Amazing Commodor Vic20

RalphT3 said:
http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_Home.aspx
Click to expand...

I just can't see the point. Their vision is "...the express purpose of reviving and re-establishing the famous and much loved Commodore computer brand"

What they're selling is a modern computer in a Commodore style case. They're not creating competition for Apple or Microsoft. The new machines are compatible with the old Commodore stuff, through emulation. Well, so is my PC at home.
 
joeycuda said:
I just can't see the point. Their vision is "...the express purpose of reviving and re-establishing the famous and much loved Commodore computer brand"

What they're selling is a modern computer in a Commodore style case. They're not creating competition for Apple or Microsoft. The new machines are compatible with the old Commodore stuff, through emulation. Well, so is my PC at home.
Click to expand...

Their response (I'm guessing) would be that their system is actually licensed to run the software.

But you're right, I don't see the point.
 
zfcamaro said:
Commodore is actually coming back this year with an all new line.
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Yeah :rolleyes:

It's a PC in a C64 case... Whooopie.

I'll pass.

Now if they had made a machine that would run ALL the commodore computers from the Vic-20 up to the Amiga on a single board (without an OS, etc..), now that would be something I would be interested in.
 
Arcadenut said:
Yeah :rolleyes:

It's a PC in a C64 case... Whooopie.

I'll pass.

Now if they had made a machine that would run ALL the commodore computers from the Vic-20 up to the Amiga on a single board (without an OS, etc..), now that would be something I would be interested in.
Click to expand...

If what they're doing is a colossal failure, then I'll wonder why they didn't try to carve a niche aimed at the hobbiest/vintage computer geek. Well, maybe that's what they think they're doing..
 
monty_a900 said:
http://store.go4retro.com/products/ZoomFloppy.html

Has anyone used this? I assume it would work with both the 1541 and 1581 (3.5" drive)
Click to expand...

I've not used that, but you can do almost exactly the same thing with a simple homemade parallel port adapter. Star Commander is wonderful software, and it's easy to use, and the hardware is trivial to make. Been using it for years to transfer data to and from Commodore machines.

-Ian
 
Laschek said:
Check this out:

Click to expand...

Deus Ex Machina is considered one the best demos out there for the c64. Here's the first part (which looks much better emulated or on a real c64 without the compression):


It's amazing but people are still developing for the c64 today. It's incredible to see SNES quality graphics out of a bone stock c64. The only down side is the active scene is mainly in PAL areas, so most of the newer stuff won't run on North American machines. It makes you wonder how far graphics and sound can be pushed on other old hardware with almost 30 years of development.
 
Arcadenut said:
Just got mine. Trying to get it to work. I'm thinking it's a driver issue with Windows 7 64bit.

I'll have to try it on an 32bit XP machine and see if it works any better.
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Ok, I've got it working on Windows 7 64bit. Had to manually install the drivers and ran the install bat for the software, so now it works great.

I've done about 20 disks, several are copy protected so I'll have to mod one of my 1541s with the Parallel port so I can use Nibbler tools.

For the unprotected stuff, I've only had a few bad sectors, which for disks that are 30 years old, not too bad :D I've had floppies on the PC that didn't survive the write process :eek:

Brings back lots of memories looking at these files :D
 
Arcadenut said:
Ok, I've got it working on Windows 7 64bit. Had to manually install the drivers and ran the install bat for the software, so now it works great.

I've done about 20 disks, several are copy protected so I'll have to mod one of my 1541s with the Parallel port so I can use Nibbler tools.

For the unprotected stuff, I've only had a few bad sectors, which for disks that are 30 years old, not too bad :D I've had floppies on the PC that didn't survive the write process :eek:

Brings back lots of memories looking at these files :D
Click to expand...

What kind of files are you looking at? I can't even remember the name of the old word processor we used. I wonder if there is a converter for those old word processor files.
 
Ok, I moded one of my 1541 Drives for the Parallel port. I connected it up to the ZoomDrive and it's FAST! I'm using Nibtools, which reads an entire track at a time. It also appears to handle disk errors much better.

I'm also able to copy my copy protected disks!

Copied M.U.L.E.... one of my all time favorite games.

One of the things that isn't abundantly clear is that when you do the parallel mod, you still need the serial cable hooked up too. Had to dig for that info.

I also found more code that I wrote back in the day (an Auto Dialer for the 1650). Hope I find more stuff I wrote.

Some disks have died, or they don't like this drive. I'm leaning towards dead...

Right now I'm doing everything via the command line, which is annoying. I'll have to research how to do a batch of disks (I think I read you could do that). If not, I'll write something quick to drive the CLI utilities. I might also fight CBMXfer a little more and see if I can get that to work... So far it's telling me it doesn't support the X-Cable to something (Forget, I think it has to do with Nibtools). It is supposed to work with Nibtools, so I might have to just work on it a bit more.
 
When my Zoomdrive arrives I may fire some questions your way. Can't wait to dig out some of my old 6502 source code. I wrote a few commercial C64 games back in the day, if I can read my old 5 1/4 disks I'll make the source code public domain (think I own the copyright now - 21 years later!) :D
 
monty_a900 said:
When my Zoomdrive arrives I may fire some questions your way. Can't wait to dig out some of my old 6502 source code. I wrote a few commercial C64 games back in the day, if I can read my old 5 1/4 disks I'll make the source code public domain (think I own the copyright now - 21 years later!) :D
Click to expand...

You didn't write Monty Mole did you???
 
Ok, I'm done. I've converted something like 200 disks. :D

Lots of errors on the disks, but that was expected. I'll probably go back to a few of the discs that I really want (probably source code) and see if I can get more off of them.

The disadvantage of the Nibbler tools is it copies the errors. So I'll have to see what I can do to get past the errors. There might be options for it or I'll use the standard tools. Might be that I should try a different drive too.

The parallel modification is worth the time and is easy to do.

I wrote a simple batch file to run the Nibread then the Nibconv utilities which saved me a lot of time.
 
Arcadenut said:
Ok, I'm done. I've converted something like 200 disks. :D

Lots of errors on the disks, but that was expected. I'll probably go back to a few of the discs that I really want (probably source code) and see if I can get more off of them.

The disadvantage of the Nibbler tools is it copies the errors. So I'll have to see what I can do to get past the errors. There might be options for it or I'll use the standard tools. Might be that I should try a different drive too.

The parallel modification is worth the time and is easy to do.

I wrote a simple batch file to run the Nibread then the Nibconv utilities which saved me a lot of time.
Click to expand...


Can you PM or link the parallel modification info you used?

Glad the ZoomFloppy worked out! I had read alot of good things about it before I posted it. I don't own one yet, but I have a X1541 cable, and it's a PITA to use as you have to dig out an old PC... I have archived a bit of my software but I have hundreds of floppies to go through still.... some things I have not run across on the net before...

Thanks,

-Mike
 
Mikebetz42 said:
Can you PM or link the parallel modification info you used?

Glad the ZoomFloppy worked out! I had read alot of good things about it before I posted it. I don't own one yet, but I have a X1541 cable, and it's a PITA to use as you have to dig out an old PC... I have archived a bit of my software but I have hundreds of floppies to go through still.... some things I have not run across on the net before...

Thanks,

-Mike
Click to expand...

Here is the page I made the parallel mod off of. It's pretty straight forward. If you have any questions let me know. I can also post pics of my mod.

http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/1541par.html
 
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