It's the last day of the year once again, and so comes our traditional year end review. Let's see what happened in the last 365 days in the world of the Plus/4.
In the Emulator arena YAPE continues to dominate, with six new updates it is now up to version 0.70. Forever was also updated twice: for the DOS platform it's simple the best. VICE is also still being updated, no big improvements on the Plus/4 front though. Emulation of machine has also extended to a few more platforms: Gaia released Pocket Commodore Plus/4 for the PocketPC, and YAPE was ported to the PSP.
Our collection grows, we're still adding cover scans and information. There were no big changes or newcomers in terms of websites this year, other than stuff for XeO3. This leads us into...
Software. Looking at the statistics is somewhat promising, we had 45 releases (up by two from last year, yay!). No new big-scale games just yet, but XeO3 and Bomberman previews were in the news (which one of you said vaporware?). We also had a few older games found/released and a few basic games off the Club Info disks. In the world of diskmags, Club Info, Lone News and Lamer News are still kicking. On the forefront of utilities is SVS, who just put out version 3.0 of Bal-Sys. Finally we have demos: there was 8 Shades Of Black, the C16 trackmo, an excellent community effort, something for us to be proud of. Monopsy 2, Oldschool, TED Storm and Roeddelroemp also amazed us and broke into our Top List.
Thanks to everyone in the community for the coding, the collecting, the feedback, just being here and keeping the Plus/4 alive. All the best for 2007!
BalSys new release 3.0
Posted by SVS on 2006-12-29
A new powerful release of Bal-Sys have just arrived from SVS, with a lot of improvements and new features. Go to here to download your copy!
Main news of release 3.0: - Massive data commands (sampler till 1450 Hz, automatic graphic generator, fast data statistics, etc.) - Online Helper (contextual or on-demand) by a large RELative file; overlayed help window; opportunity to maintain the help window while coding (all the screen objects are automatically scaled) - System memory is expanded to 8192 (double than previous one) - New commands and improvements of already existing ones - System can be loaded from any device unit (for example drive #9) - A new independent background line (the 4th!) - Updated and revised manual - A demo and sampler BAL programs to try - ... and much, much more!
Erich of Unlimited sent us the new Club Info: the German language diskmag for the Commodore Plus/4. Side A is for the articles, while the other has some new stuff: recently released demos, a few utils and even new games. One of the games is Kristall, which looks pretty interesting. Check it out and enjoy!
Yape/SDL ported to the PSP!
Posted by Gaia on 2006-12-02
Good news for PSP (Playstation Portable) owners. A guy called ZX81 has recently ported Yape's older SDL version to the Sony PSP. For the announcement head on over to the homepage at http://zx81.zx81.free.fr/serendipity. There's also an ongoing discussion on the forum here.
Note that although this is a very old version it should work fine with most of the games nevertheless.
Two recovered pieces of software by Dr. Death
Posted by Luca on 2006-11-30
The call is still the same: let's clear out the chest of our past memories! And Dr. Death/TEK did it too, rooting out a couple of forgotten codes. The first one is TEKblah, a simple but cute onefiler demo that hadn't got the luck to be included in Brainwash megademo. The other retrieval is Columns (TEK), the well known classic game in a new coloured and neat appearance. Both with original TED sound tunes, composed by Elvis.
3 New Cover Scans
Posted by Csabo on 2006-11-28
Sidius sent us three new cover scans for the collection. They are pretty rare ones! First up is: Punchy. This one probably raises a few eyebrows - this game was thought to be released only on The Commodore 16 Showcase. We do have a cover scan though for a German release. Next up is the box of Rug Rider from Tri-Micro. Finally we have Split Personalities, another rare, but fun game from Domark - probably their only release ever. Check them out! Respects to Sidius.
New Megademo Released!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-11-19
What a glorious day: out of nowhere comes the Assassin crew, dropping nothing less than a full megademo on our unsuspecting demoscene. Skoro crunched 12 parts (and a notefile) onto one diskside and called it Oldschool. As the name suggests, it's the traditional press-space-to-load-the-next-part format. There are some very nice effects and beautiful graphics waiting for you, so download it now, and immerse yourself in that fuzzy feeling of watching a new production. The music requires SID card. Enjoy!
