Programmer Richard Goedeken is set to show off his new C128 game at the April 25-26 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2026!  He says that the secret, unnamed game is "using the high resolution video port to display 640x480 in 16 colors, VGA resolution!"  He also says, "The game almost certainly won't be finished by CLASS but it's playable even now and it's fun."

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
organizer - Commodore Los Angeles Super Show
http://www.portcommodore.com/class

Are you part of the GEOS community on Facebook?  They have lots of info and help.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
April 25-26 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2026 - http://www.portcommodore.com/class

After much long and painful suffering I have been able to create a floppy for booting MP3.  It mentions several times during the install I need a copy of "128 Desktop! copied to the disk.I have been trying several days but have unable to get a working copy onto the disk.  I have tried:  straight copy, GEOS copy (refuses to allow), FCOPY (sends a broken version), Maverick (unable to make sure is safe GEOS copy), and DirMaster (again a broken ending).  Any suggestions would be welcome.  Eventual goal to get MP3 onto CMD HD.  Using Vice 3.10 r46028 (version that fixes the mouse pointer).
Rob

     To see photos and a video link of the event, go to

http://blog.retro-link.com/2026/03/commodore-amiga-at-fresno-state-science.html

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
          Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
          April 25-26 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2026 - http://www.portcommodore.com/class

https://csm.fresnostate.edu/events/science-carnivale-2026.html

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group -
          http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

Greetings, everyone!
      I just got confirmation of this yesterday.  Our hands-on exhibit has been approved for the Feb. 28 Science Carnivale at California State University Fresno, College of Science and Mathematics.  We will be displaying Commodore, Amiga, and other computers at our table, Classic Fresno Area Computers! (CFAC!).
      Here are the facts:

Date: February 28, 2026

Time: 12 noon to 2:30 pm

Location: Science II Courtyard (northern end of California State University campus at the Science II buildings, N. Barstow and E. Maple Aves., Fresno, California, USA)

    Though it's not a lengthy event, we'll squeeze as many computers as we can at our table - C128, Ultimate 64, classic Amiga, AmigaOne A1222+, and others (Tandy, Atari).
    If you are in the Fresno area, come and visit the Science Carnivale.  Admission and parking is free.

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group -
          http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

Quote from: Hydrophilic on February 09, 2026, 02:01 PMAs far as I can tell MetaBASIC-128 just adds debugging features.  Based on description -- no download found to try.

Heh, there is the type-in listing from Compute!'s Gazette at

https://archive.org/details/1987-02-computegazette/page/102/mode/2up



Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
April 25-26 Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2026 - http://www.portcommodore.com/class

My BASIC 7.80 offers two color modes for 80-column users.  The first is pure monochrome mode.  All pixels of the bitmap are restricted to one of two colors  -- there are no color cells.  The second is color mode where each 8x8 cell can have it's own definition of colors for the 0 and 1 bits/pixels.  This is equivalent to the VIC/40-Column "high res" mode.  My BASIC 7.80 does not even attempt to emulate VIC/40-Column "multi-color" mode...
That would be a neat trick and only feasible (IMHO) using interlaced video.  In any case, monochrome BASIC 7.80 is available to everybody; the color BASIC 7.80 needs a C128 with a full 64K of VRAM.

Thanks RobertB for the link -- now I have to look into MetaBASIC-128 and VDC BASIC to see how they compare with my BASIC 7.80

[Edit]
As far as I can tell MetaBASIC-128 just adds debugging features.  Based on description -- no download found to try.
VDC BASIC is interesting.  It add commands to BASIC to allow one to access VDC registers or VRAM directly -- no more cryptic POKEs and SYSs.  But as far as I can tell it doesn't do any "high-level" stuff like bitmap graphics.

I could swear I saw a mention -- somewhere -- about a soft-sprite implementation for the VDC.  Does anybody know anything about this?
[/Edit]

Microsoft BASIC began in 1975 as the company's very first product: a BASIC interpreter for the Intel 8080, written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen for the Altair 8800. That codebase was soon adapted to run on other 8-bit CPUs, including the MOS 6502, Motorola 6800, and 6809. You can learn more about this time and hear directly from Bill Gates on the Microsoft Learn Website's History of Microsoft video series or by visiting Bill Gates' blog.

The 6502 port was completed in 1976 by Bill Gates and Ric Weiland. In 1977, Commodore licensed it for a flat fee of $25,000, a deal that placed Microsoft BASIC at the heart of Commodore's PET computers and, later, the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. That decision put Microsoft's BASIC at the heart of Commodore's machines and helped millions of new programmers learn by typing:

10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
This is BASIC M6502 8K VER 1.1, the 6502 BASIC lineage that powered an era of home computing and formed the foundation of Commodore BASIC in the PET, VIC-20, and the legendary Commodore 64. This very source tree also contains adaptations for the Apple II ("Applesoft BASIC"), built from the same core BASIC source. The original headers still read, "BASIC M6502 8K VER 1.1 BY MICRO-SOFT"—a time capsule from 1978.

The version we are releasing here—labeled "1.1"—contains fixes to the garbage collector identified by Commodore and jointly implemented in 1978 by Commodore engineer John Feagans and Bill Gates, when Feagans traveled to Microsoft's Bellevue offices. This is the version that shipped as the PET's "BASIC V2." It even contains a playful Bill Gates Easter egg, hidden in the labels STORDO and STORD0, which Gates himself confirmed in 2010.

https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/09/03/microsoft-open-source-historic-6502-basic