retroputing

[mojofltr]

In 3rd grade, my school teacher asked everyone to draw a picture of and write about what they wanted for Christmas. I still remember that I drew a crude monitor and a keyboard with hundreds of keys on it. Even then I was intrigued with the possibilities of computing... perhaps even a little obsessed.

The school had several TI-99/4a machines and a couple of Commodore 64 computers. One of my friends also had a Commodore 64. I remember being completely impressed to watch him make himself a copy of Wheel of Fortune from our school's computer. I loved sitting in his basement after school looking through the bin of pirated disks his dad had brought home from the office. I was green with envy... heck, I'm still envious!

Since my youth, I've always wanted a Commodore 64, but not enough... not enough to pay shipping rates from eBay or to pick up one of the overpriced or severely tortured (usually both) machines that pop up occasionally on Craigslist.

That is, until late December when I received a notification of a new listing on Craigslist. The description sounded promising - A Commodore 64 complete in its original box with a monitor for $30. I couldn't let this one slip by me.

So I've been more than wordy, so I'll wrap it up. I got my Commodore 64 today. It seems to work great, except... I don't have a disk drive nor do I have any software for it. I'll probably look into getting a 1541 Ultimate eventually, but until then I was wondering...

Is there anything interesting or fun I can do on this bare bones machine the way it is?

[Flack]

Unfortunately, not much. You could work on your BASIC programming skills or grab one of the many C64 programming books and experiment with BASIC sound and graphics, but ... eh.

The 1541 Ultimate is definitely the way to go, but it's a lot of money if you don't plan on playing with your C64 quite a bit. A disk drive shouldn't run you more than about $20 (I was trying to give one away with each purchase at OEGE), but that still leaves you with the problem of acquiring games on disk.

One thing you could do is pick up a couple of cartridge games. Due to space limitations they're not typically the best the system could offer, but there's quite a few good ones out there. A lot of the Activision, Atarisoft, and Epyx games can be picked up for next to nothing and can keep you entertained for hours/days.

It's a shame that the 1541 Ultimate is so god damn awesome because it's hard to imagine using the system without one now.
_________________
Flack
The Gas Chamber | robohara.com | Twitter | Facebook

[mojofltr]

I have never written a single program in Basic; I'm probably too dumb to get very far with it. Maybe I'll take the time to tinker with it this coming summer.

I've actually intended to get a 1541 Ultimate since I first read about its existence. I have similar solutions for my VCS, Vectrex, Vic-20, ColecoVision, NES, SNES, GBA, PS1, and DS. I believe the 1541 Ultimate will be the most expensive of the lot, but I'm drooling at the thought of owning one... I just need to save up some cash!

In the meantime, have you any suggestions for cartridge games?

This hobby is madness!

[Ice Breaker]

Now you're making me want to get an ultimate Rob. Thanks... just what I need *another* C64 solution.

Most of the cartridges that you'll find in the wild are early (and I do mean early) Commodore ports such as Jupiter Lander or the Visible Solar System. The majority of the 'good games' were released in Europe later in its life and are PAL only.

You can pick up a disk drive as Rob said for about nothing, and then make/pick up an X1541 cable and make some games from images for close to nothing.

The Ulimate is so expensive because it's trying to be the 1541 disk drive - one of the most complicated disk drives - ever. It's a computer in itself unlike most drives.
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-- Retroputing --
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[Flack]

I don't know what you are using right now, but I can't see going back to anything else. Moving D64 images over to the C64 now is as simple as copying them to a SD card and then inserting it. I just read on the website that the 1541 Ultimate II is moving to Micro SD, but will also now include a USB port, which makes moving things back and forth even simpler.

It took a while for them to get the kinks worked out, but at this point I'd say the thing is basically as compatible and reliable as a real 1541.
_________________
Flack
The Gas Chamber | robohara.com | Twitter | Facebook

[mojofltr]

I ordered a 1541 Ultimate II on February 2nd. Since then, I have been hitting up all of the c-64 sites daily. Yesterday I even started making a game in SEUCK!

I can't wait until Gideon has the cartridges ready to ship!

[Ice Breaker]

What was your total cost on the Ultimate? I'm really, really tempted to get one.
_________________
-- Retroputing --
www.particles.org
www.retroputing.net
www.epochgames.com
particlesbbs.dyndns.org

[mojofltr]

I'm trying not to think about that! I had to wince and turn away while clicking the "order button"!

$176.59

I keep telling myself, "it'll be worth it... it'll be worth it... it'll be worth it..." No really, I have read nothing but good things about the Ultimate... It WILL be worth it.

