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16K Democompo Reminder
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-30
Commodore 16 DemoCompoDon't forget that Lavina's 16K DemoCompo is just one month away! For those who don't know: you have to write a demo that will run on an unexpanded, stock Commodore 16. The entries will be shown at a party, the location is yet to be determined. If you are planning on attending, then this is the time to cast your vote. Besides the 16K democompo, there will also be a 128 byte(!) democompo. The idea is to code a demo in 128 bytes(!). To give you an idea on how small that is, the text of this news entry is about 4 times that much! Should be fun to watch.

Remember, the success of this compo, and the future of the scene depends on how much YOU get involved. So put aside whatever projects you are working on, it's still not to late to create a piece of art and submit it for this compo.

Visit the Gotu Homepage for more details.


Spid-R-man Cover and Manual!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-30
Crown sent us the cover picture and the original manual for the C16 version of Spiderman. It's cool stuff! Among other things, it has descriptions of all those copyrighted charaters The manual explains the basics of adventuring, and has a list of useful words. It also speaks of the planned 12 Questprobes, but as we all know, only the first three were made. Check it out!


8 Covers From Mosh!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-24
MONKEY MONKEY MONKEY! Yes, this is the Monkey Magic Commodore 16 Game CoverMosh has answered our request for the missing covers, and sent us a few that finally close some the series. Triple Decker 4 (and a better quality Triple Decker 2) means that series is complete. We also have the Killapede cover, which means every Players release has one. Hurray!

Defence 16 and Stellar Wars - Blitz (a compilation tape from CBM) are also new.

Finally these are from Solar Software: Suicide Run, Winnie Witch's Superbroom and yes, Monkey Magic. This latter one is an interesing read. "Realistic Sound?" Well, that's a matter of opinion... It also speaks of a Quest 2 coming soon (and according to the cover this IS quest 1) - which was never made. This makes it 9 out of 16 Solar game covers... Many thanks to Mosh for his contribution!


More Covers! (Who Would Have Thought?)
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-23
Cartridge Triple PackAs the rappers would say "And you don't stop..." Well, we didn't. So here are a few more covers for your visual pleasure. We kick off with the original release of Hollywood Poker, coming straight from Master Lando's collection. It's huge and beautiful... Look at those Amiga screens... Khm, anyway, where was I? We've also found an Auriga cover laying around, and with these two added, we have 11 out of the 12 covers of Players games. The last one missing is Killapede - let's hope someone has it.

We have the Bomb Jack cover and the Encore re-release cassette cover for Commando C16. These were kindly donated by Ulysses777. He has also made some pretty good scans (or photos?) of the Cartridge Triple Pack box, another beauty.

Finally check out the alternative cover for Robin to the Rescue. If you count Triple Decker 5, then that's 3 different covers for this one game... Amazing... Or not. Many thanks to everyone who sent in the covers, and keep them coming!


www.monkeyheaven.com
Posted by MIK on 2003-07-23
Monkey Heaven is a tribute site of the cult classic TV series Monkey and they have paid tribute to our now famed C16/Plus4 version of Monkey Magic thanks to Warren Pilkington (wazzaw from our forum)!! He has also cooked up his very own neat set of cheats to help you on your quest and will also be sending a very cool replacement cover for Monkey Magic our way in the very near future! So until then head on over to Monkey Heaven and check their own slice of Monkey Magic Commodore 16/Plus4 style!


Cover Mania Continues!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-22
This time it's Mosh who sent us some rare stuff to fill in the holes in our game cover collection. We have the covers for Flight Zero-One-Five, and original release of Tower of Evil, and the Melbourne House release of Fighting Warrior. Many thanks for these!

We have also added a big batch of not-so-good quality covers. Here they are: Berks, Cuthbert in the Cooler, Harbour Attack, Kingsoft Sport Show, Monkey Magic, Starcross, Suicide Run and Triple Decker 2. These are clearly marked as temporary, and we are hoping that someone will come along and make some REAL scans of these. So please keep the submissions coming!


