Commodore VIC – 20 Behr Bonz cartridge

The Benz Bonz multi cartridge for the Commodore VIC-20 has been on my hardware wish list for some time now and I’d just about given up hope on getting one. Originally these cartridges where made in very very limited quantity and according to the wiki page, only 102 were sold worldwide and is now no longer in production.

That was until fellow RCM member Richard sought and received permission to produce another limited run. Again, these were all snapped up rather quickly and I missed out once more. Fast forward a year and Richard had been hinted at the prospect of another small run based on a few spare boards he had left over and when I met with him again at yesterdays RCM’s gaming event, he placed a rectangle PCB in my hand….you can probably guess what it was.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Thank you Richard!

The Benz Bonz multicart contains every VIC-20 cartridge game released (up until VIC-20 production stopped) which equates to 127 vintage games on this one cartridge. All instantly load able via a handy fronted menu.

A full list of all included games can be found at the bottom of this post.

The bare PCB required a case so as not to get damaged. For mine, I’ve sacrificed that grubby Cosmic Crunch cartridge I received with my VC-20 the other week.

One I’d removed the centre screw holding the two case halves together, I had to run a sharp knife along the case seams as it looked like some sort of glue had been used.

Always handy to keep rough looking cartridges, you never know when you might need one.

Original game PCB and Behr Bonz which was almost an exact fit. I had to scrap away a millimetre of interior plastic for a complete fit.

Scary bit next – drilling a hole through the PCB to accommodate the case screw. Without it, the PCB might slide around inside the case when inserting into the VIC-20 cartridge slot.

Richard had left a small square of bare PCB for which to drill a hole. I used my Dremel & three mini drill bits, gradually increasing the size of the bit and hole. I could have gone straight for the large bit but i wasn’t sure if it would crack the board without a pilot hole.

All done…can I stop sweating now?

With the PCB now inside the case I test fitted into cartridge port. A bit snug at first so after a few more adjustments to the screw it fitted perfectly.

easier after a few

Have I damaged the board?

Nope

A quick go on Gorf and Defender and I’ll write about some of the other games in a later post. One in particular is becoming very addictive!

Back at my PC, I’ve started working on a replacement custom label for the case using Photoshop. I’m all out of adhesive label paper so have not be able to print it yet, but to give you an idea of what it’ll look like, I’ve superimposed the image on my image above.

As tribute to Richard

Here’s the complete game list -

AE
Aggressor
Alien Blitz
Amok!
arachnoid
Artillery Duel
Astroblitz
Atlantis
Attack of the Mutant Camels
Avenger
Bandits
Battlezone
Black Hole
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom
Capture the Flag
Centipede
Choplifter
Cloudburst
Clowns for Joystick
Clowns for paddle
Computer War
Congo Bongo
Cosmic Cruncher
Cosmic Jailbreak
Creepy Corridors
Crossfire
Cyclon
Defender
DemonAttack
Dig Dug
Donkey Kong
Dragonfire
Final Orbit + Bumper Bash
Frogger
Frogman
Galaxian
Garden Wars
Gorf
Gridrunner
IFR (Flight Simulator)
In the chips
Jawbreaker II
Jelly Monsters (clone of Pacman)
Jungle Hunt
Jupiter Lander
KEYQUEST
Krazy Antics
Lazerzone
Lode Runner
Lunar Leeper
Maze
Medieval Joust
Miner 2049′er
Mobile Attack
Mole Attack
Money Wars
Monster Maze
Moon Patrol
Mosquito Infestation
Motocross Racer
Mountain King
Ms Pacman
Mutant Herd
Omega Race
Outworld
Pac-Man (original)
Paratrooper
Pharaoh’s Curse
Pinball
Pipes
Poker
Polaris
Pole Position
Predator
Princess and Frog
Protector
Q-Bert
Radar Rat Race
Raid on Fort Knox
Rally-X
Rat Hotel
Renaissance (Othello)
River Rescue
Road Race
Robot Panic
Robotron 2084
Scott Adams: Adventure Land
Scott Adams: Mission Impossible
Scott Adams: Pirate’s Cove
Scott Adams: The Count
Scott Adams: Voodoo Castle
Sargon II Chess
Satellite Patrol
Scorpion
Sea Wolf
Seafox
Serpentine
Shamus
Sir Lancelot
Skibbereen
Skyblazer
Space Ric-O-Shay
Spider City
SPIDERS OF MARS
Spike’s Peak
Spills and Fills
Squish’em
Star Battle
Star Post
Star Trek – Srategic Operations Simulator
Submarine commander
Super Amok
Super Slot
Super Smash
Terraguard
The Sky is Falling
Threshold
Tooth Invaders
Topper
Trashman
Turmoil
Tutankham
Type Attack
Typo
Video Vermin
Videomania
Visible Solar System

