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RobertB

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  3. Posted

    We got the word that our exhibit, Vintage Computer Festivalers [Project 54692], was accepted for Maker Faire Bay Area 2016! Once again my fellow VCFer's and I will be displaying the very best classic personal computers for fairgoers to enjoy. I'll be bringing in an Amiga 1200 with a Blizzard 68060 board, Amiga OS 3.9, 256 megs of RAM, 4 gig CompactFlash drive filled with games and demos, Ray Carlsen Amiga power supply, and BenQ 19-inch multi-scan VGA monitor plus speakers. In honor of its 35th anniversary, I'll also bring in a VIC-20CR with JiffyDOS, Dorktronic mini-32K (switchable) ram expander, CMD hard drive or SD2IEC card drive filled with the best games, datasette, Ray Carlsen universal Commodore power supply, and
    Sony GVM-1311Q monitor.
    My fellow VCFer's will be bringing in their machines -- anything from Apple II's to Atari 800's to Atari 2600's to Canon word-processors to more Amigas! Oh, yeah, at last year's Maker Faire, I was asked again and again, "Where are the Texas Instruments TI-99's?" I might have to bring in a TI-99a to appease those TI fans. :)
    Save the dates and times for Maker Faire 2016 -

    Friday, May 20: 1 pm - 5 pm

    Saturday, May 21: 10 am - 7 pm

    Sunday, May 22: 10 am - 6 pm

    Location: San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Dr., San Mateo, California, USA

    http://makerfaire.com

    Come and mingle with the tens of thousands of show attendees! Come and join the hundreds passing through our Vintage Computer Festivalers' exhibit! Come to Maker Faire 2016!

    Truly,
    Robert Bernardo
    Fresno Commodore User Group
    http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
    Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
    http://www.sccaners.org
    The Other Group of Amigoids
    http://togausergroup.org

    • Like 2

  5. Posted

    Happy Spring, C= and Ami aficionados!
    The Fresno Commodore User Group has its next meeting from 11 a.m. to 2+ p.m., Sunday, March 13 at --

    Bobby Salazar's Mexican Restaurant
    2839 North Blackstone Ave. (corner of Blackstone and Michigan)
    Fresno, California
    (559) 227-1686

    Be aware that this Sunday we move the clocks forward one hour for Daylight Savings Time. Thus, our 11 a.m. time is 11 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
    This month is our "catch-up" meeting, that is, it's the meeting in which get to the software and/or hardware we did not get to in previous meetings. That's not to say that we don't have some new/newish items to go over. We'll have the new epsilon version of Robert Willie's SAM 128 to try out with the SuperCPU 128. Then for the C64, we'll have the RGCD.co.uk game cartridge, Bomberland, and the new Slime 64 Deluxe. Also, member Louis may have a presentation on his ZoomFloppy device for transferring disk images between a PC and a C= drive. For the classic Amiga, we'll have some homebrew games, demos, and simulations. For the VIC-20 and Plus/4 I'll have an update on how Ray Carlsen is modding those machines. We'll have an update on how we are going spread the word of Commodore at the March 18-20 Silicon Valley Comic Con in San Jose.
    Once again our C64 background chipmusic comes from 8-Bit Weapon's latest album, "Disassembly Language: Ambient Music for Deprogramming". Once again we'll watch newly-released video documentary, "Growing the 8-Bit Generation" -- this time part 2.

    Truly,
    Robert Bernardo
    Fresno Commodore User Group
    http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

  6. Posted

    The final cut of "Growing the 8 Bit Generation" has been released to Kickstarter backers. The final cut has corrected end credits, a remixed audio track, and other errors deleted.


    On Tue, March 1, 2016 8:36 pm, I wrote:


    > The film, "Growing the 8 Bit Generation", has its first public screening at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 30, at the Computer History Museum

    > in Mountain View (South Bay area of San Francisco), California.




    The documentary "Growing the 8 Bit Generation," produced by the 8bit Generation Project, focuses on the Commodore 64’s role in the home computer explosion and the personal computer revolution. The movie features never-before-seen interviews with Jack and Leonard Tramiel, Chuck Peddle, Al Charpentier, Bil Herd, Michael Tomczyk, Dave Rolfe, Richard Garriot, Jeff Minter, and Andy Finkel, as well as Steve Wozniak, Nigel Searle, John Grant, Nolan Bushnell, Al Alcorn, and Joe Decuir.