Commodore Demoscene DVDs Released
Posted by Csabo on 2006-11-16
Now that both the Plus/4 and 64 DVDs are sold out, Lacoste/Wilds released them for download for free. The DVD downloads are generously hosted by scene.org. You can grab the high-resolution covers from our site, e.g. to print your own DVD covers. Enjoy, and cheers to Lacoste for his work!
Erich sent us another morsel of news, satisfying the hunger of the release-hungry demo-lovers. Data-Land created a new picture collection, called Galerie Unlimited 4. It's the 4th in this series (duh), featuring ripped and converted pictures, using the Magica driver. Check it out!
Bomberman: 2' Alpha Stage video
Posted by Luca on 2006-11-05
Hey hey hey! It seems that we are very close to a final release, for this one, that appears to become one of the best ever. No code, graphics or music had been stolen from other systems: Bomberman boasts neat code that moves up to 4 players with smart AI, original arcade-ish graphics and, last but not least, a secret musician!
You can follow the final steps of this cool project on the official Absence+Wildshomepage.
YAPE 0.69 Out!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-10-30
Fresh off the compiler, Gaia just released the new version of the popular Commodore Plus/4 emulator, YAPE. This latest one is mostly a bugfix release, taking care of a several problems. Improved stability and usability for free - this is a must download as usual. For a full list of issues, head on over to the YAPE homepage.
Some new cover scans for some Kingsoft and Anco utilities, starting with Micro Kalk, which now has the full cover and instructions (in German), as well as a TAP image. Next is Micro Datei, which also has the cover and instructions, as well as a TAP image of version 1.1 of this utility. Next is Turbo Tape, which also has instructions and a TAP image, as we as an alternative front cover. The last is the Anco release of the Turbo Plus cartridge, for which we have the front cover and instructions. Enjoy!
New Box Scans!
Posted by Ulysses777 on 2006-10-22
Some new box scans today, all from Commodore utilities. First up is Financial Advisor, followed by Micro Illustrator (along with a download of the original disk image that also works on the C64) and finally Logo. There's also a download of the Logo Utilities Disk available (found on the main Logo page), which contains useful Logo procedures and demonstration programs. Take a look!
Beta5 for Exomixer 2.0
Posted by Luca on 2006-10-09
Time to update your prefer 6502 machines cross cruncher: Exomizer 2.0 reaches its beta5 incarnation, that brings forward crunching support as main improvement, beside several bugfixes. We never will thank too much its father Magnus Lind for this pretty handy code.
Copy-REL v2
Posted by SVS on 2006-10-09
A new version of Copy-REL was released by SVS/FIRE. The lone known utility able to copy/move a RELative file, with current version is even able to modify the record lenght.
As usual the download of this routine is available from Emucamp and from Cbm264 (zipped) sites.
O-oh, look at my mailbox,there's a postal envelope in it. Hey a disk inside! And in the disk...the latest issue of Club Info! Erich/Unlimited sent me issue 95, with its load of helpful text and all the newer software from the German side. Take a look in the New Stuff area to spot all the fresh programs.
Keep going, Erich, the 100 issues goal is very close now!
First XeO3 demo available now!
Posted by Luca on 2006-09-29
After 6 slow and alternate years, you're now able to see the whole stuff moving! Mike Dailly, and Luca are proud to show you the very first XeO3demo, that would be the symbolic gates introducing the whole project into an advanced phase.
We strongly suggest you to try it on the original hardware, for a better output in both visual and music. If you're not able to run the demo on the real Plus/4, you need to set this minimum configuration on latest version of YAPE emulator: - 64Kbytes, any machine; - SIDcard emulation at $FD40, new chip 8580, TEDclock.
We didn't have any new coverscans in a while, so it's time for some fresh stuff. C16 Chris sent us two more rare covers. These are once again Italian re-release covers from Soft, the originals are from Tynesoft. They are for Lawn Tennis (Tennis) and Raffles. Check them out and enjoy!
Forever Plus/4 Emulator Updated!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-09-24
Litwr sent us word that he updated his excellent Forever Plus/4 Emulator, it's now version 1.34. He made big advances in terms of accuracy. In his own words: "It can run all programs except those with turbo-loaders and with super-tricky ones like 42/50/52-chars screen". While turbo loaders are common, the second category means only a handful of software.
