This is the video transcript. Read the original article with all the details →
Good morning and welcome to the ValorosoIT channel, the channel dedicated to retrocomputers and vintage electronics. I'm at Varese Retrocomputing 2023 and I'm visiting all the stands at the fair. I'm with Vincenzo Bono from the Gerundo group... Wait till I say it... Cut! No, but I'll cut later!
I'm with Vincenzo Bono from the Gerundo Retrogaming group. Now tell us a little about what he brought here, because I see some very interesting things, some various Commodores: the 16, the 64 and the 128 that I love so much. Now I'll immediately pass the floor to Vincenzo.
Pleasure! We brought a table dedicated to Commodores here. Four Commodores. So, this is a Commodore 128, which was given to me in '86 for my confirmation, connected to two original Commodore monitors. A game that came out last year Eye of the Beholder is running on this, which uses both monitors. So we have a modern game for a vintage computer. It's a game from the 90s, a 16-bit game that runs on an 8-bit computer. Okay. And the modern part is that it uses two monitors. Until the early 90s, until the early 2000s, two monitors on one computer were unheard of. However, this is a forty year old computer that natively had support for the 80 column monitor used for CP/M and Geos (graphical interface).
Yes, other operating systems. Or 40 columns which was for the backwards compatible mode for the Commodore 64. And in recent years there are games coming out, this is the second one. The first is PETSCII Robots by 8-bit Guy. This is the second game uses two monitors and the second monitor, at the moment, is used for the auto map function. So, in this game you play with the mouse. This is a mouse for Commodore 64, it is not the Amiga one, it is a particular mouse. The Commodore 1351. The analog signals are basically sent to the audio chip which does a sampling to move the mouse. The gameplay mechanism is identical to the original Beholder.
The auto map function is on this monitor. That is, there is the map on a monitor, so you know where you are and you discover it, I see, you discover it little by little as you play. Little by little it is being filled out.
Originally you had to draw the map on a squared sheet of paper, they added this feature starting in the 90s on several games. Eye of the Beholder didn't have it, but for this remake the map now generates automatically. Then the hardware peculiarity of this C128, following so many failures, repairs, failures and repairs, I got a little tired of repairing it every week, and so I got a new motherboard called 128 NEO. Oh, okay. So a modern printed circuit. A modern printed circuit board in which they have corrected the errors of the original PCB. There are no more patches around, it's very clean. I took as many new components as possible, so all the capacitors, all the resistors, sockets and even the various logic circuits that are around are new. I recovered from the 128 the RAM, the original chips, the Z80, the various ROMs, the video chips, the video memories... a few, two or three components, like this variable capacitor, this inductor which are no longer on the market. The doors. So, basically, the passives are all new, while the active components you tried to recover from the ones you found on your Commodore. Some new active little ones, probably these two RAMs are new I think.
Except that even some logic chips... are still found today. The TTLs are all new.
Then, there is no RF module, there is this Texas Instruments amplifier to improve the video signal, which can also be put on the normal Commodore 64. It gives a slightly cleaner video signal, less gel-bar effect. In fact I see that it looks very good. It's going very well. And in addition there is this card for the double SID, both 8580 and 6481, connected. I reused the RF output ports to attach the stereo output and the switch to select the chip to use for audio playback, so for all intents and purposes it's a 6-channel audio with two SIDs. On the 128 there is a metal sheet that rests with flexed parts that touch the chips. So it dissipates directly on the metal foil of the Commodore 128. This is the original ROM that was sold in Italy with the character code with Italian accented letters, I recovered it from my machine and put it here. Then, another peculiarity: there is JiffyDOS for both 64 and 128. I use it with an Ultimate. So let's also talk about modern accessories for vintage computers. Exactly, the Ultimate is an FPGA that manages to simulate all the drives on the C128, therefore the 1541, the 1571 and also the Commodore 1581 (the 3.5 inch one).