RCM Gaming event Nov ’11 – video

A quick walk around at the Retro Computer Museum gaming event yesterday when the crowds had all but left for the day. It’s a bit wobbly but is gives you an idea on what was was on offer to play over the weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbIsw8VhRG4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Art of Oli Frey

Back in the 80′s the most popular home computers here in the uk were the Commodore 64, the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC 464 and each respective format was covered by various gaming magazines. By far the most popular of these were those produced by Newsfield publications like Zzap64, Crash and Amtix and as a Commodore user myself, my monthly tipple was Zzap64. Although each magazine catered for just one system (or systems from one brand) all had one thing in common, those gorgeous cover paintings by artist Oliver Frey which for many, including myself, would be the sole reason to buy the magazine and today offers an eye candy nostalgic trip back to the days of 8-bit gaming.

The Fantasy Art of Oliver Frey is a book containing many of Oli’s finest work including covers from all those magazines which are presented without logos and cover graffiti.

The book is written by Roger Keen, editor of Crash magazine and focuses on Oli’s artwork during the 1980s and 90s with the first 40 odd pages containing a biography of the man himself.

You don’t see much of this these days, giant computers made to look like spaceships or computer innards drawn at futuristic cityscapes but they were quite common back in the day and a subject I’ll always be drawn too.

Two of my most favorite covers are included in the book. The first, from Zzap64 magazine #30 as part of their ‘Shoot ‘em up construction kit’ cover feature.

..and the second is from Crash magazine #5

..which so happens to be my current iPad wallpaper

Oli also produced many some drop dead gorgeous game and inlays including the every popular Thalamus games.

… as well as artwork for various posters that were included into special editions of various computer magazines.

Commodore Force poster.

Another one of my favourites and again, back on to the theme of computer hardware depicted In fantasy scenes. This Quikshot II joystick has never looked so mean!

A few weeks ago, the annual Replay gaming event was held in Blackpool and amongst this years on VIPs was the man himself. Sadly I couldn’t attend this year but my good friend Mike was kind enough to pick up a copy of his book for me. I met up with Mike yesterday at RCM and he’d brought it down for me.

Page one contained a lovely surprise too! Thank you Mike

A Great book that just got even better and will be a prized edition on my bookshelf. Highly recommend you check out this book or indeed Oli Frey’s website where you can browse his galleries and even purchase an original.

http://www.oliverfreyart.com

Retro Computer Museum Gaming Weekend Nov ’11

This weekend RCM held it’s second of this years gaming weekends and unlike previous events, this was held at another museum at The Snibston Discovery park in Leicester.

Sadly I couldn’t attend on Saturday but it was all on fun all day on Sunday and once again a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and to meet new faces…and it was great to see so manynew faces.

All in all we had about 60 systems setup for play including firm favourites like the Commodore’s Spectrums, Amstrads, Nintendo’s and Sega’s.

It was also an opportunity to let folk try out some of the more unique systems too, some of them I haven’t seen myself in ages. Like the Enterprise 128, Commodore SX64 & Campus Lynx.

…and various modded systems like this Amstrad 6128 with modern SD based floppy drive adaptor

Yay, finally got to play Dingo the way it was meant to be played!

Paul and Woody checking out a selection on classic handhelds. Just off shot is the Sega Nomad….and is on my ‘one day, I’ll own’ list.

