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Updates, News & Stuff12/23/2023: LOST IN C=BITS - Issue 1 1/2... "Making a Fanzine has to be fun." - That was always the first and basic condition, which was quite fragmented, diluted, and eventually lost as issue #1 was getting closer and closer to completion. A year plus and a couple of detours later, there has been enough time to evaluate everything. The planned "2023"-book was "sort of" finished, but had to be put on hold "for a while" for various reasons. It was also time to get out of the dead end and back to the basics - The Zine. In proper format. Within realistic goals, and by following a real plan.  You can download Issue #1 1/2 from this page... 6/25/2023: LOST IN 8-16 BITS: THE LAMEr CHRONICLES  ...combines the articles originally intended for the "Video Game Memories"-columns in the LOST IN C=BITS Commodore 64 Fanzine (On indefinite hiatus as of late summer 2022.) and the game-related texts for the same. The "Chronicles"-part covers subjects like personal 80s nerdery and shenanigans, the unexpected changes between 8- and 16 bits, nostalgic observations, the deep fear of forgetting what once was good and motivational, desperately chasing what's lost and missing in the now, and the acquisition of original hardware... (And new problems...!) The book concludes with a "side project" where the goal was to play all the C64-games that I played in 1987-1989 and document it as some sort of bastardized Old School-style guide / "diary". And then, there was (and is) always the Chronophobia... (Released some time in "summer 2023" if nothing else goes as planned.) 6/3/2023: Street Fighter 6 was released yesterday! "We have Street Fighter at home!"  5/24/2023: "The computer games unsettle you again..."  Remembering old times. Week 21 into some serious serial playing. 2/20/2023: Plan B for Bullshit That Plan A never works - That's nothing new. It included "Releasing a C64 Fanzine at least three or four times per year"... Plan B kind of went fuck-up too, which was idea of creating a Fanzine on a smaller scale. The gimmick would have been that the "spring 2023"-issue would cover "spring 1983"-games like they were fresh (Which they are.) and new. But that would have required some co-workers who didn't tire after three rounds. And way more time. Which just isn't there. But the last year plus has resulted in around fifty texts about growing "in some direction" in the 80s, Old School nerdery, chasing old dreams in the 2020s, trips down the memory lane, etc. Plus around twenty-five C64-game-related articles. These will appear in some kind of e-book... Well... Instead of this, then:  7/24/2022: Time... ...for some serious re-evaluation... Certain things aren't just clicking due to the lack of motivation and a real plan... To be continued... 1/5/2022: LOST IN C=BITS - Issue 1... ...released, and downloadable via this page... 11/22/2021: LOST IN C=BITS The C64 was presented for the world on January 7, 1982. 40 years later, some aging nerd with not always something better to do just feels the need to release at least one issue of a C64-Fanzine. (Because there just aren't enough of them, right?) LOST IN C=BITS is the name of the project and it will include game-related bits and pieces from nearly four decades spread out over 164 pages. The release date is January 7 (2022), but the "Beta" was finished today. Here's a 16-page preview if you're interested:  5/27/2021: Fanzine - January 2022  So this is "Plan C", then... But I want to create some kind of a C64-Fanzine / Perzine regardless. One issue? Two? (At least one!) 11/15/2020: It has begun.  I don't what exactly it is that has begun... (Except it will most likely be something ridiculously nostalgic.) But it has begun. (And actually did so a couple of months ago.) And it will end (and be revealed) in August 2022. (Unless we are forced to resort to "Plan B". And if get to stay healthy enough. And alive enough.)  And preparations have been made, i.e., some new shit has been purchased. (Radio silence commences...) 11/1/2020: Back. In the game.  After a week like this... Distractions are needed. (During, but especially now...) Either way - It feels good to be back in the hunt for the white whale... The feeling is important. Sitting close to the computer and the screen. I think the C64 looks best on-- Well, not a 42" one... (Back in the days, when we were experiencing the magic of playing on the "big T.V.", it was most likely 26".) So this is my new gaming setup - The C64 with a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (running BMC64 v3.6 with CRT shaders.) inside the shell. An "HDMI to VGA"-adapter takes care of the issue that this particular screen has no HDMI-port or audio output. The C64-Joystick with micro switches nowadays always kind of got "stuck" in the left position, so I had to disassemble it to take a look - Luckily, the micro switch wasn't at fault rather than the spring around the stick. After pulling / adjusting it a bit, it