|  "Adventures in Time" published by Psytronik | | Posted by Luca on 2010-11-21 |
Some months have passed since the freeware release of Adventures in Time, and now it's the turn of the announced commercial release.
Adventures in Time has just been released by Psytronik in both Premium and Budget disk editions, respectively priced £8,99 and £4,99.
The Psytronik re-release contains some slight changes and fixes:
- a little unremarkable fix about raster when the player "falls" into another room;
- the Psytronik logo, it flips in the title screen and it's been shown in the intro too;
- some little gfx elements added in the very first rooms;
- a pause/quit feature (on key ESC).
Buy now your copy of Adventures in Time on Binary Zone Store page!
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| | Come To Busodore! | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-11-17 |
 We're here to announce a new 8-bit demoparty: Busodore! The party is organized by Csio/Monarchy, and it will take place in Mohács, Hungary (the hometown of Muffbusters!). The date for the party is the first weekend of March: 2011/03/05-06. There's not a lot of details at the moment since the page is up to confirm if there is interest. We certainly hope there is, so sign up now if you think you can make it! |
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| | Monarchy Rulez - Pimp My Part! | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-11-04 |
 Everyone's "favourite" demogroup from Hungary (Monarchy) has just launched their new website! It's available in Hungarian and another language closely resembling English (German translation is promised to be in the works). You can find out everything you wanted to know (and things you didn't want to know) about all members of the group.
More good news: they have just launched a new compo called Pimp My Part. You are given an unfinished demopart by Derrick, your task - should you choose to accept it - is to pimp it up. This new entry will self desctruct in... Wait, never mind that. Sounds like a fun project, here's to hoping we'll see lots of entries! |
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| | Perfect Visions 2 | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-10-22 |
 The Hungarian freax continue to dominate the demoscene with new releases! Ati is here to kick off the weekend with a brand new demo: Perfect Visions 2! In our count, it's the 12th demo released this year. It's the follow up to 2004's Perfect Visions. The author packed 3 demoparts into 64K once again, and this time there's a TED tune accompanying the visuals.
Download it, dim the lights, break out some popcorn and enjoy! Big respects to Ati for and to everyone else: don't forget to vote! |
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| | Club Info 119 | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-10-17 |
 The October issue of the bi-monthly German disk-mag is here: Erich/Unlimited just send us Club Info 119. Dig up those dictionaries and start translating (well, unless you speak German that is :-)).
Side A is filled with articles and Side B contains new and recently released goodies. Here's a quick rundown: PI-RECHTECKMETHODE / PI-ARCHIMEDES / PI-MONTE CARLO (three utilities for calculating the value of Pi), LA FOSSA DEI SERPENTI (missing software from the italian "Papersoft" 19/1985), SATELLITE LANDER (a game from Australia), HURKLE (converted from the PET by Erich) and I. U. ERMITTELT (a text-quiz from Lukian). Check out this fresh release and enjoy! |
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| | "Uwol: Quest for Money" for Commodore 16! | | Posted by Luca on 2010-10-15 |
 The point here is: when you begin, you can't stop it! Kichy did it again!
The guy's on fire, you can see it crystal clear, the guy's totally on fire. And what did he take to all of us this time? Yes, another unexpected wonder: under the usual label Assassins, Kichy has converted the classic platform game originally coded on ZX Spectrum by The Mojon Twins, called Uwol: Quest for Money.
Jump run and pick coins into the creepy rooms of a doomed pyramid, avoid the foes and the seeking ghost, fight against time and falldowns, choose your own route into the pyramid. You'll be free once you get outside with 256 or more coins, or you'll be forced to walk around forever!
Kichy's Uwol conversion falls into the preexisting releases for Commodore 64 and SEGA Genesis, but it's more than a simple conversion: the game has been squeezed into one single file, being playable on Commodore 16/116/Plus4 (less than 15K!), regardless the original game's size. It has been a big work of choices, cutoffs, recoding and redrawing. But he got success at last: Uwol is officially a C16 release, as it perfectly works on every 264 series machine! This is a result to celebrate, and there's no better way to do that than with a wonderful original intro jingle conversion performed by Csabo/LOD, powered with TED+digi in order to rock the drums more!
