the club is
attending in an official capacity, we
will work towards getting members a
discounted entry fee.

(d) All monies raised will go back
into club funds.

(4) End of line
(a) If it is apparent that the club is
not running within its means to the
extent that it is likely to fold, or
that legal action against it will lead
to the club being dissolved, all club
assets should be sold or auctioned
off, and members will be refunded
their current subscriptions based on
the length of time they have been
members. The longest-serving paying
members will be refunded first as
appropriate, either particularly or
fully depending on the financial
circumstances at the time. The newer
members, who will be dealt with last.

(b) Personal donations to the club's
funds can never be fully refunded.

Club complaints procedure:
Phase 1: Where a complaint is made
against the club, or one of the club
members, there should initially be a
private apology between the club or
individual and the plaintiff. This
apology should be for 'any undue harm
or upset caused', and will not amount
to an admission of guilt or a
retraction in any way. The club will
not be able to force any of its
members to make this initial apology
except in the instance that the
individual has clearly and admittedly
worked on the clubs behalf in the
matter specifically relating to the
complaint that has been lodged.

Phase 2: The matter should then be
investigated to establish the facts.
If it is deemed that an individual
club member has not been acting on the
clubs behalf with regards to the
specifics of the complaint, then this
becomes a personal matter between the
two parties. The club should therefore
stop any further investigations or
involvement in the matter.

Phase 3: If the complaint lacks any
real evidence, or it is felt that the
findings are not conclusive, then the
matter should be closed. Neither the
club, nor any of its members, should
therefore discuss the matter
publically. All findings should be
reported to the plaintiff, and the
matter should be considered closed
from the club's point of view.

Phase 4: Where a complaint is upheld,
a public apology and/or retraction
should be published through the
official website, and in the
newsletter. The club should also give
the plaintiff the opportunity to give
his or her point of view through the
website and/or newsletter as
appropriate. In this instance, the
case will be considered closed from
the club's point of view unless the
plaintiff wants to take the matter
further through due legal process.

Emergency phase: If at any point
during this process the plaintiff
feels aggrieved to the extent that he
or she instructs a solicitor to take
the matter up against the club or club
members who have clearly being acting
on behalf of the club in this
instance, the club should then
consider its legal position on the
matter, and a meeting should be set up
with the principle members of the club
within two weeks of receiving legal
notice to discuss the matter, and what
to do next. Obviously, one would hope
that any complaint would ever get to
this stage.

http://www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk

Commodore Free THE END...
======================================
