Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-13
20:49:22
|  Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
Gonna be showing off a plus/4 tomorrow at my high school club. I've got 1 game for it, Strange Odyssey! one of those adventure games. What sort of things about the Plus/4 should I show off?
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Posted By
JamesD
on 2016-09-14
02:20:00
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
The Plus/4's large color palette made it very good for very colorful pictures.
I'd load some slideshows and demos that show that off.
*edit*
Dino Shock! would be a good one
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-09-14
08:08:26
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
Is it a PAL or NTSC machine? If it's the latter, that will limit your choices - the scene is very much PAL oriented.
Otherwise, everyone will have their favourites, but you can't go wrong by going to the Top List section (see menu). That's the general consensus, you should find the good stuff neatly sorted there.
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Posted By
Mad
on 2016-09-14
12:16:56
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
If it's a young audience I would definately show Pac-Pac since it seems to be a lot of fun for younger people..
If it's a older audience I would show Pac-Pac, too even if you don't have these tough reaction times anymore.. It's the newest gem of the plus4scene.. If you have a multiplayer setup I would suggest Xplode Man, too..
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-14
13:13:01
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
It's an NTCS? that's an american machine right? I lugged the box of all the computers in today
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Posted By
MMS
on 2016-09-14
18:30:46
 | Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
So Pac-Pac for all! 
Adventures in time is a great game too (almost look real sprite), but there are also other nice recent releases (MOS, MOS2, Xplode man).
Some FLI slideshows really look fantastic on Plus/4. Carrion's releases are just superb.
Games:
There are great list of almost identical converted C64 games (Laser Squad, Elite, Head Over Heels, Wizard of Wor, Choplifter, Into the eagles', , SpyVsSpy, Goonies, etc) also some nice ones from Speccy (UWOL, Sabre Wulf), though the later are just too fast for my reactions. They look almost identical to C64 versions. Look for Mucsi, Csory releases.
If you are interested more in adventures, check out PIGMY's list (find him under "Members"). He converted from C64 dozens of fantastic releases in 100%, like Hobbit, Bard's Tale 3 (nice intro animation, though 4 discside), Tass Times (animated, mouse cursor), Ingrid's back, Borrowed time, and a must to mention: Battle chess. and a lot lot more.
Real Plussy releases (next to the aboves)
TCFS also made some very nice and simple (=easy to play and enjoy) games, with few C64 gfx elements, usually they are very fine games, look like a hybrid of a demo and a game. I like them all. Commando, Hexenkuche, GPC, Speedball, etc, etc
If you look for Csabo's or Luca's prgs, you can find real gems (eg. Quadrillion, a fantastic piece). And a lot others.
-Also worth to mention the MS Excel looking SVS-Calc, from my point of view a fantastic achivement on 8 bit machine.
(sorry if I left out someone important, no intention to hurt or left out anyone important)
-While Plus/4 TED is not a real music machine / synth, it has nice digi capabilities due to higher bit resolution than C64. (someone will correct me, if not)
The toplist on the DEMO side (trackmo or single file demo) are all nice stuff, though I think -technically speaking- we are a little behind the C64 scene, but the FLI pics and the plasmas are all look great on Plussy due to 121 colors palette, can be shown at ones on the screen.
PS
JamesD! Thanks
I am currently working on a little more challenging (and more homogenous looking) slideshow, probably will be called VDC benchmark
(I mean C= Plus/4 rule all the 8 bit machines (from GFX aspect) and we have SID card too, so sound-wise Plussy is the top class too now )
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Posted By
JamesD
on 2016-09-15
02:11:33
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
> JamesD! Thanks
> I am currently working on a little more challenging (and more homogenous looking) slideshow, probably will
> be called VDC benchmark
> (I mean C= Plus/4 rule all the 8 bit machines (from GFX aspect) and we have SID card too, so sound-wise
> Plussy is the top class too now )
Looking forward to it!
The Plus/4 can display some impressive pics, but before you think it's king, check out HiColor pics and video player on the CoCo 3.
