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Messages - Mark Smith

#51
Herdware / Re: The 1520 Plotter Survival Guide
October 02, 2009, 10:49 AM
I still wish I could get my hands on a nice 1520 plotter ... not seen a single one come up for sale down here in NZ :-(

Anyone overseas got one surplus ?

Mark
#52
hehe .. this is pre-CDROM :-)

I have the self extracting images of System 7.5.3 .. except the files are 20MB, and the disk currently in the machine is 40Mb ... so not enough room to extract and install :-(

Also Apple had this great idea of only allowing the disk partitioner/preparer work with disks with an "Apple" ROM in them .. so 15 years down the line when I want to put a bigger disk in the computer I have to find the hacked version of the disk prep tool.

Ah well .. I'll think of something, probably have to resort to Linux to make disks or somehting.

Mark
#53
Hi there,

I need to get a bootable disk image that has the required tools on it to format a non-Apple SCSI disk so I can install System7.

Anyone able to help out ?

I have System7 downloaded from Apple but the hard disk I have (40Mb) is to small to install onto, so I have a 2.1GB SCSI one to go in .. of course I have no tools to format said disk.

Help ?

Mark
#54
Finally got an RGBI monitor and cable combo again so my C128 is back in the land of the living :-)

Anything new and exciting to look at these days ?
#55
Assembly / Re: Manual for Turbo Assembler 128
June 28, 2009, 12:10 PM
Quote from: zap on June 26, 2009, 10:58 PM
Try this site "Bookmark" it's a great site. :) Bombjack.

It's not "great"!

It's "fantastic!!" :-)  Thanks!

Mark
#56
Herdware / LOPT replacement in 1084's ?
June 25, 2009, 08:35 PM
Hi there,

I've been told that my deceased 1084 might be fixed by replacing it's LOPT.

Anyone know what part number that would be ?  Or where to get one ?

Mark
#57
Herdware / Bought yet another 1084S
June 25, 2009, 07:14 AM
and yet again it is a different model to the others I've had .. how many types of these bloody things did Commodore make ?!?!

This one has the round DIN connectors on the back and the CVBS / RGB select switch on the front (which is much more handy than having it on the back), the only snag is I don't have an RGBI cable that goes from D9 to DIN .. and I'm not sure what sort of DIN connector it really is.

Anyone know the part number for the connector I need to find ?

so I'm back in the land of 80 columns shortly ... until this one blows up as well!
#58
Quote from: airship on November 07, 2008, 05:11 AM
I don't know who I was thinking of when I said 'twins', but after an exhaustive search of Michael's posts I found this thread from Dec-07:


Twins would have been poor me! :-)
#59
It's possible the svideo signal is overly strong, was reading a usenet posting about someone who hacked a c64 to output svideo by removing the RF modulator, he had to tame the luminance (I think) with a resistor.

Think that could be it ?

#60
Herdware / Terrible video quality on LCDs ?
June 19, 2009, 07:35 AM
Hi there,

I've a nice fancy 32" Samsung LCD (1080p etc etc), if I plug in the s-video output of my C128 I get hideous artifacts on screen ... almost like if you encode video with MPEG at a low bitrate.

Anyone else have this issue ?

I've turned off the "dynamic" smarts of the LCD but still the same.

Using the s-video output on a CRT is of course great (apart from the nasty vertical bands on the VIC-II output .. whch seems to be part of the C128)

The LD is also fantastic with other s-video outputs from the DVD player and of course via HDMA and the PS3 with Blu-ray is like comparing VHS to DVD :-)

Mark
#61
I think I've been doing to much work lately .. brain is completely fried! :-)
#62
Does anyone else have issues ?

I have Safari 4 on OSX and the "Next" buttons to go to the next page of posts does not work.

:-(

#63
General chat / Re: Vegemite/Marmite
April 14, 2009, 08:36 AM
You can't microwave bacon ?!?!?!?!

It would be all .. well just plain icky!  Sick sick americans!!! :-)
#64
Herdware / Annoying 1581 issue
March 19, 2009, 09:01 AM
My 1581 is really starting to annoy me now ... I can;t run it with the case on.

If the case is on a screwed in it powers on fine, but when you try to access a disk the light flashes and then I get a not ready status come back.

If the case is removed then it all works fine!

I'm sure it's a case of something somewhere is being flexed (or unflexed) when the case is screwed down, but I can't see where it would be.

