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FCUG Meeting Reports
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These are the informal
reports on meetings of the Fresno Commodore User Group. Not really
minutes, and not exactly news, we started this just to have a record
of decisions made, attendance, etc. Notes are co-written by
President Robert Bernardo and Treasurer Dick Estel, unless an
individual byline appears.
The latest report will
always be at the top, after that they appear in order with the oldest
years at the top. Don't know what year or month
you want? Start with the newest and read a few recent reports; then
go back to the oldest and see what was different. Some months are
missing and will be added if and when they become available. |
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Latest Meeting Report
Older Meeting Reports
Commodore Links
2010
- 2016 are on Page 1
2017
- 2022 are on Page 2
2023 Reports
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Latest
Meeting Report
September 2023
By Robert Bernardo and Dick Estel
Turnout was unusually low for this final summer meeting. When Dick
arrived, Robert was nearly done setting up the equipment, and no one
else was around. Roger and Dave had both let Robert know they would
not be present, and we recalled a period when membership was at an
all time low and meetings were sometimes just Robert and Dick.
An hour later Bruce arrived, increasing the crowd by 50%. The
pre-meeting conversation ranged far and wide, and included our
condolences to Robert on the loss of his mother, who passed away
recently at the age of 93.
Robert also noted that he will be attending his 50-year high school
reunion soon. This prompted brief discussion of Dick’s 50th, 16
years ago.
In a blast from the past, Robert gave everyone a punch card, one of
those 3 by 7.5 inch pieces of lightweight cardboard with holes that
constituted a code that can be read by a computer. The basic
technology dates back to the late 19th century. Dick recalled that a
TV station where he worked used these cards to create the daily log
of programs, commercials, and announcements. Driven by idle
curiosity, Dick determined that there are approximately 800 spots
where a hole could be punched on each card.
The first matter of official business was the club “picnic,”
which is now actually a lunch at the usual time but at a different
restaurant. At a club picnic, there is no official business and no
demos, and family members are invited. The location chosen for this
year is the Andiamo Italian restaurant in
Clovis
. Also because of conflicts, the lunch will be on October 8, the
second Sunday instead of our usual third Sunday meeting time.
Robert will be the official videographer at AmiWest Show, October 12
through 15 in
Sacramento
.
Meanwhile, the Interim Computer Festival will take place in
Seattle
September 30 and October 1. The show is open to all classic
computers.
Robert is planning to attend the Bay Area Maker Faire October 20 –
22. Plans are for Duncan MacDougall to join him, although Robert has
not yet received an acknowledgment of his request to attend. In any
case, Robert will be going to
Seattle
in late October, and he will visit Ray Carlsen in order to deliver
items for repair and pick up items that have been repaired.
Robert had brought the books, “From Vultures to Vampires,”
volumes 1 and 2. The books told the story of the Amiga computer
starting in 1984 and going to present day. Volume 2 even told the
story of how the Commodore name eventually landed with a Dutch
company. Volume 3 will come out later this year. Bruce expressed his
interest in buying his own copies of the books, but when Robert told
him the price of each volume, he quickly lost interest.
Moving on to software demos, Robert let us look at rarely seen
classics from long ago, the Hayden Software Temperature Lab and the
accompanying Light Lab. Besides software, the boxes included
sensors, an interface for the sensors, a thermometer, extensive
manuals, and a lot of other items. An example of experiments that
could be performed with Temperature Lab was to determine how long it
takes ice to cool a soda (a rather inexact phrase). The burning
question of “How do fireflies give off light?” was also
answered.
Robert had some disappointing news about his other planned
demonstrations. He had brought his Commodore PC20-III DOS machine
and hoped to run a PC version of GEOS. The program had installed
correctly, and the machine pretended to be booting up this graphical
operating system but just displayed the word “Loading” until the
user gave up and moved on to something else.
Robert had also brought the Mega65 (C65 clone) and was going to give
a presentation on GEOS 65, the GEOS version which was originally
developed from GEOS 128 and was now converted to run on the Mega65.
Unfortunately, though Robert had the microSD card with the GEOS 65,
the Mega65 did not recognize the card as being compatible with its
system. (Robert discovered later that he had to prep the microSD
card with the Mega65, before using it with the system. Live and
learn!)
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Other
2023
reports
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Older Meeting Reports
Below this point, reports are in chronological order, oldest
first |
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2023 January
February March
April May
June
July
August September
October November
December
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January
2023
By
Robert Bernardo and Dick Estel
The third Sunday of the year was cold, with dark, cloudy skies, and
rain expected any time. This was on the heels of weeks of record
rain that brought deadly flooding to California. However, it was warm and welcoming inside the Panera Bread
restaurant at Shaw and Marty in Fresno, as members of the Fresno Commodore User Group gathered for lunch,
conversation, and computer stuff. On hand were Robert Bernardo,
Roger Van Pelt, Bruce Nieman, Dick Estel and Michael Calkin.
