commodore_free_22.pdf

Issue 22 August 2008

Free to download Commodore magazine

Dedicated to Commodore Computers

Available as PDF Text SEQ HTML and D64 image

www.commodorefree.com

Commodore Free Magazine

www.commodorefree.com

Editor

http://www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk/

This month I am plugging the Commodore computer

club, you will remember from the last issue of Commo-

dore Free that; we had our first meeting last month and

to keep momentum going I have listed the membership

form and general club rules in this issue of the maga-

zine. A lot of thought has gone into setting up the club.

The main point is the club will be run as a none profit

organisation, so you can rest assured that any money

invested will not be taken by members; we will have vi-

suals on the spend and income listed to all members.

Currently I am treasurer with Jason Kelk (tmr)as Web-

master and Alan Bairstow as Chairman

(www.commodorescene.org.uk) and Shaun Bebbington

from www.micromart.co.uk as secretary

TAPE`s current cd. I will at some point print what I con-

sider the best of these 3 entries, the disks have now

gone out, thanks to PRESS PLAY ON TAPE for donating

the disks and the 3 people who finally put pen to paper, I

was however disappointed that more people didn’t take

part in the competition.

here we go then hold onto your hats it may be a bumpy

read, especially with my spelling.

Regards

Nigel www.commodorefree.com

What use is another Commodore club? as we are all

very active Commodore users and enjoy promoting the

machine we have some surprises in store for members

various discounts from our online shop (still to be setup)

special members access areas on the website and other

benefits’. The main point is bringing people together

something I felt the U.k. was lacking. I hope everyone

reading would be interested in joining with fee starting

from as little as £3, so you can test out the club, but I

would think most will opt for a life membership

CONTENTS

EDITOR /CONTENT

PAGE 2

NEWS

GENERAL NEWS

PAGE 3

UIEC Status Update

PAGE 3 - 4

UIEC INFORMATION

PAGE 4 - 7

Please visit the website (still under construction, so you

may need a hard hat to enter some areas) you will notice

a mirror of the HTML version of Commodore free on the

site and the forum is running along very nicely so take a

look at http://www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk/ as

stated last month we have already released a 1 file

demo and this is available from the site to download,

comments and feedback are welcome, please speak up.

TUTORIALS

In the beginning part 7

PAGE 12 - 14

Making music with DMC

PAGE 14 - 19

INTERVIEWS

STEFANO TOGNON (SIDIN Magazine) PAGE 8 - 11

CLUB NEWS

C.C.C. Membership form PAGE 20

C.C.C. Membership Club rules PAGE 21 - 22

I have asked for readers to send through information and

I appreciate you will be reading this and think your com-

ments and tutorials will not be welcome, nothing can be

further from the truth, I would love to print tutorials for

both beginners and experts alike. We all have particular

talents and as a community these should be shared. Or

maybe you would like to ask a question; and of course

wherever possible I will find the answer, even if I have to

"phone a friend"

Commodore is still alive let’s keep the memory fresh, I

am in the process of setting up a bank account for the

Commodore Computer club. While giving details to the

operator she said "Commodore are they still going I used

to own one of those they were great machines". So even

in banking I can’t get away from the memories of the ma-

chine. Talking of which, if you have a fond memory of

Commodore like when you first received your machine

send write it down and send it in, some readers hate

these but I love reading about your first experiences with

Commodore.

HOW CAN I HELP COMMODORE FREE

Ok the best way to help would be write something about

Commodore (yes for the observant I spelled the com-

pany correctly this time) _grin seriously though articles

are always welcome,

If you are a club send me some information I will include

the details as and when space allows, also if you are a

company or have a product to advertise send me some

promotional material and when space permits I will re-

print it FREE! you cant get cheaper adverts than that!

There is nothing better than a free advert, for promotion

of course you may like to send me one of the devices for

a full review in the magazine. Speaking of which, reviews

are personal, I write the magazine so they are my per-

sonal reviews of the products, if an individual writes in

they are there reviews and comments, if something is

less than satisfactory I will say so, if its the best product

in the world it will be reviewed as such. Bribes are wel-

come but ultimately they do not change the reviews.