Please note that this software now has a new host, so follow the new link and update your bookmarks. Cheers to Litwr for keeping the Russian Plussy front alive!
Csio sent us the weirdest release announcement ever. It looks like the folks at Absence are gearing up to crunch out a new game(?), called DynaBlasta. You can find out more details (or not) by watching "Hakker i Krakker Stories", a short film (13MB avi file). Head on over to krakkerihakker.uw.hu. (This program contains coarse language. Viewer discretion is advised.)
Yape V0.68 is out!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-09-10
Gaia did it again! The newest YAPE literally speaks: it has true Toshiba 6721 speech LSI emulation (that was built into the V364, the Plussy's big brother). This opens up a lot of possibilities - when YAPE introduced SID emulation, a lot of the demos started using the SID (usually exclusively), even though a lot of sceners don't have SID cards. Does this mean speech or V364 specific demos will start turning up? Only time will tell.
Also from the same author, Pocket Commodore plus/4 has been updated to version 1.1 Cheers to Gaia for his continued groundbreaking work!
Let's poking around your pocket...
Posted by Luca on 2006-09-07
Our campaign continues: get your floppies out from the dusty corner, and bravely begin hunting for lost software! Chronos did it, and spotted a whole forgotten one side demo: Total Lethargy. Into the same diskside, other gems were hidden: Muffpacker 2 is an improved version of a well know packer, now with NTSC boost option; Teknointro is a quickly coded disk intro, lost someday somewhere, and now bobbed up; finally, we have issue one of Paprita magazine, that wedges in to complete the series. Poking around your pockets to spot forgotten stuff, is a healthy sport, preserve you mind against getting old, and makes you happy all the day. Do it!
VICE 1.20 released
Posted by Ulysses777 on 2006-09-04
A few days late with this news, but VICE (Versatile Commodore 8-bit emulator) has been updated to 1.20. This new version brings some updates to the Plus/4 emulation with support added for the 256K Csory expansion, and 256K, 1024K and 4096K Hannes expansions. For downloads and more information, head over to the VICE website.
VolksFORTH reaches version 3.80.1
Posted by Luca on 2006-08-19
VolksFORTH is a 16bit Forth System produced by the german Forth Gesellschaft e.V., that has become a multiplatform project including C16/Plus4 machines. On the official page, you'll able to get anything you could need to manage with it: cross/target-compiler, multitasker, decompiler, assembler, disassembler and full sourcecode.
The people who coded it, just wrote that the're still on the keys in order to finish Version 3.90. We're looking forward for it then.
8 Shades of Black - the official release!
Posted by Luca on 2006-08-19
Look at the thumbnail on the right: don't you see that something has been added to the blisterpack, uh? After two weeks and half since the party version had been released, it's time to have the official one! That's 8 Shades of Black as we'd originally pictured in our minds, with one part more (by Murphy, with gfx by Beast), and some minor fixes. And, well, I have to admit that all this delay can be considered as "well spent", because the additional part is another killer one!
We have only begun to win, that's simply a starting point!
Two Rare Coverscans from Mosh!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-16
Mosh sent us two new coverscans for our collection. Gameworx Software (later renamed Softgold) out of Melbourne released 8 adventure games. We now have the first cover scan for this series: it's for Thermo Nuclear War Games. The cover itself doesn't bear any platform markings (more than likely they re-used them for the C64 release as well), the C=16 sticker is on the outside of the clam shell case. Only 7 more to go!
The second cover is another rare one; and a bit of a surprise - at least for the hardcore collectors who keep up with the releases. Starter Chess, the classic C=16 chess game was previously thought to be released only as part of the well known Commodore 16 Showcase collection. This new cover hover disproves that theory: it was released as an individual release after all, by Commodore Australia. Will wonders never cease? Check out these covers, big thanks to Mosh!
5 New Italian Re-release Scans!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-08
C16 Chris sent us more Italian release cover scans. They come from Armati and Top30. The new scans are: Centipede (Spectipede), Petals Of Doom, Skramble, Tycoon Tex and finally a compilation tape: Zap-em Supergran. These are nice additions to our ever growing collection of scans, big thanks to C16 Chris for them!
