| Posted By
carrion
on 2020-01-10
13:48:24
 |  C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Hi guys
Forgive me this advertisement but I just wanted to share the news with you.
It's a project I've been working on for some time and finally we are kind of ready to announce it.
C64portal.pl has started operating today. The name suggests c64 only for this portal but we will also write, (in general produce content - like YT films for example) also about C 264 family - which is very important to me. C+4/C116 is my love from childhood till today and is very import part of my commodore experience.
The content will be in polish (unfortunately - sorry) but we will try to make it universal (like YT videos) to everyone. At the end there's always Google translate 
The general plan is to get the whole polish C= community together in one place and we will see how it will work out. My personal plan is to release my future productions (including c+4 stuff) there but Plus4World is still most important part of c+4 scene for me so don't worry... I will be active here too and you all will be experiencing some of my gfx sonner or later. the only difference will be that I will link you to our portal. Hope that's OK
Wish us luck and keep your finger crossed for us to succeed with the project. 2020 is going to be a great year if all the other projects ( ) I have in mind will work out.
With +4 love
Carrion
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Posted By
Luca
on 2020-01-10
13:58:58
 | Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
That's fantastic news indeed! All the best with c64portal.pl.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2020-01-12
11:04:14
 | Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Really nice portal, congrats.
And certainly noticed the great +4 pictures :-)
I tried Manic Miner DX (the only real difference to the original version are the nice musics... (Mountain King and so). With SID card support someone could do the same Manic Miner DX release on +4 ;-) )
This is the first time I could reach level 4 
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Posted By
Mad
on 2020-01-13
04:21:37
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Yeah!! Cool! Congrats for you and that new site!
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Posted By
carrion
on 2020-04-05
05:49:09
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Guys.
I thought It might be interesting to you. We've found a guy nicknamed Ged. He is now member of C64 group Samar and does great Art (go check his CSDB profile).
In 80's he did hi own cover art and maps and such stuff for C64 games. Remember we didn't have such things in shops in 80's in times of iron curtain.
Anyway. I strongly suggest you go to see his gallery on our portal You gonna see how we did maps and such stuff back in 80's. There's also 1st part of interview (in polish) if you are interested but I guess in this case google translate could have some issues to translate realms of 80's in Poland...
Anyway here are the links
GEDs gallery https://c64portal.pl/galerie/gedgallery/
The interview https://c64portal.pl/2020/02/16/gedwywiad1/
[edit] 2020.03.16
As promisswed in other thread I post a link to an article about modern games. There's also a YT video in it. It's in polish unfortunately but you get the idea ;)
One more article and video about games is coming up in upcoming weeks.
https://c64portal.pl/2020/03/15/wspolczesne-gry-na-c-plus-4-niszowo-ale-z-rozmachem/
[edit] 2020.04.05
Guys
The YT video about the C+4 games has now the English subtitles. As well as some other videos on our YT channel. We will try to add subtitles to some videos that may be interested to international audience. Go check it out.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2020-04-05
08:56:52
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Awesome video!
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2020-04-05
09:26:43
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
I'm not quite sure I'm right, but IIRC at one point you say that the Plus/4 is twice as fast as the C64, or at least that's what's in the subtitle. Which is not true. The processor has twenty-odd per cent more clock cycles in a standard frame in the 264 series computers compared to the 64. And that's only true for PAL machines.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2020-04-06
02:01:00
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
OFF
gerliczer,
actually here you are not corrent. Or in special circumstances you are not correct, in case of main use, then correct
As visible in SVS Ultimate Map's last version, you can FORCE the C16 / Plus/4 into a mode where it is >200% of the original C64 speed, without HW modification (just by setting some register bits).
Certainly here you need to switch off the screen, but then you get exactly what was realised on C128 as FAST mode for calculations (2MHz CPU). If I am correct, maybe thr 8501 in this special mode is even faster than the 8502 at 2MHz.
