Garak

The rights haven't been really ignored. Tulip Computers (www.tulip.com) are the real owners of the Commodore name and logo trademarks (they licensed the "Commodore 64" name to Ironstone) has been using (abusing) the Commodore name for several years in making PC clones. However, Tulip/Ironstone can't enforce other game companies rights of copyright though so here they have no leg to stand on. Tulip stopped making "Commodore" PCs a few years back and has been licensing the name out to bunches of companies. Tulip besides Ironstone has plans for "Commodore" as Tulip owns this site here: www.commodore.net. The Commodore patents (of which the earliest are no doubt expiring) are owned by Gateway computers (acquired when they bought the Amiga rights). And no doubt the defunct GMT Microelectronics has some of the rights since they bought out Commodore's "MOS Technologies" (no NOT "MosTek" - completely different company that didn't have anything to do with 65xx stuff). Kim only did this IIRC due to cost of server use/bandwidth reasons. Garak

Maurice Randall (of cmdrkey) isn't releasing the source to GEOS. The copyrights still apply it's just now freeware. Garak

"Omega Race" Garak

Interesting. Though, I'd be far more impressed if he actually coded it _for_ the SuperNES instead of the PC. Garak

If that version is close enough to other platform versions then this hint will work: try blowing up the safe. Garak

Damn right. Any Commodore user group feels this way. Matter of fact you can get your ass severly flamed off for insulting Tramiel even in the Commodore newsgroups and other Commodore forums. Sorry, the failure of Commodore was NOT Tramiel's fault but a guy named Irving Gould. Mention Gould in any Amiga or Commodore forum and you'll hear real loud how he destroyed Commodore not Tramiel. Gould fired and hired new managers on a monthly basis as well as sinking Commodore with his poor decisions in marketing, strategy, and products. The complete history of Commodore, Tramiel, and Gould can be found at the "Secret Weapons of Commodore" site. It's a very researched and accurate history compiled by the site owner through information from former Commodore engineers and insiders like Jim Butterfield among others. Direct link to history: http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secr...et/history.html Link to main site: http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/ Garak

Well, it seems that the above Commodore Knowledge Base article (written by one of the designers of the C64/C128's "SuperCPU" at CMD) seems to generally indicate any Sega game pad: Genesis or Master System. Garak

Not that rare. For example many games use the space bar as a second weapon or to switch a weapon. So if you have the fire button held down firing a weapon or holding a direction down while hitting the space bar for a secondary weapon or to bring up an item menu - this is when the CIA can be damaged. With the chips in C64 no longer being made and are getting harder to find (and certainly will be) I believe it's better not to risk the chance of damage. Garak

Not really a good idea unless you modify them first. The Sega pads (and even more specific the Genesis pads) aren't wired the same as your standard Atari/C64 joysticks - and you _can_ damage the CIA chip which handles joystick/keyboard handling with one. The damage most likely may occur when you press a keyboard key (ie to use a menu item or such) at the same time you press any directional/fire button on the pad. The result is a "tug-of-war" of the I/O lines between the CIA chip and the Sega pad and can fry the CIA chip. The more specific technical reason and fix (requires some diodes) can be found here at the "Commodore Knowledge Base" http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/ and look up article number 26 (use the "Enter an article number" link). Garak

I just thought of something... all those new "guests" invading the 2600 newbie programming forum is scary in a way. This may mean the 2600 forum could be invaded by newbies declaring they're going to license and create a "Knight Rider" game. Garak UPDATE: I just noticed we're now at 104 Guests. Guess which forum they're nearly all in

It does. It's on the same page you arrive at when you click the above link. For some reason though you're forced to scroll down through a ton of blank space before you get to the comments... Garak

Ha ha! Newbie programming guide posted to Slashdot... that explains why as I was logging in I noticed we had 83 guests! Talk about advertising! Garak

Ah, I can see it now: "Tonight on the 11:00 news: A man has found dead earlier today and was delivered to the coroners office in the afternoon. The coroner and forensic team have determined that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head caused by what appears to be an Atari 2600 game cartridge. Right now police have no leads as to a suspect and forensics have yet to determine the game cart maker or title." Garak

Geez, I thought this thread was about a newly discovered protoype called "Holly Cow". Now I'm disappointed! Garak

My fondest Atari 2600 memory? Hmm, I'd have to say the Christmas day when I actually got an Atari 2600! Garak

Sorry, this was a double post of the above. Garak

Try looking at Ray Carlsen's Commodore diagnostic documents (Ray is the Commodore community's resident expert tech.) at his site: http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/ or post your problem into the comp.sys.cbm newsgroup (Ray and other very knowledgeable people are there). Good luck! Garak

I will not confirm nor deny that I was a member of the Obsidian Order Ah, yes, have to look into that myself (as well as the TOS series) Garak

Ha! Now I have! Garak

Ah, yes the C65. But I think the Commodore LCD laptop which was to be released at the same time as the C128 as being more interesting. (There is only 2 known units). More info here from the awesome "The Secret Weapons of Commodore": http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/lcd.html BTW, the main site of "Secret Weapons of Commodore": http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/ is a must see and you'll find Commodore computers and hardware you never thought existed. Garak