More Faces Of The Scene (Again)!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-06
We've added 3 more portaits to the Faces of the Scene gallery. Larry/WLS, the first coder to display a picture on the sideborder, OLS a graphician from GS and Britelite. This brings the total number of portraits to 107. Thanks for Lacoste for hunting these down!
Two Coverscans From Sidius!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-06
Sidius found two more Italian re-release compilations. These come from Savage Software: Stellar Wars / Berks LM and Scacchi / Black Jack. According to their product codes, these are numbers 004 and 010 respectively. This also gives us a hint, that there's probably more unknown tapes to be found out there, even besides the few that we know that existed but don't have. Each tape includes two games and we've also added the program downloads for all 4 programs. Thanks to Sidius for these! Enjoy!
New Graphics Box Release!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-05
The GOTU team, one of the last remaining demogroups on our scene was sadly absent from 8 Shades Of Black. However, they have now returned with their first release of the year: Harry Gfx Box 6! This latest piece in the Harry Gfx Box series has 5 full size hand-pixelled multicolor pictures waiting for you. Check it out! Cheers to the remaining active people, let's see more releases!
We now have 104 pictures in the Faces of the Scene gallery. Recently added were Cooler and Oby, from the Hungarian demogroup Wilds (thanks to Lacoste for the pics). We also dug up a picture of Elf/PTA from the rulez party image archive. If you visit the Members listing page, there's a new column indicating if the member already has a picture or not. Enjoy!
Club Info 94 Released!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-03
Erich/Unlimited sent us the latest issue of Club Info: issue 94 is here. The German diskmag is full of new articles as usual, while side B has goodies. Among them are Sudoku, the first and (so far) only Sudoku solver on Plus/4, it's actually quite impressive. There's also Anaconda, another one of those PETSCII movie demos, an interesting watch. Check out the rest in the New Stuff section.
The Face of Degauss
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-02
Degauss (AKA. Dr. Death, THE coder from Germany) has made it to our Faces of the Scene album! We now have quite a crowd, his portait being number 101 in the list. Go there and check it all out: for those who are really a part of this community, it's nice to put a face to a name.
Also head on over to ftp://c64.rulez.org/pub/plus4/Parties/ for all the Arok #8 photos you can handle! And if you haven't done it already, send your photo in, so that we can add it.
A Few Oldies From Csio
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-02
Csio dug up a few missing demos from his disks and sent it our way. Check out Brutyo, Fascinating, Matrix Digibox and Sure Shot. A few of these were created under the fake handle Derrick (which is also Csio). It's always nice to get lost pieces of work - the collection grows, steadily as ever. Enjoy!
8 Shades Of Black Released!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-08-01
The moment you've been waiting for has arrived: 8 Shades Of Black (8SoB) is available for download. This is the "party version", containing everything there is except Murphy's part.
So how can we describe this production? I think "demo of the year" is a fair statement. There are 10 polished amazing parts waiting for you, full of TED music and beautiful colors, yes, even using all 8 shades of black that our machine can offer. The partselector and presentation is very unique and funny: each part is a pill, curing some form of sickness. See it for yourself, this demo is not to be missed! Enjoy!
More Releases from Arok #8!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-07-31
Surprise, surprise, it's not 8SoB yet. Quite unexpectedly two more awesome demos where released at the Arok #8 party. The first one is a 1K demo, the first its category on Plus/4. It's called Roeddelroemp, and it comes from Dr. Death of TEK. One look will tell you that this is very cool stuff to be pulled out from just 1024 bytes, and the party crowd agreed: this demo won the 1K compo! The second demo is Monopsy 2, a follow up to 2003's Monopsy. It's authentic DCD code with Luca graphics: a superb entry into the filedemo category. Watch it and be amazed: yes, our computer can do this! This demo won the 2nd place in the demo competition. The winner was 8SoB, which you'll have to wait for just a bit more. Congratulations for both authors for their achievement!
First New Release from Arok #8!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-07-30
Chronos beat everyone to it: the first release from Arok #8 is here. It's called Snake Attack, it's a converted game from Absence. They also have a new minisite, visit it for the first round of Arok #8 photos.
