Commodore.news

Turbo Chameleon 64 | Peter Wendrich's is working on the new Chameleon cartridge for the Commodore C64. At this moment you can download the Chameleon Beta-4 firmware from his web page. Peter also revised the programmers manual for the cartridge. This 34 page pdf manual gives you detailed information about the possibilities of the Chameleon.

Alien Flash | Stingray is building a new cartridge for the Commodore C64 called Alien Flash Cartridge. This is a 16MB Flash cartridge with USB and an AR Freezer Cartridge mode and EasyFlash compatibility. The first batch of this cartridge are now being made and will be available in the next couple of months. You can follow the progress on the Lemon64 web page.

Commodore C16 and Plus/4 diagnostic cartridge | Crock has been working on a diagnostic system for the Commodore 16 ,116 and Plus/4 range of computers. At the moment he uses a modified game cartridge with an eprom that holds the diagnostic software. You can watch a demonstration video of the diagnostic of a Commodore Plus/4 computer.

NatAmi MX | The Natami crew is please to announce that the first NatAmi MX boards are now assembled. The NatAmi MX has the following features: Serial port, Parallel port, PS/2 keyboard, PS/2 mouse, Floppy disk, Joystick ports, Video, Audio, SyncZorro, PCI, IDE, 3.5, LAN and 512 MB RAM.

Turbo Demo Card | The TDC (Turbo Demo Cart) is a 2 MHz speeder for the Commodore 64. At the moment there is only a proto type but you can view two little demo's, Doom 64 and Black Hole, that are working on a 2 MHz C64. The trick is based on over-clocking the CPU and stopping the CPU when the VIC chip does its job.

Dela IC-Tester | The Dela IC-Tester is a cartridge for the Commodore C64. This cartridge could recognize and test 74xx TTL IC's. Michael Sachse from the cbmhardware.de web page reverse engineered the cartridge and now the schematic of the cartridge is now available for download.

Sam460ex - AmigaOS 4.1 | ACube Systems released AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 for the Sam460ex. The Sam460ex board is running at 1.15 Ghz and allows all Amigans to use modern graphic cards thanks to its PCI express slot. Other features include: 7 USB ports and Gigabit ethernet.

PET on the Net | André Fachat has connected his Commodore 8296 to an ethernet, running the TCP/IP protocol. To make this possible he extended his CBM computer with a CS/A ethernet board. On the software side he ported the uIP v1.0 TCP/IP stack to the cc65 compiler, and integrated the CS8900A driver from contiki v1. For all the details you must visit the web page of André.

The chipophone | The chipophone is a music device developed and built by Linus Åkesson. The chipophone is build inside a electric organ. The keys and knobs are connected to an micro processor and act as a MIDI keyboard. The MIDI keyboard is connected to an ATmega88 based synthesizer. With the chipophone you can play 8-bit music like it would sound on a 8-bit game console or computer.

New Amiga devices | The AmigaWorld website presents 4 new prototypes for the Amiga. The new devices are: Clockport Duo, Clockport Quadro, Clockport Buffer and the Gayle Adapter. The Gale adapter has the following features: PCMCIA Resetfix, PCMCIA LED connection, Keyboard-reset connection and a FastATA-connection.

dtv2ser 0.5 | Chris (Lallafa) has build a new version of the dtv2ser device. With this device you can transfer data to and from the C64 DTV via a USB connection. The new version is build with the Arduino platform and needs only a very small hardware modification. You can read all the details on Lallafa's blog.

ZoomFloppy | ZoomFloppy is an USB device for connecting Commodore disk drives to your PC. The ZoomFloppy is an improvement based on XU1541 from Till Harbaum. Nate Lawson and Jim Brain teamed up to produce a professional product. This controller will support IEC drives, IEEE-488 drives and a user-port connection for parallel speeder drives. At this moment the building and testing stage is under-way. You can follow the progress on Jim's blog.

KryoFlux | KryoFlux is a USB-based floppy controller. It can be used to read a floppy, at low-level, and store the data from the disk. The features are: Low level reading. Save as raw stream, or export a specific format. The following formats are supported: Acorn Electron, Apple, Amstrad CPC, Archimedes, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, BBC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, MSX, IBM PC, PC-8801, Sam Coupe, Spectrum, E-MU Emulator II and many, many others. Parallel export support. Visit the Kryoflux web page for all the details.

FPGAArcade Replay | MikeJ has finished the first series of his FPGAArcade Replay. The Replay is a re-configurable computer that makes it possible to emulate an game console, arcade machine or computer like the Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64 etc. The Replay has an ARM processor, FPGA, SD card, DVI connector, joystick, keyboard, mouse, video and audio connector. You can read more about this project on MikeJ's web page.

A600, A1200 Turbo card | Individual Computers has been working on a new turbo cards for the Amiga 600 and 1200. The Internet shop Vesalia released info on these new turbo cards and the cards can now be pre-ordered. The specifications of the A1200 version (expansion slot) are: CPU 68EC030 at 28 MHz, 64 MB RAM, MapRom function and optional RTC. The specifications of the A600 version (internal installation) are: CPU 68030 at 25 MHz, 32 MB RAM and MapRom function.

Dual SID | Tomi Malinen made a dual SID system for the Commodore C64. You can buy the printed circuit board and assemble it yourself. Features: Small board (40mm x 50mm). 6581 or 8580. Selectable address (D400, D420, D500, DE00, DF00). You can read more about this project on the Lemon64 forum.

