On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Cameron Kaiser wrote: For future reference, here's a handy utility: http://www.bugmenot.com Put in the URL of the news article you want to read and out pops a pre-registered username/password for that news site. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

Philip Pemberton wrote: I'm the last person who will stand on a moral soap box, but if someone asks you your name and you tell them a falsehood, that's um, lying. While I really like the idea it seems a bit "morally challenged". there, I've used up my off topic quota for this week :-) -brad

On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Brad Parker wrote: I can think of at least one more important issue to be concerned with :) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

John Foust wrote: Given the gender balance on the CC lists, that point is entirely moot. Plus, as cute as she is, she's got a lot of qualities that are more rare and more interesting than her looks, too. Doc

Since the principals aren't subscribed, I'll do my best. Ys, they did, although the connection is rather circuituous (sp?). Early in the year, Tulip held a big news conference and went over their vision for the Commodore brand. At the time, they showed off me-too MP3 players and USB drives with names like mPET and eVIC. They also introduced the head of Ironstone Partners, and Tulip and Ironstone jointly described the new web site that would allow the purchase of a C64 emulator and games and the C64 Direct To TV (C64DTV). Jeri's talk at the recent World of Commodore EXPO in Toronto paints a slightly different picture. She said Ironstone had contacted her in late 2003, but couldn't seem to commit money to the project. In the Spring, though, DC Studios called, with contract and money in hand. My theory is that Ironstone punted to DC Studios. in any case, Jeri started on the unit, and DC went looking for a implementor and a buyer. QVC stepped up with the requiremements, and Mammoth stepped up to build. The software was not easy to license, and the timing was too tight. QVC set the number of games (30), and Adrian Gonzales and Robin Harbron, helped at times by Mark Seelye with some last minute pieces by Per Olafsson (sp? ) worked right up to the last minute to deliver 30 games for the unit. Mark and Robin removed trainers and crack intros from games cracks for for the unit, rewriting portions to deal with some small compatibility issues and lack of some of the illegal NMOS 6502 opcodes. As well, two-player modes and keyboard requirements had to be removed. Adrian worked on the ROM file system, which replaced the tape load routines. Per helped on a pro-bono basis, and added the joystick keyboard driver you can access on the unit, as well as some easter eggs. At the time we (myself and others) came to the September 2004 SWRAP EXPO in Chicago, the team had to deliver the ROMset to the fab the next Monday. To get 30 games, Adrian had been forced to split the Epyx "Games" series into individual events. That following week, though, someone (not sure if it was Mammoth, DC, or QVC) had a fit about that, so the team was given another week to stuff more games in the unit. Though, for every games added, one had to be removed so the final number was 30 (not counting the hidden games). By the time of the SWRAP show, the final VHDL set had gone to fab for the ASIC. Jeri and I chatted on IRC one Saturday (possibly late October) where she stated she had held the box with 250K ASICs (unbonded) in a box earlier that afternoon. Another week, she was in China to help with layout and board issues. It seems she laid out a fine PCB, but the contract manufacturer kept trying to cost reduce the unit, wreaking havoc. Jeri had to keep undoing things they did to the PCB to put it back in working order. A couple interesting items about the unit: Folks should now know that Jeri's been working on the C-1 reconfigurable computer (formerly known as the Commodore 1). As the first core was the C64 core (which is what formed the basis of the C64DTV unit), the legality of her reverse engineering the custom CSG ICs was a gray area. In the contract for the C64DTV development, Jeri inked in language that solidifies her right to develop the C64 core for the C-1. So, in essence, she got paid for the work, and she was able to remove any legal issues along the way. As a further note, Jeri was paid for the work upon completion, no royalties, but I think the article also states that. If you do hack the unit, you'll be presented with a complete C64 core that is 99.X% vintage. As well, you'll find a small bit on $d03f, in the VIC address range, that, if enabled, turns on a chunk of new functionality. 256 colors, a linear bitmap mode, virtual screen larger than physical screen mode, and a DMA engine (ala the CBM 17XX REUs). In the "keep it under your hat, you didn't hear it from me" Dept: The IEC and KB pads were smuggled onto the unit. The initial PCB layout brought all the lines out to pads. Under the epoxy, the actual ASIC has all the C64 port lines and pins available, but the contract manufacturer kept cost reducing the board and re-laying it to accomodate the cheap manual labor that was to build it. Initially, they removed the lines altogether, but then Jeri noted they needed to be pulled high by resistors. After much grumbling, the manufacturer added the requisite resistors into the design, which force the pins to be bonded and brought beyond the epoxy, thus making them available for the hobbyist. As for the pulling high.... The ASIC pulls those lines high internally. So, in the end, the manufacturer paid a bit more in trying to cost reduce the unit. Her defense is that those lines are needed in order to completely test the unit, which is true. Last weekend, Jeri was in Thunder Bay (Robin's locale) trying to get the PAL version (the current ASIC is NTSC only) ready for the European market. I hear more surprises are in store for the PAL unit, so those of us who bought early, will need to buy again. And, contrary to the reader's current opinion, I am not Jeri's #1 fanboy. Though, I have been blessed to be in the mostly "in-crowd" concerning the development, before it became public knowledge. I do find it nice that an enthusiast has been able to turn their hobby into some PR and some good paying work to boot. The platform has gotten some PR. About the only issue is that the DTV has fundementally raised the bar for such throwaway joystick units. Already, the Atari crowd is miffed that the Flashback and previous units are really NES-on-a-chip or similar with re-written games, while the DTV is the real (NMOS going to CMOS notwithstanding) item. As well, it has definite hacking potential, and can be used far beyond the games it contains in ROM. The only concern remove the hacking potential from the PAL unit, which would be a terrible shame. Jim -- Jim Brain brain(a)jbrain.com

So use the Cnet link I posted. Piece of cake. ^_^ -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com -- LDA #<TXT:LDY #>TXT:JMP $AB1E:TXT .asc "just another c64 hacker":.byt 0d00 -