Commodore.news

Custom Amiga Joystick | Arananet-net made a custom joystick for the Amiga. He made a Acrylic housing and installed a joystick handle with micro switches, two fire buttons and an auto-fire system. For a special effect he also uses internal lighting. The web page is in the Spanish language.

Prisma Megamix music card | The Prisma Megamix music card is now available in the Amikit web shop. The specifications are: Clockport and Zorro II interfaces, compatible with Amiga A1200 T, A2000, A3000, A4000 and A4000T. VS1063 chip. Formats: MP2, MP3, WMA, OGG, LC-AAC, HE-AAC, FLAC, ALAC, IMA ADPCM, G.711 u-law, G.711 a-law, G.722 and WAV PCM.

The making of a small PCB | Iiz8dwf shows in a video how to create a small PCB yourself. In the video he makes an adapter PCB for the 2364 EPROMs in a Commodore VIC-20 or the C64.

Sam440ep Firmware update | ACube Systems released a firmware update for the Sam440ep motherboards. Changes in this version: Improvements for the graphic cards and the PCI bridge. And a set-up for the PEX 8112 PCI has been added.

The FPGASID project - Alpha phase | Andi 6510 is working on the his FPGASID Project. This project will produce an drop-in replacement for the SID chip. The features are: Full SID compatibility with registers and audio filters, stereo support, analog audio input, paddles and a JTAG interface for FPGA updates and debugging.

Vampire 500 v2 | Igor Majstorovic has given an presentation about the Vampire 500 v2. You can watch the 40 minute presentation on YouTube. He also tells about the plans for the Vampire 1200. English sub-titles are available.

Retrohax: Another C64 restoration | On the Retrohax web page you can see how to refurbish a Commodore C64. This time Drygol repairs the motherboard, the metal shielding, broken keys from the keyboard and he does a PDWPE (Prolonged Dark Warm Perhydrol Exposure).

exSID USB | Thibaut Varéne is working on the exSID. This device makes it possible to play SID music from a modern PC, but with real SID hardware. Features: 6581 and 8580, 44.1 kHz digis and near cycle-accurate playback.

VIC-20 Reloaded | Steve J. Gray is working on a new 8-bit project. He want to build a new VIC-20 cost reduced motherboard. The ideas at this moment are 32K RAM, one single ROM, extra colour RAM, SID chip and a second joystick port.

C2NEmu | Luigi Di Fraia is working on the C2NEmu. This device connects to a Commodore 64/VIC 20 Datassette port to a PC through a USB cable. The possibilities are playback a TAP file (PC to C64/VIC20) and record (C64/VIC20 to PC).

Vampire600 / Apollo - Gold | The Vampire600 turbo card uses the Apollo FPGA-core to emulate the 68000 CPU and the SAGA graphics chip. The changes for Apollo are: Improvements for MOVE/EXT, MPU, TRACE, CHK2, CMP2, MOVEM, CAS, LOOP, TRAPcc and MOVEQ/MOVE.l.

Mega65 | Paul Gardner-Stephen is working on a FPGA version of the Commodore C65. His goal is to make an 8-bit computer for the 21st century. Most recent updates: Kickstart, disk menu and double tap the Restore key to enter Hypervisor freezer.

Flashing C64 | On the Breadbox64 web page you can now see a Commodore C64 that has flashing lights inside the transparent case. The LED light scan be controlled via a remote control.

Commodore back in Germany | After a pause of several years, fans of classic computers worldwide can look forward to a series of Commodore PCs. The company Individual Computers GmbH, based in Germany has licensed the rights of the Commodore trademarks from Polabe Holding N.V.

Cynthcart v2.0 | There is new software available for the Cynthcart. Changes in this version: 30 pre-set sound patches, arpeggiator, tremolo, analogue filter, MIDI support, on-screen help, colour visualizer display, SID hex editor and PAL / NTSC pitch tables with automatic selection.

80 column CGA to RGB converter | Pyrofer is working on a converter to transform a 80 column CGA video signal to RGB. With this system you can connect your Commodore C128 to a RGB monitor. At the moment the refresh rate is 15 kHz (no scan doubler).