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-15
09:18:20
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
What stops Pal games and programs from playing on a NTSC machine? can they load and be too fast/slow or just don't load at all
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Posted By
Mad
on 2016-09-15
10:35:50
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
off:
Interessting.. Didn't know about the coco3 here is a explanation of the technique used there http://users.axess.com/twilight/sock/hicolor/hicolor.html for HiColor. It seems that the interlaced dithering could be a good approach to be used on plus4, too.. I would suppose that it flickers a little even on Coco3.. However having a single color per pixel out of 16 is something I envy the people on other platforms like the CPC, the block mode of the plus4 makes it a little complicated to display 100% pixelcorrect pictures. The plus/4 just has more colors..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL6g7AvbOn0 is a video with one example of the hicolor approach.. However due to interlace it should flicker a lot on a tv..
on:
good luck showing the plus/4 at the club!
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Posted By
MMS
on 2016-09-15
12:21:23
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
off:
nice one, but I think I can challange even this Coco3 Hicolor mode with HFLI 320x200.
As we do not mix 16 color with 16 others, but 121 with 121.
( Imagine if 4 bitmaps could be used by iVarga converter, not the current 2 )
We have interlaced dithering with color map and bitmap interlace, but flickers like hell. (IHFLI)
Though the grid mode of Plussy make it little less flexible than free pixel mode of Coco3, the picture shown on the linked info page is just a normal 16Million color BMP, not a converted one. The Youtube link car is not SO much better than my simple Alfa Brera FLI pic.
(megaoff: as I see that Hicolor sample car uses Floyd Steinberg dithering, that is not my fav. Jarvis and Stucki are much better for less plastic, higher contrast real life photos, and it is utiliized by I.Varga's converter, next to ordered Bayer and Floyd Steinberg. And some members use no dithering at all )
ON
Plus4Emu has a GFX converted that could produce fantactic FLI and interlaced pictured, you can show on the Plussy, as it can save self-executeable, even compressed Files.
So you can choose your most fav photo, and play a little with GFXConvGUI tool, has tons of settings, thereis a preview mode, and if you life the result, just save to a floppy or IECdrive and load it to a real screen. If you have a CRT tv or monitor, the color dithering will look FANTASTIC
(and you can try it on YAPE with CRT emulation, or Plus4Emu in Display setting to put Picture mode 3 and it fully emulated CRT ditehring)
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2016-09-15
12:41:30
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
@Papa_Bear
There are usually two problems with running PAL programs on NTSC machines.
First, these machines can be switched between the two TV systems by setting one single bit in a specific control register of the video IC. The programming practice was simply ignoring this potential incompatibility source. And it is mostly still the same, which makes specific people grumble a bit. So, when you start programs that ignore that difference, you will often get a garbled screen. More so, because in reality it is not enough to set that bit only, an additional component must also be replaced to achieve actual compatibility with the selected TV system.
Second, if a PAL program makes operations long enough that they not finish before the display frame end occurs in an NTSC machine, it may lead to screen control falling out of synchrony with the screen refresh. PAL system has 312 display lines time between two frame ends, while NTSC system has 262 display lines between two frame ends. One line's time may be considered equal in both systems for our purpose. This means that there is 16% less time in an NTSC machine to finish all operations before refreshing the display than in a PAL machine. This may result in screen update glitches.
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-15
14:43:10
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
Crap. What games/software is there that I can show off? Is it possible to run a Pal machine off a projector? or the pal game with a projector? They aren't exactly TV's
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2016-09-15
14:56:03
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
If i were you I clicked Search at the top of the page, typed NTSC in the entry field and clicked the Search button. There should be at least a couple of results that are worthy showing.
The possibility of running a PAL machine depends on the capabilities of the projector you plan to use. You have to check the technical specifications. But where will you get a PAL machine? I thought yours is an NTSC one.
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2016-09-15
15:09:11
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
I am one of those "specific people" who grumbles about ignoring the PAL/NTSC bit. *grumble grumble* 
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-15
15:38:15
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
How do the glitches look will they mess with the internals at all? might be fun to see and acidy drip from it.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2016-09-15
16:03:34
 | Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
This episode recalls to me that while coding my part for Crackers' Demo 5, Csabo suggested to me about completely jump over the main part (yes, that one with the girls) if a NTSC is detected: though the double buffer, it needs rastertime in order to let the sprite run into the whole screen, and I had to be that precise I had to change all the rastertime distribution at any single effect displayed; moreover, there's a FLD moving the bitmaps in and out, obviuously calculated for PAL...
