Mike, First of His Name @mike@chinwag.org

This looks pretty unimpressive, but I've been chipping away at a little framework to hang a simple C64 game off of for a while now.

There are no graphics defined, so the screen's mostly junk, but as of yesterday that's a double-buffered, smooth-scrolling display right there with a stable status line for score.

Honestly, 90% of my fiddling has been how to format the code and run the builds. I kinda know how I'm going to structure it all now though.

#retrocomputing #c64 #retrogaming

For someone who remembers having to restart the computer and reload the entire assembler environment from a floppy disk every time you wanted to actually test run the code you wrote (because you only had one computer) an environment like this kinda feels like easy mode.

Not to mention the whole other monitor with reference docs and an entire internet of information ...

#retrocomputing #c64

Who'd have thought that commenting my #c64 assembly code would lead to me getting a song stuck in my head?

I have only myself to blame.

#6502 #retrocomputing

Finally knocked a long-standing to do list item and got a nice little build environment going for generating #C64 cartridge images.

I've got the basic code running to set up the system and run a little loop, so I can now chip away at building a rudimentary little side scroller game or something to really get my #6502 assembly knowledge back to a functional level. Then maybe try one of my more ambitious ideas!

#retrocomputing

The point to setting up the #C64 this evening was to stress test the 1541 after putting a new power supply in it. I used the #Pi1541 to write D64 images back out to physical floppy disks and then started up a bunch of stuff from them.

Worked great! I can turn disks into images and back again easily now.

Some pretty dedicated nerdery going on here this evening. Probably should order a pizza at some point. #retrocomputing #c64

Really hard to get a good photo, but all the bits of my #Pi1541 work in its hacked together form! Now I just need to get it all into a case or on a single board or something. #retrocomputing #c64

Haha! Huge success! #retrocomputing #c64

New toy day! Totally going to write the shit out of some 8k ROMs now! My own DIY #C64 cartridges are not far off. #retrocomputing #CBM80

Oh wow, I'm going to have to have one of these. I hope they don't cost a million dollars. #C64 #Commodore #retrocomputing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yOch48SScs

This little hacked-together setup ran off its fully-charged battery pack for about 2 hours or so last night, that's with screen on and running a #C64 demo in Vice the whole time.

I'm happy with that.

I've been watching the development update posts on Twitter for this for a while, and finally got to play it on a real #Commodore64 this evening:

https://sarahjaneavory.itch.io/neutron

Great new little shooter game. Treat yourself to it.

#retrocomputing #C64

Did a little fooling around with my #C64 #SXmini box. Roughed out screen location with a cardboard panel, and threw in some battery charging controller bits I had in a drawer. Charges on USB for now but I have a tiny 5v PSU on the way to go in there.

Finally got my little screen and some time to play. My #SXmini is alive ... albeit loosely mounted in the case.

Need to get the Dremel out and make some holes now!

#c64 #retrocomputing #commodore64

Anyone interested in a #Commodore64 SX mini? Just got this little case and looks like it'll be the perfect size. Waiting on a better screen to be delivered now and I'll start playing. Plenty of space for a battery pack too!

#retrocomputing #c64

OK this is neat: http://accentual.com/bmc64/

Vice emulator for the Raspberry Pi running on bare metal, no Linux layer to slow things down.

#C64 #retrocomputing

I got a bunch of old #Commodore Datasettes a while back and one of them had the plug cut off for unknown reasons. So I'm playing. 😁

I'm not reading sensible data yet (need parts), but I have control of the motor and button sense lines. #c64 #retrocomputing

I thought it was important that my modem flash some LEDs on startup. I haven't really added anything to the firmware to use these yet but I'm thinking wifi signal strength for a start.

#Commodore64 #retrocomputing #c64

Made a third (dismantled the first) prototype #C64 modem unit to try some ideas out. Main change is bringing all the pins to a header and running a cable to the edge connector to make case mounting more flexible.

#retrocomputing #Commodore64

My parts arrived and I kinda had to immediately assemble the #Commodore64 wifi modem of my dreams.

It works, and so does my firmware build environment! Time to get hacking ...

#C64 #retrocomputing