    The 8bit Generation Project is a labor of love and takes its name from the 8-bit microprocessor popular in machines from the early 1970s to the end of the 1980s. The 8-bit generation was characterized by young entrepreneurs, engineers, visionaries, dreamers, and geniuses who wanted to change their lives and ended up changing the world.


    Executive Producer Bruno Grampa will join Museum CEO John Hollar for a fireside chat and audience Q&A.


    Date

    Wednesday March 30, 2016


    Speakers

    Bruno Grampa

    Bil Herd


    Moderators

    John Hollar


    6:30 PM

    Check-in


    7:00 PM

    Film Screening of "Growing the 8 Bit Generation"


    8:30 PM

    Executive Producer Bruno Grampa in conversation with Museum CEO John Hollar


    Location

    Computer History Museum

    1401 N. Shoreline Boulevard

    Mountain View, CA 94043



    Don't forget to register at the above link for free admission to the event.


    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group


  7. Posted

    The film, "Growing the 8 Bit Generation", has its first public screening at 6:30 p.m., Wednesday, March 30, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View (South Bay area of San Francisco), California. For more information, go to




    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group


  9. Posted

    I'll probably replace the bad parts in the PSU and keep using it...

    Ah, you have the repairable C64 power supply. I have the same p.s., and it was upgraded with modern parts, so it won't have the failures of the old components. You can find pics and a brief write-up of my p.s. at

     

    http://blog.retro-link.com/2013/07/commodore-power-supplies-upgraded.html

     

    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group

    http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

  10. Posted

    Happy Spring-like weather, C= and Ami comrades!

    The next meeting of the Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network is Saturday, March 5, from 2 to 4+ p.m. at


    Panera Bread Restaurant

    19662 Nordhoff Street

    Northridge, California

    (818) 407-9400


    This month our topics of discussion include the Vintage Computer Festivalers' exhibit at the May 20-22 Bay Area Maker Faire 2016 and presentations at the July 30-31 Commodore Vegas Expo v12.

    In software and hardware, we will try out the newish C64 game cartridge, Bomberland, which is enhanced on the C128, and other new games, like Slime 64 and the Asteroids emulator. For the Commodore 128, we'll delve into CP/M games. For the classic Amiga (OCS/ECS), we'll play around with the Megalosound 8-Bit Stereo Sampler and try to digitize some familiar tunes (and I won't forget to bring working speakers this time). If Mario brings in his A1000, we'll examine how it boots into OS 2.0/2.1 without the need of a Kickstart disk. We'll have the usual equipment, too - VIC-20, Plus/4, SX-64, C128, Amiga 500, and Amiga 1200.

    Finally, we'll view part 1 of newly-released video documentary, "Growing the 8-Bit Generation", starring Jack Tramiel, Lenard Tramiel, Chuck Peddle, Bil Herd, Al Charpentier, Jeff Minter, Andy Finkel, and Steve Wozniak, among others.

    Bring anything else you wish to share!


    Sincerely,

    Robert Bernardo


  11. Posted

     

    This C64 that I have has a weird behavior, where if I let it sit for a while and turn it on, the LED is dim and nothing appears on screen unless I wait maybe 30 seconds, then the LED lights up to full brightness and the computer turns on. Is this a sign of some problems...

    Sounds like a power problem. If you are using the original C64, non-repairable brick of a power supply, I wouldn't use it again, and I would replace it with a heavy-duty C64 power supply, modded C128 power supply, or a new, heavy-duty power supply from Ray Carlsen.

     

    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group

    http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

  16. Posted

    simbalion wrote:

     

    > Now, how reliable are the C128 power supplies? I have read they were designed to be more reliable than the C64 units and I must admit, they

    > feel of better quality. An easy to access fuse, vents for heat, and they appear to be able to be taken apart and serviced if need be.

     

    Because they are switching power supplies, they are much more reliable than C64 brick p.s.'s.

     

    For all the reasons you mentioned,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group

    http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

  17. Posted

    Seth and Michelle Sternberger of 8-Bit Weapon and ComputeHer have released their latest musical album, "Disassembly Language: Ambient Music for Deprogramming Vol. 1." Available for download, Disassembly Language is C64 SID "ambient music crafted to help facilitate relaxation." I think of it as New Age music from the Commodore 64. :)


    Here are the tracks:


    1. Phase I Lexical Analysis

    2. Phase II Debugger

    3. Phase III Refactoring

    4. Phase IV Release


    With over an hour of music, Disassembly Language is quite an accomplishment. To hear clips and to purchase, go to




    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group


  19. Posted · Edited by RobertB

    Happy Valentine's Day, C= and Ami aficionados!

