Slashdot Mirror

Oooh, try this one too:

http://foldoc.hld.c64.org/foldoc.cgi?heterogenous

You could try Linus Akesson's * Parallax for Piano (12MB MP3) version of Parallax (7KB SID) as a comparison. I doubt this 11-or-so-minute piece was ever intended to be heard coming from anything but a C64. It sounds very "un-pianolike" to my untrained ears, anyway.

* That's how he spells it, on his webpage anyway.

Some interesting Commodore 64 music links:-
The HVSID Collection - Which is the main site for the collection of thousands upon thousands of Commodore 64 sid files.
Remix.kwed.org Remixes of Commodore 64 tunes with real and modern synthesized instruments.

(Don't hammer their servers!)

I'm off to play "Lazy Jones" (aka ZombieNation)

The SID chip was a 3 voice electronic synthesizer. Emulators have never quite matched the sound, and you can even purchase a hardware PCI card (Hard SID) if you are so hardcore you need that you need the original sound. In fact, Denver band Mr. Pacman uses a Commodore 64 to get the true '80s sound they need.
There are SID emulators as well as SID collections such as The High Voltage SID Collection.
Remixes of old video game music is also all over the web. Check out remix.kwed.org for excellent remixes. The ones by Perhaps a Doobie and particularly amusing. Check out the Monty on the Run Hi-Score theme and the 1942 High-Score theme. Classic stuff.

Though personally, I prefer 7-zip and Stuffit (can't wait for the new version).

I wonder how long it'll take them to sue all the emulator writers, both entire machine and SID players? Will they take action against folks who enjoy the offerings of the HVSC and game archives?

sid!
they have both text and graphical players for linux, and i'm sure there are players for other platforms as well.

All the SIDs you ever wanted are here (27653 SIDs and counting, many of which are multi-tune). Best played on an original C64 of course, but sidplay 2 with the resid engine will do if that's not an option =)

C'mon crack open an old computer programming book, boot up an emulator (or for us collectors, dust off one of those micros you have stacked in the corner.) and practice writing your three-hour masterpiece.

Resources for Retrocoders:

Atari Archives bookshelf, includes many 6502/BASIC related books

Project 64's C64 Manuals & Programmer's Reference Guide

Here's some Apple IIgs manuals. :-/

Not much of any on-line accessible resources for Apple IIs, where are all the real Apple II fans!!???

As a retrocode winner, I would sugest looking at the stuff in the Atari Archives (the BASIC Games books) to get ideas of the type of games that are doable in three hours (no, not Super Star Trek, the smaller ones!) But I wouldn't write any of 'em verbatim, you get points for making it more modern, flashier, and/or vintage computer related.

Does it have to be a C code? In my opinion C is not nearly obfuscatable enough. What about BF or Unlambda? Or, better yet, Lingua Romana Perligata?

how about Brainfuck

Well, yes. Certainly. That was actually my first example. I only used the euphemism "BF" instead of this vulgar profanity, so this misunderstanding is, well, understandable.

how about Brainfuck

You need to connect a c64 drive to your machine, see http://sta.c64.org/xe1541.html

Ah memories. Sometimes I wonder if the tech of the 80's wasn't cooler than the tech we have today.

Yeah, it wasn't as good as today's tech, but I'm sure it was cooler. Pretty much everyone who used a computer did so because they wanted to; people were pushing back the limits of the Commodore C64 (and still are); and BBSs were generally cheaper and easier to access than the internet, and had a quirky ANSI colour charm of their own (it helped that Xmodem over a direct connection was faster than TCP/IP using a dozen hops to get to the other computer).

If you happen to be a C= fan, then check out http://remix.kwed.org/ for some great stuff.
There's also a webradio of this stuff: Slay Radio

Last Ninja 2, for me is the definitive C64 audio experience - I recorded the whole soundtrack to CD =]

For all sorts of SID goodness check out the High-Voltage SID Collection, though you probably already know about it if you can name SID composers =]

Yes, there are quite a few artists who do homage to the
beloved SID. Ignoring people who remake SID tunes on other
instruments such as Mahoney mahoney.c64.org or the
Press Play on Tape pressplayontape.com
(go to both websites now, if you want to hear GOOD music, also get
the PPOT Boy Band Music Video), there are also arists that are
signed with big labels that create their music with SID.

One of the more recent artists is Bastian who uses SID for the
base, often lead, and sound effects. Not the frindge of the music
spectrum when comparing to Aphex Twin, but still, quite fresh and
unique (highly recommended song 'you got my love')
arist website: bastianmusic.nl)

There are rumors wether many of the euro techno bands dont use
SID chips to enhance their music. Orbital is one of the most
known of bands that I heard about.