Is now becoming an event ritual, Soul Calibur compo on the Sega Dreamcast with Dave and Soph. Still got my ass whooped and even Duncan left me battered and bruised.

Someone enjoying my Vectrex…and very good atbSkramble he was too.

An unlikely match but two great systems side by side. The Oric was playing my favourite – Defence Force but I didn’t have time to see if I could beat my own high score. I couldn’t bear to see my name on the top score…so of course, that needed to rectified

Such a great day and thank to Jon, Mike, Andy, Steve and Richard, I’ve brought back plenty of cool bits n bobs to play with.

There’s still so much to be done at RCM HQ but next year we plan to hold more smaller/regular meets as well as our twice yearly events. Great days to be a retro gamer!

C64 JiffyDOS installation.

Well tonight, I thought, I’ve got a bit of free time to install the first of two JiffyDOS roms for my Commodore 64′s. The first, would be installed in my beloved ‘breadbin’ c64 which requires a special 28-24 pin adaptor which I received yesterday from Jon – see post http://stiggyblog.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/dual-booting-jiffydos-for-classic-c64/ )

Now this particular computer is very dear to me as it’s my very first C64 that I’ve owned since the early eighties and has provided countless hours of fun over the past 30 odd years. As you can image, i was a little nervous working on it and not wanting to stuff this one up.

After work I dropped by my local Maplins store and picked up a couple of two-way toggle switches for each C64. With these attached to the new rom chip, I’ll be able to flip between original and JiffyDOS kernels.

Lid off, keyboard and power LED header disconnected….kettle on.

I found this rather handy JiffyDOS manual (.pdf) and had it to hand loaded in iBooks on my iPad. Tablets are great!

With the correct ROM chip identified for removal, I carefully (yep sweating a lot now) removed it with an IC removal tool. Surprisingly, it popped out without too much of a fight.

Next I dremelled out a small hole in the side of the c64 case to house the new toggle switch and also soldered the JiffyDOS fly leads to said toggle switch.

Lining up the JiffyDOS rom chip pins over the IC socket, checking Jon’s notes to see which way around it went and popped it into place.

I’ve left the fly leads loose inside the c64 case for the time being, and if all is o.k will wrap these into a neat line later on.

Everything put back together and ready for testing, and the original rom chip wrapped up in my spares box.

I won’t say how long I had my finger poised over the c64 on button

Woo hoo, all is working and testing shows everything is good…I hope?

I was playing Flimbo’s Quest via my SD2IEC yesterday evening so i thought I’d try it again with JiffyDOS installed. Whoa, it’s quick. I’m guessing here, but I’d estimate approx 300 – 400% quicker to load.

So that’s my older breadbin C64 completed, next is my late model C64c. This has the rom chip soldered directly onto the pcb board so removal isn’t as easy this time around. I’ve already had one attempt at desoldering it, but so far no luck. I’ll keep trying and as a last resort will cut away the chip and desoldering the remaining chip legs.

Huge thanks once again to you Jon.

##edit – thanks to my friend on Facebook for pointing out that something appeared to wrong. If you look back at the picture above the amount of free bytes is wrong, it’s missing about 25k. Strangely enough, it rectified itself and is back to the expected 38911 free bytes.

Weird!

River Raid – Carol Shaw

If you think of great games for the Atari 2600 games, then there’s a very good possibility that Activision’s River Raid is included….if not, why not This early scrolling shooter is such a large part of many retro gamers gaming history and indeed retro gaming history itself. This wonderful interview posted on VCG with River Raid games designer Carol Shaw, is both entertaining and an insightful look back at early years of Atari and Activision.

http://www.vintagecomputing.com/index.php/archives/800

Dual booting JiffyDOS for classic C64

Thanks go out to my good friend and fellow RCM’er Jon for building me another JiffyDOS rom complete with his custom 28-24pin adaptor so that it can be installed into earlier (and the best) Commodore c64 ‘breadbin’ models.

This is a dual booting Rom therefore by adding a switch I’ll be able to select between the new JiffyDOS kernel or flip to the regular C64 kernel depending on whether i want to load games/files very quickly via my SD2IEC or switch back to regular C64 kernel mode.