As a sidenote, we've also received 5 digidemos from TLT a few days back, all 2006 releases. In the excitement of finishing 8 Shades of Black, we forgot to mention this newsbit on the front page. Enjoy!
YAPE 0.67 Released!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-07-10
The popular Commodore Plus/4 Emulator, YAPE, is now up to version 0.67. The latest release contains bugfixes and better emulator, you can read more on the homepage. For those who are wondering what programs actually do show a noticeable difference in emulation, check out the classic demo A Trip by SCF. The fourth part contains the very first FLI effect on this platform, and YAPE is now the first (and only) emulator that can correctly emulate this part. Cheers to Gaia for his continued hard work!
New Unlimited Picturedisk Released!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-07-10
Data-Land of Unlimited released a new picturedisk called Galerie Unlimited 3. This release is from May, it just made it to us courtesy of Erich. The two sides are packed with a total number of 32 pictures. They are mostly from other Commodore Plus/4 Demos, drawn by MMS, Luca, Omega, Jimy, Shadow and Unreal. The program uses the classic Magica driver. Check it out and enjoy!
Artifex Update in Progress
Posted by Csabo on 2006-07-02
P. Zsolt, the author of Artifex gave us an update on the a promising Plus/4 emulator. He's been on hiatus since the last update from 2002. Artifex was rewritten from scratch, and he's been working on the updated version for over a year now. The Plus/4 World exclusive screenshot (on the right, click for full size image) gives us a few clues on what's going on: there's apparently PAL emulation (a very popular feature in other emus as well), and it's based on SDL. What that means is there will be a Linux and even an OS/X port. While there's no release date set ("when it's done"), we've heard that it can already handle demos like Heartfixer, and it's currently being tested with Litwr's Test Suite. Let's hope 2006 will see a new release, and we wish best of luck with the development!
Retro Fusion C16/Plus4 Article
Posted by Csabo on 2006-06-28
Retro Fusion is a new retro-gaming magazine from the UK, dedicated to bring back the best memories of your childhood. The second issue of the commercial mag has just hit the shelves, and it contains a 4 page article on our beloved machine by Chris. To see a sneak peek and read more click here (commodore16.com). The price is not terribly expensive, only 3 GBP plus shipping and handing (international orders available). Check it out!
TSDump V1.0
Posted by Csabo on 2006-06-26
Gaia released a small tool called TSDump. This utility is for trackmos: for any given D64 file, it reads the BAM and dumps out the track and sector information and name of PRG files. The output then can be included into an assembler. He also hinted about more upcoming pieces of code, keep an eye open for that in the near future.
Between the Club Infos I sometimes make some pictures, hires or multicolor. To fill the disk I convert pictures from Koala (C64) and other picture formats (like Amicapaint from the C64) etc. Most of them get some work done to make them look better (colors and such). [...] You can also use our new "General View" utility to view them!
So check out the new pics, and if you haven't seen the group's recently released General View imageviewer, download it now, you'll like it! Cheers to Erich for helping the scene stay alive!
Lost Programs Found!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-06-14
Murphy found some long-lost golden-oldies. Game Pic's 2 and Info to RTL are two rare demos from GS, Tiger's Utility 92 is a utility collection. Most importantly, he also found Cinemaster V1.0, a masterpiece of coding from TCFS. The article covering this program (also written by the author) was the very last Plus/4 thing ever published in the Hungarian magazine Commodore Világ. Thanks to Murphy, check it out!
A New Coverscan Uploaded
Posted by Csabo on 2006-06-13
Chris sent us a new coverscan for King Size Volume 1 & Volume 2, aka. King Size 100 Games. This compilation published by Robtek contains 100 games (obviously), written in Basic. He also sent us a ZIP containing most games, original TAP files to follow later on. Thanks to Chris, check it out and enjoy.
Test Suite for Commodore +4 Emulators
Posted by Csabo on 2006-06-09
Litwr has released a new software converted from C64: Test Suite. It's a programmer's tool that checks the compatibility of Commodore Plus/4 Emulators. It's been reportedly helpful in the development (and bugfixing) of YAPE. Litwr also sent us a couple of more downloads which have been linked from his site, but apparently not available for anyone outside the .ru domain. These are Tapecopy and Epson driver. Check them out if you are interested.