ACA1233n - Amiga 500 | Epsilon wrote a blog about upgrading his Amiga 500. He shows how to install the ACA1233n 030 accelerator with the RTC battery expansion, a 512k memory expansion and new floppy drive.

PEDISK II | The CGRS MICROTECH PEDISK II was an early floppy disk system for the Commodore PET/CBM computer. The PEDISK did not use the IEEE bus like the Commodore disk drives, but instead used a standard floppy disk controller chip. Members of the 6502.org web page have built a clone of this system.

Amiga 3400 | Stefan Egger from the Computer Collection Vienna has now an Amiga 3400. The A3400 was a computer that later became the Amiga 4000. You can look at the photos of this rare computer.

Lighthammer v2.0 | If you have access to a 3D printer and are able to solder then you can now build your own lighthammer. Visit the website of Jan for more information.

MIDIbox aSIDity | Sauraen and Oikanys are working on the MIDIbox aSIDity project. This project will be the most powerful SID-based synthesizer in the world. The system will have 8 Commodore 64 SID sound chips (4 x 6581 and 4 x 8580) 160 modulators and many control options.

SD-BOX v1.16 | The SD-BOX is a cartridge with an SD card interface for the Commodore C64. The cartridge has many functions for the disk drive and the Datassette. Recent updates: Added a SID player and several small improvement were implemented.

C64xs | Freak is building an extra small Commodore C64. He will use original C64 part and add some extra features: Configurable voltages and extra filters for SID and VIC, S-Video output, ESD protection and multiple kernals and character sets.

Amiga and the 5th audio channel | Stian Søreng has developed a system to add a fifth audio channel to the Amiga computer. He uses the composite video channel to produce an extra audio channel. You can read all about it on his blog.

C64 - The great refurbishing | On the Retrohax web page you can see how to refurbish a Commodore C64. Drygol is refurbishing six Commodore C64 at the same time. He cleans and repairs the plastics parts and the keyboard, and adds a SwinSID NANO and a SD2IEC device to the C64.

GadgetUK164 - VIC20 Penultimate Cartridge | GadgetUK164 made a video about the new Penultimate Cartridge for the Commodore VIC20 from Tynemouth Software.

Vampire 500 v2 | Simo Koivukoski made a video of an Amiga 2000 with the Vampire 500 v2 accelerator. The first test is with RiVA 0.50 and Picasso II (CyberGraphX screen mode 320x240 / gray). The second test is MP3 playing with Amplifier and Delfina Lite DSP.

Mega65 | Paul Gardner-Stephen is working on a FPGA version of the Commodore C65. His goal is to make an 8-bit computer for the 21st century. Most recent updates: GEOS, Disk menu and the Decimal Flag.

New Amiga hardware development | The web page Retro 7-bit is developing new hardware for the Amiga. The IDEA ZII - IDE controller (Zorro II) for the Amiga 2000, Wicher 2000 - turbo card for the Amiga 2000, Wicherek 14/28 - turbo card for the Amiga 500 and the Wicher 5k/1M - CHIP RAM for the Amiga 500.

Vampire600 / Apollo - Silver9 | The Vampire600 turbo card uses the Apollo FPGA-core to emulate the 68000 CPU and the SAGA graphics chip. The changes for Apollo are: Vector instructions, new Bondings, stronger FUSINGs, Little Endian GFX mode for PC emulation and improvements for MUL flags, WHDLoad Branch-Target-Cache, Div 64 Flag and more AMMX instructions.

MixSID | The MixSID is a stereo SID board for the Commodore C64. Features: Stereo channel mixer, pragmatic stereo addressing scheme, flexible IO, audio input, output and digiboost circuits, dedicated stereo output, full paddle compatibility and versatile digital control.

FPGATED | István Hegedüs has developed a cycle exact FPGA core for the MOS 7360/8360 TED chip. The goal is to make a FPGA core that could be used as a drop in replacement for the MOS 8360 chip which is used in the Commodore C16, C116 and the Plus/4.

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