Download Uwol, both on disk and tape! |
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| | YAPE 1.0 Arrives | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-09-13 |
Today we're celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the massively popular Commodore Plus/4 Emulator: YAPE. Read Gaia's words (shamelessly lifted from the YAPE homepage):
Exactly 10 years has passed since the first public alpha (or rather: WIP) of YAPE saw the light of day. It is just as unbelievable as it can get... sheesh. It started off as an attempt at a more intelligent disassembler when I realized how much fun it really is to learn the hardware AND C++ programming at the same time while dealing with my all time favourite hobby. I thought this anniversary would be also a nice opportunity to abandon the rather clumsy versioning I have been following in the past. Anyway I have not got much time to make a long rant here, so you will be spared :-)
The main changes in the aptly named - 10 years old - 1.0 compared to 0.86 are as follows:
- 32-bit and automatic bitdepth option in fullscreen mode (8 bit full screen mode might be slow under newer Windoze's)
- copy & paste to/from the clipboard now respects upper/lower case mode
- partially implemented 48 bps mode of the T6721A speech LSI
- G64 image support is no longer read only (yay, at last)
- reading from open address space
- plenty of bugfixes (drive, TED, autostart, monitor etc.)
Of course 1.0 not to mean Yape is ready and will be abandoned. A piece of software never really is. Head on over to the downloads section while it's still warm. Cheers to Gaia for his awesome work, we all benefit from it. If you've been wondering how you could repay all the enjoyment you've got for free... Look no further than the "Donate!" button on the left side on the YAPE Homepage! |
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| | Botticelli Bilderdisk 35 | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-09-06 |
 September is here, and off to a good start in the world of Plus/4: Erich/Unlimited just released Botticelli Bilderdisk 35. The new addition to this series continues the usual way: you get to enjoy two disk sides worth of converted multicolor pictures, using the Magica driver. Check it out and enjoy! |
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| | Are You A Maze Maniac? | | Posted by Luca on 2010-08-22 |
 The noble art of converting games from other machines comes again in the year 2010 with its spotless aura of approval.
This time it's because of Kichy/ASN, which has considered as very addictive and fun Maziacs, an old (1983!) ZX Spectrum game with its relative incarnations on Commodore 64 and MSX too. You play the role of a brave treasure hunter in search of the treasure box buried somewhere in a randomly generated maze teemed with horrible monsters which unfortunately have humans in their dietrician's prescription. Leashed prisoners will help you about the best path to walk to, and there's food too in order to set up your energy. Swords can be picked up in order to be sure to overcome a fighting monster, but remember: you can handle either the sword or the treasure box at one time! The challenge is: take the treasure back in the minimum number of moves, and you'll be awarded by score.
Download Maziacs now, and try to master the advanced levels. Once more time: simpler plays better! |
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| | Two New Covers | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-08-21 |
  We're going to switch gears for a moment: let's take a break from all the new releases and go back to our cover collection. Our mailbox received two unexpected but very welcome gifts from two German Plus/4 fans. Let's see what we got:
First up, Deacon has in his collection a copy of Quiwi, specifically the tape version we've been looking for. The blue style Kingsoft cover is now up (along with a photo of the tape). Second, Stefan (stnow) noticed that our Terra Nova page was still asking for a full size cover. This is an excellent Plus/4 game, and it definitely deserves the original artwork to be shown in it's full glory. Thanks to Stefan, this is now done. Check it out and enjoy!
Big thanks once again for the covers, guys! Our calling still stands: be sure to send us any new/missing Plus/4 related material. |
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| | Let's Club The Info Like 118 Times! | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-08-05 |
 That headline took care of all my urges of being silly, so let's get down to the serious business of what's new in the World of Commodore Plus/4. Hailing from Germany, Erich/Unlimited is here with the latest issue of the longest-running diskmag on our platform: Club Info. Issue 118 doesn't stray far from the usual pattern: side a is filled (German language) articles, while side b sports new and recently released goodies. Among these are: Kalah, Number Inversion, Solitario and Rechnerei 004. Check out this fresh release and enjoy! |
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| | Methabolix's Secret Weapons | | Posted by Luca on 2010-07-29 |
 Summer's cleanout for everyone!
After the Scorpions and Gentlemen's lost gems, it's Methabolix turn. Unreal has decided to spit out several uncompleted stuff which has been left asleep into his disks. The bigger one this time is Metapharstic 96, the unfinished trackmo which seems to be nothing less than a sort of early version of the most famous Metapharstic 80%. Moreover, he also has found 2 different alternative intros for that trackmo: Metapharstic Alternative Intro V2 and Metapharstic Alternative Intro V4!
And from the game side, here come two game previews which have never been finished.
Ice-Age looks like a first engine for a classic arcade adventure game. A legend says that Logical Game has been coded by Beast in one single night, and it appears to be 80% ready! 5 levels ready, it stucks at game over screen and misses several refinements, but the rest is ok and ready to go.