Thanks Jon, they both survived our mail man See you at the weekend.

You can read all about how these where made over at Jon’s site.

http://www.jammarcade.net/2011/c64-breadbin-jiffydos-dual-boot/

Vectrex movie cartridge

I’ve been enjoying rereading classic Sci-Fi books via iBooks these past few weeks such as the collected short stories by Philip K Dick, William Gibson Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov. In particular the later being the Robot novels. This lead to further research on the theme which brought me to Martin Caitin’s Cyborg novels – which was the basis of the cult classic Six Million Dollar man TV series (which if rumours are true, could be resurrected (or rebuilt…,sorry!) as a new feature film)….where was I?…oh yes…cyborg…this then led me to pictures of the rather ropey 1982 Klaus Klinski film called Android, which finally brought me to this image.

Are those Vectrex consoles?

Further research shows that Vectrex..eseses where indeed used in the film (including a game) and more information, as well as a ton of Vectrex related goodness, can be found here -

http://www.classicgamecreations.com/android.html

…and if you want a copy of the actual Vectrex cart designed specifically for the movie, the current bid on eBay is £600….no? me neither

Right, I’m off to scan footage of Starwars, I bet there’s an Atari Woody somewhere

Online ZX Spectrum emulator for iPhone/iPad

iSpeccy is an online ZX Spectrum emulator for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch which I stumbled upon this morning whilst researching for Spectrum keyboard hacks.

http://ispeccy.com/

ISpeccy Main menu.

The alphabeticalised game list is very large although sadly I’ve not even heard about a good portion of them and fans looking for some of the more popular titles might be disappointed. However, clicking on the ‘Best game’ button does filter out most of the list and gives access to more recognisable titles such as Arkanoid, Jet Set Willy, Exolon and of course, everyone’s favourite Manic Miner.

Each game is complete with screenshot and ‘loads’ in a few seconds.

You can either play games with the keyboard or virtual joystick which has plenty of options for key mapping and Kempston/Sinclair emulation. iCade support would be awesome.

Emulation is pretty good, sound is spot on but at times there can be a little slowdown and drop in frame rate. Manic Miner plays very well though. It can be played either in portrait or landscape mode, the latter being really nice on the larger iPad screen.

iSpeccy also allows the game code to POKE’d to help you along on those tricky games.

Yay, my favorite ZX port of Pheonix is on the list!

Pheenix

The best ZX Spectrum emulator for iDevices is Spectaculator but for free, ease of use and access to a huge library of games, iSpeccy is definitely worth checking out.

Got to go…I’ve got a high score to beat

Battlezone with dual stick – Atari 2600

Every since I got my Harmony cartridge for my Atari 2600 I’ve been enjoying some great home brew and hacked games found over at AtariAge – http://www.atariage.com/ I’ve already posted videos of the voice enhanced version of Berzerk and the hacked version Missile Command which much improved control via a Amiga mouse, and am currently playing a version of Battlezone with dual joystick support, just like the arcade original!

Battlezone was one of three Atari Vector based games, (the others being Red Baron and…well you can probably guess the third!) I used to play a lot in the early eighties. We were lucky to have to full upright cabinet with ‘periscope’ monitor in our local arcade until, sadly, someone was a little too forceful with the dual stick controls, it broke and was never seen again

Atari – Battlezone – 1980

That would be the last time for many years that I’d play Battlezone in it’s original cabinet. In 2009 at Retro Reunited I spied a thing of beuty, someone had brought along a Battlezone cabinet and had it up and running and set to free play mode. It wasn’t the full upright cab I remembered form the arcades and didn’t have the periscope view, but that didn’t matter, this 3/4 cab had dual controls and that’s all that mattered to me. Suffice to say I hogged it….alot

Over the years there’s been some great Battlezone conversions for home computers and consoles and likewise some real stinkers too. For me, the Atari 2600 version is sadly the latter. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great little game but due to hardware limitations and Atari’s decision to go with sprite based graphics it just isn’t Battlezone anymore.

