It has been a while, since I wrote my last posting and I have to apologize. Right now I am sitting in a hotel in Beijing and enjoying a day off. So no work to do and no family, I have to pay attention to, taking the opportunity writing something I kept in mind already for months.In February I finally bought a new phone, the level of frustration with Windows Mobile on my Samsung i780 was pretty high. I can't recommend to buy a phone using Winodws Mobile, with a screen sized different than QVGA (320x240), this can be the source of plenty of problems. Emulators I would have loved to use, I've got never to work because of that. But I don't want to talk to much about Windows Mobile and its numerous problems, lack of user friendliness and so on... For me it became clear, that I should get a new phone, serving better my needs of a mobile device putting more emphasis on internet related tasks. The iPhone was very tempting, but I had all the discussion in mind, about the so much controlled app store and the C64 emulator, which was "too risky" for Apple and finally banned. So most you might got it already, I went for an Android powered device. It was the Motorola Milestone. The big screen and the hardware keyboard really convinced me. So I started to dream of coding for fun on a C64 emulator using the Milestone.
For Google Android there are two different C64 emulators are available. One is Java based and his compatibility and speed limited. The other one is a port of Frodo from the developer Shagrath and called "Frodo 64". Ist quite convincing, performs well and you can use it to play all this beloved games on your phone. But the hardware keyboard is not fully functioning. Numbers for example are not working. Most of the users are might be just interested in playing games, but I am missing options like displaying the border, the drive status, ability to use cartridges and/or expansions. Its a bit sad, the emulator wasn't updated for the last 6 month. Maybe Vice will be ported from somebody and we get something with more features for the geek s like me :-).
But this is not the only program I want to suggest to the Android users being retro fans. Everybody who is a C64 fan loves the sound of the SID soundchip. There are so many tunes I love to hear 'til today. So what could be better, to be able to listen to them anytime, anywhere? With "SID Player" you can do exactly that. Its a quite accurate player for the original tunes and uses libsidaply which is the base for many players supporting SID tunes. The GUI is just nice and its doing a perfect job. A nice little program, I can really recommend.
Well and thats all from me, what I have found so far, after being 6 months on Android. I hope more will come and will also try my best, to port some interesting projects to Android.
Thursday, May 27, 2010, 08:28
1 comment ( 797 views ) | 
( 2 / 4 )[en]
Recenty I stumpled multipe times upon a certain name. It was Gary Kildall. Gary was the one, who founded Digital Research. The company who was well known for its operating system CP/M, designed for smaller computers. In a time where mainframes were more common, than a personal computer. Some people might rember DR DOS, which was an interesting alternative to MS Dos. Many people called in wrongly Digital Research. The company who was well known for its operating system CP/M, designed for smaller computers. In a time where mainframes were more common, than a personal computer. Some people might rember DR DOS, which was an interesting alternative to MS Dos. Many people called in wrongly Dr. Dos, because they never heard about a company named Digital Research.I have learned a lot about Micrisoft and Apples history, but never looked into the history of CP/M and the company and people who created it. After some webresearch I found an interesting episode of the TV show Computer Chronicles. It was a Gary Kildall special, which was broadcasted after his sudden death and gave an voerview about his life and all his achievements.
Computer Chronicles and Archive.org are already quite interesting finds. I never used Archive.org before. There are tons of ancient episodes of Computer Chronicles. It was exciting to see reviews about C64, AMIGA 1000 or the Apple II. A lot of celebrities from the Bits & Bytes world have shown up at Computer Chronicles. So its a must see. Gary was always a part of Computer Chronicles as being the co-host. He was one of the most important inventors in Computer history. But most people don't know him.
For Gary, it was not easy not to be recognized for his work from the world. Especially because others did a lot. One of them of course still is Bill Gates. When Gates started the deal with IBM, selling MS-Dos to big blue, he basically sold a 1:1 copy of CP/M. I knew that a copy of the CP/M manual from Radio Shack, was the germ cell of QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), which Gates sold as MS-Dos. What I didn't kew was, that MS-Dos 1.0 was binary compatible to CP/M! At that time and maybe even later, Gary didn't complain about that. That Microsoft was able to get QDos, all credit goes to the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Yes, its not only Gates who made Microsoft.
Later Microsoft was not excited about DR Dos. So they successfully managed to put some obstacles into Digital Resarchs way. They integrated a "bug" into Windows 3.1/3.11, to ensure that Windows can't run in it's 386 extend mode, when its launched from DR Dos. Gary was this time willing to fight for his right in court. It took years to finally win, but it was too late for Digital Research.
I was motivated to look at this ancient CP/M stuff again and my Commodorer 128D is quite a good system for that. Fun to play around with CP/M and really old software.
Thats how it looks, when my C128D is booted into CP/M 3.0 in 80 column mode.
This disk was shipped with every Commodore 128. It was a low density flip disk. On side A the basic system, on B the utilities.There is an enhanced Version of this disk available called "ZP/M". Its Z80 instead of 8080 coded and runs faster. You can find it with other Commodore CP/M stuff here.