(I believe some decompressors or fastloader used this or similar other mode)
So Plus/4 has a speacial mode 2x faster than the C64. You see nothing, but it exists
As we already speak
6502 had a variant was able to run at 4MHz. Maybe 65C02.
TED provide the clock for the 8501.
There is already a CPU repair kit from some guys (including MCeS) utilizing 65C02 CPU.
What if they would add a swichable frq doubler to the story?
http://www.circuit-finder.com/categories/digital/377/frequency-doubler-with-4011
Then the 65C02 (already lost it's full compatibility with 8501, eh) could be use a turbo speed the C16 with a proper heatsink. As it does not influence the RAM chips (handled by the TED) it could reach the speed of BBC Micro with it's fastest CPU card.
As Pigmy explained me several dosens years earlier, most of the jobs during the converted games need to be done at the border time.
The CPU is fastest here, you does not need to share the memory with TED, higher clock rate (given by the TED).
The software sprite (Tass Times), the SID FRQ emulation done by him here. I suppose by all programmers. If SW sprite or moving object update happens during screen area, the vibrations wiln happen.
So all these calculations have to fit into the border time to do not interfere/influence screen data and drawing.
What if the 264 CPU would may have 2x more calculation potential? What could be possible?
-Bigger SW sprites could be used?
-Higher sampling rate of SID emulation? or you can do something next to SID digi emu (as CPU now is almost 100% utilized)
-Real FLI? (change colors and luminance int every rasterline, not only at every second line (DFLI) ?
(AFAIK then Larry's first FLI slideshows would look great, as initially he forced the same mode as available on C64)
You know, I am just a dreamer, not an executor or a developer. Just have different ideas.
But it sounds logical, that double CPU power would open new possibilities on the 264 series, even with the currently available applications.
And at my amateur level it seems it does not need major redesign of an available board, but just adding few cheap components on the existing board (though it also means redesign, but only small components, they may fit).
Certainly it means new incompatibilities or just variations (next to SID card, 1551/1541/SD), but the CPU version could be identified from SW and may or may not utilize the additional CPU power (eg single or double precision SID digi sampling rate).
Or I am completely wrong? Would it kill the memory handling or the screen?
HW experts, please help me here
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2020-04-06
04:50:19
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Hi MMS,
As the statement was generic, I'm right. If I remember correctly what the statement was.
Doubling the CPU clock frequency will not improve anything. Especially not the hard fact that TED needs two badlines to load character/colour or chroma/luma data. And simply doubling the clock frequency will result in completely erratic operation. Unless you replace the memory subsystem on the motherboard with one that is compatible with the original for TED and with the double speed for the CPU at the same time. Which is actually doable, although possibly a quite hard nut to crack. But why would anyone do it? Especially with the incompatible 65C02.
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Posted By
Mad
on 2020-04-06
08:59:49
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Hi MMS and gerliczer
Not quite sure have to look in the video.. But if it really says that our computer is doubled as fast, then I would say that's wrong too..
I heard several times that the computer is a lot more powerful than the C64..
The 20% more in the normal case aren't that much difference. As programmer you have to see how you manage anything including software sprites and so on if you do stuff on the Plus/4. The 20% really don't make a big difference.
What is a lot more convenient on the Plus/4 is the graphics memory.
That's a real plus.
On the C64 you have 2 times the ROM charset visible in the graphics memory and other weird things to cope with. And you can do double or tripple buffering on the Plus/4..
And yes if you turn off the screen then you can do calculations at 2 time the speed to the normal mode, which is quite cool, too! For instance you can decrunch things doubled as fast :)..
EDIT: Bubis has already an TED X-Scroll feature coded. If we would have X and Y scrolling, then the scrolling of a screen in any direction would take very very few cycles.. So we would've got complete scrolling of bitmap screens including colorram for free.. Which would also be a big advantage :). On C64 that (the "Agsp") effect does scramble the RAM on some machines and needs too shorten the visible bitmap area.. FLI on C64 also shortens the screen..