Battlezone arcade original

Atari 2600 VCS

Furthermore, like most home conversions, the dual stick control system is lost and it’s a shame really as this one of the bet bits about playing Battlezone.

Cue – Homebrew hacked version called Battlezone TC for the Atari 2600 by Thomas Jentzsch…..with dual stick control…yay!

This is more like it and woth my Harmony Cartridge I can get to play this game directly on my 2600 with both joysticks and have independent tank track controls just like the arcade original. Steer forward by moving both sticks up, both back for reverse and either one or the other in the opposite direction to drive your tank left or right.

It might still look a mess and barely resemble Battlezone, but who cares when you can drive it like the arcade version

Th only downside to using two Atari sticks is that, without having a hand free to hold them steady, they do tend to skid around your desk. Whilst musing over fabricating some sort of dual joystick caddie to sit them in (or duct tape for speed!) It got me thinking about some of the other dual stick games and one thing led to another and an idea started to form….just need to test something and i’ll be back. If this works…hehe, it’s gonna be fun.

My Commodore VC20

Adding to my collection of Commodore computers this time around is a German variant of the Commodore VIC-20, called the Commodore VC20. Supposedly vic is a rather rude word in German hence the name change! It was a cheap eBay purchase and the seller states the ‘power light come on’ so for the low price I though it was worth a look.

Other than the new badge the computer is almost no different to my VIC-20, although as you can see, side by side it’s heavily yellowed with age.

My Vic-20 wasn’t as aged as this but thanks to a spot of RetroBrite, the original color was restored and so if the sun does come out on this rather damp November, my new VC20 will also get the RetroBrite treatment.

The VC20 was shipped to me boxed with a few games and appears to have survived transit, dent free and no loose parts rattling around inside

There’s just one small thing to check first, does it actually work?

Erm….judging by the all white screen, I’d say no

The power light does indeed light up but no picture is displayed on screen. I tested with another RF box and my new composite cable which I’ve been using on my c64 but I still only get a white screen.

Popping the lid to have a look see inside. Apart from the usual bit of dust, all components seem ok and no visible damage.

A-ha, this certainly won’t help, a broken fuse.

With this replaced, I tried it again doubting that this was the problem and yep, still get a white screen. Looking up the hardware symptoms online it appears that the fault may be the video chip u7 (later rev board) and as this is a socketed chip I might be able to replace it.

…but for now, it seems that’s about all I can do at the moment. If it’s not repairable I’ll use it for spare parts as I’m in need of a Vic-20 keyboard and once the case is retrobrited, it might be useful down at the Retro Computer Museum.

One thing that did work, via my other VIC, was the cartridge game Cosmic Crunch which was bundled with the machine. It’s a very old title but a rather fun Pac-Man clone with the player sprite has been replaced the Commodore ‘C=’ logo

….and it’s a bloody tough game too!

Robtek Game Killer Cartridge – Commodore 64

Here’s a bit of an oddball cartridge for the Commodore 64 that I dug out of storage the other day. It’s a game cheat cartridge from 1986 that was produced by a company called RobTek and is used to disable sprite collision once you’ve loaded a game into memory….handy to get past those tricky bits.

Here’s a picture of the box front

..and the rear

The cartridge itself is fairly plain with Gamekiller lettering on the front and green push button on the right hand side.

Here’s the cartridge loaded and ready for use..and a rather catchy tune too.

Here a quick video I shot the other day showing the Gamekiller cartridge in action.

Since then, I’ve researched the cartridge a little bit more and appears that not very many where produced due to poor interest/sales….does this make it rare, probably not, but it’s quirky bit of kit that’s a little bit different to other freezer carts.

Retro Gaming: Prince of Persia box art

I’ve now got two new versions of Prince of Persia to add to my gamenlibrary. The first was found amongst a box of Nintendo Gameboy games in one of my storage boxes brought back from my parents loft which I’m slowly starting to go through.

I quite like this alternative artwork on the Gameboy (& NES) box and is a bit different from the more common artwork found on most of the other home computers.

Sadly, I won’t be popping the game cart into my Gameboy just yet as I still have it in bits after the last RetroBrite session the other week and is also awaiting a screen replacement. ‘Lameboy’ emulator running on my Nintendo DS will have to do for now.

