Commodore 64 questions

[+atari2600land]

So I got out my Commodore 64 from out of the cold garage and hooked it up to the TV. It still works great. I only have a handful of games, none of which are very good. I want some more games, and I have a few questions.

1. I looked on lemon64.com and it said there were over 4,000 games made for it during its life?! Is this true?

2. Does anyone have a complete Commodore 64 game collection, or is it impossible like the Atari 2600?

3. How do I program a homebrew for the Commodore 64? Is it possible? How big is the homebrew scene?

4. Why does the power wire need a big huge cube in the middle?

5. What was the final game released for the Commodore 64 not homebrew and when was it released?

Edited December 5, 2018 by atari2600land

[carlsson]

1. Gamebase64 has 25000 entries, though a lot of those are duplicates and hacks. I usually divide that number by 2 to get a reasonable amount of unique games, which would be around 12000. The 4000 at Lemon64 are a selection of the best known, most popular ones so there are plenty of obscure games you won't find at Lemon64 but which are present at Gamebase64.

 

2. Some people have attempted to acquire every game ever released, but as you imagine already at 4000 it is getting difficult. Not so much due to the amount, but that many of those games are from smaller publishers with low circulation and to be honest, if it wasn't for past piracy many would have been forgotten forever. I don't know what the record is for a C64 collection, but surely a thousand or more unique games.

 

3A. The C64 scene has traditionally been very demo centered, but in the past decade there has blossomed a HUGE amount of homebrew games, almost on levels with the most popular consoles. I'm not kidding! Most are free downloads, but a fair amount of them can be bought in physical form - cartridge, disk, tape - as well. It is one of the best documented formats with most amount of tools.

 

3B. You can program the C64 in a number of programming languages. BASIC is most obvious, but also least useful. Nowadays you can cross-tokenize BASIC programs using tools like C64 Studio, CBM PRG Studio etc. You can also use the cc65 compiler if you want to program in C. Since I know you've been doing a number of 2600 games, you should also have a good grasp of 6502 assembly code and of course there is a ton of cross assemblers. I would suppose you already got DASM or something similar installed, which means instant support to assemble C64 programs.

 

4. Umm.. not sure what you mean. You have 115V AC input from the wall, which goes to a power supply that generates 9V AC + 5V DC which is what the computer needs. The "big cube" is the power supply simply, which has a lead in each end instead of being grafted onto the power plug like many weaker 9V power supplies you might be having.

 

A word of warning though: this power supply has a tendancy to go bad. Internally it has a transformer that generates two 9V AC voltages, of which one passes through rectifying diodes and voltage regulator. The regulator may stop working, in particular if it comes loose so one of its legs doesn't have contact with the PCB any longer. This results the 5V becoming 9-12V and will fry your computer if it happens. That is why many people today order a "saver", a small device that is plugged in between the power supply and the computer. The saver will immediately detect if the voltage goes bad and shuts it off, taking the hit so the computer isn't harmed. As an alternative, some people buy newly manufactured aftermarket power supplies that are better designed and safe to use. In particular if you have stored it in a cold garage, be wary about problems might arise and once the delicate chips have been fried, there is not much use of the computer than possibly spare parts for the chips that survived.

 

5. Hard to say. Traditionally I believe Mayhem in Monsterland (1993) is considered the last significant game, though there were many other commercial releases in 1993, even 1994 or later. Somewhere among there, more indie publishers like Psytronik appeared, together with PD libraries etc. Since the C64 didn't have any lockout chips or licensing, and that pretty much anyone could publish games on either media - even homemade cartridges - it would be a matter of how you distribute your game to determine which was the last one.

[motrucker]

I would second the point about the danger of using those old power supplies. Get a new PSU from Ray Carlsen;

 

http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/

 

He also sells a device called the Computer Saver, that works with your old power supply, not allowing it to kill your computer. His site is full of great information concerning the C-64 (and other C= models).

 

 

[+atari2600land]

I contacted Mr. Carlsen via e-mail about wanting to buy a Computer Saver. Thanks for that tip. I also got started on a homebrew game that is more like a "Hello World" at this point.

It saves my file as a .prg file, which is good and all, but what is the correct way to save it as a Commodore 64 cartridge file? I would like to test this out. Is there an Everdrive-type thing for the Commodore 64?

[White Flame]

.prg is the correct way to save a Commodore 64 program, be it native on your hard drive, or contained inside a .d64 disk image or .t64 tape image.

 

 

There aren't many standards to C64 cartridges, besides the rudimentary 8KB/16KB ROM-only carts. Since tapes/floppies held way more and were way cheaper, those went away pretty quickly and cartridges ended up being in the realm of hardware utility functions, not software distribution. Utility carts were produced with whatever funky hardware & wiring they needed to support their features. The .crt file format was created with this extra metadata about utility hardware and cartridge port pins that emulators had to support. If you really want to know how a .crt file works, here's the file format: http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/formats/CRT.TXT You'll need to understand the C64's memory mapping facilities fairly well.