Club Info 93 out now!!
Posted by Luca on 2006-06-03
The pathological missing of new software we're stand in this period, has to surrender because a brand new issue of the long running german diskmagazine has been released. Thanks Erich for Club Info 93!
The main present of this issue is General View V1.1, a cute refined graphic utility, capable to read almost all the Plus/4 bitmap formats. That's a great effort by Data-land! When the scene becomes feeble, Unlimited battens down the hatches!
Oldies from Murphy
Posted by Csabo on 2006-05-29
Murphy writes: "I managed to find some stuff that hasn't made it to Plus/4 World yet, I thought I'd share it with everyone. Logomaker +40/Murphy is a heavily extended version of Mucsi's original. It has Multi-Botticelli export, compress to charset, bit-changer, shift, invert, etc. It's the opposite of another tool of mine, Logo Depacker. [...] Back in the day, I made a little selection of C64 logos, added my sprite converted and that's how I spread this stuff."
You can now grab this compilation as well as the individual utilities: Logo Pack N Tools. Enjoy.
Even More Oldies Found!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-04-28
After seeing his own old game in the last news item, DCD also dug up about 10 pieces of missing/newly found pieces of software. Among them is Double Link, a tetris-like game, which was his very first machine-language production. Another interesting game is Szökés (Escape). With the addition of New$Reel #11, there is now only one issue missing! Take a look at our New Stuff section for the rest, and remember to keep an eye out for those missing software.
More Old Stuff Dug Up!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-04-26
Lacoste answered our call and dug into his disk archive. Out came 7 newly found oldies! Most interesting is probably Lettertile, a Mah-jongg style game from DCD. This is a never before seen Plus/4 game for most of us, and it looks like a fun play! We also have Log-X, which may be the only work of EVS member Flavour. The rest are Hungarian diskmags: IMBK News #06 completes the series. New$Reel gets issues 09, 21 and 23, leaving only a few missing. Dig in if you are interested, cheers to Lacoste!
Another Lost Demo Found!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-04-25
Murphy sent a belated birthday gift to Plus/4 World: My First Demo! It's his first production ever (done before joining GS), and considered that it's a first release it's a great effort. The demo features four parts, three with digiconverters. Check it out!
And remember, keep digging through your old disks/tapes, you never know when you may find some missing software!
A unique find!
Posted by Gaia on 2006-04-22
While browsing through the C64 Gamebase I have come across an unbelievable gem, that has probably never been seen before. The Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle is not a new piece of software: we have had a text-only C16 version and also a converted C64 version with hi-res pictures in it. What probably went unknown is the fact that Adventure International US used to have a dedicated plus/4 version of this game with different, multi-coloured graphics, on the same disk as the C64 version. Was it ever released commercially? We may never know. Adventure International went bankrupt in as early as 1985 meaning that a whole lot of software titles were not even being released anymore. There are a couple of other C64 titles using this engine that probably have a plus/4 version: Buckaroo Banzai and Questprobe 2. If anyone has a C64 original of these do not hesitate to check out the B side of those disks.
Cosine released TED Storm, a new music-box demo featuring 4-mat's TED player and not less than 7 tunes. What's even better, the player's source and complete documentation was also released! All this in 16K. For more details go to the Cosine website.
Four years Plus/4 World
Posted by Gaia on 2006-04-19
Today we are celebrating the 4th anniversary of the grand opening of Commodore plus/4 World. Many thanks to Csabo and Lando for their hard work on the site and of course to all our most dedicated, relentless contributors: C16Chris, Crown, Luca, Plus4Vampyre, SVS, Sidius, Ulysses777 to name just a few. Thanks to all who made Plus/4 World what it is now: a real cornerstone of plus/4 history. As we have digged deeper and deeper in the past, let's not forget that there is a future and it's up to us to make it a reality. Thumbs up and Happy Birthday Plus/4 World! Keep the scene alive!
Plus/4 presences at BreakPoint'06.
Posted by Luca on 2006-04-17
Once again the big german event BreakPoint has been a theatre of arts, coding skills, friendship and beer. A Plus/4 drop in this Amiga/PC/C64 ocean had been poured by Exin. He found a free Plus/4 to use, a running copy of Multi Botticelli, and a ton of passion. He has taken part in the "Theme Graphics" compo with his work, ranking 9 over 11. You can grab it here, from various sources. Congratulations Exin, and thanks for supporting our beloved machine!
