Commodore Free 33R1/Commodore_Free_Issue_33R1_2009_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/cccuk

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 8KB | 269 lines

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    Commodore Computer Club U.k.
    MIMI Meeting 9th August 2009
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The day started well enough, with
glorious sunshine beaming out of a
cloudless sky, the problem this
causes is that my "computer room" is
in the loft space at the top of the
house and as a consequence it heats
up rather quickly in these rather
rare sunny conditions. I decided to
install 3 fans, making a mental not
that I need either some form of
air-conditioning unit and or some
form of vent to at least let the warm
air escape out of my room.

I opened the window in the "computer
room" in the misguided hope that by
some miracle would permit the wind to
at least slightly blow, and try and
cool the room down. It was a glorious
day, and nope there wasn't any wind.
Even the birds had given up singing
and just sat in the shade keeping
eerily quiet.

My mobile phone rang and it was
"Shaun" he explained he was close to
my house (coming in on the train) and
asked if Allan had arrived, "no
Allan" I said but Shaun confirmed
that "Allan said he was on his way so
he should arrive soon" As Allan knew
the way to my house; I said I would
meet Shaun at the local Train
station, and guide him in as he was
unsure of how to get to my house from
the train station. I walked down the
road and within 5 minutes and I was
soon standing next to Shaun and Chris
Syntichakis We chatted briefly and
made the customary hand interactions
then talked about Commodore while
walking back to my house, we began
cursing about the sun even though a
few days before I was cursing about
the cold and rain!

We arrived inside the house and I
made some tea, don't really drink tea
myself so I made a glass of milk, we
chatted a little then want to the
"computer room up in the loft" Chris
started work re-manufacturing a
cartridge case to fit a Retro replay
card with connected network card for
Shaun.

No sooner had we started setting
things up when the door bell went, I
walked downstairs and met Allan, I
invited him in made a cup of tea, we
chatted briefly then I explained
Shaun and Chris were upstairs and he
said "come on then what are we
waiting for" we went upstairs to the
"computer room" and Allan greeted
Shaun and was introduced to Chris

Now the attention turned to my broken
RamLinks; I had 2 that suddenly
stopped working, well that's not
entirely true I had 1 working and 1
broken. The broken one I tired chip
swapping with a completely knackered
one Shaun had lent me, I swapped over
the chips and ....well nothing it was
still dead, I tried my working
RamLink and ... Oh that's dead as
well. Shaun set to work clipping out
chips and swapping memory after what
seemed like an hour I had 2 working
RamLinks with 16mb of memory on each
and now both had clocks! Fantastic

Shaun then looked at my faulty 128d
Allan suggested it could be a number
of faults from my description so we
powered up the machine... Can you
believe it the thing worked without
problems! We powered of the machine
left it a few seconds then powered
the device back on Working no
problem! Ok must be a slight blip I
had then..

So that's 2 working RamLinks
1 Working 128D

and just at that moment Chris
produced a Cartridge Retro replay
with sticking out network card nicely
cut to house the device and keep away
static hands.

I showed the team the amazing DC2N
device that allows dumping and
loading of Tape file on a Commodore
machine; also the 1541U was also
briefly demo (more about this device
later)

1541u
Chris and Shaun both asked about the
1541U, its been some time since I
used the device and Chris wanted to
know if one particular game would
work with the device as he had
problems running this game from the
mmc64 device, we unplugged the SD
card from the MMc64 and plugged it
into the 1541 and powered up, after a
few seconds the game appeared Chris
was amazed we agreed that it must be
the emulation on the 1541u that made
the game work and must not be as good
on the MMC64 device, I explained
there were still problems as I loaded
some demos and it complained I was
using an emulator and not a real
1541, although the demo did run
without problems,

Shaun expressed an interest in the
IDE64 v4 and wondered if it would
help him transfer postscript files to
and from his Commodore, I have used
version 3 to do just that over a
serial connection transferring 5 MB
files and up to 1gb have all been
transferred, Shaun said he may be
interested in purchasing either
device as they would help him
producing magazines using Commodore
GeoPublish and transfer the files to
a PC to produce PDF versions in razor
sharp text.

I, Shaun and Allan decided we needed
to get our heads together and resolve
some problems with the CCC U.K. club.
So we headed off to a local Mc
Donald's for some food (although
McDonald's isn't something I eat so I
watched them eating and we headed
back to the house where I made some
food for myself)

The first issue with the CCC U.K. was
to sort out the full handover of
treasurer to Allan from myself. Due
to health problems and not being able
to check emails, and a pending
surgery operation; we decided it
better to remove the job from myself
so I could concentrate on getting
better and thinking about
appointments instead of worrying
about money subscriptions and the
shop.

With that out of the way Shaun
mentioned that he had purchased a
colour laser printer for use with
Wheels the upgrade from Geos. We
briefly reviewed printing from geos
and Geopublish to postscript devices
then moved onto the other issues.

The next major issue was outputting
the Commodore 128 80 column onto a
flat screen TV, I had a device I
purchased Y-Plus model A-22
RGB-to-Composite Converter
http://www.arcademvs.com/ we looked
closely at the device, well others
have done this very thing so it cant
be complicated can it,
http://home.comcast.net/{$de}kkrausnick/
c128-svideo/index.html we then looked
at the devices supplied connector. I
produced some cable and we set about
trying to get the unit up and running
with out much success.

Next Chris suggested we were using
the wrong interface as the board has
2 connectors but only supplied with a
cable to connect to one of the
interfaces, Allan said he had been to
Maplins to get a connector but they
didn't sell anything to fit this
particular slot on the device, we
googled on the interface and came to
the conclusion Chris was right. So
now how can we connect the wires,
well we could solder directly on the
board, ok its Sunday I have no solder
and Maplins is quite a drive, I said
I have seen this connector before on
Hp printers, Shaun said yes then we
looked at each other and said 1541
drive.

I had a drive and we unscrewed the
unit sure enough it had a connector
on there that did fit the device we
cut the cables on the 1541 and
connected the connection  to the
display circuitry using some tape and
twisting wires, yes it was very
low-tech Boom we ha a picture using a
composite output but it was a bit
bright and blurry but it was a
picture 80 columns.

Allan suggested using SVideo and
connection this via SCART to the back
of my TV. I had a connector and we
tried this, the picture was better
but to bright so we decided to turn
the voltage down on the input of the
A22 board this improved things but
the colours were not right, Allan
said he had the same unit and would
carry out further testes at home.

We finished with a chat about Maurice
and CMD what devices we would like to
be manufactured and about Jim Brain
selling Jiffy dos legally with
instructions and the Binary to
download "hurray" the end talks were
about Doom and how to create 3d
environments but with none of us
technically proficient at such things
we could only "what iffs"

It's a rare treat nowadays to spend a
full day working on my Commodore with
so many commitments I hardly find any
spare time. All the guys were very
courteous  and although I had met
Chris for the first time I seem to
get on with him no problem he seemed
to be a great guy very knowledgeable,
but all things must come to an end.
Allan had to leave to be in time for
work and within 30 minutes Shaun and
Chris were ready to leave to catch
the train. I walked with them to the
station and waved as I left.

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