WHAT ARTICLES DO YOU NEED

Well they vary, contact me if you have an idea but I am

looking for

Tutorials

(beginners and Expert),

Experiences

with Commodore,

Why I love Commodore machines,

Interviews

maybe you have access to a power user

Also; I finally had 3 entries to the Commodore music

Competition to win a free copy of PRESS PLAY ON

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NEWS

====

NEW C64 FRAMEWORK SOURCE RELEASED.

I’ve have just released my new C64 frame work (and

sample app) for you to play with. Here is a list of the

frameworks features.

-Initialisation, mainloop and interrupts all setup and

ready to go.

-Production quality multiplexor.

-Three separate compile time switchable sorts.

-Simple collision detection system.

-General sprite animation system.

-Game based keyboard and joystick routines.

-Simple player control framework.

-Lightning fast 8x8bit multiply routine.

-Simple random number routine.

-Built in MMC64 FAT16 file loader.

-Simple example platform engine showing the frame-

work in action.

You can grab it from the download links on my BLOG

http://dailly.blogspot.com

where you can also read about its development and

any future additions there.

need a padded envelope for it), and all but 5 of the

uIEC/CF units out. I have updated the design to v2.3.

This forced moving the activity LED to another IO pin,

to free up pins for the disk swap buttons. All units

shipped after C4 EXPO have this mod. They also

have the 2008-07 uIEC bootloader. Thus, any unit

sold at the C4 EXPO show needs to check with me

for a timeframe when I can upgrade their units to v2.3

and install the bootloader and the newer 7.2.1 firm-

ware.

========================================

SUB HUNTER

Another preview has been released of the game sub

hunter, I would say this is one of Richards best

games ever, and I personally am looking forward to

the finished version with much anticipation. You can

of course download a new preview from here

http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=68965

and you can read about the games development

here

http://www.redesign.sk/tnd64/sub_hunter.html

The bootloader is very important, since it allows one

to upgrade their firmware simply by copying a file to

the root directory of the first partition of the primary

IDE/CF drive. On boot, the bootloader will scan for a

newer firmware and flash it into the uIEC if it finds

one. FAT32 support is enabled now (I held off on

shipping until I had that complete, since otherwise,

folks would need to have a small FAT16 partition #1

to load new firmware, which seemed a waste) For the

unfilled CF units, I plan to make the small IO mods of

v2.3 and add a SD card option and run the next set

of boards. I should be able to order the boards by

next week. It takes 10 days to run a batch of boards,

and a few days to solder. Thus, it'll probably be 14-

21 days before I can sell more CF units. I only have

2 unfilled orders on the CF units. For the uIEC/IDE

units, I need some help. With the v2.3 mods and a

desire to add buffer drivers to the IEC lines (requires

4 more IO lines), I'm running too short on IO to offer

printer port/IEEE port/parallel speeder port IO. I have

two options: Make the minimal mods needed for the

IEC lines, add the support for SD cards, and run a

batch of boards. This would be quick and requires

very little thought. Read: takes little time to prepare

to run boards.

========================================

COMMODORE COMPUTER CLUB U.K.

http://www.commodorecomputerclub.co.uk

We're now accepting membership applications for

the Commodore Computer Club (UK), and you can

fill these applications electronically and pay with Pay-

Pal. We also accept cheques, postal orders and in-

ternational money orders. Please contact me for

details or for an application form and club rules. My

email address is

contact@CommodoreComputerClub.co.uk

Regards, Shaun.

More information about the cub is listed at the end of

this magazine

========================================

UEIC STATUS UPDATE

Subject: uIEC status update

I apologize for the delay in getting this out. Here is

an update:

Make the larger mods needed to bring out the addi-

tional IO (requires the 100 pin version of the CPU I

am using and some headers). Read, takes more

time. 'm interested in feedback. I think 50 boards is

Since July 4th, I've been busy soldering up the re-

maining uIEC/IDE and uIEC/CF units. I've shipped

all but one uIEC/IDE unit out (Wizard, it's yours, but I

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Commodore Free Magazine

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the smallest prod run I can economically run, so I'd