Its not difficult to find CP/M software on the web. Like MS Cobol, Turbo Pascal, Algol and other programming languages here. But not only programming languages, you can get there Wordstar, Dbase or other business related stuff as well.
If you are curious and don't own some CP/M hardware, don't worry. Emulator with ready made harddisk images are available.
Friday, January 22, 2010, 10:30
C64 DTV
Aleitung MMC2IECMehr zu meiner eigenen Referenz und Bequemlichkeit hier die Anleitung zu
MMC2IEC. Die Projekt-Webseite findet ihr hier.
USAGE GUIDE:
------------
The MMC2IEC device implements accessing FAT16/32 filesystems on MMC or SD
flash media. The CBM IEC protocol is implemented and the kernel load and save
routines on the C64 works, loading from either PRG, D64 or T64 files, and
saving only to PRG type files in FAT.
Selecting directories and images is possible through LOAD"xxx" commands
issued on the CBM.
This is a quick overview of the commands, say MMC2IEC is IEC device 8:
LOAD"<<",8 Reset SD card state. Do this if the SD card is exchanged.
Read < as the petscii back-arrow.
If SDCARD_DETECT signals is available, this operation is
rarely needed.
In FAT mode: (the default mode)
LOAD"___FCKpd___0quot;,8 Gets directory listing, equivalent to LOAD".",8
LOAD"gamesdir",8 Enter the "gamesdir" directory, and get listing.
LOAD"..",8 Up one directory and get directory listing.
LOAD"tetris.prg",8 Loads the "tetris.prg" program file.
SAVE"example.prg",8 Save into "example.prg" which is a FAT file.
LOAD"disk.d64",8 Loads the disk.d64 image and enters D64 mode.
LOAD"tape.t64",8 Loads the tape.t64 image and enters T64 mode.
In D64 mode:
Load "___FCKpd___0quot;, "*", wildcards, filenames works (almost) as espected on a 1541.
LOAD"<",8 (back-arrow). Escape D64 mode, and back to FAT mode.
SAVE"abc",8 Fools the CBM, but has no effect. Saves in D64 are
not implemented
In T64 mode:
Load "___FCKpd___0quot;, "*", wildcards, filenames works as if it was a D64.
LOAD"<",8 (back-arrow). Escape T64 mode, and back to FAT mode.
SAVE"abc",8 Fools the CBM, but has no effect.
Friday, January 22, 2010, 09:42
Bastelanleitung
Die original Anleiting in englischIch habe in der Vergangenheit immer wieder Fragen zu diesen Thema erhalten. Ich möchte nochmals auf die Original Anleitunge verweisen. Mein Artikel hier ist nicht komplett und ist als Ergänzung gedacht. Hier der Link zu der original Anleitung
http://pc2jamma.mameworld.info/
Sie ist nach wie vor online. Heute, Januar 2010, gecheckt.
http://pc2jamma.mameworld.info/
Sie ist nach wie vor online. Heute, Januar 2010, gecheckt.
Friday, January 15, 2010, 05:21
Blog
Happy new Year!
Yes, its 2010, the year where I hopefully spent more time on the projects, I am writing about here in my blog. No real progress with Lincade development, but its on my todo, to finalise the changes to the image and release one with SATA and updated Kernel.Recently I spend some time for my hobby, with modding my XBOX 360. Right now I am owning two XBOX 360. The first box (XENON model) I have bought here in Kuala Lumpur, came already with modified DVD drive. But the drive gave me some headache. Often the games stopped, due to reading errors. Later, the DVD tray refused to open after reading problems. After punching the 360, turning it off and on, I was able to remove the DVD. Sometimes it took me 15 minutes, to get the tray open. So I decided (the box was now already 2 years old), to open the box and update the firmwar and/or calibrate the laser. I found out, that the SATA plug was somewhat broken of the drive. The plastic brdige in the middle of the SATA plug, was lose. Maybe that causes the problem? Any tries with super glue failed. I calibrated the laser and it was better, but the problem returned. I was desperate and thought I should try a firmware upgrade. That Samsung ms-28 should be easy to update, but I struggled with even reading the flash. Probably because of the broken SATA plug. At one point, I must have bricked it. The drive was dead, the DVD key lost. It was not me who flashed it in the first place. So I had no copy of the original ROM. The dashboard Version was to new, the known King Kong exploit didn't work. I bought a RROD box with a working Hitachi. But with wrong DVD key, I was unable to play any game. That's why I decided in March 2009, to buy a new XBOX 360 (JASPER) with HDMI. But kept the old one, hoping one day I would be able to fix it.