works like a charm again. (With an extremely small amount of sewing machine oil on the spring for good measure!) A bigger USB memory stick was also prepared, because the BMC64 has difficulties reading files from two sticks connected at the same time. Plus an extra USB-connector is never a bad idea. 10/26/2020: So it happened... The emulation in The C64 "Maxi" didn't suit my needs "anymore". And the BMC64 just has a charm that easily outweighs the fact that it doesn't run the x64sc version of VICE on the RPi 4... So I decided to put the RPi 3B+ into the shell of The C64. Because: Keyboard. And functionality. It was YouTuber ody's video titled "The C64 Maxi to BMC64 Conversion Rough Tutorial." that inspired me to do it. All that was needed was some electrical tape, a Dremel for cutting out a(n uneven and ugly) hole at the back of the case (Which you always can cover up.), a couple of old cut off USB-cables, and... More electrical tape. For, you know, stability...   And the result after some scissoring, taping, and USB-cable braiding = A C64-keyboard (With proper positional key layout thanks to a little edited file called "rpi_pos.vkm".), a lovely CRT shader that looks pretty god damn close to the real deal - On an LCD T.V., an excellent Datasette-interface (Very important in this case as it has a fast forward / rewind and counter reset function.), multiple SID-emulations, different machines (Such a the C128.), configurable gamepad, very fast start-up (Seconds.), True Drive emulation out of the box (And no need to rename files and stuff.), a clean interface (Accessed with CTRL + F7.), and more...      Yeah. It acts right. It looks great. And it sounds great. (Plus for the two USB-ports that are a bit hard to access now, there are the three USB-ports on the right side instead. Get a hub, and you got six ports in total - Which should provide quite a few options.) And all the games on one USB-stick. The only "real" problem is that SD-card reader rendered slightly more inaccessible in case you'd have to update the BMC64 with a new version... But that's not exactly every day, is it? The power button isn't sort of needed - Even if it would have been nice. Because the BMC64, you can just power on and off with the electric plug. (The interface has a Soft- and Hard Reset option.) 10/11/2020: Lost... ...in 8-16 bits... A collection of related and already published texts - In a not quite 100% new and semi-fresh e-book... (Downloadable via the title page.) 9/27/2020: Gift  A heart-warming and generous gift from one of my best friends - Some more Damn Fine literature. (His granddad was, surprisingly enough, a C64-programmer at some point...!) So obviously, the Bible had to be in there... The gratitude is immense. 1/14/2020: The C= ...turns 40 in August 2022...! Of course that has to be celebrated - Somehow...! 1/3/2020: Happy New One And the hunt for the potential white whale keeps going... (Perfect C64-emulation, that is...) 11/8/2019: Amiga games www.gggames.se kindly published my six-part Amiga retrospective. (Special thanks to bag for the artwork!) 9/11/2019: GB64 v16 GameBase64 v16 was released on September 1st... Download links can be found with the power of Google and some clever words like "GameBase64", "v16", and similar terms. Your favorite C=-related forums most likely have more info, e.g., what games were added and which ones were updated. (A ton!) Spoiler: No "Pyramid Of Time" or "Murder!" yet, though... 9/5/2019: More... ...tiny and small errors are intermittently corrected here and there - Nothing more, nothing less... (And did I mention that the Raspberry Pi 4 is lovely?!) 8/21/2019: 4  Way over a year has gone by after the RPi 3 Model B+ was released... And on June 24th (2019), RPi 4 Model B hit the streets... But alas, there was no RetroPie that we could install on day one. Still isn't. (Any day/week/month (?) now!) But there are ways now - Check out this article @ Tom's Hardware for a fine guide on how to install this even finer software on the RPi 4. And that leads to the big question: How well does The Machine emulate on the 1.5 GHz Quad-core Cortex-A72 with a Broadcom VideoCore VI @ 500 MHz, 4 GB of SDRAM, and all that good stuff? Well. Bloody. Not that you probably need 4 GB, but... It's always nice to have some RAM. As a matter of fact, the accurate (x64sc) VICE runs at 100% CPU and 50 fps with certain settings: CPU speed at 100% and frame-rate at 1/1. Of course. And no CRT-emulation in Fullscreen mode. (With the sound sync at "Exact".) And here are the good news: reSID set to "Resampling". (And not just "Fast Resampling"!) We're finally getting what's essentially "perfect" C64-emulation from the Raspberry Pi. In other words: The increase in computer power is dazzling compared to the previous model. (And no overheating issues either!) Sure, it would have been a bit nice to be able to turn on the CRT-emulation and still get 100% speed (Instead of the drop to 85-90%.), but... Maybe that's all in consideration when they design the