Last but not least, Methapage 01 would have been the first issue of the one and only Methabolix's disk magazine, after the Terror News handover, but at that time it looked like a no future enterprise.
Stay tuned, 'coz this seems to be a first strike only, with more to come! |
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| | Achievement Unlocked: SCN News 100% | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-07-26 |
 The Arok party is over, so we're back to the usual routine of scene hibernation working hard. Anyway, today Ati is here with two gifts. After wrestling with his tape device, he eventually managed what no-one could before: a working backup of SCN News 26 and Lunacy 3. This makes the former mag complete (after all this time)! It seems we're still missing the 8th part of the latter, though it's also possible that number 8 was simply skipped. Nevertheless, enjoy these two, and then go back to working hard on those new Plus/4 games/demos/utilities! |
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| | Árok Party #12: Afterparty | | Posted by Luca on 2010-07-19 |
 Csio confirmed his promise!
After few hours only from the party release, which was marked as "80%", he did the final version of Sabrina Digi 2010, much clean and with a feature which allows you to stop plasma and listen to better digi sound!
Don't miss it! |
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| | Árok Party #12: Our Results | | Posted by Luca on 2010-07-18 |
 Árok Party 2010 is over, and all the dices have just been thrown: the Plus/4 has been involved in two entries, both in the 8bit Demo Competition. Unreal competed in the Graphics Compo too, but with a C64 picture.
Oldschool 2 by Skoro/ASN won the 8bit Demo Compo: several FLD/FPD/FPP effects, FLI plasmas, an original view on line morphing, big fast Kefrens, great graphics and SID music persuaded the jury. We're so proud because of this, our big congrats to Skoro and his co-workers, that's a stunning piece of code!
The 2nd ranked in the 8bit Demo Compo is another cute Plus/4 entry. Sabrina Digi 2010 80%, is a little cooperation digi demo, visuals by Csio/MHY and digi tune by Luca/FIRE. Tagged as "80%", Csio has promised to achieve a full version improving sound and cleaning up the whole stuff, in the very next days.
You can read the complete results on the official Árok site, where you'll find several links to party pictures album (don't miss'em!). Waiting for loooong reports from attendands to read about who/what/where directly from the party core!
Congratulations again to all the developers, organizers, attendands which have shown once again their passion, stealing time to work family childrens and real life in general, and in particular to the Commodore Plus/4 scene guys which have demonstrated once again how cool they are. Looking forward to... Árok Party 2011, the 13th edition! |
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| | Arok Demoscene Party 2010 - Hungary | | Posted by Chronos on 2010-06-28 |
As you probably know, the biggest hungarian 8 bit demoscene meeting is almost here! You can check everything at the party's homepage
Arok Homepage. More important for us, that TLC is going to the party and offers fast,live Commodore Plus4 service, 8501 replaces, and other ways to bring your old commie to life again (Please contact him in the forum before the partydate about details!) You can expect some fresh new Commodore Plus4 releases as it rumoured..
This year there will be a live concert by the SIDRIP ALLIANCE (formed by c64 musicians), and last but not least the organizers offers veeery loud SID music for all your ears... Be there!
Date: 16-18th July, 2010
Place: Gym of Primary School at Ajka-Ajkarendek / Hungary
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| | Adventure Games Continue To Be Unsolved | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-06-27 |
A little while ago last year I mentioned the date June 27 in a news post. Does anyone remember that? No? Even so, I feel compelled to post a little follow up.
Today all adventure games would be solved - if each day just one person added one solution. We did make some progress (most notably almost all Hungarian games are now solved), but there's more to be done. So be sure to contribute - or ask someone if you'd like to but can't or don't know how. And keep solving those adventures! |
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| | AustroSimple | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-06-08 |
Shortly after the news of AustroSpeed being decompiled comes something even more exciting. MikeZ has figured out pretty much all the mysteries of the Austro protection. Intrigued? Read on!
The original Austro had a copy protection "dongle" that plugged into the user port. As soon as the first menu appeared and the user selected drive configurations, Austro did a GOSUB to a dongle reading routine. It PEEKed at FD1X, looking for the bit setting of the dongle. If it was not found, then the first Austro menu repeated forever.
RAVEN created the wedge to insert a JMP $0353 in the Austro run-time interpreter (RTI) in the place where above PEEK is done. This way he could emulate the correct dongle setting and the program would advance to the second menu. This worked, but the approach is flawed. Austro copies its own run-time into whatever C/PRG it compiles. Thus every compiled program carried that JMP $0353 code!