Pre-meeting conversation during lunch touched on the variety of
drones now available and enhanced movie experiences in theatres,
such as 3-D, ScreenX, 4DX, and even Sensurround, the much older
technology of theater seats that shook during the 1974 Charlton
Heston disaster epic, “Earthquake.”
Plans are pretty well set for the 2023 edition of the Commodore L.A.
Super Show (CLASS) in April. A generous donation from Lenard Roach
covered the last $121 of the 2022 deficit, as well as providing $20
toward 2023 rental costs. The show will feature a class on using
BASIC 7.0/7.8 to create a simple C128 game, and a possible Zoom
visit from the owner of the Commodore name, based in Italy
.
Also in April, Robert will show various vintage computers at the Los
Angeles Maker Faire at the Los Angeles
Historic
Park. He thinks there will
be 3 or 4 computer systems at the Classic Los Angeles Computers
exhibit – an Ultimate 64 or TheC64, an Amiga 600, and an Atari
800XL and/or Texas Instruments TI-99/4A.
Robert is looking forward to receiving a Mega65 from Trenz
Electronics in Germany. This update of the almost legendary C65 (fewer than 200 prototypes
were produced) comes in at $830, including Euro conversion,
shipping, and the wire transfer fee (no other payment options were
offered).
Robert let us know that the jillions of things available on the
Internet now include an archive of Radio Shack catalogs from 1939 to
2011 when this iconic chain slowly faded out of existence.
Our attention next turned to a demonstration of TheC64 (none dare
call it a Commodore), with the newly acquired C64 Enhancer flash
drive containing over 800 C64 games and over 100 VIC-20 games.
Another flash drive from Retro8BitShop offered the top 100 games.
Member Michael got on TheC64, bouncing from game to game without
ever really concentrating on one.
He had that same attitude when Robert brought out the Amiga 600 with
its Arcade Game Selector II, a menu system that showed a thumbnail
picture of each game screen on the Amiga’s hard drive. With the
AGS II and hundreds of games loaded on the hard drive, it was easy
for him to select one to play… much too easy because he looked
from thumbnail to thumbnail without really deciding on one. Robert
finally picked one for him, ML Tank, an Amiga version of the
classic, wire-frame Tank game. Even on the A600’s unaccelerated
7.14 MHz speed, the game ran very quickly, the tanks zooming around
the landscape on the screen. Michael became engrossed in the game
for... a few minutes.
Next, Roger’s venerable VIC-20 was powered up, running the
TRIANGULAR microOS. This upgrade required use of a RAM
expander. Another variation of the TRIANGULAR microOS for the
C128 was also presented. As
old-time GEOS users, everybody appreciated the effort done to make
TRIANGULAR easy to use, and though it came with a few built-in
applications, was it really necessary to boot up a graphical user
interface in order to use a Commodore? Michael played with the
settings of the OS and changed the colors and screen pattern.
Instead of using a classic ham radio, Roger loaded up a ham radio
program on his laptop PC that accessed weather stations in Germany
and the Netherlands. Incoming data was then fed through a Kantronics device to
translate it into plain text on the club’s Commodore 128 (in C64
mode). This was a fairly specialized version of “plain text,”
much of it consisting of radio shorthand comprehensible only to
Roger. Later, Roger tuned into stations in the United States
and found one where the user was speaking mostly in normal English.
Robert urged Roger to have this as a filmed presentation for CLASS
2023.
The
end of the meeting had Michael playing several of the games on
THEC64.
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February
2023
For a while it looked as if the February meeting might have only
Robert and Dick. However, two more of our regulars soon arrived, Roger
and Bruce. Being Super Bowl Sunday probably did not affect our
attendance; the game would not start till well after the end of the
meeting, and most of us are not major football fanatics.
Robert announced that we have recently received a total donation of
$60 from Editor Lenard Roach toward the room rental for the Commodore
LA Super Show (CLASS), coming up in April.
In March Robert will be filming a commercial for CLASS and a
presentation by Roger on the use of Commodore with ham radio. This
triggered a discussion of how radio waves are bounced off the
ionosphere and variations in signal strength caused by the lowering of
the ionosphere after dark.
Robert informed us that there may be a demonstration of ChatGPT
at CLASS. This is a chatbot that interacts in a conversational way and
is able “to answer follow up questions, admit its mistakes,
challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests.”
Robert brought a number of print magazines, which were passed around.
They included C64 Gaming from Australia, Retro Gamer from the United
Kingdom but also distributed in the U.S., Amiga Addict from the U.K.
and Amiga Future, published in Germany but available in an English
edition. C64 Gaming was a download, but a real print version would
cost over $40 US to have it shipped here. Amiga Addict was primarily a
British magazine and generally only available at British newsstands
(Robert had bought it when he was in
Europe
in late 2022.) Amiga Future was a magazine only available by postal
mail; Robert had a subscription to that one. It even came with a cover
CD of Amiga programs.