Afterall, SID chip has been voted into top 20 chips produced for
computers, alongside such marvels as z80, sparc, and intel cpus.
(link www.byte.com/art/9509/sec7/art9.htm)

--
/apz, SID chip was developed in 1981 and is still produced

Check out the High Voltage SID collection, includes all legendary game music from Hubbard, Galway, Daglish, and others who followed.

http://www.hvsc.c64.org/

Players / Winamp plugins can be found with Google...

Check out this box art! Yes, this is a real game.

-Isaac

Well, if you don't like Lunix, give Linux or BSD a try.

Well we've got Slay Radio streaming C64 re-mixes, and the High Voltage Sid Collection distributing SID format C64 music, so not much need for C64 iTunes.

[Begin Shameless Plug]
I used to be an artist producing loading screens for games back in the C64 era, and for some more C64 nostalgia visit my C64 Art Gallery website.
[End Shameless Plug]

Well we've got Slay Radio streaming C64 re-mixes, and the High Voltage Sid Collection distributing SID format C64 music, so not much need for C64 iTunes.

[Begin Shameless Plug]
I used to be an artist producing loading screens for games back in the C64 era, and for some more C64 nostalgia visit my C64 Art Gallery website.
[End Shameless Plug]

But can it play SID files?

And if the new Commodore really cared about the old fans, they'd include a big honkin' socket for a real SID on their portable music players. The High Voltage SID Collection is only 35.6MB (compressed) and it contains months and months of music.

They found a use for some old inventory and are running their webserver on a C64.

Interestingly, that's at least the second webserver to be made for a C64 - when I searched for it I was thinking of another one, which did not implement TCP/IP and had all the requests and responses sent over RS232 or something like that.

Tim

I sure hope you can somehow hook two units together to multiplay. Anyone remember Wizard of Wor? It was actually the first computer game I ever played, in 1983. Damn those were some good times, back then... I still play it with Vice sometimes, though you want to play it co-op multiplayer for maximal fun.

If you would like to get stuff for Vice, check out Arnold. It seems they have every C64 title I've ever heard of.

The XM1541 multitask cable is only a bit different from the XE1541 extended cable. It has two wires swapped at the Commodore end of the cable. This allows other transfer softwares to use interrupts rather than polling to do handshake with the Commodore drive under GNU/Linux.

Tired of the RIAA's bullshit?

Want over 20,000 songs in less than 150MB?

With no nasty MP3 artifacting?

Completely free?

And LEGAL?

High Voltage SID Collection

Some of the best music ever created is in the HVSC. Go get it today, and unshackle yourself from the RIAA's tyranny.

So, dig your 64 out of your closet and have some fun.

Looks like a $50 Lunix box to me, mate.

Or use star commander and hook up a real 1541 to your computer. :-)

(NOTE: Give the drive a rest every 5 or 10 disks in turbo mode or you'll burn out the 1541)

Metal Warrior!!! (1, 2, and 3)

covert bitops

It's free, too. (with source code, even)

The High Voltage SID Collection -- new stuff is added regularly. SID emulation doesn't do it justice, I use a real SID chip installed in my Catweasel MK3 and Acid64.

Here's a start:

http://sta.c64.org/xcables.html.

Note: I tried making a cable to run off my PC's parallel port a couple of years ago, and it never worked. It's not as simple as it looks.

For those too lazy to read, it boils down to this: You cannot read or write a disk formatted for a Commodore drive on a PC, and the same is true for a PC-formatted disk in a Commodore drive. They use entirely different formats to write to the disk, it's not just a matter of a different filesystem. The above link allows one (in theory) to build a parallel1541 (one of the most common Commodore disk drives) interface, and some PC software to handle the data transfer.

Either way, this is still pretty neat if just for (legit) emulator use. I remember GEOS when it first came out, and as annoying as it was, I saw pretty quick that this was the future for all home computing. It took me until the early 90s before I saw anything like this on the PC (Macs have always been too pricey for my tastes).

Take a look: More info and pictures of Fulgurites on Earth .

They look exactly like that thing on Mars.

BTW, Fulgurite reminds me of the Wizard's bad-ass "F" spell in Ultima 3 (Fulgar). ;-)

--
For news, status, updates, scientific info, images, video, and more, check out:
(AXCH) 2004 Mars Exploration Rovers - News, Status, Technical Info, History.

Word up to all the "STFU Katz!" 'ers out there!!!

Isn't it just easier to download a nice N64 emulator (Project 64, (Nemu64), same with SNES (ZSnes), and if you know where to search, you can find every game for the systems, not all of them work perfectly, but hey it's emulation.

