RetroKomp/LoadError Party 2017 Announcement !

Ladies and Gentleman!
Sceners and Gamers!

RK/LE Team is pleased to announce that the RetroKomp/LoadError retrocomputing event and demoscene party, will be held in Gdansk, Poland on 20-22.10.2017. The date is subject to confirmation, but should it be changed it will still be around this time of the year.

As in previous years, the party will take place in all familiar Gdanski Archipelag Kultury (GAK) venue with sleeping room, lockers, showers and food available.

The event will consist of the 6th edition of RetroKomp retrocomputing event focused on retro gaming, game competitions, lectures and it's highlight will be the Retro GameDev Compo (for which I'm the organizer). After that, on saturday night the 3rd LoadError demoscene party will start, featuring 8-bit and Amiga demo compos, as well as the usual MSX/GFX categories. The exact listing of compos is still under discussion, and will be announced later.

I'm sure that the party will be massive, and full of quality releases. Be sure to check out prior years prods on Pouet:

RetroKomp/LoadError 2013
RetroKomp/LoadError 2015
RetroKomp Gamedev Compo 2016

Also check out Demozoo for GFX/MSX prods:
2013 Demozoo
2015 Demozoo

Compo Videos:

2015 Amiga Demo Compo


2015 8-bit Demo Compo


2015 Gamedev Compo


Be sure to visit our webpage and FB for more updates !:

https://www.facebook.com/RetrokompLoaderror/
http://retrokomp.org/?lang=en_US

Wicher 500: an update from Spidi

Following the recent news about Wicher 500, I got an update from Spidi, who stated that the card design should be ready in about two months. after that Wicher will be available to buy, although there are no details yet about where it will be available, and how much exactly will it cost. I can only assume that it will be a cheaper alternative to ACA500+.

Another interesting detail is that Wicher will require EDO SIMM witn 60ns or less access time.

You can also find some details about the project here: http://retro.7-bit.pl/?lang=en&go=projekty&name=nastepny

Hardware news for Amiga 500: Wicher is coming

About a month ago, polish hardware designer Spidi (http://retro.7-bit.pl/?lang=en&go=home), known for his Ryś mouse adapters, Sum keyboard adapters, and many other hardware creations, announced a new expansion card for Amiga 500/500+ called Wicher.

Wicher will feature 68000/010 CPU with clock speeds upto 48 MHz, a slot for EDO Simm Ram module (1-8 MB), and an IDE connector. It will be mounted on the expansion port on the side of Amiga.
The hardware is still in development, and Spidi has presented both pictures and videos of Wicher :






As you can see on the picture above, Wicher will feature an expansion port for a real time clock module. It also has some other cool features like on-the-fly CPU speed change. CPU will be socketed, so user will have an option to get 68000/010 PLCC that suits him/her the most, and experiment with overclocking.

Currently Wicher clocked at 48 MHz achieves 4,27 MIPS, and 3,1 MB/s hard disk transfer rate.

PRICE AND AVAILABILITY NOT YET CONFIRMED

Links:
EAB Forum PPA Forum Retro 7-bit

p.s. as with previous Spidi's hardware, Wicher is named after hardware used by polish soldiers in WW II. Sum was an airplane, Ryś was a submarine, and Wicher was the flagship of polish Navy. You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORP_Wicher_(1928)

My Hardware #2 - Timex 2048

Timex 2048 is a portugese ZX Spectrum 48k clone, slightly improved than the original. Apart from having an improved keybord, an on/off switch, composite video output, and a standard joystick port it has improved graphic capabilities. Timex 2048 has an additional 2-colour high-res mode (512x192), and in standard resolution it has better colour display capabilities. Unfortunately these features were not widely used, probably because the machine was only popular in Portugal and Poland.

The only scene demo utilising 2048's gfx modes is Timmy by polish group speccy.pl released in 2014:


The Timex that I have in my collection is actually a pretty special item for me. It belonged to my uncle and cousins, who live in another city, so I had visited them only once or twice a year. During these visits I had an opportunity to play some cool games on the Timex with my cousins Agnieszka and Paulina :). A couple of years ago, when I visited them again, I asked my uncle if he still has the Timex. After some digging in the basement uncle found the old machine, complete in an original box, from more than 20 years in the past. It even has an original price sticker from Centralna Składnica Harcerska (chain of stores owned by the scout association during the communist years). It costed 140000 ZL back then, and the average wage in Poland in 1987-88 was around 25000-30000 ZL, so it was pretty expensive.

The Timex is in very good working condition, it has never been opened, or modified in any way.

My Hardware #1 - Amiga 1000

I've decided, that this blog might be a good place to catalogue and display my hardware collection. I presume, that it will take me some time to get it done, so it's only a start :)

I got my Amiga 1000 set from an internet auction in 2013. Guy from my city sold it to me for 500 PLN, which is around 112 Euro by todays rate. Basically the guy didn't know what he was selling, he couldn't even turn it on, so he wrote that the hardware is defective in ayction decription. The whole A1000 lot belonged to his father in law, who wanted to just throw it away, and the guy thought that he would try selling it through an auction. He started with 100 PLN with pickup only option, and no one was bidding, so I called him, offered him 500 PLN, and he agreed. When I came to collect the hardware it came out that everything is working fine. Well it was a bargain :)

The Amiga comes with:
C=1081 Amiga branded monitor
Amiga 1010 external fdd
5,25" external FDD
Amiga 1000 type mouse (coffin shaped with angled connector)
Keyboard
256k RAM expansion
A LOT of software and books (for ex Amiga Hardware Reference Manual), including system disks (OS1.1 and 1.2), software bundled with A1000, Defender of The Crown in mint condition

Besides being dirty, the Amiga is in great condition, it even has warranty stickers intact! It's one of the machines that I use often to play around. It is in near mint condition, it was brought to Poland from The Netherlands somwhere around 1986, and spent probably 20 years in an attic.