I did a little NTSC testing about the new code I've put down after that release, while still riding that wave. It uses a certain horizontal raster control, and, although I put compatibility stuff here and there, it simply crashes on NTSC :/
Just to say that complex stuff sometimes seriously needs that precise scanline counting, no more and no less than that one :/
I suggest to have a ride on Particles! BBS via Telnet, they have a huge amount of NTSC converted stuff we don't have.
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Posted By
JamesD
on 2016-09-15
16:53:57
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
The important thing here is, the Plus/4 is really one of the best 8 bit machines of it's day if you don't expect it to be a better C64.
If you compare it to the Apple II, which was 2nd in sales only to the C64 with over 7 million sold...
the Plus/4 is faster, has a better BASIC, more RAM available to BASIC, better graphics, better sound, it has almost everything built in that required a card on the Apple II and the Apple II also sold for over 10 times as much.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-09-15
20:12:06
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
Hey Papa_Bear (hopefully you're still checking this thread), just wanted to say that I personally would love to see photos or at least a short report of the event once it has taken place.
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-16
02:35:26
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
RIP We had the meeting one person showed up and we played Strange Oddessy until we died of asphyxiation. Seriously how do you get off of that cliff :P How hard is it to get a tape adapter just got a tape drive for the 64 and the seller lied about having an adapter with it :/
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-09-16
15:43:46
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
Well, a few hours of playing on a Plussy still sounds like success to me
I just added hints and a solution (complete, correct and tested) to Strange Odyssey. Hints are always much more important than the solution itself, so take a look if you still want to play it through.
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Posted By
JamesD
on 2016-09-17
01:45:13
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
Too bad more people didn't show up.
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-17
12:38:10
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
How hard is it to make a homebrew tape adapter? Seller lied and I didn't get the adpater :/ anyways I'd still like to save things off my plus/4
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2016-09-18
08:21:15
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
Sorry, what kind of tape adapter exactly? (E.g., between what and what?)
BTW, have you looked at the cables subsection of the Hardware page? Maybe you can find an idea there.
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Posted By
JamesC
on 2016-09-18
08:57:19
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
Csabo, he needs the flat-to-DIN Datasette cable. I'm not sure if I have any spares ... I moved over the summer and only retained a basic Plus/4 setup.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2016-09-18
16:14:29
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
here you can buy a complete 1531 tested datasette.
http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/Commodore-C2N-~~-1531-Datasette---Tested.-8996
not cheap. On Ebay I found some 1531s too. Just need to check, if it has the proper cable on the picture.
~10Ł + postage.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodore-Datassette-1531-C16-Plus-4-BUY-NOW-1-/231932249835?hash=item36003d46eb:g:7mYAAOSw2x1XKMI~
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Commodore-16-4-1531-Cassette-Datasette-Unit-Black-Unboxed-C16-/371636265450?hash=item56873f61ea
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Posted By
JamesD
on 2016-09-18
17:36:09
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
I have a 3rd party tape drive that was NOS.
It has C64 and Plus/4 connections.
It was also pretty cheap if you can find one.
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-18
20:26:44
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
I spent the last of my cash on the tape drive a tape recorder and a bunch of new tapes. Yes I do need a flat to din. >.<
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Posted By
Papa_Bear
on 2016-09-19
21:06:54
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
So... how hard is it to make that adapter... is it something I could fashion from ductape misc wires and some clay or is it more advanced then that
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Posted By
JamesD
on 2016-09-19
21:19:28
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
You need the DIN plug, could just cut wires off of the old connector, and solder them to the new connector.
I don't have a wiring diagram though.
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Posted By
JamesD
on 2016-09-24
05:08:05
| Re: Hey I've had a N.O.S plus/4 and about to show it off at a club at school
If anyone wants to do something like this again, here are some other slideshows that would work well
http://plus4world.powweb.com/sd.php?pid=13805
http://plus4world.powweb.com/sd.php?pid=14305
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/CPlus4Hires
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/CPlus4Hires_V2
http://plus4world.powweb.com/software/Boray_Pics
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