need to ensure folks are OK with the decision. Right

now, after mailing all the uIEC/IDE boards, I have 19

unfilled orders. I'm leaning towards option #1, mainly

for timing, but I thought I'd ask the group. The uIEC/

CF units were designed mainly for folks who plan to

"embed" them in designs. As such, they do not have

elegant connections. I'm not apologizing for that, just

noting why the IEC wires and power wire are in-

stalled as they are. My intention was for the users to

embed the unit and unsolder those wires when no

longer needed. I will, though, apologize for the cas-

sette connector. I forgot to plan for the little PCB

that’s needed for that connector. I will run a batch of

those with my next order. If folks want one, I can

ship one or solder one up when I see you next. Right

now, there are two "bugs" I am working on. One is

the start-up latency on uIEC/IDE units when only 1

drive is connected. Due to the way IDE devices are

initialized, the initialization sequence must wait > 32

seconds to see if a drive is present. Thus, on a

setup with only 1 drive, there will be a 30 second de-

lay on start. It's not a "bug" per se, but unwanted

behaviour. To counteract, I am working on a way to

disable the second drive via DOS command. Since

we know later designs might have more than 1 type

of storage medium (ATA/CF/SD/etc.), I am making it

flexible, so it's taking a bit longer to implement

Membership to the Mailing List uiec-

users@jbrain.com

On this web page you can subscribe to, or unsub-

scribe from, the mailing list uiec-users@jbrain.com

UIEC INFORMATION

The device is now shipping and Jim has kindly let me

reprint the draft of the read me guide I personally

have one of these on order and will give a full and

honest review as soon as the device arrives for my

testing.

UIEC here is the most current README:

sd2iec - a controller/interface adapting storage de-

Ingo Korb <ingo@akana.de> Parts based on code

from others, see comments in main.c for details. Jiffy-

Dos send based on code by M.Kiesel Fat LFN sup-

port and lots of other ideas by Jim Brain crc7.c

generated by pycrc, see comments in it for pycrc li-

cence. Final Cartridge III fastloader support by

Thomas Giesel

Free software under GPL version 2 ONLY, see com-

ments in main.c and COPYING for details.

FIXME:This file still needs to be expanded. A lot.

The other bug is init issues with master CF card and

slave IDE drive. I think it's just a timing issue. For

now, I recommend putting the IDE drive as primary,

and CF card as slave. I've set up a mailing list for the

unit (questions, concerns, etc.) It's unmoderated at

present, so play nice. Details are below. After I get

the designs to the PCB house, I plan to work on im-

age support. I have WIP code for D71/D81/DNP im-

ages that needs to be finished and committed.

Although I tend to set my own priorities, I'm always

interested in which features folks want.

INTRODUCTION:

sd2iec is firmware, used in hardware designs like

MMC2IEC, SD2IEC, or uIEC, that allows the Com-

modore serial bus to access removable storage de-

vices (MMC, SD, CF) - think of it as a 1541 with a

modern storage medium instead of disks. The project

was inspired by (and uses a few bits of code from)

MMC2IEC[1] by Lars Pontoppidan and once ran on

the same hardware before it grew too big for the

ATmega32 used there.

Currently, the firmware provides good DOS and file-

level compatibility with CBM drives, but much work

still remains. Unless specifically noted, anything that

tries to execute code on the 1541 will not work, this

includes every software fastloader.

Documentation: Yes, I do plan to write some up, but

I simply need to get the units shipped first. Since the

drive uses CBM and CMD syntax, I hope folks can

easily find their way around. I will, though, send a

cheat sheet to the mailing list in a few days. For the

uIEC/CF owners, the two small pins on the backside

of the unit are the disk-swap switches. Ground each

(via a switch) for operation. I'm sure I'm leaving

something out, but there's always more email to

send.

Jim

[1] Homepage: http://pontoppidan.info/lars/

index.php?proj=mmc2iec

Supported commands:

- General notes: Any command not listed below is

currently not supported.

- Directory filters: To show only directories, both =B

(CMD-compatible) and =D can be used. On a real

Commodore drive D matches everything.To include

hidden files in the directory, use *=H - on a 1541 this

doesn't do anything. sd2iec marks hidden files with

an H after the lock mark, i.e. "PRG<H" or "PRG H".

CMD-style "short" and "long" directory listings with

timestamps are supported("$=T"), including time-

stamp filters. Please read a CMD manual for the syn-

tax until this file is updated.

- Partition directory: The CMD-style partition directory

($=P) is supported, including filters ($=P:S*). All parti-

tions are listed with type "FAT", although this could-

change to "NAT" later for compatibility.

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- CD/MD/RD: Subdirectory access is compatible to

the syntax used by the CMD drives, although drive/

partition numbers are completely ignored.

also supported with no limit to the number of files ex-

cept for the maximum command line length (usually

100 to 120 characters).