C64SD v2.0 - Advanced | Manosoft released an advanced version of his C64SD v2.0. The C64SD emulates a IEC disk-drive and uses a SD memory card to store your diskette images (.d64, .d71, .d81). The advanced version has a aluminum casing to protect the electronics. The advanced has an extra IEC connector to connect external disk-drive. It is also possible to connect a second C64SD (dual mode). Visit Manosoft's web page for all the details.

USB-64 | Luigi Di Fraia well known for his digital replacement of the datassette (DC2N) has been working on a new project. This time he is working on a USB system for the Commodore C64. The prototype uses two devices. A cartridge to provide software and commands to operate the USB device, and a user-port device that interfaces with the USB stick. With the proto-type it is possible to transfer files at 1.2 kB/s (serial) or 9.5 kB/s parallel. You can follow the progress of USB-64 on Luigi's web page.

Pocket 1541 | The Pocket 1541 is a emulator for the 1541 disk drive. Pocket 1541 uses a SD card to store your data, supported formats are: D64, M2I, PRG, D71, D81 and P00. The firmware is based on the open source SD2IEC firmware. The device has four buttons and a LCD screen that can be used to navigate to the required files on the SD card. Visit the web page for more information. (The page is in Italian which you can translate with the help of Google-Translate.)

UFE v2 | UFE is an SD/MMC floppy drive emulator for old computers. It connects to the floppy drive port of the host computer and behaves like a real floppy drive. The UFE has Read/Write access for Commodore AMIGA, Atari ST and Amstrad CPC computers. On-board support for ADF, DSK, ST and MSA images. Can emulate two floppy drives. Video overlay user interface. Firmware update (SD Card). Visit Retromaster's weblog for all the details.

DC2N v3 | Luigi Di Fraia is working on version 3 of his DC2N. The DC2N is a digital replacement for the C2N datassette. With the DC2N you can read cassettes and transfer the data to a memory-card. It is also possible to save data from a memory-card to a datassette. The DC2N is a stand alone system, what means you can do the transfers without a computer. The newest version has USB support and uses a graphical screen to show the signal that is recorded. You can watch various videos of the DC2N on youtube.

GeoAction | Kisiel is working on a Action Replay Clone and it is called GeoAction. You can download all information of this cartridge including schematics, print layout and the software for the Atmel processor from Kisiel's web page.

C64SD V2.0 | Manosoft has made a mass storage device for the Commodore C64 and VIC-20. His design is based on the SD2IEC project. But the C64SD has a couple of advantages: No external power supply is needed, No IEC cable is needed, JiffyDOS support, Disk change button and more. Visit the Manosoft web page fore more details.

PET 65816 | André Fachat is working on a CPU card for the CBM/PET computers. His prototype now works on the 8296 model. The CPU card contains a 65816 processor which runs on 12.5 MHz. It also uses a Xilinx CPLD as logic glue and is has 1 MByte fast RAM and 512k Flash ROM. Take a look at André's web page for more information about this project.

AmigaOne - X1000 | You can take a look at the new case design for the AmigaOne X1000 on the A-Eon web page. The picture are a rendering of the new case, but the case should look the when it is manufactured. Visit the A-Eon web page for more details on the X1000.

New Datassette hardware | Vimfuego is building a new device for the users of datassettes on Commodore computers. This device makes it possible to record the sound of a datassette to a PC. It is also possible to use the sound of the PC to load data to your Commodore computer. The device can be used on PET, VIC-20, C64/128, c16 and the Plus/4. You can read about the progress on the Lemon64 forum.

X-Pander 3 | Jim Brain is working on a new cartridge expander for the Commodore C64. The cartridges can be placed in 3 upright and 1 rear connector. Each cartridge slot can be controlled via 8 DIP switches (GAME, EXROM, IO1, IO2, ROML, ROMH, POWER). The proto-types are tested and the X-pander 3 will be for sale very soon, estimated price will be $30,--.

A-EON | The web page of A-EON is now online. A-EON is the maker of the AmigaOne X1000. The X1000 is a new generation Amiga computer with the following specifications: Dual-core 1.8GHz PowerISA v2.04+ CPU, Xena 500MHz, ATI Radeon R700, 2GB RAM, 500GB Hard drive, DVD combo drive, Customised case, keyboard and mouse, 7.1 channel HD audio.

USB-Joystickadapter | Roland Hager from the retro-donald.de web page has developed a USB Joystick-adapter. This adapter makes it possible to use your favourite joystick on your PC. You can buy the adapter as a kit. On the web page you can find a very detailed description of how to build the adapter yourself.

Zorro III RAM card | Michael Boehmer developed a new RAM-expansion for Zorro-III Amigas. The card will be sold in the near future by E3B, Individual and AmigaKit. Technical data: Zorro-III card 130 x 55 mm, 128 MB or 256 MB fast SDRAM, 32-bit design, Autoconfig support.

Chameleon core - C-One | Peter Wendrich released a preview of the Chameleon core for C-One. A 1351 mouse emulation is provided when using a ps/2 mouse. The numeric keypad on the keyboard functions as joystick (2,4,6 and 8 for direction, 0 is fire). As the SID is completely emulated, paddles and real 1351 mice won't work with this core.

1541 Ultimate II | Gideon Zweijtzer has revealed a new photo of the 1541 Ultimate II. The first board is made and is working. The new 1541 Ultimate II will be available in the near future. The Ultimate will be available with a custom made (black) casing. Visit Gideon's web page for all the details.

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