Club Info 92 is here!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-04-15
Marking only the 6th release of the year, Unlimited released Club Info 92. Erich once again packed two disksides with German articles and new + new-ish software releases. Grab the download and enjoy!
Plus/4 Emulator for the Pocket PC released!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-04-14
Gaia's Pocket Commodore Plus 4, an officially licensed Commodore product is available now! It has very good game compatibility. It's available as a free download to try, and at 24.95 USD is inexpensive. For those who dreamed of pulling out their Pocket PC on the bus/subway and firing up their favorite game... That dream is now true! Check it out and enjoy!
New Covers And A Wanted Game Found!
Posted by Ulysses777 on 2006-04-13
A nice update today...we have two updated full size covers of the educational titles Pixie Pack and Hide and Seek, a new cover for Reading Professor, and at long last...a TAP file for Super Gran The Adventure! Yes, this elusive adventure game is finally available, check it out and enjoy!
Bear(tm) sent us a few more cover scans of Hungarian releases. That part of the collection is slowly but surely growing, and we could not be happier for that. Let's see then: Időlabirintus is the first one, a classic fun-to-play game (if you speak Hungarian that is). What's interesting about the cover is that the back lists 3 and the side lists 4 developers (vs. the two that are actually listed in the game). We also have two more programs that are tape utilities: Szuperturbo and Headjust. Big thanks for these, enjoy!
Two new games!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-03-18
We have two new additions to the database. The first one marks very rare occasion: Chris found a previously unknown commercial game called Mushroom Mania. Check out his site for the cover scan. The second is a scene release (which are also way too rare nowadays). Simple Puzzle Game comes from Optika/Aliens. Check them out and enjoy!
Gaia released the new version of YAPE today. So why should you download it, you ask? Well, besides the many bugs fixed, there's now Symbolic Keymapping implemented. This basically allows you to map the emulated Plus/4 keyboard to your own PC's keyboard layout, disregarding the input locale used. To read more and grab your copy, head on over to the homepage.
At last, we now have the full official Commodore service manuals for both the Commodore 16 and Commodore Plus/4 available for download from the Publications section. These service manuals contain detailed schematics, layout diagrams, part numbers, IC information and troubleshooting guides for both machines, very useful for anyone attempting to repair their C16 or Plus/4.
Head over to the Publications section now and take a look!
Aliens return with Lamer News 10!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-02-23
The hungarian demogroup Aliens returns to the scene after a more than a decade. A new issue of their mag, Lamer News #10 has just been released. Aliens frontman Optika writes:
"This year I found a Plus/4 emulator, and I got nostalgic. The magazine is the usual Aliens quality :-(, but at least the code is my own from the first byte to the last one. [...] It's mostly a test program for my cruncher. It works! It's a true Huffman based cruncher, in assembly! [...] Aliens is hatching again, if I could only find the other members!"
It's nice to see old faces once again. Check the new stuff out and enjoy!
More Type-ins
Posted by Ulysses777 on 2006-02-08
Some more type-ins today, from various issues of Commodore Computing International magazine. They are Ice Hockey; Knight Tour, where you guide a single knight chess piece onto every space on the board; Land It, where you fly a bathtub-like ship down to earth and then underground; and Megamind another Mastermind-type game which also runs on the C64. Enjoy!
Forever gets an update
Posted by Gaia on 2006-02-07
The pioneer of all plus/4 emulators, from our own Litwr has received an update recently. This brings this DOS based emulator up to version 1.32. If you are after a very fast emulator that is running smoothly even on a Pentium 100, Forever could be yours. It is now also paring up nicely with Yape in supporting FLI modes and other advanced TED techniques. For users that do not have DOS on their machines anymore, there's also a self-booting CD image with FreeDOS and the emulator itself, so Win2000/XP users are also able to give it a try.
February takes to you the 91st issue of the German speaking disk magazine Club-Info. This is the first step toward the ambitious "issue 100" goal, that will become a sort of world record, other nearby scenes included! However, at the moment, we simply have to enjoy the two sides filled with articles (in German), and a few new Unlimited stuff. Go breaking the third digit wall, Erich!