It has a built-in REU memory expansion, a virtual printer, an ethernet port to go online, it also works to simulate the recorder. Yes, I also remember the speaker to make the drive noise. It has a speaker to simulate the noise of the floppy disk. An interesting thing is that you can load the state of the REU memory while you run applications. So, in the vintage field, if you are interested in the Geos 128 or applications for 128, you can load them into memory, save the memory, then they are reloaded quickly. The peculiarity of the 128 is that it had an empty socket in which a Geos ROM could be placed which works like the Amiga's KickStart. So the Geos preloaded everything possible in ROM to speed up the loading of the graphical interface. On the 128, Geos was an operating system almost like the Amiga's KickStart.
Here we have the other 8-bits from Commodore: 64, C16, Vic-20. They are connected to 3 Mivars, which have been modified for: Auto-ON and Auto-AV. Basically, they are functions that allow you to automatically exit stand-by when you turn on the monitor without pressing any buttons and go to the AV channel automatically, as if it were the computer monitor. They have been computer modded to death and each has been repainted using the computer's RAL color code. In fact, he's doing very well. So there is beige gray for the Commodore 64. Colors of the C16 and Vic 20. And all equipped, like the 128, with modern accessories, Ultimate and others.
This is a demo, a small demo that is composed by a member of our group, Gerundo Retrogame, who is making the rounds. Behind it is the Ultimate and to this 64 we have attached a card called Nunchuk64, which allows you to connect the joypads of the Nintendo Mini, Super Nintendo Mini and also those of the Wii. It also contains an FPGA and the peculiarity is that it maps the A button as if it were the UP button on the joypad. So all the C64 platform games, where you have to jump with the joystick up, which is quite inconvenient, you can also use the red button. It's quite comfortable, it's cute, few people still know it.
It's interesting. Since this attack is very widespread, there are also Arcade joysticks that use it and can be found.
And I take this opportunity for those who are not subscribed to the ValorosoIT channel, I invite them to sign up and activate the notification bell!
Moving on to the C16 however, as you can see, this is a C16 that is running JiffyDOS, which is usually done with the Commodore 64, and in addition it has the writing 3-PLUS-1 ON KEY F1, which would be the ROM of the Commodore Plus/4. So, if I press F1 it enters the Commodore Plus/4 programs. Exactly, and it succeeds because in this computer we changed the ROM, replacing it with that of the Plus4, putting JiffyDOS, adding 64 KB of RAM, so basically it is equivalent to a Plus/4 with JiffyDOS. And, just to be safe, we have changed the PLA and the main chip with modern solutions that should preserve the life of this computer a little longer. You have replaced the vintage components, in short. Vintage components, especially these two on the C16 are very fragile. In the meantime, I'm writing my website, and I rightly take advantage of it to do some advertising (www.valoroso.it). The SD2IEC is attached here, to load programs via the MicroSD memory, right?
Or does this one have SD? Both, this one has the SD with the MicroSD adapter.
And finally, here we have a VIC20, first generation with orange buttons, and the Mivar has also been colored the same, to match the orange buttons. Basically it is an original Vis-20, only re-delivered to improve the quality of the video signal a little. There is a Penultimate card attached to the back. And this is interesting, like the Ultimate. Less flexible, as you can't attach SD cards directly, but you still need an external SD2IEC to load programs.
But it has, let's say, the dead test functionality, various types of RAM expansions, therefore to bring the Vic20 to 35 KB and, in addition, it has pre-loaded ROMs and some utilities.
But, the nicest thing is that it has the integrated function that reads from the SD2IEC. Ah, good! It is natively integrated, so you can directly load what you want, simply with four clicks, let's say.
Without typing anything, you can load from the bet slip. And here are various demo programs. Load both D64s and D81s, as well as PRGs. So, it took a while to load because with the SD2IEC you are simulating the disk reading protocol. So it's faster than a mechanical disc, but it still takes a bit of time. However it emulates the drive. One way to speed up SD2IEC is to use JiffyDOS (fast loading routines). On the C16 we put JiffyDOS, but for the Vic20 there is no JiffyDOS, so the loading is in real time, as it used to be done in the past.
The game is now loaded. This is also a modern game, it's a remake of H.E.R.O. for Commodore 64, but done on the Vic20. It does not manage sprites and must be programmed in a very particular way. So whoever programmed it was really smart.
Even now they start programming for vintage computers. It's an interesting thing, because the memory remains alive, everything from our past remains alive.
Thanks so much for everything, then. Thank you! And see you next time, next video. HI!