Hardware/software explorations started off with the Mega65, the
enhanced replica of the never-produced Commodore 65 of the late
1980’s. Robert had received the computer just a few days before the
meeting. Included in the box was the comprehensive Mega65 User’s
Guide, designed to look exactly like a classic Commodore guide right
down to the spiral binding. Robert also had printed out the Mega65
specifications from the C64-Wiki, the Mega65 Welcome Guide by Dan
Sanderson, and the List of Alternative Cores for the Mega65 (cores
being Apple II, Commodore 64 (more compatible than the C64 mode built
into the Mega65), GameBoy and GameBoy Color, and ZX Spectrum).
Robert showed that the first time the Mega65 is powered up the user
must set the time and select the video mode (PAL or NTSC). Once this
is done, it would power up with the correct settings until they are
changed. Then he went into showing what programs came in “Demo Disk
#1,” the .D81 image which came pre-installed on the internal SD card
of the Mega65.
Staying in Mega65 mode (the computer came with two modes – Mega65
mode and C64 mode), he demonstrated several programs through the Demo
Disk menu. The splash screen of the Demo Disk had animation running
around the circumference of the screen. Ordinarily, the Mega65 booted
into 40 MHz.. With the use of computer’s built-in freeze menu
(accessed by pressing RESTORE for a second and then releasing it),
Robert slowed the computer to 1 MHz. (C64 speed) and showed the effect
that it had on the animation. Needless to say, the animation was very
slow! Then he sped the computer to 2 MHz. (C128 Fast speed), and the
animation was faster. Then he ran the computer at 3.5 MHz. (original
C65 speed), and the animation was faster. Finally, back to 40 MHz. and
the animation was back to full speed.
The Demo Disk menu was coded in BASIC 65, the Mega65’s enhanced
version of BASIC 10 which came with the Commodore 65. In fact, a
majority of the programs on the Demo Disk was coded in BASIC 65. The
Demo Disk menu was divided into 4 categories – 1. Demos, 2. Games,
3. Music, and 4. Utility. The rest of the meeting was devoted to
running programs off the Demo Disk.
Under the Demos category, the club members saw such demos as 2
Bitplane Cube (a rotating cube spinning quickly), Mand65 (a mandelbrot
graphic generated quickly), and Snow (a Christmas demo). Under the
Game category, they played with games, such as Tetris, Poopie, and
Blaster. Under the Music category, they listened to Cheek2Cheek and
the DualSIDCompo which included five compositions including X-Files,
Black Adder, and M. Impossible. Under Utility, they looked at Vector
Clock and saw the sub-menu option of GO64.
In fact, GO64 was a direct command on the Mega65 screen. Just type
GO64, the computer would respond with “Are you sure?”, and then by
pressing “y” and then ENTER, the user would be brought into C64
mode. For the next meeting, Robert promised that the members would
investigate more of the C64 mode of the Mega65.
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March
2023
By
Robert Bernardo and Dick Estel
A day with just a few rain showers seemed like a “dry” day after
several atmospheric rivers in January, February, and March had brought
heavy rainfall to the
San Joaquin
Valley
and Sierra foothills, resulting in widespread flooding and evacuations
in some areas.
On March 19, members of the Fresno Commodore Use Group braved the
light sprinkles, and Dave, Robert, Roger and Dick appeared at the
Panera Bread restaurant for our monthly meeting.
Robert placed on the table a 3D-printed version of the club name and
logo, made on a 3D printer by Randy Abel, the leader of The Other
Group of Amigoids in
San Jose
. This triggered a discussion of 3-D printing, with Roger describing a
90-foot rocket that has been made from metal using the 3D-printing
technology.
Robert had re-activated Bernardo Studios to film demos with Roger and
a commercial for the Commodore LA Super Show (CLASS). He took the
production on location to Vasquez Rocks, just off of State Highway 14
northeast of Santa Clarita. This was where a number of scenes from
Star Trek were filmed, and of course, Robert filmed a Commodore next
to Kirk’s Rock, where the good captain fought the Gorn in episode
18. Watch for this
commercial to appear on YouTube in the near future.
CLASS is coming up April 15 and 16, and a few more things have been
added to the agenda. David Pleasance, head of Commodore
UK
, will appear virtually to talk about the machine’s big success in
Europe
. The second thing is still a secret, so you will have to attend CLASS
or wait for a post-show report. Also appearing long-distance from
Australia
will be Paul Gardner-Stephen, the man who developed the Mega65 which
is the modern day replica of the Commodore 65.
Roger talked about the method of sending BASIC code via a flashing
square on a television screen. A
1985 BBC TV show about computers used this method. There is a video
about this here
and an article here.
Hypothetically, the interface for the Commodore and the software could
be re-created, but how would the signal be sent to a CRT monitor and
would the software be dependent on a European PAL signal (
North America
uses a NTSC signal.)?
We moved on to software, starting with the Mega65 in C64 mode and
various C64 games on the SD card that functions as a disk drive for
this retro-futuristic machine. Various hiccups were encountered, but
most games worked fine. Solitaire requires a working mouse, and the
one Robert had, which had belonged to our late member Meredyth Dixon,
was NOT working (it may have been non-functional, because Robert had
set the machine for an Amiga mouse instead of a Commodore mouse).