As SVS/FIRE promised on the forum, he dug up an old but useful utility. Check out Basic Reducer 2, which is an English translation of an Italian utility. It reduces a basic program by concatenating multiple basic lines into one (as long as they are not referenced by GOTOs, etc). The end result is a shorter basic program. It doesn't renumber them though, so AFTER reducing it's advisable to issue a RENUMBER 0,1 command. Thanks to SVS for this!
Plus/4 World now has RSS!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-01-23
We're hip! And to prove it, we've added RSS to Plus/4 World. Firefox and Opera users can enjoy it immediately (thanks to built in RSS support). If anyone out there is still brave enough to risk using IE, they can just use their RSS reader of choice (they really should Browse Happy instead). Enjoy!
Two Classic German C16 Games!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-01-23
We've uploaded two previously unreleased games from M. Hanoldt. Spunza is a unique idea: find the dots by listenning to the sounds. Merk-As is a memory-game for up to four players, with customizable number of cards. These games are nicely developed (we've seen even commercial releases with weren't as playable), so they are a nice addition to the archive. Thanks to the author for these! Remember, if you have any old disks laying around at home, dig them up, you might find some unexpected treasure.
New Homepages!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-01-20
Following on the heels of the XeO3 WIP Weblog, two more of our members have put up new homepages. C16 Chris has uploaded almost all of his cover collection to his new site at c16chris.de. (More covers coming soon.) Ati has moved his homepage to ati-home.tar.hu. He has screenshots and descriptions of his productions, including a work-in-progress game, that looks quite promising. Nice to see a little growth in terms of places to visit... Check them out!
XeO3 WIP Weblog!
Posted by Luca on 2006-01-15
The most assiduous forum users probably just know that Mike Dailly is back, taking with him some useful spare time. Especially, XeO3 project found a new life during these last days. Due to the first results achieved with actual code implementation, the whole project is undergoing important changes and decisive choices. In this scenario, there's no need in having an homepage full of unused graphics music gameplay and so on. For all this, we launched a simple but nice XeO3 Work In Progress Weblog. Come back periodically to read it, and you'll know everything about day-by-day improvements related to our project.
Some new covers: first we have a full size replacement cover for Salvage, as well as a TAP file for this game. Next we have two new covers: the UK release cover for World Cup Carnival, and finally, the Supersoft release cover for Music Master, as well as the original G64 disk image and the full English manual! Enjoy!
Lone News 18 Released!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-01-05
Luca/Fire beats everyone to the punch with the first release of 2006! The 18th issue of Lone News is here, with fresh toplist and news. There's also an interview with Graffiti, some CD4 memories, and a most interesting article regarding some unreleased Methabolix stuff... Download and read the mag to find out more!
An Interview with Bil Herd!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-01-03
This is a truly remarkable moment: one of the fathers (or gods) of the Plus/4 speaks out. Bil Herd gave an email interview to Gaia. Read his answers to not less than 32 questions. Fascinating stuff, and an absolute must read for everyone who is interested in the Commodore 264 series.
A surprising deathblow to 2005: Lunar Blitz and Reaxion!
Posted by Luca on 2006-01-02
Just while Csabo was writing the year's review, T.M.R released two long awaited classy games: Lunar Blitz and Reaxion! Smart gameplay, pretty nice graphics and great usage of TEDsound by 4-Mat (aka Matt Simmonds) and Sean Connolly, in these fresh Cosine newcomers on C16/+4! Both games will be also available in old fashioned disk/tape formats at Cronosoft. Run to get them: Jason's waiting for feedbacks!
We Are Family - 2nd Edition!
Posted by Csabo on 2006-01-02
We are happy to report that the first demoscene DVD has sold out. The 50 (minus one) copies of the DVD went to: - Hungary (32) - Finnland (10) - Italy (3) - Germany (2) - England (1) - Canada (1)
Lacoste/Wilds is now offering the second edition, with a new cover design and same content. The price has also been lowered, so if you haven't gotten yours yet, the time to order is now! Check out our new We Are Family feature page for more details.
A new powerful release of Bal-Sys have just arrived from 
While browsing through the 
