The VICE team decided to one up Santa Claus and give everyone an early Christmas gift this year. Version 2.1 of the VersatIle Commodore Emulator has been released. A list of changes/additions to this version can be found here and until the VICE homepage gets updated you'll have to download directly from Sourceforge (some versions are also available from Zimmers).

Enjoy.

There aren't many commercial games for the 128 and the few that were released don't come up often so I figured this was worthy of mentioning...

Infocom Trinity Game for Commodore 128 C128 Complete

Disclaimer: Not mine.

A complete set of Compute!'s Gazette (83 regular issues plus the special issues) in PDF form (~50MB per issue, approximately 4.5GB in total) is now available in alt.binaries.emulators.cbm. If you download any issues please spread them around to prevent parasites from trying to make some cash from this collection. Compute!, Commodore World, Ahoy! and lots of others to follow.

Go crazy.

There's a new retro radio station called Radio 6581 that just went on the air (so to speak) today. Similar in nature to SLAY Radio only it's all in English and they're going to focus on playing more actual SID tunes and they'll have more live content. Definitely worth checking out.

Also, they've started a channel in the Efnet called #radio6581. Feel free to drop by to make requests.

It isn't ready for distribution yet (c'mon Apple, open up the app store already!) but it's nice to know that a version of Frodo for the iPhone is on the way. You can find more information here.

Quick Eyes is a new game for the 128 in 80 column mode and you can download it here. Enjoy.

For those who are lucky enough to have a 128 compatible MMC Replay, FMan has released the first monitor for the MMC Replay, appropriately called, MMC Replay Monitor.



You can download it and other goodies here.

So, who has an MMC Replay?

Style has done it again...

DirMaster is a Windows-based GUI tool for manipulating common (and uncommon) emulator and native archival formats. DirMaster differentiates from and surpasses competing tools with its focus on usability: a perfect blend of familiar disk directory appearance with modern GUI functionality.

Key highlights of v2.0:

• File support: .d64, .d71, .d81, .d80, .d82, .d2m, .dhd, .dnp, .dfi, .g64 (read only), .t64 (read only), .prg/.p00, .seq/.s00, .usr/.u00, .rel/.r00, .arc, .sda, .lnx, .ark, .cvt, .sfx, .wr3, zip/4
• fully enabled drag and drop
• recursive find
• batch processing: recursively create .txt, .csv, and .bmp from disk images or extract images to prg/seq files
• invoke your favorite emulator (up to eight slots)
• decompress archives directly off open disk images or by drag and drop
• track/sector editor: edit in hex or ASCII
• multi-level undo

You can download it (along with lots of other great stuff) from http://style64.org/

There's an Amiga emulator called Amiga Forever that is somewhat unique in that it is fully licensed to use the Amiga ROMs and its developer decided to showcase the new version by installing it on a One Laptop Per Child notebook. Check it out:



You can find more information here if you're curious.

I ordered an XO-1 under their buy two/get one/give one program and when it arrives I'll have to install VICE so there will be a One 128 Per Child too.

There's a story on the CNN website about the venerable Commodore 64. I'm stunned that the RNN or the WSPM hasn't posted about this yet.

Is anyone else having trouble connecting to the forums today? My attempts are failing 4 out of 5 times and the lack of traffic today makes me wonder if the problem is widespread.

I learned something new this past weekend and that is if you have a 128 or 128D and a Super Snapshot cartridge (which unfortunately only works in 64 mode) you can use not only the 128's extra RAM as a buffer when doing disk copies but, if you've 64K of video RAM, you can use that too. My Snapshot has the 32K RAM upgrade and when combined with the 192K in my 128 I can actually copy an entire single sided disk in one read/write cycle with a single floppy drive. As it happens, I have two 1571s so I doubt I'll ever use that feature but it's nice to know it's possible.

Is Your Commodore defunct? I have been unable to connect for several days now.

Golan

I decided it was time to start cleaning house so I've been testing all my flat 128s. Turns out that four are good (two with 16K VDC and two with 64K VDC, yeehaw!), one is dead as a door nail and one is exhibiting a rather odd problem that I haven't encountered before and couldn't find listed on Ray Carlsen's website. I get a screenful of garbage when I boot in 40 column mode and yet everything is dandy when I boot into 80 column mode. I also tried to check to see if it had a 16 or 64K VDC (in 80 column mode) using "POKE DEC("D600"),28:POKE DEC("D601"),63:SYS DEC("FF62"):SCNCLR" and the screen filled up with garbage. I get the same screenful of garbage in 64 mode too. What is really boggling my mind is that 128 still works fine. I can change the background and border colours and everything. I'm stumped.

Anyone ever encounter anything like this? Suggestions?

I just noticed that there's no way to use coloured text in messages. Any particular reason why? Just curious.

The latest version of VICE (v1.21) has been released. Information on what's new in this release can be found here and download links are listed on the VICE homepage or you can get the files directly from Zimmers.net.

Enjoy!