Super Bread Box, a jumping and shooting game, was partly functional,
but the “bullets” Robert fired did nothing when they hit the
target. Canabalt was a running game in which all you had to do was
jump between buildings as the tempo between jumps became faster and
faster.
Finally, a game that we all enjoyed was “Frogs,” in which you
scored points by pushing other frogs into the water. We agreed that
Frogs would be especially enjoyable if preceded by a drinking game.
(To digress, what is this business that frogs cannot live in water?
Falling in the river in Frogger is fatal. Have all the game developers
failed biology?)
One other game, Shotgun, kept us entertained for a few minutes. In
this two-player game, you had to pick up your shotgun and shoot the
opposing enemy before he shot you with his shotgun. The tricky part
was that the shotguns disappear after a short time, and then the
players had to start over in trying to destroy each other.
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April
2023
April 2023
By
Robert Bernardo and Dick Estel
We had an unexpected and very special guest at this month’s meeting.
In the early days of Commodore, Kurt Madden operated a computer store
in
Fresno
, did extensive programming work, and was one of the founders of the
Fresno Commodore User Group. He had done an on-line search and found
our website, but assumed it was just something “left over” and
that the club no longer existed.
He decided to visit our meeting place, and to his delight and
surprise, there we were. We were equally delighted to meet him and
learn more about the club’s beginnings.
He had a store,
Micro
Pacific
Computer
Center, in the Fig
Garden
Village
Shopping Center, where he sold software by the ton, ran a factory-authorized
Commodore repair center, and attended the big computer shows of the
day, Consumer Electronic Show and Comdex.
Under the name Mirage Concepts, his company developed a Commodore word
processor that was a big seller. He also produced a number of other
software products. Eventually, the company went out of business and
Kurt moved on to other projects.
In 2019 we talked by phone with another club founder, Chuck Yrulegui,
who could only remember the first name, Kurt, of his colleague from
the early 1980s. We were happy to fill in the blanks, and get some
correct information that will be posted in the article that appeared
in the March/April 2022 Interface.
Kurt was unable to stay for the meeting, which left it up to Robert,
Bruce, Dick and Michael to carry on (Michael was late and missed out
on the history lesson).
Robert gave a very positive report on the Commodore LA Super Show
(CLASS), held earlier this month in Burbank. Paid attendance was 41, the largest of any FCUG sponsored event
since the first Commodore Vegas show in 2005. Admission and raffle
sales not only covered the room rental, but provided a nice profit to
help fund the 2024 event, tentatively set for April 13 and 14.
Robert also attended the LA Maker Faire April 1 in downtown
Los Angeles. He had a table with Commodore, Amiga and another one or two vintage
computers, which drew curious looks and questions from some of the
thousands who attended.
We began the demonstration part of the meeting listening to some Amiga
music (MOD) files, played not on an Amiga but on the Ultimate 64,
which is a multi-talented modern computer, disguised in a classic C64
case.
Basically, Robert redid the presentation he had at CLASS, a
presentation that our newsletter editor, Lenard Roach, had hoped to
present at the show, but in his absence, Robert stepped in. Robert
showed some Christian graphics with an interlaced picture of Jesus and
then a PETSCII picture of Jesus. Then Robert ran the game, Satan’s
Hollow, a classic game marketed by Commodore Business Machines, a game
in which the player shot down the horde of demons flying around and
then tried to shoot a fire-breathing Satan. Michael played that game
in full cheat mode and was pleased with its speed and the number of
baddies to destroy.
We then put Michael to work with a reading comprehension game, the
Baker Street Kids. The program displayed a series of paragraphs based
on the Bible, with questions about various specifics. Michael got a
B+, missing only one question.
Next it was Robert vs. Michael in a fight game, SNK vs. Capcom. A
Super Street Fighter look-alike, the game had each player pick his
particular character (different characters had different fighting
skills) and then pick a country in which the fight was to occur. It
was a rousing game. Robert and Michael kicked, somersaulted, jumped,
and punched to the eventual winner who was… and then the game reset
itself! Hmm, that had never happened before. Then Michael played
against his father. Pick character, pick country, fight! Though it was
fun, it wasn’t long before the game reset itself again… in the
middle of play! It was time for the meeting to end, and as Robert was
packing up, he checked the joystick connections. Joystick #2 was loose
in its port, i.e., it was not plugged in all the way. Perhaps, that
was the reason why the game kept resetting itself.
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May
2023
By
Robert Bernardo and Dick Estel
The third Sunday of the month arrived, as it always does, bringing
together members of the Fresno Commodore Users Group for our regular
meeting. It was May 21, and the weather made it clear that summer was
replacing the cold, wet winter and spring which dominated the news the
first part of the year
Undaunted by the predicted high of 90 degrees, Robert Bernardo, Roger
Van Pelt, Dave Smith, Bruce Nieman, and Dick Estel bellied up to the
counter at Panera Bread, ordered lunch or just a soda, and launched
the usual far-ranging, pre-meeting discussion. They even looked at the
brief video from the game show, Jeopardy, which showed the answer,
“Boasting 64 KB worth of pure computing power, this company’s
personal computer went for $595 in ‘80s money.” The question was
“What is Commodore?”