A fellow member of comp.sys.cbm modified the C64 version of "Elite" to work 20% faster in C64 mode. You can access 2Mhz mode, all the extra keys (keypad and top row keys), and the 80 col VDC all from the C64 mode alone. The VIC II of course gets messed up when the system is in 2Mhz mode _but_ if you activate 2Mhz mode when the screen borders are drawn then step back down to 1Mhz during the main screen being drawn you can get a 20% speed increase on the C128 (and C128's C64 mode) using the VIC II. That's what he did with "Elite" - also there alot of C64 demos that detect if they're being run on a C128 and do the same thing. As for the VDC - it can still be accessed and used. I believe the C64 term program "Novaterm 10" can do this. Also, some programs use VDC memory for a ram disk etc. As for 80 column 128 games, there was a very good Space Invaders and Tetris clones and an excellent solitaire game too. Not quite. The VDC has been shown to be able to use the resolutions: 80x25 - 16 colors - this is the default text mode 80x50 - 16 colors - I have a text editor whic can use this and 75 rows too. Graphics modes: 640x200 - 2 col., 640x200 - 16 col., 640x400 - 16 or 136 (yes!) col., 720x700 - 2 col. and more. I've seen a paint program that's somewhere that can do 800x600 or 1024x600 or something. There are several variations and even higher ones I've heard being achieved. Some modes, of course, require a C128 with 64K of VDC RAM (the flat C128's only have 16K but you can upgrade them). Source: http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/ Article number 255 (The Commodore Knowledge Base) Garak

It doesn't work because the C64 mode uses the C64's KERNAL and BASIC roms which don't know about the C128's VIC II chip extra two registers the C64's VIC II didn't have. But it _can_ be done through a small program The one new register ($D02F bits 0-2) handles all the extra (new) keys including the keypad. So it's a matter of writing a small program to tell the normal keyboard scan routine (ie have the scan routine JSR to your code first, check for keys, then JSR back to the scan routine or something like that Whew, it's been awhile...) to get the keypad and the other keys (on the top row) to be useable in C64 mode. I have a program somewhere that will do so. PM me if you want me to find it. Er, now we're off topic... um,...: I definitely agree! (Say, theaveng, havn't I seen you somewhere before? ) Garak

I feel the same about the Atari computers (8bit). Didn't have one but knew some friends who did. I always thought they were great computers. Heh, argue, well instead we chose to dis the Apple 8-bit computers instead I've got Win800 emulator installed and play with it from time to time. I agree, the wrong decisions I believe were made due to the "upset" and Tramiel wanting to get back at certain people/companies with a vengeance. That and the fact the game crash and Nintendo was at the doorstep made for a very messy situation for Atari. I've always been sad to see both Commodore and Atari gone. Garak

Big fan here *waves*! I still have my C64 from gotten around 1982-83 and use it (as well as my plus/4, C128, SX64). Still play games and still code for it I also love my FD2000 disk drive and JiffyDOS upgrades Also am a member of several Commodore forums and mailing lists Commodore went down because the jackass idiot [email protected]#! Irving Gould ran the company into the ground. Gould was able to force Tramiel out of Commodore through stock and board of directors takeover after they had a dis-agreement with each other about Commodore's future. Tramiel wanted to keep advancing Commodore into more modern avenues of the latest technology and apply that to the computers etc. Gould (satan) wanted to shrink Commodore down to a small operation then use it just for a tax shelter. Then Amiga came along and Gould grabbed that up. It helped to keep the company afloat for several years but that's all. Gould, every month would hire and fire different management people. Ask an Amiga dihard about Gould and you'll hear some hatred As for Tramiel and Commodore - many former engineers of Commodore (in interviews etc) have stated they respected Tramiel. Tramiel ran the company very well. He was a marketing genious who even destroyed an opposing computer company's product line through advertising alone. We in the Commodore community highly respect Tramiel and if anyone would pop into the comp.sys.cbm newsgroup or Lemon64 and insulted him they would get their pants flamed off. Several years ago I spent much time researching Tramiel at Commodore (he founded Commodore BTW). The "official" (to the Commodore community) history of Tramiel and Commodore can be found here at "The Secret Weapons of Commodore" site ran by Cameron Kaiser http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/. As for WWII, yes Tramiel was in Auschwitz with his father. His father was killed in Auschwitz by the evil Dr. Mengala(sp?) who injected his father with some sort of gas fuel to see what the health reaction would be - needless to say the father died. As for Tramiel and Atari - I think revenge was on his mind and was the basis for the wrong decisions made at Atari. Think if you will of the obssesed Kahn in ST2 who wanted revenge at all costs - I think that's what happened with Tramiel at Atari. My (and others in the Commodore world) 2 cents (granted they're a _very_ few in the Commodore world who don't like Tramiel but that's a small number). Garak

Wise choice! Garak