[+atari2600land]

I have no tape drive nor disk drive, I just have a lone C64 unit, so that's why I'm asking about cartridges.

[thetick1]

I have no tape drive nor disk drive, I just have a lone C64 unit, so that's why I'm asking about cartridges.

 

Get an SD2IEC SD Card Reader for Commodore 64

 

or if want a project and are comfortable with soldering:

 

There is a cycle perfect 1541 emulator for Raspberry Pi that behaves exactly like a 1541.

https://cbm-pi1541.firebaseapp.com/

Edited December 6, 2018 by thetick1

[carlsson]

Regarding cartridges, there are the EasyFlash series though you would need either an EPROM programmer or a secondary storage device like the SD2IEC, uIEC/SD, Pi1541 etc to load the contents to the cartridge. There also are some backup oriented cartridges that can take a snapshot of what is in memory and store it on the cartridge, though that is not what you're currently looking for.

 

If you have an old DOS PC, you might want to look into an XE1541 parallel port cable and 64HDD on the PC, whether it still can be obtained. Though I agree that the options mentioned above are much more convenient.

[+atari2600land]

I talked with Ray and he said the best option is a BB-64, which is apparently two PSs to plug in, but it's safer than the old brick one somehow. So I got that.

[spacecadet]

Just going back to the subject of games, I don't think it's really possible on any of the classic computers to have a full collection, both because there's so many but also because different people will even define that in different ways. On consoles, there's a sort of standard - if it was approved by the console manufacturer and shipped in a box with their logo on it, you can probably count it. (Although others will include homebrews in the total, so even with consoles it's not clearcut.)

 

But with all the classic computers, it's difficult to even draw the line between homebrews and officially published games, since there was no official process for approval. And it's true that some games might have had a production run of like ten units, all self-produced and packaged out of somebody's basement. Some of those today are worth gobs of money and are all but impossible to find. I think it would be a pipe dream to try to be that one guy who manages to find all of them (and can afford all of them).

 

Of course, most of them are available as ROMs and are even included if you buy certain models of SD2IEC. Mine came with an SD card that was already full up with games, and probably 90% of them are games I've never heard of. So I'm sure a lot of them are those very limited run games that are impossible to find physical copies of.

[zylon]

I have no tape drive nor disk drive, I just have a lone C64 unit, so that's why I'm asking about cartridges.

 

I use just a 1541 (sometimes a 1571), and a Fastload cart. I have an SD2IEC, but it's not faster in my experience. Mostly, I use it for making floppies.

Edited December 7, 2018 by zylon

[carlsson]

The SD2IEC should detect the Epyx Fastload and respond to it, though we had a discussion some years ago about someone who had issues about that. The SD2IEC also detects The Final Cartridge III and the 1581 fastloader routines on Action Replay series, as well as supporting JiffyDOS if you have that in your computer.

[zylon]

The SD2IEC should detect the Epyx Fastload and respond to it, though we had a discussion some years ago about someone who had issues about that. The SD2IEC also detects The Final Cartridge III and the 1581 fastloader routines on Action Replay series, as well as supporting JiffyDOS if you have that in your computer.

 

Mine plugs into the cart slot, so I need to leave the Fastload out when using it. It's a convenient device in that you can have an enormous library on one SD and just scroll through a menu, but performance is the same as the hardware it replaces. I merely find it quicker to grab the disk I want and put it in. LOAD"*",8,1

Using CBMCMD23 for making disks takes nearly an hour to get to the bottom of the menu, then 30min for the disk. So, I only use it for making hard copies of things I downloaded and really liked. If someone is starting out with nothing, then it's by far the best way to get in.

Another good way was buying "lots" of homemade disks on auction sites. Great cheap way to be able to play many games if one has a disk drive.

Either way, lots of fun to be had.

[carlsson]

Hm, it sounds more like a MMC64 cartridge than a SD2IEC though perhaps it has been made in cartridge form too, though I wonder for which purpose.

[zylon]

Hm, it sounds more like a MMC64 cartridge than a SD2IEC though perhaps it has been made in cartridge form too, though I wonder for which purpose.

 

Here's a pic of it. I bought it from a seller in Hungary about 5 or 7 years ago. Has disk swap + and -, as well as a soft reset.

[+atari2600land]

I talked with Ray and he said the best option is a BB-64, which is apparently two PSs to plug in, but it's safer than the old brick one somehow. So I got that.

So this thing came in the mail today. It works out well. Hopefully this can keep my C64 running for years to come.

[zylon]

So this thing came in the mail today. It works out well. Hopefully this can keep my C64 running for years to come.

 

I'd be willing to make up some loaded floppies if you get a drive and send disks+shipping. or you can just go the SD2IEC + carts route.

Edited December 9, 2018 by zylon