RPi 5. : ] 6/18/2019: Complete Index... ...added to the title page... 6/11/2019: Magic  Now of course, the soundtrack in the arcade version of Commando had NOTHING on Rob Hubbard's version, but the other way to feel the tangible presence of video game magic was, and is, always, to visit an arcade hall. It simply was a sensation back in the days. Trying to describe it would be a challenge to say the least. And it still is sensational, even if the Classics are virtually gone from what probably is hundreds of miles around many of us... That's why emulation saves. The actual visit to the arcade may not be physical, but through platforms like the M.A.M.E., we can at least get our healthy doses of audiovisual Coin-op impressions... It's so sad to think that many of the classic arcade games would basically be nothing but slowly fading memories had it not been for the concept of emulation. That's the parallel to our beloved C64. In times like these, it's almost impossible to think about this without tearing up...  (Rad Mobile, SEGA, 1991) 6/1/2019: And it is what it is... "The second half", or STILL FREE-PLAYING... as it's called, can be downloaded via the links on the title screen. Same format. Similar concept. The usual "homeblindness" makes sure that there are numerous errors that I simply haven't noticed. :( (Sorry about those, as usual...) 4/23/2019: Done. 670 pages formatted and edited. (After even more long evenings and sleepless nights.) Such a strange feeling. The last part is to iron out as many of the "gazillion" small errors as possible. With all the checkpoints passed (much sooner than I thought), the deadline can be moved to "some time in early-to-mid June". 4/12/2019: 350 days later and 90 (ish) days left... An entire weekend (with nearly zero sleep) and a couple of late and cold April nights later, the project reached some more checkpoints. It's around 80% done now - With 95% of the text and image blocks in their right places and the "rest" at 65%. It looks like "The second half" will end up at 3/24/2019: Casualty  It didn't make it. It couldn't handle around 900 C64-games within one year. (The D-pad went fuck up.) The C64-Mini Joystick is still going strong. (It's no Wico Red Ball, but... No malfunctioning stick or buttons yet.) 2/24/2019: Checkpoint 870 games played. Emptiness. Relief. Still on schedule. 230K words written in just over 300 h. So the text material is 98% done, and most of the graphics and layout have been put together. The next part is the slow and not exactly fun process where the jigsaw-pieces are put down one by one... But absolutely - Some games have to be played as well. Otherwise, this is going to be a very long and soul-shattering spring. 1/10/2019: The second half Time for an update... Just a few minutes ago, I played the 660th game of the ones that are going to be featured in the upcoming "second half" of PLAYING COMMANDO! And that means that 80% of the material is written at this point. (Which has taken 235 hours so far. Not counting the game-playing time, obviously.) The reason why this project was born is simple: It emerged from the need to daily escape into something during last spring. And the project started growing... It was right when the previous book started to feel more and more "incomplete"... Okay, so a project like this will probably never be "complete", but bringing just a bit more attention to all these charming C64-games is what I think is enjoyable. Meanwhile, only around 10% of the book is completely finished right now. The deadline isn't set (Except: "around midsummer".), because there are still quite a few things that I just want to include in the whole thing. But, no - It won't be anything spectacular. It'll merely become the second half of an existing book - With a near-identical layout, structure, and concept. Albeit with different............ Games...! And just like last time, I hope it helps you discover a whole bunch of vintage video games that eventually bring you unbelievable joy... 12/23/2018: One year later... Where did 2018 go, then? Well, the "second half" of the book "stole" a significant part of this year's spare time, that's for certain... Merry C=hristmas, and have an absolutely great 2019 either way...! Just an uncalled-for Blues Brothers-reference: We're 200-something days from deadline, I've got a six-pack of Red Bull, a pack of painkillers, it's dark, and I'm staring at two computer screens. Hit it! 10/4/2018: Ben Daglish (7/31/1966 - 10/1/2018) R.I.P. We're crushed and saddened beyond words... You just know the world is turning a hell of a lot worse when you have to write two dates after the name of a legendary composer... :'( 7/31/2018: Still obsessing... Fighting the emptiness that the lack of Old School video games leaves in daily existence... Naw... I'm not done with this... A continuation of the "project" has been materializing (slowly) since April the 28th. 7/29/2018: Controllers... Yeah. Stating the obvious, but they make one hell of a difference. Or maybe it really is the nostalgia talking...  