Then, I think in December 2009, I read at hack-a-day, the 360 was hacked already 2 months
ago. There was the "JTAG Hack" descrided, as a way to flash XELL into the flash of the box and make it boot e.g. Linux. When XELL starts, it displays the CPU Key on the screen. With the CPU key I would be able to extract the DVD key from a dump of my 360 flash memory. The Jtack Hack gives you full read/write access to the nand flash. Certain tools help, to get what I want.So after sacrifying an old printer cable and soldering the wires into the old XENON, I was able to dump the nand and flash it with XELL. To get the DVD key was now a piece of cake. The next challenge was, to make the Hitachi work. I need to re-flash it with up-to-date firmware, change the DVD key and spoof a Samsung. Well, I never flashed a 360 drive before. A lot of things you need to know. Different drive versions and different procedures, depending on the state of the drive (flashed/unflashed). Here "Jungleflasher" was of big help. The tool itself is great, but even greater is the PDF document which works like an expert system, you can download there as well. In the PDF are links and it will guide you depending on many criterias through the right way, for your drive type/version, state and even helps you to solve Windows related issues if you can't access/flash the drive.
After flashing the drive, I had to get the 360 back into the state, where it starts with a dashboard, instead of XELL loader. At that time, XBREBOOT just became available. With XBREBOOT you can run unsigned code (homebrew) and its a patched dashboard. So I flashed it and what I've got is a 360, homebrew enabled with spoofed and working Hitachi drive. Its back to life! A sweet success after all that hassle and work on it!
Friday, January 15, 2010, 04:52
I already feel sad, since the move to Malaysia, not much time was left for my blog and the Lincade project. For the blog I decided to post more related to retro and interesting computer stuff, like in the past. Last months in germany, it became more and more a Lincade Blog, which should be just a part of this site.Lincade got some progress with an updated Linux Kernel. Users asked for SATA support and better compatibility. The new kernel will do the job better. But it will involve a lot of testing too. Old kernel will remain in Lincade. Users will get the choice in the installation.
The web projects I am working on are planned to become kind second income. For this we founded a company called Lightspeed-Networks, which is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Our slogan is "We create online worlds!" and we are doing exactly that. Our first project is called Carworld.my and is a website related to free car advertising. You can compare with the german website Mobile.de or Autoscount24.de. There are already sites here in Malaysia doing it, but we are the leading one, when it comes to features. Everything was written from scratch. I even built a small content management system, to publish news and articles. In the last 6 months I started to learn a lot about search engine optimisation, usability and Ajax. Running a website seems to mean, that you are never finished. And when its not a programming task, you have to make strategies or find ways to promote it. But its fun and it will be even more, when it starts to earn money!
Thursday, September 3, 2009, 04:49
[en]
Sorry for the deveopment downtime everyone.
I have recently begun a major rework of the admin script which requires some additional programs on the backend of the system. This will necessitate a new ISO to be released.
The design phase is about 30% done at the moment.
Primary focus has been placed on the below listed points.
- The admin script should run in both the X window system and at the text console
- In theory this will allow the customization of the cabinet while using the arcade monitor (will need testers)
- The admin script should have a backup function to allow any or All of the following:
- Basic system configuration
- Machine name
- Network Configuration
- Emulators
- Configuration
- Application
- Data files
- Monitor
- Configuration
- Refresh Rates
- Xorg config
- Custom Modelines
- Configuration
- Menu Systems
- Configuration
- Application
- Data Files
- Basic system configuration
- The Current Config should be easily visible from the admin script
- There should be a restore to Defaults setting for each section of the system
- The Import Emulators Should (finally) allow for Internet installation of new Emulators
- A New Import Menu Systems will be created for the possible addition of different Menu programs
- The Import Roms Section will be revamped to try to improve the way Roms are handled
- This will include the ability of the Imported Emulator to include scripts to process and validate imported ROM files.
- All Configuration data will be stored in an easliy searchable datastore
- As of this writing, SQLite3 will be used to manage this.
Quite a bit going on I know. The eventual goal for me in doing this is to support SDLMame in it's most current version. While still allowing for the use of AdvMAME.
Thank you all for your patience.
John
Thursday, February 26, 2009, 00:14
Despite a lack of time, the development will be continued by me and John. We had an email conversation about a roadmap and the goals for the next version.One bigger issue to deal with, is that the development of advmame was stopped already a while ago. We might switch to SDLmame and try to use advmenu together with that. Next option is to use Wahcade! instead of advmenu. Lets see.
Besides everything emulation related, the kernel and support of more hardware is a topic which will be covered. Quick results can't be expected, but at least we are again working on it!
Monday, May 19, 2008, 11:12
After beeing now for 2 months in KL, I am almost settled down. My office is usable, internet is working and my cab got a place in my living room. In other words, now I will continue working on this project. Luckily we have JIcemanL, who answered many many question in our forum and kept developing the admin and setup script. I am looking forward to have a new version of Lincade with some improvements very soon.
Before I moved, I bought the domain lincade.org. Now I have created a forwarding to our lincade forum, when visiting www.lincade.org. Nothing special, I just thought the project, which is basically just a part of pc2jamma.org, became so big that it deserves its own domain.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008, 05:57
We arrived in KL und now already 10 days here. Just finished my first work week and on this weekend we will continue looking for a new home.
If everything runs fine, our furniture arrives on the 23. of december and I will be back at the project early in January.
If everything runs fine, our furniture arrives on the 23. of december and I will be back at the project early in January.
Friday, December 7, 2007, 15:04
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