Mazzspeed

Here we were, saving our guts out to buy a computer by whatever means necessary in the day... ...These days you can find PC's at the side of the road.

I was given a 600XL brand new in the box. My uncle worked in an electronics store and they couldn't sell it, so he brought it home and gave it to me. Sadly I never used it as the A8 line of computers weren't big in Australia, so it sat under the bed in my childhood bedroom until I moved out - From that point onward I have no idea what happened to it. But, many, many years later I bought another 600XL, restored and upgraded it with the latest gear and I love it to bits.

Using S-JiffyDOS I can format to 40 tracks on an early mechanism, I can also make use of additional blocks in the DIR track 18 for slightly more space. Having said that, I have no real need for 40 tracks TBH. 😕

I've owned a number of 1541 drives, as well as a Blue Chip clone drive - I've never had one fail. The Blue Chip drive was a better design then the 1541 however, and 100% compatible.

I use ICE-T and Bobterm under SDX no problems at all. Both require the 'X' prefix when launching, and ICE-T requires the R handler to be loaded beforehand by entering RS232 under SDX before loading the software.

Oh that cuts deep! 😂

This 100%. There are pro's and con's to both closed source and open source, both holding no clear advantage with the exception of operating systems where Microsoft believe your PC is actually their PC to do with as they please. It's for this reason that I choose KDE Neon and refuse to use any proprietary desktop OS. Furthermore I'm not inconvenienced in the slightest and can even run a vast majority of Windows based software using a combination of Wine/DXVK/DX9VK - Including Altirra. In fact I run certain Windows software on my Pi400 using a combination of Box86 and Wine (including Altirra) and it runs perfectly.

Perhaps you threw the brick? (Joking).

I don't believe Jon's provided a stance on open source software, he's merely stated that his firmware will not be open sourced - Which is totally his decision and understandable. At the end of the day, I believe Jon's firmware is one of the major selling points regarding the hardware in question, I support his stance as the sole developer of the firmware as it's fantastic. At the end of the day, the issue here has nothing to do with open or closed source development, it's 100% a payment dispute. An unfortunate development, but sadly not uncommon regarding retro communities.

I didn't miss any point. The notion that open source means anyone can view the code and thereby exploit the code in question doesn't hold to scrutiny. As stated, Linux forms the backbone of the internet as well as internet facing servers, and yet Windows is by far the most exploited OS in existence. Furthermore this is not an issue of security via obscurity, as globally Android is the most popular operating system, more popular than Windows, and suffers minuscule exploits/infections compared to Windows. People are claiming open source is somehow a bad thing, I'm providing perspective on the matter. But I digress, reading about Jon's incident, I hope both himself and his Wife are both OK.

Linux basically forms the backbone of the internet and internet facing servers, vulnerabilities are found and patched in far larger numbers than the two proprietary operating systems. When it's claimed that Linux has had more vulnerabilities found over time compared to other operating systems, that's not a bad thing at all due to the fact that the vulnerabilities have been found and patched - It's one example of an advantage to open source software as many eyes make light work. When an operating system is closed source, naturally it's harder to find and patch vulnerabilities, so less are actually found and patched. Decades old vulnerabilities have also been found under Windows: https://threatpost.com/20-year-old-bug-legacy-microsoft-windows-users/147336/

This situation is a fairly niche case, and I'm truly appreciative of the work both FJC and Candle do. But anyone that claims that money cannot be made via open source doesn't fully understand how open source works. 'Freedom' can be quantified as free speech, not free beer. The code can be open source, but the executable is not. A situation that sticks in my mind regarding a retro developer that didn't truly understand the difference between FOSS and open source was a certain talented individual making accelerators for Amiga's - I hope this situation doesn't turn into the debacle experienced in that instance. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html

The Ultimate series of cartridges for the C64 are open source and do very well, I'm sure Gideon is making 'enough' out of each unit sold as well as sales of the Ultimate 64 motherboards. Open source can work and does work in many, many instances - However for a community the size of the A8 community, I agree that closed source is probably better given the circumstances. I love my FJC/Candle products, hang in there guys.

I run that same 64k upgrade on my 600XL and it's never missed a beat. However I did solder the wire to the underside of the PCB as opposed to the leg of the MMU.

I read it all, I took it all in, the game does not use 512k of RAM. Naturally, being an 8 bit machine it can't address anymore than 64k of ram. EasyFlash essentially simply allows for fast bank switching within the cart itself using the C64's Ultimax mode. To quote this article: "It's not using EasyFlash as a storage solution, but as an actual ROM cartridge, so there's lots of (speed-)code, data and tables in ROM", Andreas explains. "It needs a cart because the player sprites alone take about 40K (and are pre-mirrored on the C64) and there's about 32K of code and also lots of tables. Background graphics tiles also take a fair amount of space (15K for palace levels). And then there are two bitmaps (8K each) for double-buffering, and lots of other smaller things (music, sfx, animation data, etc.)." From this article: https://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/10/prince-of-persia-c64.html Essentially, both the A8 and C64 ports are outstanding ports, I'm not taking away from your achievement in any way whatsoever. Your outward insistance to make it a competition of ports based on memory requirements is what irks many here including myself - It's commendable fitting the whole game into 128k, but it wasn't technically necessary. Unlike yourself as a perpetual antagonist. No I didn't. I can access your trainwreck of a thread any time I decide I want to - Which will likely be never.

It will with some very minor filing of the edge joints where the two shell halves join together.

U1MB pairs amazingly well with SIDE3 as the PBI mass storage device. Totally recommended, I love my U1MB/SIDE3 combo - Even better with FJC's latest firmware.

The C64 version including ROM and RAM fits onto a 512k EasyFlash cart, MrSid doesn't really make mention of actual RAM usage. It utilizes the memory on the EasyFlash cart due to the fact that the C64's architecture isn't suited to banking data into/out of the internal 64k of memory, but bank switching on the EasyFlash cart is possible and far faster using Ultimax mode. Expecting some form of arrogance, not to mention a snide personal insult in return - Hence the reason I was so happy about 12 months ago to find that using this forum software I can block an entire thread, with that thread effectively becoming invisible to myself. As a result the entire toxic PoP thread made it's way into my personal round folder.

And the C64 was designed with Ultimax mode for this exact purpose, so trying to claim the C64 PoP port is somehow cheating is as arrogant as your pointless personal attack towards myself in relation to discussing anything technical. I mean, by your metric, the 6502 second processor version of Elite on the BBC micro was cheating - Even thought the Tube port was an ingenious design, not terribly dissimilar to Ultimax mode on the C64.

No it doesn't.

Don't do what I did and think everything will work itself out, while your body and health screams enough.

I've been on Basement BBS JP, lurking in the background. Just a bit busy ATM, hoping to get some downtime soon so I can have a bit of a BBS chat session again.

I made my own separately shielded chroma/luma cables for both my A8 and Commodore machines and I get no jailbars whatsoever. In fact the resulting PQ from my 600XL was fantastic after modding the video output for separate chroma/luma based on FJC's instructions. I now run a Sophia 2, but if I couldn't have got a Sophia 2 for any reason (as is the case now I believe) I would have remained perfectly happy with my separately shielded svideo output.

Just updated, this is very sexeh, thanks FJC!

The C64 has very versatile memory management. You can bank almost the whole 64k free with a tiny amount of space left for I/O, and the low level DOS is stored in the disk drive itself. Due to the fact most games were coded in assembly, it made the C64 a very capable machine - Especially considering it's sprite hardware and color memory. I'm a bit of a Mayhem In Monsterland fan myself.