Nice and white again but I must get around to putting it all back together!

I still haven’t found either my Commodore Amiga or PC DOS version amongst the boxes but I’m sure they’ll turn up soon. The box art on these covers are, against the of most common type which is also used on this Amstrad edition that Andy @ RCM gave me last weekend. Cheers Andy!

I’ve not played this particular version and it’s high time I dusted down the 464 so..another one added to the list!

Here’s a few more cover variants.

Sega Megadrive CD.

Great cover art and another one I need to add to my library..this ones got plenty of FMV sequences.

The original Apple II version. Elements of this ‘leaping prince’ design was used on many other covers like the PAL SNES edition.

As with most Japanese Game boxart, the Super Famicom version is fantastic and unlike any of the other covers…yet, to me it doesn’t feel like Prince of Persia and could be any other random game.

I’ve never come across this Japanese Gameboy cover but I really and like anime approach to the design.

..and the worst..the Sega Megadrive/Master System/Game Gear version. Truly awful in my opinion but shouldn’t be judged by it’s cover as these play quite well.

I haven’t played every version of Prince of Persia yet and so, for the time being, my favourites remain with the DOS and Amiga versions…but for how long?

The making of Prince of Persia – eBook

I just can’t get enough of classic Prince of Persia this month and now that I’ve completed the newly released C64 conversion (that last level was a tough cookie) I’m now revisiting the game once again on many other classics systems.

It’s such a fascinating game and therefore so it’s with great pleasure that I find that author Jordan Mechner has published his personal journal that was written during the years Prince of Persia was created.

It’s available as a digital download for either Amazon Kindle of in .pdf format for many other readers. It’s priced at $7.99 although the first 40 pages can be downloaded and previewed for free.

Some of Jordan’s original sketches and notes are included.

You can buy/trial from Jordan’s website here -

http://jordanmechner.com/blog/2011/10/ebook/

Be sure to check out the promotional video showing early video footage of family members providing Jordan with A basis for his rotoscope animation technique.

Busy bees at RCM

I’ve spent most of today down at the Retro Computer Museum with the rest of the chaps as we ready a large collection of equipment for our next gaming event at the end of this month.

We’ve been invited by the Snibston discovery museum at Leicester to showcase some of our computers as part of their retro computer gaming event being held over the weekend of 26th & 27th November.

Over the past few weeks we’ve been sorting and testing (including PAT testing everything) and today was all about getting it ready for transportation.

Making a mess of our main room as all computers and consoles are packed away leaving various monitors and tv’s. Some of these old CRT as flippin heavy….or are TFT’s making us weak

All in all we’re showing 60+ computers and consoles including everyone’s favourites 8 bit like the c64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Dragon 32, ZX Spectrum, Oric, Atari, TI99a, MSX, Amstrad and 16 Bits like the Amiga’s, Atari ST, Acorns.

They’ll be plenty of consoles from the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Intellivision, Vectrex, NES, Sega Master System, Genesis, Snes, Jaguar, CD32, 3DO, PSX, PC Engine, Gameboy, Lynx, Nomad.

We’ll also have some of the rarer classics like the Jupiter Ace, ZX80, M5Sord, Campus Lynx, Commodore SX64 and many more.

Various comps ready to be placed into their transport boxes like this Tatung Einstien and Amstrad 464+

The piles of crates starts to mount up as Andy ticks them off the list.

Lunchtime and at the chip shop with Jim who I’ve snapped with my iPhone camera with my new C64 camera app

Packing continues but couldn’t resist a quick go on the wonderfully quirky Nintendo Virtual Boy.

Richard’s still non working 21″ DIY ‘frankenstien’ Vectrex should be working in time for the event he says. Hope so as I can’t wait to see it running. Spare a thought for my back though, this thing is heavy!

I thought I knew everything at RCM but then Stu whips out this TRS 80 from the storage shelves! Just oozes retro style

By the end of the day, everything is almost ready but we’ve still got a few weeks to finish off a few bits n pieces. Tired but very happy!