Any guesses of what to look at ?

Mark

#65
General chat / Re: Vegemite/Marmite
March 19, 2009, 07:37 AM
Just to skew the topic further....

English mustard or American mustard ?

Funniest thing I saw was when I was on a Nato base in Holland, watch this American lady slather mustard all over her ham sandwich ... then start crying after she bit into it.
It was English mustard she applied in the same quantity as American mustard :-) hehehehe

What is that American mustard for anyway ?  Decoration only ? ;-)

Mark

#66
General chat / Re: Vegemite/Marmite
March 19, 2009, 07:34 AM
I'll just drop my opinion on this debate:

Marmite is nicer than Vegemite
Bovril is nicer than both as it's a bit tamer :-)


#67
General chat / Long time no visit!
March 13, 2009, 09:10 AM
Hi all,

Been a while since I was here .. how is everyone doing ?

Anything good happened in the world of Commodore I missed  ?

Mark
#68
GEOS / Re: What's the best GEOS setup ?
January 21, 2009, 01:19 PM
So to get hold of Wheels ... is it a case of hoping that Maurice actually does reply, or a case of downloading it fromm other places ? (assuming it is actually out there)

I've not heard great things about Maurice lately ... concerns about orders not shipping, repairs being held onto etc.  All rumour mill stuff but still ....

Thanks for the handy pointers though :-)

#69
GEOS / Re: What's the best GEOS setup ?
January 21, 2009, 12:31 PM
Pokefinder has the GEOsid, but not the geostereosid listed.

#70
GEOS / What's the best GEOS setup ?
January 21, 2009, 08:10 AM
Hi there,

If I wanted to make a nice GEOS setup what would I need ?

I thinking just the software required on unexpanded 64 or 128 here .. no SuperCPUs involved :-)

Hardware wise I've the 1541U with 4GB and it's 16MB REU so storing lots of D64's is not an issue.

Something I'd like to find are:

  Patch to support more than a 512K REU
  RR-Net support ?  (wishful thinking ?)
  Patch to support for "not real" 1541 devices (for things like the uIEC or IEC device on the 1541U where there is no 6502 emulated)
  StereoSID player
  And any other must have patches/utilities/apps

Any got some good pointers ?

Regards

Mark

#71
Herdware / NEOS and 1351 mouse differences ?
January 20, 2009, 07:19 PM
Hiya,

Anyone know why the NEOS and the 1351 mouse are not compatible ?  (as in software seems to be written for specifically for each)

Regards

Mark

#72
Herdware / Re: PC mouse adapter
January 20, 2009, 07:16 PM
Actually I made a mistake about Arkanoid .. Arkanoid 1 and 3 support the NEOS mouse, Arkanoid Rvenge of Doh supports NEOS and 1351.

I think I used to have a NEOS mouse bank in ye olde days .. brain is getting fuzzy with time :-)

But yes .. emulating a 1351 with Revenge of Doh works great .. except for one thing, I guess the DPI rating of the optical mouse is wwwwaaaaayyyyyyy higher than the 1351, so if you move to quick the C64 sort of loses track.

Mark

#73
Herdware / Re: PC mouse adapter
January 20, 2009, 03:38 PM
My Micromys V3 has arrived from Protovision :-)  7 days from order, travelling 18,000kms, to hitting my letter box .. not bad at all.

And it works great!  Only tested it in 1351 emulation so far, but with an el-cheapo optical USB mouse (with USB to P2 converter) it works great in GEOS.

Now I can safely store the 1351.

Build quality of the black case is a bit rough as it seems to just be 2 bits of plastic screwed together, I'll take it apart later and smooth off the edges .. but seems to work as advertised.

Regards

Mark

#74
Herdware / Re: RTC for the C128
January 18, 2009, 08:12 AM
But for reading the time you would need to do nothing, surely it would just be a case of reading the time out (as the part has 32,760bytes of RAM and then the last 8 bytes are the clock).

Mark


#75
Herdware / RTC for the C128
January 17, 2009, 06:38 PM
Hiya,

Can someone point out to me why this can't be put into the option ROM socket and provide a real time clock ?

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/bq4830y.html

Might even be able to load the 32K of RAM with the routines required to use it.

Though I'm thinking setting the time would be awkward ... can you write to the ROM socket ?  Even though a ROM would normaly resist such things, is it still possible to send a write to those addresses ?

Just idle thoughts :-)

Mark