The first order of the day was for everyone to sign a card for Ray
Carlsen, in appreciation of his long service doing Commodore
repairs. In days of long ago, there was such a thing as
factory-authorized Commodore repair centers, and virtually every club
had a member or two who had the tools and skill to fix various
Commodore computers.
Now there are just a few such individuals scattered across the
country, and we have been fortunate to have Ray “just up the road”
in Washington state, and even luckier that Robert travels to the
Pacific Northwest every so often, almost always delivering items for
Ray to repair or retrieving them after Ray does his magic. Ray has cut
back his activities lately but continues to keep FCUG’s equipment
working long beyond its natural life span. Ray, we salute you and
thank you for your service.
Roger told us about a project he is working on, which he explained as
follows:
“A while back I saw an episode on YouTube of a British computer show
from 1985. They were inviting the audience to participate in an
experiment where they would build a receiver circuit for their home
computers that would allow them to ‘download’ software from their
televisions via a flashing square displayed on the screen during the
show. The flashes were picked up by a photo transistor attached to the
screen by a suction cup. This was connected to the circuit board by a
pair of wires and the computer would run a program to receive the
software.
“I later found the circuit schematic and receiving program in a
magazine article from the same period and eventually thought I would
build it and try it out with one of the uploaded broadcasts. This is
my first attempt and has a low chance of working right off due to the
nature of the transmission source, a PAL video standard TV show,
digitized and uploaded to YouTube at 480p.
“I may never get any further than building the circuit. But who
knows?”
Robert showed part of a video by a man who has put a C64 Mini AND an
A500 Mini into a standard Amiga 500 case. Neither device had a working
keyboard, but this computer whiz had the original A500 keyboard
working with both units.
The date of the June meeting is changed to June 11, because Robert
will be leaving for
Seattle
on the regular meeting date. He will conduct the return of PaCommEx,
the Pacific Commodore Expo Northwest, returning June 24 and 25 after a
four-year hiatus. It will be held at the Old Rainier Brewery building,
and admission will be free with expenses being paid by https://sdf.org.
Speaking of shows, the Commodore Los Angeles Super Show is coming back
on
April 13-14, 2024
, and Robert has sent in the deposit to hold the room at the Burbank
VFW hall.
Next up was a brief look at the website for a new operating system for
the Commodore 64, C64 OS. It works from an SD card and is fully
compliant with all CMD devices.
During lunch, a newly-hacked but very old C64 program was running –
Party Songs by John Henry. We could not tell if this was John Henry,
the famous railroad man, or a real person of any type, but his music
was all older songs in the public domain, accompanied by some
well-done Koala art. We also took a brief look at a similar collection
of Christmas songs by the same man.
For the presentation of a new C64 programs, Robert really concentrated
on staying on-task. First off was Avventura, an Italian text adventure
game written in BASIC and featuring PETSCII graphics. He joked that
somebody could take the text and rewrite it in English by using a
phone app to translate. Next was Boulderdash Jr. 8, another
Boulderdash game clone with sometimes impossible puzzles to get
through. This was followed by A Christmas Adventure, Cipher Patrol 2,
Cursed Tomb, Enhanced VIOS, For Speed We Need 3, Lester v1.1, Irom2,
NewsStand, Missile Defence, Rambler, Sulphur Eye, Snake vs Bomb,
Space23, Synthia2, The Last Defender, Yauzeras, and Zeta Wing 2. Whew!
Quite a number of games!
Somehow, David detoured the presentations into board games that had
been converted to the C64. With some quick downloads onto the SD card,
Robert showed off Risk (which no one knew how to play without there
being physical dice) and Mythos, an incomplete version of the Legend
of Zelda.
However, Robert was not finished yet. For the C128, he ran the
rediscovered 80-column games, Spukschloss (Haunted Castle) which was a
German text adventure game (written in BASIC and which could be
translated to English), B-1 Bomber which was a text strategy game, and
the new easy-to-use 80-column text adventure, the Lair of the Lich
King. The members were the most impressed with Lair of the Lich King,
because the player did not have to necessarily remember truncated game
commands but just use the cursor keys to move graphically through the
adventure map.
Finally, for VIC-20 with 16K RAM expander, Robert tried to run the
eXimietas VIC-20 CHIP-8 emulator. CHIP-8 was an interpreted
programming language that ran on computers, like the COSMAC VIP
computer with a 10-key pad for input (very much what the Commodore
KIM-1 looked like). He was able to load and run the .D64 that brought
up the CHIP-8 desktop, but unfortunately he ran into a problem when he
tried to run the separate .D64 which had the applications. There was
no way to load up another .D64 on the SD2IEC card drive without
erasing what was in memory. In other words, Robert needed a real disk
of the applications from which to load. The applications .D64 had to
be converted to that real disk. Robert and Roger agreed that it would
be done by time of the next meeting.
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June
2023
by
Robert Bernardo
Robert came in a few minutes late, and then it took longer for him
to set up, because he had an Amiga 2000 to assemble with two LCD
monitors. Unfortunately, one of the monitors, a Dell U2410, didn’t
survive the trip, having a cracked screen with only a partial view
and at a bad resolution. That was the second Dell to die in 2 years!
Robert would have to order another Dell and make sure that any
others would be protected better during transport.
From Stephen Jones, the Amiga 2000 needed
two monitors due to its special configuration, i.e., it was 3
computers-in-one -- an Amiga running OS 3.1, a Mac running System
6.01 (both usable from one monitor via RGB-to-VGA), and a PC running
DOS 5.0 (which needed a separate monitor for VGA).
With only one monitor, Robert could only show off the Amiga
and Mac sides of this system.
Roger set up the club C128 and its peripherals, along with his
VIC-20.
After the longer-than-usual set-up time, Roger, Robert, Dave,
Michael, and Bruce ordered their food.
However, Bruce, our big Amiga aficionado, did not stay very
long. A family emergency
called him away, and thus he missed out on the A2000 presentation.
The meeting started with old business and new business.
Discussion included the June 24-25 Pacific Commodore Expo NW
in Seattle (Robert will be there with many Commodore and Amiga
systems and associated monitors) and William Shatner (the July
meeting being delayed until the 23rd due to Robert going to New York
state to see Shatner at the Star Trek Tour set).
Presentations started with Robert showing off a Youtube video in
which a user took PC/Mac/Amiga Blender objects and converted them so
they could be displayed on a Commodore Plus/4.
Michael was very interested in how the objects were created
and manipulated in the 3-D environment in Blender. Robert urged
Roger, our Blender expert, to study this video and see if he could
re-create the image-making process for the next meeting.
Then Robert presented TRIANGULAR microOS for the C128 in 40-column
mode. For some reason, he couldn’t get v1.35 Beta to run, so he
had to revert to v1.34. TRIANGULAR
was written in BASIC 7.0, and so, it was slow in its use.
Using a joystick as the controller, Robert would move the
pointer in a leisurely manner to the desktop icons seemingly built
of PETSCII characters. He
handed the joystick over to Roger, and Roger tried out some of the
icons. In Games, there
was a Crab in
New York
(a Frogger clone), SimCity, and Star Wars.
The Frogger clone ran slowly, Star Wars was incomplete and
didn’t boot up, and SimCity was a game that no one could play,
because no one could understand its minimalist on-screen prompts.
In Setup, Michael had fun changing the microOS background,
i.e., changing its colors and its pattern.
Speaking of configuration, Robert noted there was no way to
change the pointer color in v1.34.
The pointer was always white, and when the pointer would
traverse white areas of the background, it would disappear.
Very disconcerting!
Robert
went to the A2000 presentation while Roger disassembled the C128 and
put the VIC-20 in its place. The
A2000 had extra RAM but no accelerator, and so, going through the
menus was a relatively slow process.
He ran a few Amiga demos and some Amiga music, but the really
big thing was when he ran the Mac emulator on the Amiga.
He used the rare A-Max module which connected to the disk drive port
of the Amiga. Inside the
module were Mac ROMs. When
he clicked the A-Max Start icon on the Amiga, the application would
call the data on the ROMs, load them into the Amiga memory, and then
run the rest of the Mac OS desktop.
In a few minutes, the classic, monochrome Mac desktop would
appear. He and Roger
tried out some of the applications available on the Mac, like Word,
Photoshop 1.0, and
Oregon Trail
(with monochrome graphics for the Mac).
Some games didn’t work, but those that did had no sound or
low sound volume, due to a fault of the A-Max emulator.
David and Michael had to leave, but Robert and Roger carried on with
the VIC-20. Like the
previous meeting, they tried to get the Chip-8 emulator to run on
the VIC. However, they
failed again. They
couldn’t get the Chip-8 desktop to run from device 9 of the SD2IEC
with a real, applications disk in the 1571 set as device 8.
Perhaps they couldn't configure the SD2IEC correctly.
Perhaps Chip-8 could only be run from device 8.
With this failure, Robert decided that next time everything
from Chip-8 had to be on real disks – the Chip-8 desktop on a real
disk, the applications on a real disk (a flippy?).
With everything on real disks, it should be able to run.
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July
2023
by
Robert Bernardo
As
in previous FCUG meetings, the July meeting started off normally.
Robert got to Panera Bread first and started setting up the equipment.
However, he noticed that a few tables away, someone kept looking at
him. Eventually, that someone walked over to Robert and asked if this
was the classic computer club. Robert said yes, and Phillip Lima
introduced himself, saying that he had brought in more than 3 bins of
C64 equipment, software, and literature.
When members David and Roger arrived, Phillip explained that his
grandparents had owned the items, that they had passed the items down
to his parents, and that his parents eventually passed them down to
him. Now Phillip wanted to dispose of the items without having to
throw them in a dumpster.
For the next 90 minutes, David, Robert, Roger, and Phillip discussed
and went over some of the items. There were lots of GEOS disks. The
1701/1702 monitor was good. However, when the four C64C’s were
tested with a Ray Carlsen heavy-duty power supply, all of them had no
screen display. Robert looked at the pile of C64 power bricks and
thought those had burned out every C64C. Due to time constraints,
Robert didn’t test out the 1541C disk drives nor the software
packages nor the 9-pin dot-matrix printer.
Phillip wanted some money for all the goods. Robert countered that
extra space was at a premium in his storage and that C64C’s would
need repair from Ray Carlsen (which meant money being spent). After
some more talk with David and Roger, Robert decided to hand a check to
Phillip for $100. After Phillip left, David immediately paid Robert
$20 for the working monitor. Roger was entranced with a GeoRAM
cartridge and took it for study.
Finally, the group could carry on with lunch and then with old and new
business. Robert showed off THEA500 Mini which was recently
autographed by actor/director/writer William Shatner. Robert told of
how he met Bill Shatner at a 3-day Star Trek event in early July in
Ticonderoga
,
New York
. The first day Bill was leading a group through the re-created
Starship Enterprise sets at the Star Trek Tour, and he recognized
Robert (Robert said it was embarrassing to be singled out as Bill
talked to him, i.e., the others in the group were probably wondering,
“Why is Bill Shatner talking to this guy?”).
The second day Robert stood in line to have THEA500 Mini autographed
by Bill. Robert had it turned face down, and Bill would autograph its
underside. Like an assembly line, an assistant would hand Bill an item
to autograph, Bill would sign and pass it on, the assistant would hand
another item, Bill would sign, etc.. Bill would never look up, because
he had to autograph hundreds of items for the fans. However, when Bill
got to Robert’s item, he signed it, turned it right side up, looked
at its miniature keyboard, and looked up at Robert. (In past years,
Robert was always the one person who would bring Commodore and Amiga
goods for Bill to sign, Bill having been a Commodore spokesman in the
early 1980’s.) Bill smiled and enthusiastically tried to converse
with Robert. The line of adoring fans was stuck. Bill’s assistants
stared. Why was Bill talking to this guy? The third day as Robert
waited just outside the lobby for another tour of the sets, Bill came
out of the front door. Immediately, Bill saw Robert sitting there,
walked up, and thanked Robert for coming to see him. Once again,
everyone just looked. Then Bill went to his SUV in order to be
chauffeured to his next convention venue.
In other club discussion, Robert talked about the success of the June
24-25 Pacific Commodore Expo NW 2023 with 48 people attending (the
Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2023 had 40 attendees). That made
PaCommEx even bigger than the long-running, annual Amiwest Show in
Sacramento
. He mentioned that the Vintage Computer Festival West would be coming
in early August, but he wouldn’t be able to attend. The
above-mentioned Amiwest Show would be coming in mid-October as would
be the resurrection of the Bay Area Maker Faire. Robert would be the
videographer at Amiwest and was going to apply for exhibit tables at
the Maker Faire. The proposed exhibits – classic computers.
In celebration of the new Barbie movie, Robert ran the classic C64
Epyx game, Barbie! Though the game just had Barbie going from store to
store on a shopping spree, the digitized speech from Barbie and Ken
was very good. In celebration of the new Oppenheimer movie, Robert and
Roger tried out various C64 games and demos with an atomic theme --
SWIV Atomic Explosion, Atomic Isle, Cool Cat, and the classic War
Games. They even ran B-1 Nuclear Bomber on the VIC-20.
Also on the VIC-20 with 16K RAM expander, Roger ran the desktop for
the eXimietas VIC-20 Chip-8 emulator and its associated games. The
Chip-8 was a virtual machine designed in the mid-1970’s for use with
the COSMAC VIP and Telmac 1800 microcomputers. The eXimietas Chip-8
was probably the first emulator to run on the VIC-20, i.e., the VIC-20
was emulating a different computer. Roger ran the various dozen or so
Chip-8 games, and both he and Robert were amazed at their simplicity
yet still be entertaining. Robert especially like the Pacman clone and
the Kaleidoscope demo.
The meeting had gone long, David having left hours earlier. Robert and
Roger started packing away the club equipment. However, young Michael
and his family suddenly appeared. So instead of packing away the
equipment, Robert hauled out THEA500 Mini and let Michael play with
various games which were built into the system. That went on until
Michael grew tired of playing them. Finally, Robert and Roger were
able to pack up everything. It was a new record for the longest ever
FCUG meeting – 7 hours!
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August
2023
By Robert Bernardo & Dick Estel
The extreme heat of early August had moderated somewhat by August
20, and Panera Bread Restaurant was keeping its employees cool,
considering that they were working a lot harder than the customers.
However, it was too cool, because both Dick, Dave, and Robert went
to their cars to get long-sleeved shirts or sweaters.
This month those customers included Robert Bernardo, Roger Van Pelt,
Bruce Nieman, Dave Smith, and Dick Estel. Robert and Dick each had
been members more than 25 years, and Roger joined us long ago enough
that we estimated his time at well over 15 years. Bruce and Dave
joined more recently, although Dave was a member back in the late
20th century. Only Dick was really old, however.
Pre-meeting discussion covered a wide range of topics. One had to do
with the registering of domain names that took place in the early
days of the World Wide Web, when enterprising computer users
registered such names as red.com, blue.com, and various commercial
and government names for the users to sell at a profit. This
included the once notorious whitehouse.com which eventually became
far less interesting. Whitehouse.net still provided some
entertainment, though. Hit the refresh button for endless fun.
But seriously, we had a good lunch and an informative meeting.
Robert will be going to see Ray Carlsen in October to pick up and
deliver equipment for repair. Ray had announced that he was stepping
back from his repair service but will continue to help special
customers such as Robert.
Robert discussed finances relating to the Commodore LA Super Show
(CLASS). Enough money was received from admission, raffle tickets,
and equipment sales to cover all expenses for this year as well as a
bit for next year’s room rent. He questioned whether to keep
admission at $25 or to lower it to $20. Club members agreed that
keeping the same price would be best and would allow for unforeseen
expenses. A reduction one year could require an increase the next
year, and it seemed best to be consistent.
During a recent trip to Las Vegas, Robert visited Al Jackson, former
president of the now-defunct Clark County Commodore Computer Club
and a reliable supporter of our Commodore Vegas Expo (CommVEx)
exhibitions in his city. He’s doing fairly well but is doing less
with his computers and is considering getting rid of them.
For decades, FCUG has held the annual October “picnic”, which
now is actually a lunch at a different restaurant each year. Family
members are invited, the club pays for lunch, and there are no
computer demos. Due to conflicts with our normal third Sunday, the
event will take place on October 8, location to be announced.
Demonstrations got under way with a look at a Commodore PC20-III, a
machine from Commodore’s ill-fated venture into the pre-Windows PC
market. When Robert acquired the machine, it had been sitting
unwanted and unloved in someone’s damp and moldy shed in northern
Washington state. The hard drive was frozen and many other issues
were apparent when Robert turned it over to Duncan MacDougall for
repair. Duncan did a number of modifications, most interesting of
which was adding a Snarker Barker (Sound Blaster clone) 8-bit sound
card.
Robert showed off a few PC games. Paku
Paku, a PacMan-type game,
used the better sound from the sound card, but another game, an
Arkanoid clone, used the PC’s one-bit internal speaker. Robert and
Roger used the keyboard to control the games; a PC joystick was not
available, though Duncan was repairing one to eventually give to
Robert.
Robert wondered whether he should buy Geoworks Ensemble
(GEOS for
the PC) from eBay so that he could have a GUI desktop instead of
having to go through the prompts of DOS 6.0 on the PC. In fact, all
of members at the meeting were rusty on their knowledge of DOS
commands, e.g., what is the command to go back to the root
directory?
Robert then showed off an Amiga 3000, recently repaired and upgraded
by Duncan. The upgrades included a Spectrum 24-bit video card and an
Ethernet board. With the desktop display controlled by the video
card, all desktop movements were speeded up; windows opened up
quickly and were easily resized and moved around without any of the
slowdown of the original Amiga video system. However, when it came
to displaying a list of applications in each window, there was no
speed-up, because that relied on data transfer limitations of the
hard drive and CPU.
Speaking of transfers, that was the last item on the demonstration
agenda. At a meeting of our sister club, the Southern California
Commodore & Amiga Network, Robert had been given a box of C64
floppy disks. His job was to transfer the PaperClip word-processed
files on those floppy disks to text files that a PC could read. At
our FCUG meeting, he demonstrated his method of doing the transfers.
With the club C128 in 80-column mode, the club 1571 disk drive, and
a SD2IEC card drive, he ran the text processor, ZED 0.77. He set ZED
to read “screen code” which was the format of saved PaperClip
files, and he set ZED to write “ASCII CL” files. He loaded up a
PaperClip file from the floppy disk. Though the screen formatting
was wrong and though ZED did not do line-wrap on words that go past
the 80-column screen limit, the file was still readable to the naked
eye. Then he saved the converted file to the SD card on the SD2IEC
drive. However, the file was still not ready to be read by PC.
He took the SD card out of the SD2IEC and inserted it into his
laptop. He then ran DirMaster 3.51, a PC application. Within
DirMaster, he ran a directory on the SD card, and it showed the
converted file with a .S00 suffix. Still within DirMaster, he loaded
the file and then saved it as a text (.TXT) file. After the save, he
opened up the text file to prove that it was readable in the PC.
He had used the above method to transfer many PaperClip files to
text files, and he had e-mailed those text files to the owner of the
floppy disks. Roger said there that WinVICE would convert files, but
Robert never used VICE. Robert had used a method that he himself
understood.
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September
2023
See
above
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October
2023
Note
change of date: October 8 (Annual Club Lunch)
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November
2023
Meeting
date: November 19
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December
2023
Meeting
date: December 17
Meeting
date: December
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