    The Fresno Commodore User Group has its next meeting from 11 a.m. to 2+ p.m., Sunday, Feb. 21 at --


    Bobby Salazar's Mexican Restaurant

    2839 North Blackstone Ave. (corner of Blackstone and Michigan)

    Fresno, California

    (559) 227-1686


    This month we have a variety of new and classic items to try out. In December we ran out of time for the new C128 simulation program, Monty Hall with graphics, designed by Robert "Hydrophilic" Willie, and in January we ran into technical difficulties for the latest version of SAM 128, also by Hydrophilic. This time they will be at the top of the presentation list, along with C128 Demo Maker. Then we look at new game, Slime 64, for the C64 and the newish Asteroids emulator for the C64. For the classic Amiga, we'll run the Trojan Lightpen with its Kwikdraw art package, and then we'll run the Megalosound 8-Bit Stereo Sampler (darn, it blows away the Sound Ultimate Xpander 6400 for the C64/128). :) For the Plus/4, we look at some of the "lost" games for the machine.

    In hardware we'll examine the 4 MHz. RS65C02 CPU which replaces the 6502 chip in the VIC-20 and the SmartBasic.net Null Phone Adapter which allows you to connect two computers (e.g. Tandy 100 and Commodore 128) and allow them to communicate to each other via their respective term programs.

    Finally, we'll use CBM-Command to make .D81 files from 1581 disks. All of this accompanied by the new C64 background chipmusic from "Disassembly Language: Ambient Music for Deprogramming", 8-Bit Weapon's latest album.

    Is this too much or what?! :)


    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group



    P.S. Be prepared to see some bits from the newly-released video documentary, "Growing the 8-Bit Generation", starring Jack Tramiel, Lenard Tramiel, Chuck Peddle, Bil Herd, Al Charpentier, Jeff Minter, Andy Finkel, and Steve Wozniak, among others.

  20. Posted

    Yesterday, the one-hour, 39-minute documentary was released on-line for all Kickstarter backers! Wow! Very professionally done! It was great hearing from Jack Tramiel, Lenard Tramiel, Chuck Peddle, Al Charpentier, Jeff Minter, Bil Herd, Andy Finkel, Michael Tomczyk, Steve Wozniak, and more.

    The documentary began with the calculator age and then expanded to the KIM-1 followed by computer developments in Apple, Commodore, Tandy/Radio Shack, Sinclair, and a little bit of Texas Instruments and Atari. Most of the emphasis was on Commodore with lots of content on the PET, VIC-20, and C64 (but no mention of the Plus/4 and C128, as those were post-Tramiel).

    Technically, the sound balance was better than the preview, and Bil Herd gave a forceful narration instead of the unknown British person in the preview. However, I did catch three errors (!) with a video-editing placeholder which read, "Narrator". :)

    Bonus -- there is a separate, 59-minute video entitled, "The Last Jack Tramiel Interview".


    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group


  21. Posted

    The website for the July 30-31 Commodore Vegas Expo v12 2016 has gone live! Scroll through the different pages to see News, Presentations & Guests, Exhibits, Raffle, Vendor Info, Hotel Info, and Also in Vegas. Check back regularly for updates, additions, and corrections. Go to

    http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex

    Join the CommVEx discussion at

    http://www.commodore.ca/forum/viewforum.php?f=6

    Yes, that graphic in the banner needs correcting,
    Robert Bernardo
    organizer, Commodore Vegas Expo

  22. Posted

    SSG wrote:

     

    > Please post down some helpful informations for others to read concerning this device and a good place to find ROMS.

     

    A collection of games ready to be used can be found at

     

    http://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/index.php/sd2iec-info

     

    Scroll about halfway down the page and click on DOWNLOAD SD2IEC-COLLECTION.EXE

     

    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group

    http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    Reset magazine, the C64 on-line magazine, returns with issue #8. This time, the articles are --


    - Adventure gaming - Heroes & Cowards (Protovision), Caren and the Tangled Tentacles (PriorArt), Knight ‘N’ Grail (Psytronik)


    - the D42 Adventure System


    - Ray Carlsen talking about replacement PLA chips


    - Martin Grundy's Reset Reloaded column


    - Game test - Daffy Duck


    - a new Mix-i-Disk .D64


    Download issue #08 at




    Back issues are available from the main page at




    Truly,

    Robert Bernardo

    Fresno Commodore User Group


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