It's of course a matter of preference like with everything else. But without a Joystick... It just isn't the same... Joy... I more or less subconsciously started with this "C64-emulation"-stuff after realizing that getting original hardware and future proofing them was something that I wouldn't be able to do for several reasons. And those visions of stacks of disk boxes with ALL the games... It would've soon become a white whale. So. Emulation. And to make it feel as close to the real thing as possible. And a part of that is the controller. I think the original Xbox-one was pretty good with the analog stick. The PlayStation DualShock 3 - Not soo much. I just never managed to get it to work properly, and there are way too many buttons that you accidentally can press while playing. A big step up was the SNES PC Controller. But the best (Although not perfect.) so far has been the C64-Mini Joystick. It's like one huge fragment less missing from the experience. It didn't feel like it at first, and I had already heard so many different things about it. (Both positives and negatives...) But there is this test that I always resort to. And for some reason, it's this:  The swamps / quicksands and creeks in The Last Ninja, and the rowing boat and the boxes in Last Ninja 2. If I can get across those screen like it still was 1988, then it's a very good sign. Back in the days, I never could be able to get across the lake in Palace Gardens, so my dad always had to trigger the bug where Armakuni is able to run on water... The pillars on Level 3 in Delta is also a very good test. (And to be able to pick those weapon upgrades was never easy, but it's easier now than before.) 4/27/2018: Something must be wrong, or maybe it's more common that one would believe. That is: Becoming "home blind" or whatever the hell the right term is, and discovering error upon error in a project a couple of months down the road after completion... I "wish" I could blame all the seemingly endless and infuriating oversights on insomnia, crack, or something... But yeah, it's a bloody thing. As soon as I discover a "tiny" error, a missing word, a spelling- / grammar mistake, or an ordinary fuck-up, I kind of have to adjust it. [#Insert optional neurological-disorder-"or-something" here.] (These are relatively easy to fix, but it's not too clever. And there are probably zero clever ways to do it.) The correct MD5 checksums for the downloads are as follows: (That's the "December 2017" v1.2 plus 120 text document revisions and 25 changes made to the pages / layout since then. The formatting was all fucked up in the last chapter as well... [muttering] Bloody amateur... I think it's a disgrace.) But mistakes are made so that they can be corrected, right? [Log]
5/22/2018: CCS64 on Wine. On Linux. How well does it work? Very. Very well, indeed. If you solely want to use CCS64, on a desktop / laptop, and don't have a Windows machine, this is the next best alternative. 5/20/2018: My brother was spring cleaning / going through some old stuff, and found these FINE pieces of literature. I bought them in the late 80s, but since he got the C64 when I went over to the Amiga, he also had these books - Up until now. It was heartwarming to see these treasures again. There's the book called "VIC-64 Grafikboken" (Original title: "Graphics Guide To The Commodore 64".) by Charles Platt. It explains in detail how the C64 graphics work, and it also tells you how to make your own set of graphics-, sprite- and characters (Including generator programs for these.), and how to code your own games in Basic. (The example that they use in this book is "Air Attack" that's in the Gamebase64.) It appears to be from 1984. The other one is simply the original manual for the Machine. (There was also a system manual for the C128, since we got one of those at one point too.) And this is the Bible. Second edition. Everybody swears by it for a very good reason. 4/4/2018: Definitely attracted...  ...to this. In an unhealthy way, I think. But as usual, some severe research needs to be done before a purchase... 3/30/2018: Still a bit hard to believe...  It's like another good dream come true... C64 games. Running at more or less constant 100% speed on the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. Using the x64sc version of VICE. With reSID-emulation and sampling method set to "Fast". (And CRT-emulation turned off.)  3/20/2018: Unbelievably uninteresting  This is a very small section of the LibreOffice Calc-sheet that I used to keep track of most things related to the project... One can't say anything else than: Time flies, seemingly accelerates, and screws up everything in the end. So on this day, one year ago exactly, I played two games for 53 minutes in total (No idea which ones, though.) and had written around 96000 words... This must have been one of the slow days! (Or it was just two games that relatively slowly killed the mood...) On the direct opposite side of