4 New Classic Covers!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-21
Thanks to the secret tape stash of Ulysses777, our cover collection received these new additions: Danger Zone, Wolf Pack, Xargon's Revenge. Also we have the cover for Triple Decker 3. This particular release series from Alternative Software Limited is slowly filling up too, but we are still missing 2 and 4. Many thanks to Ulysses777 for these high quality scans, and stay tuned as we have a few more covers coming soon.

Danger ZoneWolf PackXargon's RevengeTriple Decker 3


5 New Tape Covers!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-16
Lavina hunted down 5 covers for our collection. While they may not be the best of quality, it's still good to have them, especially with the addition of Quick Draw, which is the first cover we have for the letter Q. If you happen to have larger or better quality versions of these (or other covers we are missing), don't hesitate to send them in!

3D GlooperGremlinsQuick DrawTriple Decker 5Space Freeks


New Game: Fast Food!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-16
New Commodore Plus/4 Game: Fast FoodWe are proud to announce that Skoro of Assassins alias Gábor Varga has created and released a new game for you to play and vote on: Fast Food! It's a maze/action type game, Skoro called it a Nostalgia game. You control a dizzy like character, and you have to find and eat all the food while the baddies try to catch you. This new software of course it is absolutely free of charge! What more could you want? :-) Go and check it out now!


Commodore 16 User Manual (Scan Format)!
Posted by MIK on 2003-07-16
Commodore 16 User ManualThis is a great and unique opportunity for those of you who are in desperate need to catch up on the ins and outs of the beloved Commodore 16! The offical Manual that came with the C16 has been scanned by Mosh (a regular visitor of Plus4 Wolrd) for your viewing pleasure. Every page from this bible is there in its full glory and what must have taken a life time to scan at that!

Although the manual doesn't cover everything, it does offer all the basics and reminders of how to get the best out of your beast. To newcomers and emulation only users this scan archive will be a valuable download indeed. Don't forget that what you learn from this can be used without question on a Commodore Plus/4. Many thanks to Mosh for having the patiences to scan this useful book. Cheers!
Download: C16 User Manual.zip 10Mb


3 More Scener Pictures!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-14
NukemanLavina got us three more pictures for the Faces of the Scene gallery (which now has 69 pictures): Action of GOTU, Brazil and last but not least Nukeman. Nukeman used to be a central member of the scene, good friend to many. He visited Hungary lots of times and even helped out Hungarian scene members by providing them with hardware equipment. Nuke, if you are reading this, please contact us!


(Game) Solutions Section Opens!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-14
As you must have already, we are expanding. Here's something new: a solution, hint sheet and a map for the game Salvage. This stuff belongs to our new section: (Game) Solutions. Here we will collect the hints, maps and complete and partial solutions for all the games - an adventurer's dream! You will notice that to start out we don't have that many, but your submissions should help. There are a few good ones there already, e.g. check out our exclusive solution for the C16 version of Finders Keepers.

We know that there are many other sites that carry solutions for C64 or other versions of our games. However, we don't want to simply just copy/paste their stuff (especially since there sometimes differences between the game versions). But those can give you tips, and help you to write your own solution. Even more important than the solutions are the hint sheets: these can answer those tricky questions, and still lets the player finish the game on his/her own, without spoiling the experience. So if you have any maps, hints or other stuff that belongs here, send it to us! Enjoy.


Forever Plus/4 Emulator V1.19!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-11
What's "Forever" you say? The answer is in this nice letter we received from Litwr. Read on, it's going to be interesting...
I decided to inform you about the new release of my C+4 emulator. In 1997 I stopped the development of my emulator for 3 reasons: (1) I understood that I couldn't achieve 100% performance on my 486DX4-120, (2) I got the VICE emulator from the internet and thought that VICE team will soon :-) create the perfect emulator for any Commodore and for any platform (3) I had too much work.

In 2002 I decided to place all the files for my emulator on the internet and just forget about them. But after that I got a letter from Attila Grósz and soon his great enthusiasm made it impossible for me to abandon my old project.