[Flack]

It will be worth it.

As I told Icbrkr the other day, the way I justified it was, back when the 1541 originally came out, I paid $180. So that's basically the same price, and considering inflation, it's actually much cheaper!

Mojo, track down the Gamebase 64 collection. It has literally 99+% of all known C64 software in D64 format. I think it's being distributed in two DVDs now, one for games and one for everything else. Grab the game one and you can literally put essentially the entire C64 game library on one SD card.
_________________
Flack
The Gas Chamber | robohara.com | Twitter | Facebook

[mojofltr]

A few years back, someone sent me a couple of DVDs full of c64 stuff. I'm not sure if it is the Gamebase 64 collection.

Tonight, after work, I went digging through a bunch of old backups and mp3 discs to find them. Unfortunately, when I put the first into my DVD-ROM, it would not read!

Anyway, I think I've only used the DVD-ROM in this computer once or twice since I obtained in several years ago. When I ejected my DVD, it was covered in a thick layer of mutilated dustbunny! Somehow I don't think my DVD-ROM will ever read again!

I guess I'll see if I can't find a torrent of the Gamebase 64 collection.

[mojofltr]

I got my 1541Ultimate II yesterday.

So, I loaded up four games, two T64 files and two D64 files... all from the Gamebase64 archives: Ancipital, Matrix, Mayhem in Monsterworld, and Space Taxi.

Well, apparently I don't know what I'm doing from there. I put the cartridge into the slot and hooked up the cable. 3 of the 4 games I get nothing when mounting, loading, or running. The last, Mayhem in Monsterworld, loads a hacktro that shows up garbled and rolls on the screen, but upon pressing the spacebar, it returns to the prompt. Then my C64 gives me "out of memory" errors when I try to do anything else.

Is there any sort of video tutorial on this stuff? I thought I was smart enough to get along, but... once again... APPARENTLY NOT.

Thanks in advance for any help or attempts to do so.

...

I got Space Taxi to give me a loading screen. I let it sit for about 10 minutes and nothing else happened.

...

I found and loaded an NTSC Fixed version of Mayhem. It loaded and ran, but the background flashed back and forth ... like seeing double, except the Mayhem character stayed in place.

I'm not having a lot of luck. Haha!

...

I got Thrust to load and run. Everything seems to be working EXCEPT, the ship will not rotate to the right. I tried two different joysticks with the same problem. Does this mean there's a pin damaged in my joystick port.

[Flack]

I will try some of those same titles tomorrow after work and let you know if I have any luck. What cartridge image are you using with the 1541u2?
_________________
Flack
The Gas Chamber | robohara.com | Twitter | Facebook

[mojofltr]

I'm using whatever the default is...? How can I find out?

The firmware is v2.0rc3.

I may have gotten in over my head on this one. It seems like it should be so easy, but nothing has worked quite right yet.

...

User error!

After reading your post, I reread the instructions. I reset the cartridge to Epyx FastLoad... and played with memory expansion (I should have remembered I needed to do this from my experience with Vice).

At any rate, I was able to get Space Taxi running (had a good game) and I played Boulderdash for a few minutes.

Still no luck at all running T64 files... is there a trick? I'll be playing around more tomorrow.

BTW, I'm totally digging the fact that I can use my thumb drive with this thing. It is so much more convenient than messing with the microsd card!

...

Aww, crap! I killed it!

It died... LEDs don't come on... nada. I checked the 1541 Ultimate Forum, and there are several others with the same problem.

180 bucks to play one round of Space Taxi - I think I just died inside.

[obliterator918]

I'm glad I didn't pre-order the Ultimate II. Looks like lots of people have bricked their units like yours without doing much of anything! I feel sorry for Gideon, he's only doing this as a hobby and will have to deal with a bunch of bad units. My "plus unit" (batch 2 or 3 I think) has worked flawlessly since I got it.

The problems you described sounded like PAL/NTSC issues.

I usually don't run with a cartridge ROM because I use JiffyDOS, which is faster (which means I have to use a JD ROM on the 1541-U). If you do use one, I like the Super Snapshot cartridge. I've got a real one and it's great.

For tape images, you should be able to just press Return on the file -- with my 1541-U, that just reboots the C64 and loads the file into memory automatically. Just need to type RUN and Return to start it up.
_________________
-Brandon

[mojofltr]

I also feel bad for Gideon. Admittedly, I was a little peeved last night when my cartridge stopped working. I released some frustration by typing:

10 PRINT "CRAP"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

Anyway, Gideon responded in the forum today: