Bitfixer has started a new project. After his PETdisk he now is developing the PETvet. The PETvet is a RAM / ROM replacement for the Commodore PET. The PETvet also allows you to view the memory of a running PET by halting the CPU and sending the memory contents over a serial port. When the prototype is finished a kit will be available.

We all use a joystick when we use our Commodore computer. We all have our favorite, the SpeedKing, Competition Pro, TAC-2, Boss, Arcade, etc. Artist Craig Le Blanc has made his own version of a popular 8-bit joystick. His creation, One on One, is made of two Wico Command Control joysticks that are a little bit bigger than usual.

The mini xum1541 is a USB / IEC interface that makes it possible to connect a 1541 disk drive to a modern PC. The mini xum1541 is a minimal version of the ZoomFloppy and can be assembled by hobbyist. The firmware is provided by Nate Lawson and you can use the same software as used for the ZoomFloppy. The schematics and board design are available.

TIM is a home-built computer. The special thing about the TIM computer is that it has no chips inside, most of the system is build with relays. TIM is a 8-bit computer with an serial ALU, 5 registers (8-bit), 16 bytes RAM, a punch tape reader and a sound-card. The computer uses 152 relays and the speed of the system is about 8 Hz. It is possible to over-clock the system to 16 Hz.

The Youtube channel of rapidrory.

Frank Buss is working on an universal C64 cartridge. You can upload files from a PC (via USB) to the cartridge and store up to 31 cartridges (each 64 kB) on the cartridge. It can emulate any cartridge type except for cartridges with DMA access. On his web page you can find more pictures, schematics and information.

Demonstration video of the Universal C64 Cartridge.

Andrew Dieffenbach is working on a 128 kB cartridge for the Commodore C64. For his cartridge he uses a 27C010 EPROM with bank-switching for the access of several 8 kB banks of data. In the demonstration video you can see the game M.U.L.E. The loading time of M.U.L.E. is reduced from 7 minutes to 1 second. After loading the first part of the game, the cartridge switches to another bank, and the second part of the game is available.

More information about Andrew's projects.

The new Retroinvaders calendar is now available. This calendar is available in English and Spanish. In the calendar you will find pictures of Mermaid. There is also retro calendars for other computers.

More retro calendars 2012.

For the 1541 Ultimate 1 and 2 is a new version (v2.4) of the firmware available. New in this version: CRT load for loading a cartridge file in to the Ultimate. EasyFlash support (read only). Flashing and running custom FPGAs (Ultimate-II only) without the use of a JTAG cable. And many other small improvements.

The EasyFlash 3 is now available at the retro-donald.de web page. The EasyFlash 3 is a kit, but the work you have to do is not difficult and a manual is available. The new version is bigger and you can now load 7 normal EF images into the system. With the EF 3 you can also replace the built-in Kernal with a alternative Kernal. The USB connection will be implemented in the future.

More information about the Easy Flash 3.

SIDBlaster is a new sound-card for the ZX-Spectrum. The features are: MOS 6510 CPU, 64Kb RAM, Direct playing of PSID and RSID tunes, PAL/NTSC compatible, 4 SID's (2x6581, 2x8580) and full C64-interrupt system. When the SIDBlaster is fully functional, it will be rebuild with the help of a FPGA. The hardware design is from Sergey Bagan (Prusak) and the software is done by Alexander Alexandrow (Byteman).

More information about the SIDBlaster/ZX (Russian > English)

Unseen (Ingo Korb) has released a new version of the sd2iec firmware. Changes in this version: Improved the raw directory generation. An improved emulation when fast loaders are disabled. ULoad M3 automatically exits when ATN becomes active. And a new fast loader - ELoad v1 (EasyProg) - is implemented. The sd2iec is a controller / interface system that makes it possible to use SD memory cards as a storage device on the CBM serial bus.

The Rear Admiral ThunderDrive is now available for sale. It is a modern replica of the CMD HD. It gives you up to 4 GByte of storage with 1541, 1571 and 1581 partition capability. Besides a serial interface it has also a parallel interface and an a external SCSI connection. Visit the ThunderDrive web page for more pictures and information.

The 6502 microprocessor was developed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. The chip was used in many computers like the Commodore PET, CBM and VIC-20, Atari, BBC, Apple etc. If you want to build your own computer with a 6502 you should look at the latest project from Blondihacks.

Demonstration video of the 6502 computer project.

The firmware 7 (beta) is now available for the Chameleon cartridge. Changes in this version: Support for the docking-station. Fixed the problems with CPU speed readout on VGA, NMI in cartridge mode and the REU. Improvements for the SID emulator, I/O and the MMU.

The Flyer Internet Modem is a new hardware device for the Commodore 8 bit computer. The device is a disk drive emulator that is connected to the internet. You can store a disk inside the Flyer or online in the "cloud". The Flyer has a IEC and a IEEE-488 interface and supports a wide range of Commodore computers: PET / CBM, VIC-20, C16, Plus/4, C64 and the C128. The popular disk images D64, D71 and D81 are supported.

The ZoomFloppy device can be used to read or write diskettes with a real Commodore disk drive and a modern PC via USB. A new project makes it possible to use ZoomFloppy to read and write cassettes with a datassette and a PC. Specifications: 16MHz sampling rate, CAP / TAP file format, C64, C16, VIC-20 and experimental Spectrum48K support. The project is in a Beta phase and you can send in your feedback to the developer.

Alessandro Dorigatti has made a ZX Spectrum (48k PAL) core for the Chameleon 64. The core supports the ULA+ 64 color mode, a ZXMMC interface, a Kempston joystick emulation and reading from TAP files. You can switch between PAL and NTSC mode. An English manual and a keyboard layout is included.

More information about the Chameleon 64.

Stefan is working on a replica of the Commodore 1565 disk drive for the C65. If production is not too expensive, a real item will be created. The original prototype can only be used with a C65, and the C65 needs a 8 pin 1565 floppy-port and a late version of the FDC F011 Floppy Disk Controller chip. The project is not finished yet but you can already see the 3D drawings of the 1565.

Egretz is building a modified C64 DTV. He is designing a expansion that can be placed on top of the original C64 DTV without soldering. The features are: Joystick 1 and 2, PS/2 (keyboard), Video, Audio, IEC, SD memory card and a IDE connection (hard disk). For the extra functions he uses a Atmega micro processor.

The Proxa 7000 expansion was made by the German company Ultra Electronic. It adds CBM 8000 series compatibility to the CBM 700 series. For a long time nobody could use this rare expansion because the software was missing. But recently the software was found. You can read more about this very rare expansion on Steve Gray's Commodore web page.

Digital Audio Concepts developed a RAM expansion for the C64 and C128. The cartridge has a maximum of 1 MByte DRAM, controlled by a standard 8726 REC chip. The supply of the REC chips is limited and prices start at $34.95.

Berry de Jager modified his Commodore C64 with an internal µIEC. On Berry's blog you can follow step by step how he integrated the µIEC (made by Jim Brain) into his C64. As you can see on the photos this C64 has more modifications: SID2SID, S-Video and controls for the Prophet64 cartridge.

Markus Gritsch developed a simple USB joystick adapter. With this adapter you can use a digital joystick with your favorite emulator. Markus used a PIC micro controller and a few components on a experimental circuit board. Het tested his adapter with the VICE emulator on his laptop and the famous Competition Pro Retro joystick. The schematic and the firmware are available.

There is a new version of the TDC (Turbo Demo Cart). The new model has a turbo switch. The selectable speeds are 1 MHz, 2 MHz or 4 MHz. The TDC has now 2 SID chip sockets and can use 1 or 2 SID's. With the TDC the C64 runs 2x or 4x faster, but it slows down to normal speed when the VIC and SID chips are accessed. Visit the TDC web page for more technical details.

For the HxC floppy emulator is new firmware available. The HxC floppy emulator is a replacement of a 3.5 inch disk-drive in for example an Amiga or a Atari ST. With this device you can connect the original floppy controller in the computer to a SD memory card or a USB port on a PC. Recent changes in the firmware: File support for: .imz, .ghk, Roland W30, .krz, .ede, .sap and .ldf. Improvements for Oric, TI99/4A, Atari ST, Ensoniq SQ-80, CPC, Spectrum and MSX.

Digital Audio Concepts has released the "SID Symphony II" cartridge. With this cartridge you can add a second SID to your Commodore C64 without opening the C64. Features: SID register mapping from $DE00 to $DFE0. Access LED. Reset button. 12 V DC-to-DC converter for 6581 SID chip. The price of the SID Symphony II cartridge, without an SID chip, is $39.95.

The firmware 6g (beta) is now available for the Chameleon cartridge. Changes in this version: Implemented bit-fade in SID when no waveform is selected or when reading write-only registers. Update of disk image after write actions by the emulated drives. Door open emulation for disk drive. Improvements on CPU instruction, irq and nmi timing. SID stereo mapping for $D500 and $D700.

Kananga has released an update for the FE3 RAM disk for the Commodore VIC-20. Changes: Support for the wildcards ? and *. You can now replace a file with SAVE "@:name",13. Support for the command channel (15) with status, scratch and rename.

Source code of the FE3 RAM Disk on Google Code.

A new audio cartridge for the Plus/4 will be available soon. This cartridge has the following features: 8580 SID support. 3.5 mm audio jack. C64 compatible joystick port. AMIGA mouse support. DigiBlaster playback emulation (8-bit D/A). SID base addresses $FD40, $FE80 or $D400. In the next 2 to 3 weeks the first series is being assembled. You can read more about the cartridge in the comprehensive (English or Hungarian) pdf manual.

Mfilos made a custom Auto AGA/RTG switch on his Amiga 4000. He wanted to use the manual switch from Ratte's Auto AGA/RTG switch. But he wanted a nicer switch on the place where the keyboard lock switch is located. A small pcb with a CD 4017 IC, two relays and a couple of small components is now built into the A4000. You can read all about this project on the blog from Mfilos.

Rik Magers made his own version of the Commodore 1541 disk drive. He started with a uIEC from Jim Brain Designs. The uIEC has JiffyDOS and the ability to store up to 32GB. Rik got hold of a small plastic box that looks similar to a real 1541. After cutting, tweaking and several tubes of glue, he had a mini version of the 1541 including working LEDs on the front.

The uIEC/SD from Jim Brain Designs.

Ken from the web page pcmodhouse.com has built a modern version of a Commodore PET 2001. He bought an non working PET 2001 and replaced the motherboard, keyboard and monitor with modern items. The specifications of the PET 2011 are: AMD Phenom X6 1090T, MSI 870A-G54, 16GB DDR3-1333, Radeon 6850 1GB, 64GB SSD, 640GB WD Black and a 650 Watt XFX PSU. You can see all the details of this "casemod" on his web page.

There is new software available for the ZoomFloppy. Changes in this version: Support for IEEE-488 drives (Thomas Winkler). Experimental support for 1571 serial nibbling via the SRQ protocol. (Arnd Menge). Support for low-level drive analysis with the 1541 index-hole sensor. Many improvements and bug fixes. You can download the new software and a comprehensive English manual from the web page of Nate Lawson.


ZoomFloppy at the go4retro web shop.

The PETdisk is a new storage device, made by bitfixer, for the Commodore CBM / PET with an IEEE-488 port. The system is in two parts. A datassette module that makes it possible to play "data" from a PC soundcard to the CBM / PET and play "data" from the CBM / PET to the PC. The IEEE-488 module has an SD card and a micro processor. You can use the commands LOAD, SAVE and LOAD "$" to load or store data on the SD card. The device number can be changed with a help of a jumper. The USB cable is used to provide 5VDC from the datassette module to the IEEE-488 module.

Demonstration video of the PETdisk.

ACube Systems presents the AmigaOne 500. The system is built around the well known Sam460ex. With AmigaOne 500 you can use AmigaOS 4.1 straight out of the box. The specifications are: Sam460ex 1.15 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 500 GB HD, DVD RW, PCI SATA 3512 Controller, AmigaOS 4.1 including manual and a AmigaOne mouse. The price will be around 1000 Euro.

Fullmaj started a project with an MOS6581 SID chip and a Arduino board. The Arduino board is used to "translate" the Midi signals and commands to a SID chip. Features: Control of the SID over Arduino Hardware SPI interface. Midi Receive interface through Opto-coupler and Led visualization of Midi Traffic. On the blog of Fullmaj you can find a sound sample, the schematic and the firmware.

Kananga is working on a RAM disk for the Commodore VIC-20 and the Final Expansion 3. This RAM disk makes use of the 512 kByte of extra RAM from the FE3 and will give you a virtual disk with 1651 blocks free. At the moment Kananga is working on making the RAM disk faster, but you can try the beta version.

Source code on Google Code.

Jac Goudsmit is working on a modern version of the Commodore CBM/PET computer. He uses a combination of a modern programmable Propeller chip, a 6502 processor and a GadgetGangster Propeller Platform motherboard. The latest changes are: Schematics improved. RAM is now controlled directly instead of via latches. The signals CLK2 and SYNC and the LED are removed from the design. At the moment Jac is working on a software update for the ProPeddle.

The petSD from Nils Eilers will be soon for sale at retro-donald.de. The petSD is a new storage device system for the Commodore CBM computers with a IEEE 488 bus. Some of the features are: Modular design. Bus drivers. FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 SD cards. D64/D71/D81. Subdirectory. Real time clock. Easy firmware upgrade. USB and Ethernet interface.

Technical information about the petSD.

The firmware 6f (beta) is now available for the Chameleon cartridge. Changes in this version: Emulation of illegal opcodes SHX and SHY. Support for backwards reading of the PS/2 keyboard matrix. Improved the VIC-II emulation for line 0x138 which does not exist on PAL (line 0x137 is 1 cycle longer). Lightpen trigger from emulated CIA for stable rasters effects. Fixed vertical sprite stretching bug in VIC-II emulation. Preliminary docking station support.

Gilbert Coville repaired an old Commodore KIM-1 computer. On his web page you can see a comprehensive description of the repair. At the start the KIM-1 was missing a few parts: a 6530 PIO / RAM / ROM, three 7-segment displays and a unknown component. The most difficult part is replacing the 6530.

Video van de KIM-1 reparatie.

Today I could take this spy photo with my mobile of a new emulator. This mysterious emulator was presented to a select group of Commodore users. Some details are: Ethernet, USB, VGA, Video, IEC, 2 x Joystick, Datassette, keyboard connector and a unknown FPGA engine cartridge. On the PCB is printed: Made by Gideon...

Thomas Lövskog is working on a new cartridge for the Commodore VIC-20. The cartridge will have the following features: 64k - 1024k SRAM, 8k Kernal, Diskmanagement and Basic extensions with fullscreen editor, SD card, Audio decoder for MIDI, MP3, FLAC, WAV, OGG, etc, RTC with battery backup, WiFi, 3 buttons (RESET, NMI, DISK) and a 0.96" display for text, icons etc. At the moment Thomas is working on the design of the printed circuit board, after that he wants to make the first proto-types.

Skoe showed a new version of the EasyFlash cartridge. In this version the cartridge will be able to switch to another Kernal, and the RAM under the Kernal will also be available. In total you can choose from 8 Kernals and 7 EasyFlashes. The USB connection can be used for updating the Firmware. The EasyFlash can also emulate another cartridge like the FinalCartride-III, ActionReplay etc.

SIDcog is a project from Johannes Ahlebrand. He made a hardware simulation of the Commodore SID music chip inside a Propeller micro controller. Some of the features are: 31kHz sample rate. 16 bit resolution. Full filter and envelope support. All 4 waveform types and combined waveform. Ring modulation and oscillator synchronization. On the Youtube channel from Johannes you can see several demonstrations of the SIDcog.

Sidcog information and download.

Frank Buß started a project to connect a digital joystick to a PC using the USB interface. On his web page you can follow the step by step progress of building the interface. The interface uses Freescale microcontroller that will simulate a USB keyboard and translates the joystick signals to keyboard signals. The firmware and schematic of the interface can be downloaded from the web page. It will cost about 20 Euro to build the interface.

YouTube video of the C64 USB joystick adapter.

On this YouTube video you can see a Papilio FPGA board with a SID 6581 VHDL core (no filters) acting as a networked SID device. The program ACID 64 is used to send the SID data to a network device. Then a program from Markus Gritsch sends this network data to the FPGA via the serial port. The FPGA has a RS232 UART for receiving and sending the data, a 16KB FIFO buffer for storing the data and a emulated SID chip for playing the audio.

ACID64 web page

Luigi Di Fraia made a video about a new proto-type of his DC2N. The DC2N is a device that reads data from a Datassette and sends it to a PC. The latest, and final version, the DC2N 4 is controlled from the PC or Mac and will not have a local display anymore. The controls, reading of the data and a firmware update is done via the (mini) USB connection.

There is now new firmware available for the Ultimate II. Changes in this version: The REU emulation and SX-64 cartridge slot timing have been improved. And many more small changes and improvements. The (pre-)order form has been reopened with adjusted mail rates and different mail options.

The Sound Ultimate Expander 6400 audio digitizer and its accompanying Digimaster 64 software were released on July 24, 2011 at the Commodore Vegas Expo v7. With this cartridge you can digitize audio into your Commodore C64. The cartridge is available and will cost $25 including a cartridge case.

Proto-type of the SUX 6400.