that spectrum was April 14th with 15 games played for 454 minutes. And that's so easy to remember, because that (probably rainy) day was all about C64'ing the entire morning, noon and afternoon within an uncontrollable flood of nostalgia - An uncomplicated reminder of how goddamned fun it simply was... And still is... (The columns in the sheet with nothing but "2"s and "1"s were for when both games on that particular page had been written about, and when the page in question was completely finished. The game-titles of course represent which games are on said page.) Either way - This is torture, already... If only it would feel like time slows down now instead, so that there'd be at least a "perceived" 8 hours a day for video games instead of 20 minutes here and maybe one hour there... (No wonder why it feels empty inside, right...?)  (Life should always feel like the end of an 80s action movie...!) 3/18/2018: The hunt...  ...for the perfect C64-emulator goes on. With the RetroPie on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, it was possible to get the VICE 3.1 x64 to run at full speed (100% CPU / 50 FPS) with the reSID-emulation set to "Fast". But running the x64sc was never an option - Even with FastSID-emulation and the sound synchronization set to "Adjusting" (Instead of "Exact".), the CPU-emulation speed and FPS dropped to unacceptable levels. (Around 80% for the CPU at app. 40 FPS.) With reSID turned on and set to "Resampling", the emulation plummeted to 50% CPU-emulation speed, which of course meant that the games ran in slow motion with severe audio stuttering. But as you might know by now, Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ was released on March 14th... So of course it had to be checked out for a very specific purpose...! Now, you can't just take the old SD-card from the earlier model and insert it into the new one... (Imagine that I tried and believed that it would actually work...?!) The seconds after turning the computer on, it simply doesn't get past the Splash-screen. The curious thing is that it displays a "power supply function failure"-warning?! (A little flash in the top right corner.) But - With an upgraded RetroPie-image (from https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/16307/retropie-4-3-15-stretch-images-for-testing) and the "ROMS" in the right place, the machine booted up like it should. That boost in the CPU-department (Broadcom BCM2837B0, Cortex-A53 (ARMv8) 64-bit SoC @ 1.4 GHz instead of 1.2 GHz Broadcom BCM2837 64-bit CPU.) turned out to be a bit of a positive surprise. For the sake of consistency, I naturally compared the emulators with the same settings - For performance: Speed was set to 100% and Refresh Rate to 1/1. For Video settings: Fullscreen-mode on, CRT-emulation, and no Double Size / Double Scan. Sound sync was set to "Exact", and Sample Rate to 41000 KHz. (Including "Medium" Fragment Size and SID-filters turned on.) VICE x64 on Model B+ can now run at 100% CPU with the reSID-emulation set to "Resampling" and audio sync set to "Exact". (The most accurate SID-emulation in existence.) But what's amazing is that the x64sc starts up nicely and runs at nearly full speed (95-97% CPU / 48 FPS most of the time.) - That is, if you switch over to FastSID-emulation instead and set audio sync to "Adjusting". As for reSID-emulation: Even with the "Fast" Sampling Method-setting, you only get around 80% CPU-speed. (And it just doesn't sound good at all - Non-stop audio stuttering and drop outs.) Although, in this case, you can always turn off CRT-emulation to get the CPU-speed back towards the 100% value. But yeah - The difference in hardware may not be ginormous, but it's getting closer and closer...! Maybe the "Pi 4" will be able to run x64sc and reSID set to "Resampling". (Like most new(er) laptops and desktops do without keeling over.) 3/10/2018: Elljis AB  On Strömstadsvägen, Uddevalla, Sweden, was this small store called "Elljis" in the mid-to-late 80s. It was focused on Commodore and Commodore only. And this is where The Machine Of Happiness was bought on August 14, 1987. (Maybe I should have taken the picture on that day last year instead of on a "balls in liquid nitrogen"-cold day like today.) And now... There is nothing... 2/25/2018: At least the laptop at work now has a fully functional OS... Still going strong in 2018! :]  Thanks to Scott Pigeon for writing a helpful article on how to compile the latest VICE-emulator on a Linux machine. The article can be found here... 1/17/2018: Minor corrections made here and there during the last couple of weeks, or so... Not annoying in the least... :(  1/10/2018: The front cover references: 1/8/2018: The files have been verified / virus-checked again and again. 12/27/2017: Just made some "final" minor adjustments to some of the pages. And apparently, it's impossible to discover all graphical- and spelling mistakes before the files have been uploaded. * Back to the title page |
(C) 2017- Maximal Brain Malfunction Press