Quick syntax overview:

CD:_ changes into the parent dir (_ is the left

arrow on the C64)

CD_ dito

CD:foo changes into foo

CD/foo dito

CD//foo changes into \foo

CD/foo/:bar changes into foo\bar

CD/foo/bar dito

- T-R and T-W If your hardware features RTC sup-

port the commands T-R (time read) and T-W (time

write) are available. If the RTC isn't present, both

commands return 30,SYNTAX ERROR,00,00; if the

RTC is present but not set correctly T-R will return

31,SYNTAX ERROR,00,00. Both commands expect

a fourth character that specifies the time format to be

used, T-W expects that the new time follows that

character in exactly the format returned by T-R with

the same format char.

You can use wildcards anywhere in the path. To

change into an M2I or D64 image the image file must

be named after the :, it will not be recognized other-

wise.

The possible formats are:

- "A"SCII: "SUN. 01/20/08 01:23:45 PM"+CHR$(13)

The day-of-week string can be any of "SUN.",

"MON.", "TUES", "WED.",

"THUR", "FRI.", "SAT.". The year field is modulo

100.

MD uses a syntax similar to CD and will create the

directory listed after the colon (:) relative to any

directory listed before it.

- "B"CD or "D"ecimal:

Both these formats use 9 bytes to specify the

time. For BCD everything

is BCD-encoded, for Decimal the numbers are

sent/parsed as-is.

Byte 0: Day of the week (0 for Sunday)

1: Year (modulo 100 for BCD; -1900 for Deci-

mal, i.e. 108 for2008)

2: Month (1-based)

3: Day (1-based)

4: Hour (1-12)

5: Minute (0-59)

6: Second (0-59)

7: AM/PM-Flag (0 is AM, other is PM)

8: CHR$(13)

MD/foo/:bar creates bar in foo

MD//foo/:bar creates bar in \foo

RD can only remove subdirectories of the current di-

rectory.

RD:foo deletes foo

CD is also used to mount/unmount image files. Just

change into them as if they were a directory and use

CD:_ (left arrow on the C64) to leave. Please note

that image files are detected by file extension and file

size and there is no reliable way to see if a file is a

valid image file.

- CP, C<Shift-P> This changes the current partition;

see "Partitions" below for details.

When the time is set a year less that 80 is inter-

preted as 20xx.

- C: File copy command, should be CMD compatible.

The syntax is

- U0 Device address changing with "U0>"+chr$(new

address) is supported, other U0 commands are cur-

rently not implemented.

C[partition][path]:targetname=[[partition][path]:]sourc

ename[,[[p][p]:]sourcename...]

You can use this command to copy multiple files into

a single target file in which case all source files will

be appended into the target

file. Parsing restarts for every source file name which

means that every source name is assumed to be rel-

ative to the current directory. You can use wildcards

in the source names, but only the first file matching

will be copied.

- U1/U2/B-R/B-W Block reading and writing is fully

supported while a D64 image is mounted.

- B-P Supported, not checked against the original

rom at all.

- UI+/UI- Switching the slightly faster bus protocol for

the VC20 on and off works,it hasn't been tested

much though.

Copying REL files should work, but isn't tested well.

Mixing REL and non-REL files in an append opera-

tion isn't supported.

- UI/UJ Soft/Hard reset - UI just sets the "73,..." mes-

sage on the error channel, UJ closes all active buf-

fers but doesn't reset the current directory, mounted

image, swap list or anything else.

- G-P Get partition info, see CMD FD/HD manual for

details. The reported information is partially faked,

feedback is welcome.

- U<Shift-J> Real hard reset - this command causes

a restart of the AVR processor (skipping the boot-

loader if installed). <Shift-J> is character code 202.

- N: Format works only if a D64 image is already

mounted.

- X: Extended commands. If you use JiffyDOS, you

can send them by using @"X..." - without quotes

you'll just receive an error.

- R Renaming files should work the same as it does

on CMD drives, although the errors flagged for invalid

characters in the name may differ.

- XEnum Sets the "file extension mode". This set-

ting controls if files on FAT are written with an x00

header and extension or not.

- S: Name matching is fully supported, directories are

ignored. Scratching of multiple files separated by , is

Page 5

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