As already announced in my last post: Finally, the first public release 0.1 of dtv2ser is online!
Go check it out on my new dtv2ser homepage!
dtv2ser 0.1 released
Reply
Category Archives: Commodore 64
dtvtrans + mac -> dtv2ser
Macs don’t have Parallel Ports. That’s no problem for using nowaday devices but its a real disadvantage if you like to hack hardware and need to access ports or like to work on toggle-bits level with any kind of homebrew hardware.
I had a look at the cool DTV transfer tool called dtvtrans written by TLR. There you build a parallel to joystick port cable and then you can transfer memory blocks directly from and to the DTV’s RAM or ROM. This is ultra handy for development and fast testing…
But without a parport on my Mac, what to do?
Continue reading
Project State Update
This post summarizes the state of the Projects I am currently involved in:
- VICE: Cocoa Port is progressing well. Core already finished.
- DiskImagery64: Almost no time lately. Moved to SF.net
- OpenCBM: Joined development to support Mac port
Finally flashed my SST-DTV
For a long time only the DTV versions with an Atmel Flash ROM can be flashed (You need this to store your own games or custom software). For the newer DTVs with SST Flash there was no software solution known to flash this ROM, too. Actually, a software only solution will never work… You need a small hardware fix – discovered by tixiv from Forum64 – to make everything work…
Continue reading
Cases for RR+RRNet+MMC64
Today I built a housing for my Retro Replay and MMC64 cards. The goal was to use standard clear snap-in module cases and and alter them so that the RR and the MMC board fits in.
Have a look at my workflow and my gallery…
XU1541 for my Mac
I had the parts lying around for a few weeks now, but yesterday I found the time to solder everything together: the XU1541 created by Till Harbaum. Its a USB-to-IEC bus converter device that allows to connect modern hardware with retro CBM devices like a 1541 floppy. As you might have guessed already, I wanted to check out if it works with my Mac, too…
Added a MMC2IEC to my DTV64
Easter time is project time 😉 I spent the free days with working on some of my C64 hardware projects… This time I added a SD-Card based virtual 1541 Floppy emulator to my DTV mod. I integrated Lars’s MMC2IEC Project that implements this HW floppy with an Atmel ATmega32 microcontroller and just a few more parts (available for a few bucks).
Here is how I built it and how to use the Mac as a development system for the AVR controller…
Continue reading
What’s new in VICE 1.21 for Macs
On 10th of march the newest version of VICE was released to the public. As your fellow Mac port maintainer I’ll give you a short summary what’s new in this version from an Apple Fan’s point of view…
Continue reading
DiskImagery64 0.7 for Linux & Windows
Yes, DiskImagery64 is portable… that’s the reason why I wrote this little tool with the Qt Library. The published source already contained all you need for compiling on both platforms. I test all my releases with the Open Source Qt Versions on Windows XP and on Ubuntu Linux 6.10.
Some users asked for a binary on these platforms and that wish led me away from my beloved Mac platform to try out bundling on foreign terrain 😉 on Linux and Win. On Win I found the nice open-source installer creator NSIS that helped me creating a nice installer. But compiling the source on windows by hand was not my style so I finally hacked some *urgs* DOS .bat file to automate building… Gradually I added all nice features including automatic CBM font installation, D64 extension registration and Startup Menu shortcuts!
On Ubuntu I had my first experience with debian package creation. Wow I am impressed what powerfull mechanisms there are to create complicated packages without any problems automatically. With the help of the wonderful Debian New Maintainer’s Guide I got a package for DI64 in a few hours and peeking at the source of other packages helped me to create a fine bundle with embedded font installing and desktop registration. Only extension binding currently does not work out of the box… so if there are any deb packagers with ideas out there then drop me a mail!
Now have a look at the Download area of DI64 and check out the win installer and the ubuntu packages… If there are any problems with them so bear with me – they are my first non-mac ones 😉
DiskImagery64 0.7 released
The last weeks I only had my MBP with me and that slowed down my DI64 development a bit. Nevertheless, I set up VICE with ethernet support and run the network stuff there 😉 One core of my system handled the virtual C64 and the other one run DI64. In between I had a Monitor running to trace all packets that were floating between the two “machines”..