By 2003 I completely forgot most of the details of my program. I wrote it in a very tricky way, trying to achieve maximum performance. This year during my holidays I spent some time and gave it a more modern look.

I released two files to download, available at http://litwr.boom.ru
p4_119.zip - sources, DOS-executables, documentation, and some extras
cbm264a.zip - boot 3.5" disk image with FreeDOS, PLUS4.EXE, C+4 programs (46 games, 5 demos, 2 cartridges, and 2 other programs), and several appropriate DOS utilities.

I think this release of my emulator has several strong points:
  • it's the fastest
  • it comes with free source code (under GPL)
  • it can use Ad Lib FM sound synthesis which produces better quality non-digital music
  • it's most compatible - it even runs on any Intel 80x86 processor (P200 or faster) based PC with floppy disk drive and standard VGA card.
  • last point shows that my emulator may exists for a relatively long time without maintenance and maintainers (I know several good programs for Linux which disappeared without regular support, situation for Microsoft Windows is well known)
  • for some games (like Xcellor8) it's still the best for emulation of the scrolling effects.


I am going to completely rewrite my TED subroutine which contains some bugs that can't be simply corrected, and if I can find time in the future then I plan to add many other improvements. Also maybe sometime I will port my emulator to Linux (there is only one problem - time).

I'm sending this message to you as to a key figure of the former +4 users world so that you can properly inform others about this event :-). I created my emulator as single user (community of +4 users in Russia was very small even in the late 1980th) for my private use and don't know how to inform others about my results. By the way, I only found out about the wide spread of C+4 in Hungary at the end of the 90s... I bought my computer and programs in 1987 in Poland.

This is the first version of my emulator with a name. It needs one, because now it is not so lonely as it was in 1997... So I called it 'Forever' :-).
Well, now you all know. Even WindowsXP and 2000 users can use the bootdisk he provided to run the emulator - it works! He also requested that we'd mirror the files on his site. So visit the Tools section to download your copy.


4 New Scene Pictures!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-10
We have received some pictures from various guys. TLC sent us a newer picture of Fecoshy of MTV. Ati (not the YAPE author) has taken two photos at a meeting at Budapest a few weeks back, here they are: W-Man and Murphy, W-Man, Murphy, Tiger and Lacoste. Finally through Lavina we've put our hands on a picture of Pigmy maestro himself! Thanks guys for these cool pictures!


YAPE V0.49 Has Arrived!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-10
YAPE running CorruptionThat's right, the fresh new YAPE is here. Several new things and improvements as usual, most notably full 1551 emulation. This means that all those 1551-only Csory adventures are now playable! :-)

Head on over to YAPE Homepage to download your copy! Congratulations to Gaia for creating the Best Plus/4 Emulator.


5 New Educational Taps!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-09
Lacus kindly sent us another big batch of Novotrade TAPs, complete with their covers! These are all in Hungarian, and they were used as educational tools in elementary schools (probably why the cover artwork is plain). This brings up our cover total to 317! Many thanks to Lacus! Here they are:



More SceneCon Party Pictures!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-08
The Trophy for 2nd place on SceneCon Retro CompoWe have received TLC's batch: 28 more pictures from this party... Once again check out our Features section! On the left is the trophy that the creators of Metapharstic received for the 2nd Place of SceneCon Retro Compo. Nice, isn't it? Makes a Plus/4 scener proud :-) Thanks guys for the pictures!

Also check out the official results and download all releases from here: SceneCon 2003


SceneCon Party Pictures!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-07
The Plus/4 Scene at SceneCon 200326 of them! Lavina has taken a whole bunch on the party, and he has sent it to us. To properly display them, we've opened yet another new section here at Plus/4 World, simply called Features. We will use this to publish any stuff, that doesn't fit into any of the already existing pages (articles, galleries, etc).

