Bongo (1984, Anirog Software)

BONGO, the Super Mouse. What chance has a mouse, even a Super Mouse to win the heart of the princess. One day he heard the town crier announce, "The King promises his daughter's hand in marriage to he finds the stolen diamonds". BONGO sets out, in search and finally arrives at the thieves hide-out...

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Untested, only £10,000, Rare!!

We've all seen the seriously overpriced eBay/Gumtree/Anywhere-that-sells listings for our beloved retro computer and games systems. For some reason people who don't know anything about them, seem to think because it's old that is it rare and worth a fortune. So they'll slap a silly high price on them. Yeah sure there are a few systems out there that are worth something but I'm talking about the usual suspects.

In my experience it's mainly Commodore computers I deal with. 64's and Amiga's to be exact. I've seen 64's that are untested, have the badge missing and only a tape deck in terrible condition for sale for well over £100!

Here's a list of the usual things to look out for that make me suspect somethings not right. Or to quote Bill & Ted:

• “The light comes on so working” - Just because the light is on doesn’t mean anyones home. There could be no video or audio. It doesn’t mean any of the tape, cartridge or joystick ports work either.

• “Showing only the home screen” - Again this doesn’t mean it’s working properly. It doesn’t mean any of the tape or joystick ports work either. The sound could also be faulty.

• “Worked when I put it in the loft 20 years ago” - The capacitors in C64’s don’t like not being used. Extreme temperature differences in storage also aren’t good for them. Expect swollen or leaking capacitors. Powering them up after many, many years can also further damage them.

• “I don’t have the time to test” - But have time to take pics and write a description for eBay. Which takes considerably longer than plugging in a power supply, video cable, tape deck and joystick. Probably something wrong with it the seller doesn’t want to take responsibility for.

• “I don’t have the correct lead” - A very common excuse and again they’ve probably spotted something wrong, so if you buy it and it arrives broke then they can say “I told you I didn’t have the lead to test”. Check their other items and see what else they’re selling.

• “I don’t have an old tv to test” - My 40” Samsung 3D Smart TV can tune in a C64/Amiga by manually tuning in using the £1 aerial cable I got from Poundland.

• “Rare collectors item” - According to the Guinness Book of Records the Commodore 64 is the highest selling home computer of all time with around 17 million sold. These are not rare. Yes people collect them.

Here's a little list of things I bought over the last few months. All of which added up totals just £110.

So you see they're not all worth hundreds of pounds of your hard earned money. Stop these overpriced seller bell-ends and be patient. You WILL find a bargain at a proper price!!!

The Way of the Exploding Fist (Melbourne House, 1985)

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The Way of the Exploding Fist is a 1985 fighting game by Gregg Barnett of Beam Software. Originally developed on the Commodore 64 and published in June 1985 by Melbourne House,[1] ports were made for Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron and Commodore 16. It was one of the first games to include realistic graphics and movements[citation needed] and borrows heavily from the Data East arcade game Karate Champ which was released the previous year. An NES version was developed by Beam Software but it was never released.

Dam Busters (1985, US Gold)

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The Dam Busters is a combat flight simulator set in World War II produced by U.S. Gold. The graphics are very simple by today's standards, using four colours (in the DOS version). It was released on several platforms, and is loosely based on the real life Operation Chastise and the 1955 film. 

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Gorgeous Commodore 64 cases

Gorgeous Commodore 64 cases via @XYQOM on Twitter. I love the SX-64 style one (front right if you don't know what that is).

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Commodore 128 RetroBrite and 6581 replacement.

So I bought a Commodore 128 from eBay listed as the same old crap "tested & working". Of course when it turns up at your house, you set it up, and there's a problem. We'll get to that in minute.

The case wasn't too bad but the the keys looked like they were made from cheese!



Motherboard was nice and clean though.



I popped those ugly keys off on the next free day I had and give them a good clean and then a two day soak in some H202 that I got from eBay.



