Quote from: RobertB on January 21, 2026, 06:15 PM

Quote from: Hydrophilic on January 17, 2026, 01:51 PM

• BASIC 7.80 (graphics from BASIC now operate on 80-column)

On a side note, the January 2026 of the new Compute!'s Gazette magazine has a review and comparison of several BASIC enhancements for the C64.

Hmm, how many were there for the C128? 

Other than BASIC 8, I can't think of any.

Quote from: Hydrophilic on January 17, 2026, 01:51 PMI'm glad to see Commodore 128 Alive! again.  On a related note, I just got my website up and running again.  No forums, but some things the C128'er might find interesting are:

• BASIC Encyclopedia
• BASIC 7.80 (graphics from BASIC now operate on 80-column)
• SAM 128 (speech synthesizer)

BASIC 7.80 looks interesting.  A couple of notes:

• "Multi-color bitmap modes. The VDC can not display 4 colors in a single cell. You might be able to emulate this with interlace mode."

  I recall BASIC 8 used dithering to simulate multi-color.  Might be a possibility here, although likely complicated to implement.  

• "Split-screen modes.  The VDC does not have a raster interrupt.  Should be possible with synchronized CIA interrupt."

   The problem with doing that is CIA timers are run by the ~1 MHz I/O clock, which cannot be evenly divided  to match either of the two possible VDC scan rates.  So it would not be possible to generate evenly-spaced timer IRQs that follow the VDC scan rate.  You'd have to configure the VIC to raster interrupt at the desired time, as well as the usual time, and wedge into the IRQ handler to trap the mid-screen interrupt.  That, however, poses a synchronization issue, since the VDC dot clock is not related to the VIC's clock.  While I may be wrong, I'm not seeing a workable solution for this.[/list]

Quote from: Blacklord on January 20, 2026, 06:25 AMSven Petersen has released a new piece of hardware for the PET...

That's a nice piece of work...very professional-looking.

I recall he had retired due to problems with his hands, but upon following the link, I read that he had been caring his wife who passed last year.  I didn't know any of that.  I am sorry to read of his loss.

Quote from: ChazH on April 25, 2025, 09:25 PMthe PDF links above returns "not found"

Those posts were made 15 years ago and, unfortunately, links do go stale.  Fire up your favorite search engine and search for "mapping the commodore 128"—include the quotes with the search phrase to reduce false positives.

Quote from: RobertB on November 16, 2024, 10:29 AMOn this page, there is a method to hack a faster Z80 in order to run CP/M faster.  See

https://github.com/ytmytm/c128-z80-8mhz

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

Yes, the Z80 itself runs faster, but I/O is still limited to 1 MHz operation, since it is the 8502 that is doing the work.  Also, the disk-intensive nature of CP/M means performance is hobbled by the relative-slow 1571 or not-quite-as-slow as the 1581.

The CP/M implementation on the C-128 leaves much to be desired in terms of performance.  Early on when I acquired a Lt. Kernal disk subsystem, I gave CP/M a go with it.  It definitely was faster than with use of a floppy disk, but not at the level I had seen on the native Z80 machines that were available late in CP/M's useful life.  I deleted the CP/M LU on the Lt. Kernal and that was the end of CP/M for me.

Quote from: Blacklord on January 06, 2025, 07:09 AM40 years ago today the Commodore 128 was released at the 1985 CES show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Seems like just the other day when I bought my first C-128.

Will there be anything left of LA in which to hold a convention after Mayor Bass' fire has finished its work?

Quote from: Blacklord on November 26, 2024, 05:20 AM

Quote from: BigDumbDinosaur on November 26, 2024, 01:16 AMWhich OS version are you running?

Windows Server 2022

Really?  I would have thought you'd be running some flavor of *NIX.

Can the files in RAR format be converted to ZIP?  I don't have anything that can open an RAR file.

Which OS version are you running?

It's a shame these shows all seem to be concentrated on the left coast—nothing here in the midwest of which I am aware.  It's literally been decades since I last attended a Commodore-oriented show.

Quote from: RobertB on October 21, 2024, 03:55 PMSweet!  Which reminds me that I should have Ray Carlsen install a modern power supply in my C128DCR.

I thought Ray had retired from working on C= hardware.

It's not a dual-drive assembly in the same vein as, say, an 8250.  In a real dual drive, both mechanisms have the same device number (8, 9, etc.) and a specific mechanism is selected in the command string by specifying 0: or 1:, e.g., RUN "1:MY_PROG",8.

In this dual 1581 unit, the two mechanisms have different device numbers, so the CBM DOS commands that could copy from one disk to another in a real dual-drive unit won't work.  Any copy program would be working through the serial bus to read from the source disk and write to the destination disk.  It could be made to run pretty fast by using the burst mode routines published by Commodore with the Dev-Pak assembler, along with an algorithm that understands the physical disk layout well enough to minimize the effects of rotational latency and track-to-track seeks.

With all that said, the copying speed will be limited to whatever the serial bus can deliver, which won't be nearly as fast as what even the old MSD dual drive could achieve when internally copying from disk to disk.

Quote from: RobertB on October 14, 2024, 05:48 AMThat was Jeff Jarian.  He also produced a Lt. Kernal clone.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

Ah, yes, now I recall him.

Thanks for the replies.  When I finally get out the 128D, I will track down these adapters.

Quote from: Blacklord on October 01, 2024, 09:02 AMCoupled with the CPM Fast binaries (in 80 col mode) this would make the 128D a rather useful CP/M machine.

Testing 1 2 3

Now is the time for all men to come to the aid of the party.

One of my long-running projects...