From these party pics we have gained 5 more additions to the Faces of the Scene gallery: old school graphics artist Jeva of MB, hardware guru BSZ and digi guru Sensor of NST, coder-extraondinaire Murphy of GS. The 5th one is Jimy of EDC, which we got from MC. We now have 64 pictures! Thanks for the stuff guys, and go look at that gallery already so that you can get into that wonderful party-vibe, even if you couldn't attend!


SceneCon Report
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-06
This is MC of EDC reporting events of SceneCon2003.

This party has been held at Salgótarján, northern Hungary between 4th and 6th of July. I got up at 4 o'clock in the morning this Saturday to get the first train to Budapest, where I've met TLC of Coroners to be given a lift to Salgótarján. TLC has been also giving a lift for Coyote and his wife. Salgótarján is something like the end of the world, it is absolutely hard to approach, so it is a lousy location for a party... We were wandering around the small town for a whole hour to find the location Traveling from Budapest to our destination was also funny, because TLC got fined twice in 15 minutes. First for some licenses not being current, second for driving too fast. (The policeman's question to TLC: "Hey Mr. Hársfalvi, have you seen that flash?" became a real adage that day ) 5 minutes later TLC's car lost one of its wheel trims. We were absolutely ROTFL about these unfortunate events. Lavina was already at the partyplace when we have finally arrived around 12 o'clock. Bubis arrived an hour later, then came Murphy. Sadly we didn't manage to finish any kind of release for the compo, but Beast and Lavina saved the day: they were working hard in the previous days, and put together several parts with cool effects. We have accidentally met BSZ & Sensor of NST and the all-famous Jeva at the party!! Both BSZ and Sensor agreed to join the scene revival, so i hope we'll hear about them soon!

Later, during the party Lavina, TLC and bubis were struggling to substitute the TED music in Lavina's trackmo to a SID one. They finally made it, but the music was not really appropriate: slow and short with a long pause at the end. We had other problems, but the demo was finally presented to the audience, and it was a success. Apparently most people were absolutely surprised to see a Commodore Plus/4 up and running Bubis and Murphy presented their cool FLI graphical modes, and the sceners were stoned "Much better than C64" and "F*ck yeah" were typical reactions. At around 4 o'clock in Sunday morning, results were announced. The Beast + Lavina production made the second place in retrodemo category, Csabo's multichannel track got 3rd place!

I send my greetings and congratulations to everyone involved in these activities that finally showed that our little scene is alive once again! Lots of pictures were made, I hope they will be uploaded soon.


Sqij Covers and Soundtrack!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-04
We now have high quality coverscans for this old game: Sqij. As the cover boasts, the original tape actually contained a free audio track from H.E.X., or House Electronic Xperience. Now we can all enjoy (or, at least listen to ) this tune! The full version is not less than 5 minutes long, and it's a 4.5 Mb download, so we've created a shorter version as well, which only plays the first minute and is a bit lower in quality. Still it's only a 535 Kb download which should be easier on modem users, and it will give you the idea.

If you look at those cover scans carefully, it speaks of an upcoming conversion of the C64 game The Equalizer. Never happened, as far as we know it...

Many thanks to Lavina for the scans and the soundtrack!


Sorcerer With Pictures!
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-03
The Sorcerer of Claymore CastleWe are happy to announce the arrival of a new conversion for the Plus/4: The Sorcerer of Claymore Castle is here. This is the 13th in the Scott Adams Adventure series. While the game is essentially the same as the commercial C16 text only release: The Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle (note the different spellings!), this release was converted from the C64 version and so it has pictures as well. This marks the 17th new release for this year: last year we had 41, and it's already July! So everyone, follow the example and start releasing stuff. Enjoy!


4 New Taps and Covers
Posted by Csabo on 2003-07-02
Thanks to Pigmy and Crown, our collection has received 4 more original Hungarian programs, complete with TAP images and cover scans. They are Angol Teszt, Magyar Abc and Assembler. Finally we have a real gem: Mestopri, a language education tool, which is completely in Russian. Thanks guys!

Angol TesztMagyar ABCAssemblerMestopri

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