Couple of days in the sun from 7:00 to around 17:00 each day, giving the tub a shake every hour or so and this is the result I end up with :)



They look so good it's now made the case seem more yellow than it actually was! Damn!! I'll have to wait until I get a bigger tub to do that.



Anyway when I got this beast I plugged it in to see how it was I noticed there was no sound. Now I was told that this was working and tested. After bugging the hell out of my friend Paul who knows a shit load about these computers we determined the 6581 was toast. I tested it on pin 14 and 28 with the multimeter and got a reading of 11.97v which meant the right power was going through it so it must be the 6581 right?



After a couple days wait I got hold of a new 6581 from a top bloke on Facebook and swapped it over. Voila! Sound was booming out.!Yay win for me! Removed the RF shield and added heatsinks on the chips that had thermal paste left on them.



Keep an eye on this post for the final RetroBrite stage of the case complete with nice pictures of it all setup and working :)

Update- 27th May:

So I picked up a tub big enough to hold the casing for RetroBrite'ing :) Right now they're having a soak in some water with OxyClean in it to remove all the stains & dirt.



As you can see from the gallery above I've given it a clean ... then a soak in H202 (about 9hrs) then give it a good rinse with clean water and let it thoroughly dry before attempting to screw it back together.

The result is awesome but for now you'll have to wait as I have a new badge on order. Once that's here I will update the post with a "final result" picture!

Update: 3/6/16

The badge arrived today and that was all I needed to finish off my 128! She now looks beautiful! Click the image for a bigger version!

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C64SD V3.0 Princess FLC Review & Setup Guide

A few weeks ago I purchased a C64SD V3.0 Princess FLC from www.manosoft.it after reading few reviews and watching a couple of youtube videos.

Quick Review

What is it? It's basically an SD2IEC but it has the option to create your own backups to .tap files and also rewrite them back to tape. You can also load .tap files via the C64SD and it'll load them just like you had an actual cassette in the C2N. This is so cool! No other SD2IEC does this on the market currently. This excited me a lot :) I mean SD2IEC is great for having lots of games but don't you just miss the loading music sometimes? I do.

Why didn't I just get a 1541 Ultimate II? As amazing as those things are, I want to play with my toys now and not have to wait months and months before I get them after I've spent my hard earned cash on it. I had this less than a week after purchase which is good considering it was shipped from Italy to the UK.

This photo is property of www.manosoft.it

Features:

– SD2IEC – 1541 Disk Drive emulation with all functionalities of sd2iec latest firmware

– Compatible with all Commodore models of the classic series (C64 all models,C128,C128D,VIC20,VC20 etc) and 264 series (Plus/4-C16)

– Works on NTSC model too, including tape functions

– Reads TAP files from SDCard into Commodore computer with possibility to set a tape rewind point in realtime

– Writes TAP files from SDCard to Real C2N Datassette (1530,1531 or compatible models) to recreate damaged cassette

– Grabs cassette content using C2N or compatible datassette and creates a .TAP file ( All commodore 8 bit from VIC-20 included onward, TAP Version 1 and 2)

– High precision digital TAP emulation for all TAP functions, no need to setup volume or any parameter

– TAP digital sound monitor

– Full emulation of datassette motor line, no need to guess the pauses while loading, works like a real datassette

– Datassette passthrough connection. Allows to keep datassette connected without having to remove the card from Commodore computer

– Disk Drive daisy chain possibility (card can be connected at the same time as other real disk drives)

– Fully supported by FB (CBM Filebrowser) can read TAP files just selecting them in a menu and pressing Enter key

– Disk functions can be disabled to load protected tape images

– D64 Index Special functions to jump directly to a program in a “program compilation” .TAP file (d64 is created with Tap Manager “section download”)

Out of the box its seems like a pretty decent piece of gear. and the metal casing makes it more solid than a plastic cartridge in my opinion. You can see its really well made. It sits in the 64 real tight and doesn't feel like you need to be too gentle with it.