Anyways the C64 is a great machine, too.. It's much easier to code "arcade" games with it, "anyone" can do that..
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Posted By
MMS
on 2020-04-06
17:46:22
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Back to the original post: I watched the video, it was great (English subtitle was really helpful for me :-) )
It was a well balanced overview on the games.
Seeing them all together easy to see the step-by-step technical innovations done by the team.
The last games from the BKN team are 8 bit consol quality, and noone expected that from a stock machine that was "mocked" by the press badly "Is it a joke?"
All of these games are a gem, but the later ones are more polished. :-)
Maybe one point was missed when MOS and Lands of Zador "MOS2" compared: I feel the graphics became more colorful and enjoyable in the later one, I see big efforts made here.
While in MOS the main sprite and the background colors sometimes matches (due to shared, and limited number of colors on a screen), at least on the first stage, in Zador the sprite is always outstanding from the background, and it provides a more "console" immersion. It requires a lot of attention and planning on the details by the team. Certainly the fluid scrolling is a great extra, and the more complex gameplay too (adventure tasks).
Pet's Rescue is really on a different level, I really have no idea how even that soft sprite was put on the screen without color collision as it alone has 3 colors.
Hat off to all the developers, everything it top notch!
Thank you for the review, it was a great time watching it.
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Posted By
carrion
on 2020-04-07
09:14:46
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Guys...
What a discussion started here. Wow. So many new information to me so I have to read it again and slower
Now, regarding my video I was almost sure it's twice as fast as 6510 in c64. I was clearly wrong. Which brings me to this conclusion that what we see in the mentioned games is even more impressive
Thanks for clarifications.
@MMS
Thanks for kind words. My pleasure.
I have 2 other articlkes/videos planned regarding the C+4. One is about other modern games grom MajickEjrick (if I spell it right) the other one about creating graphics. I will inform you when ready.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2020-04-07
18:32:24
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
@carrion, go on, i will definitely watch it Thank you in advance.
New games are interesting
To see how you create graphics, would be VERY interesting.
@gerliczer:
I see your point, but I do not really see, why the double speed CPU would require completely new memory subsystem.
I would not change the TED clock frequency, just doubling the frq given to the CPU.
"TED has a higher priority on DRAM access then the CPU. Thus in the borders the CPU must be able to run at full system clock, but in the pixel area it is throttled down to half the clock rate."
If the half clock rate it is 1.76MHz (as on the border previously) it is exacly the speed how the CPU managed in the original configuration the memory at the borders.
Then the border time coming with 3,5 MHz. 6502's official highest clock rate was 3MHz. BBC Micro utilized 4MHz 65C02 cooprocessor, but had faster RAM chips with no shared memory (it was pretty fast).
But MCeS already has the solution, and I already use it as my 64K in C16: SRAM for the TED, that is definitely much faster, than the DRAMs, and it is just next to TED (no memory subsystem need to be rerouted):
Also worth to mention, that the 65C02 card could be more compatible than supposed (I do not own one), during tests behaved the same as 8501 even with fastloaders:
https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=71571&sid=15ba4db8ef33c165c9f66396b141a96c
I think using a faster compatible processor should not be a "blasphemy" on +4, it was widely used in BBC Micros, AppleII, and even C64 had turbo card and had a Z80 card to run CP/M.
(sorry for the OFF)
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Posted By
carrion
on 2021-05-16
07:04:39
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Just wanted to let you know that in addition to running C64portal.pl I kind of thought of reactivating my personal blog where I can put my stuff. c64portal is kind of polish community related.
so here's retronavigator.com reactivated.
https://retronavigator.com
Oh and 2 new pics are released there. go grab them
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Posted By
Luca
on 2021-05-16
07:50:47
| Re: C64portal.pl has started - and it's not only c64 :)
Ooooh, finally Retronavigator's back, this makes me very happy!  Go on, carrion!
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