This is how it looked when I got home.

SD512, SD card reader and memory expansion for MSX computers

Just recently I've bought myself a cool gadget for my Philips VG-8235 MSX2 computer.
It's an SD512 cartridge by 8bits4ever (http://www.8bits4ever.net/product-page/098e6224-da0c-4b83-ab5f-3cac906cd249), I ordered it from ebay (but also from the manufacturer), as it was out of stock in the online shop at the time. The cost was 81,5 euro with shipping, and 4GB micro SD filled with MSX goodies.

I've received the card around a week after my order, it came in a solid, well protected package, and I was sent all the necessary instructions and OS files via e-mail earlier. The card itself is manufactured really nicely, the one I have is in a blue transparent case, with a blue led blinkin' while accesing the card.

SD512 has two independent slots, one for micro SD, one for standard SD card. It also comes equipped with 512 kb Ram, which can be configured by switches to either Mega Ram, Mapper, or turned off. I use it most in mapper mode, with purpose of mounting *.ROM images.

On the attached micro SD I found Nextor 2.10 software, along with latest SofRun installed, and some *.ROM and *.DSK files with games for my tests. For those, who don't know Nextor is an operating system compatible with MSX-DOS with native support for Fat16, and SofaRun is a great software pack, aimed at easy running of games from *.ROM and *.DSK files.

While I'm still an inexperienced MSX user, I've found that not all of the games I have run straight off SD512. With ROM files it's really a gamble, most of the smaller, MSX1 roms work, but I have problems running a lot of MSX2 ROMS. Around half of the 256 kb ROMS work, and I haven't been able to run any of the 512 kb roms, even though SD 512 has the necessary memory. Same applies to DSK software, and that's because some of the non standard disks work only from a real floppy, or using a floppy emulator like HXC. On the other hand, all of the standard files based software, including all the recent MSX1&2 scene demos works great.

Short list of some of the ROM's that run flawlessly:
Aleste
Androgynous
Ashguin 2
Kings Valley
Maze of Galious
Metal Gear
Nemesis 1-3
Parodius
Penguin Adventure
Salamander
Vampire Killer


Overall I must say that SD512 is a great piece of hardware. The thing with some ROM's not running is due to the fact, that I'm a lamer when it comes to MSX, and I still haven't investigated software like execrom.com and romload.com correctly, I still need to mess some more with the options. And another tihng is that this sowtware is in fact a hack, and ROM files should be flashed using proper Flash ROM cartridges, and no be mounted in RAM, and that is completly different hardware than SD512.

The baseline is: SD512 is a nice hardware, doing it's job as a mass storage device and RAM expansion.

p.s. You can also check a cool article about MSX ram expansions here: http://www.lavandeira.net/2016/07/multi-review-msx-memory-mapper-mega-mapper-and-memory-samurai-part-1-of-2/
cool links:
http://msx.org - ultimate msx resource
http://www.8bits4ever.net - hardware producer
http://lhalter.free.fr/mgr/ - SofaRun and other great soft form MSX

Tfardy

Amiga AGA/ECS TOP prods pack, based on pouet.net

Below is a link to an archive of demoscene prods, that I've assembled for polish Amigazyn#7 paper magazine cover DVD (you can order @ amiga.net.pl).

The archive contains Amiga prods, divided by category (AGA/OCS and then demo/intro etc...), with productions having largest numbers of thumbs at pouet.net.

Numbers:
Top 100 AGA Demo
Top 100 ECS Demo
Top 25 AGA Cracktro/Dentro/Invitro
Top 50 AGA Intro
Top 50 ECS Intro/Dentro/Invitro

Please don't ask me how I came up with the categories. I just did. You can either download or not :)
Tfardy
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jt11uoufqw3looo/scena.zip?dl=0 file is ~672MB

Alternative link if you have problems with Dropbox

Amiga 1000 Demo Pack 2016

Below are links to ADF images of demopacks aimed for Amiga 1000/500 with kick 1.3 and 512kb Ram.
Compilations are made up of releases from recent years. Enjoy !

Amiga 1000 (OCS/512K) Demodisk 2k16 by Tfardy :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3t9hocgofiwwahb/a1k2k16_demodisk.adf?dl=0

Amiga 1000 (OCS/512K) Demodisks 2k15 by Tfardy :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/s0pibfo5ng65if1/a1k2k15_demodisk2.adf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t1uflhnnc2nmemn/a1k2k15_demodisk.adf?dl=0

UPDATED LINKS FOR THOSE WHO DON'T LIKE DROPBOX:

http://natami.pl/amiga/demopack/a1k2k16_demodisk.adf
http://natami.pl/amiga/demopack/a1k2k15_demodisk2.adf
http://natami.pl/amiga/demopack/a1k2k15_demodisk.adf