If you buy a 1541 or 1571, you can hook it up to your PC with a parallel cable. The cables are easily made, and there's freely available software for DOS, Linux, and Windows.

Unfortunately, Commodore disks aren't readable by PC 5.25" drives, as the 1541 uses GCR, an incompatible encoding scheme. PC floppy drives use MFM.

You can pick up a 1541 off ebay for $1 - $10 + shipping, or probably find one at a local secondhand shop or swapmeet. You might want to avoid the '41 in favor of a '71, as they are less prone to misalignment.

This setup works both ways, so if you have Commodore hardware (like my venerable 128D), you can use all the elite CBM warez on it.

If you buy a 1541 or 1571, you can hook it up to your PC with a parallel cable. The cables are easily made, and there's freely available software for DOS, Linux, and Windows.

Unfortunately, Commodore disks aren't readable by PC 5.25" drives, as the 1541 uses GCR, an incompatible encoding scheme. PC floppy drives use MFM.

You can pick up a 1541 off ebay for $1 - $10 + shipping, or probably find one at a local secondhand shop or swapmeet. You might want to avoid the '41 in favor of a '71, as they are less prone to misalignment.

This setup works both ways, so if you have Commodore hardware (like my venerable 128D), you can use all the elite CBM warez on it.

It's also possible to use SidPlay2/w (gui), command-line SidPlay2? or the oldish SIDAMP plugin for WinAmp 2, or any other sid players, to listen to SID files (with a more or less accurate sound? I don't know. I've never heard a real C64 in my life. :)

There's also GoatTracker on http://covertbitops.c64.org/ 's Tools section, for creating your own sid tunes (open source, SDL, has Windows binary).

For those of you without access to a real SID anymore, I've just started slowly recording the better tunes from the "High Voltage SID Collection" using a real SID installed in my Catweasel MK3. I take requests. My current request list includes: Shadow of the Beast, Blood money, The intro from Shaped Up/Shape, Batman/JCH, Theme tune to Ghouls and Ghosts, GRG in Cyberspace, Kurt and doris are in love (puterman).

You can get it here.

But, I can't believe there are that many Lunix zealots.

I don't know about you, but I have mostly been seeing reactions to this of the "what a mess" variety. Maybe you have your filter set to -1: raw and uncut, but there isn't much linux zealotry being modded up past 3.

But why would lunix people have done this? I don't think the NT kernel runs on the C64.

As far as "this could never happen on linux", of course it could. If the majority of the clueless users out there were using linux, they'd be just as unlikely to patch as the masses of windows sheep are...unless someone set up a cron job to apt-get dist-upgrade for them. (yes, gratuitous blamefait, but it is that great)

Bah, Assembly'03 is nothing compared to what the real old-school people are up to: The world's first C64 LAN party! At the LCP2003 party arranged in Sweden this summer, Adam Dunkels showcased his Commodore 64 Contiki OS on a bunch of C64s connected in a LAN using specially built Ethernet cards. The three C64:s connected to a LAN made this event the world's first C64-only LAN party!

Hehe, no he didnt disapeared at all. And i can tell you he's alive and kicking. Yet you may find his old data here on the AntiCrack website.

One question: does WoW stands for Warriors of Wasteland?

Yup, thats what I want. For some reason I am a SID-addict since last week. My coworkers are going mad but I dont care. Nothing better than listening to the BombJack theme four hours continously.

Maybe I should get a Sidchip and start my own project. Maybe a Gameboy would be a good starting platform for the mod?

Cu,
Lispy

Actually, that would rather be Lunix which is a c64 port of Linux...

I'm sure someone will manage to get it running some flavour of Linux

It's not Linux, but it is LUNIX, the little unix for the C64

http://hld.c64.org/poldi/lunix/lunix.html

Just did a search and I'm seeing similar results - c64 had a dmca notice for Diablo,Dig Dug,Donkey Kong,Frogger,Mario,Pac Man,Soldier Of Fortune, Spider-Man (Game),Tron 2.0 (game). Same with mame.net for Pac Man They're even chasing dcc's eDonkey .. They're chasing eveything. The most interesting thing is the Incident #'s. Most agencies prefix their incident #'s with year, but this isn't the case.. their #'s are linear. Have they already submitted almost 1,000,000 ceast and decists?
-B

Ok, so putting a modern PC in an old computercase is cool and all, but running modern style software on the actual old computer is much cooler! Check out the Contiki operating system for such old computers (including the Atari 800): it is a multi-tasking graphical operating system with full Internet access (web browser, telnet client, web server!) that runs on a a bunch of different old computers. They even have a web server running on a real Commodore 64.

Dude. who would pay for Lunix? Okay, maybe I would. But I am a lunatic.