Besides, it looks shit hot on my custom 64's as well! Haha



Setup Guide

So when you get the C64SD you should head over to Manosoft download page on your computer and grab the Root SD-Card pack and extract that to the root of your SD card. You'll also want to grab the correct pack for your Commodore under the Other Packs tab. I got the C64 one obviously.

Once both extracted to your SD card pop it back into the C64SD and turn on your Commodore.

Now what you want to do is type - LOAD"MENU",8 hit return then type RUN and hit return to load the menu. Or if like me you have JiffyDOS installed you can simply type ^MENU and hit return to load it.



You'll see this screen:



On the MENU screen there are lots of options but for now before we use anything you want to hit the "I" key on your 64 to initialise the SD card for use with the V3.0 Princess. it'll take a sec or two to sort it out then you'll see a screen showing you that its done.



That's it! You're ready to start playing games or whatever you usually get up to on your 64. Press F1 to load the File Browser app and you'll be able to load all the wonderful games you extracted from the package you downloaded via Manosoft.

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Amiga 500+ brought back to life (pt1)

18/5/16:

So when I was about 8/9 years old I got into computers through my friend Simon. He had a VIC-20 and I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen! Later that year for Christmas all I wanted was a computer. My parents were cool enough to get me a Commodore 64! To this day I'm still really into Commodores and play my 64 and Amiga 1200 more than my PS4 haha.

...anyway I'm drifting away from the meaning of this post. I've had it in my head for a little while now to restore an Amiga and fit it with a Gotek drive and give it to Simon as a surprise. The reason for the Gotek is it's a really cost effective way of having thousands of games without using up any room except for that on an 8gb thumb drive :)

Searching around for a bit I found, what I thought was a steal at just £25, an Amiga 500+ with a few discs. Win!



Until I opened it up and seen the typical 500+ problem of a leaky battery :( Ballbags! Just my luck.



After the battery was removed:



Well that was a kick in the nuts. However I stuck a post on Facebook in the Amiga group and got some advice. A very friendly chap who is also a genius with electronics and makes torpedo's for a living offered to help me out and fix it! How nice was that! You should check out his Facebook page: Appy's Commodore & Amiga Page

Keep and eye out for the next update! Will it be saveable or will it go to Amiga heaven?

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Heatseeker by Thalamus!!!

Finally after months and months of searching I have a copy of Heatseeker by Thalamus in my hands! I know it's not the best game in the world but as a kid I was always intrigued by the artwork in Zzap!64 and Commodore magazines back in the day.

It's all mine!!!!

So what do you have to do?

A Doomed World
The ancient land of Trantis. Legend has it that the Triphyllos of Nem, three mysterious and magical plant, their petals forever open, hold in their lifeblood the entire race memory and physic of the people if Trantis. Should their lifeblood ever corrupt, doom would follow. All the people would surrender to plague and death.

The legends have lost their meaning, civilisation is heavily industrialised and sprees its filth in a blanket of pollution  over the land. Even the pure cleansing power of rain ahas been converted to acid poison.

And at the very heart of Transit the Triphyllos shut off.

And yet in this soulless modern world there is hope: The Gnostics, a wise and secretive race, forgotten by all but a few, seeing their lands in peril have constructed the Leg. Where man cannot go safely a machine may trespass unharmed: the Leg is an acid resistant heat probe designed to enter the most polluted of areas and absorb the heat of the Zeal smog flames. 

Remote-controlled by one of the Gnostics the Leg must explore the heartlands of Transits twice - once by day then by night. Then, on Midsummer's Eve, the robot must approach the Triphyllos of Nem and send out its probe to relinquish its stored heat to their lifeblood to revitalise the plants and give them strength to open their petals and resume their beneficent influence - thus restoring sense to the people of Trantis!

The Gnostics know. A cast amount of Zeal flame must be stored to stand any chance of saving all three plants...

But then in a world of acid rain the only hope of salvation lies with the Heatseeker!

Just one more game to get then I'll have the complete collection! Mwwwhhhaahahaha



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