Here's where SVS' wedger comes in. It adds the code to the compiled programs so that when they do jump to $0353, there's valid code there. Until now, it's been said that this wedger is not always necessary, but no one knew why...
The reason that the wedge is only necessary sometimes in a C/PRG is because the said jump is in the PEEK execution. If you
don't use PEEK, then you shouldn't need the wedge! So far no other places have been found, likely this is the only one.
MikeZ continues:
"Now, I was able to see all this because I have my decompiled austroBASIC to look at. RAVEN must have somehow decompiled the dongle GOSUB in order to create the wedge. But I don't think he ever saw what I will now tell. If he did see it, why bother with the wedge?
I studied the dongle GOSUB further and I discovered that the decomp prg I used could not decomp the first byte of the dongle GOSUB. It REM'd it so the decompilation would continue.
The mysterious byte is $3A, which is a legal P-Code that has no BASIC keyword/token equivalent. It has an executable location in the Austro RTI, and its function is basically the same as "NOP" in ML. It came to me to just substitute the P-Code "1D" - RETURN - for the "3A". This immediately bypassed the dongle check!
No need for the crack wedge, no need for the corrupted RTI within every C/PRG produced all these years. I removed the JMP $0353 from the RTI and at Austro P-Code location $4EE0 replaced "3A" with "1D" and we now have a clean and free and compiled AUSTROSIMPLE!"
Well, there you have it. If you're itching to give this a try, just head on to the Austrospeed Compiler page to find the download. Keep in mind that this is in Beta stage. It would be helpful if others could test this as well, so give it a try. Kudos to MikeZ for this amazing discovery! |
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| | AustroSpeed Fully Decompiled! | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-05-15 |
 MikeZ sent us word that AustroSpeed Compiler has been decompiled to a fully working pure BASIC version. The purpose is to provide a source file for anyone who wants to change how AustroSpeed works. He hopes that someone will take advantage of what he has done to make the Plus/4 AustroSpeed version much better than it currently is.
The new ZIP file can be found on the program's detail page, replacing the previous "extra" package. Also included is an Excel file containing MikeZ's P-code listing, and an important readme file (be sure to check it out). Kudos to MikeZ for his excellent work, enjoy! |
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| | A New PETSCII Arcade Adventure! | | Posted by RoePipi on 2010-05-01 |
 Out- no. It's Olticrun. Oltik (because his name ends in a "k") hops into his "agent-style" little red car and drives off to uncover the "suspicious material at a nearby factory" case. The game is for the Commodore 16, but it has more (6 static and 3 types of scrolling) levels, dialogue, explosions, some extra graphics, and it can be played with re-definable keys or with a single joystick, without the need to reach for the keyboard. It's a tribute to Oltic. But what does it do with the original game? |
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| | J! | | Posted by Luca on 2010-04-23 |
 Jumping has never been harder, dodging has never been harder too. We need a better device!
That's because, by popular demand, Adventures In Time is now upgraded to J! Save the whole universe using your joystick now!
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| | New Game Released: Adventures In Time! | | Posted by Luca on 2010-04-22 |
 The dice has been thrown, but the world doesn't know it...yet!
A disastrous distortion in the time flow needs to be ignited only, the infernal machine awaits for you, a curious yellow snorkel-shaking bouncy thing, during your free walk in the woods. And it has got its bet back, you pushed that damn button!
Will you pass out like a nerdy crybaby, or will you push till becoming a real hero?
After the weird retina-striking advertising performed with the release of Time Travel Slideshow, Kichy of Assassins is very proud to present this little cute undemanding platform game: Adventures In Time! Luca/FIRE helped him here and there, with some animated characters and an intense usage of TED sound.
Get your dangerous trip into several evocative rooms, dodging nasty foes, avoiding lava water and acid pits, and jumping on the right walls to reach the machine and stop it. Improve your skills, reaching higher levels in your time traveller's ranking, try it better and better!
Assassins leave the challenge to you right now! |
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| | YAPE Gets Watchpoints | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-04-15 |
| Gaia has just released an updated version of YAPE, the popular Commodore Plus/4 emulator. Version 0.86 has two big improvements. First, users can now set watchpoints (read, write, execute) in the built-in emulator monitor. This feature will no doubt be very popular among those who still hack the Plussy and its software. Second, there have been many improvements made to how full screen mode works. Get all the details and the download link from the official YAPE homepage! |
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| | Blazin' Balls - Trailblazer Reborn for new Generation on Xbox 360! | | Posted by MIK on 2010-04-10 |
 Along Time Ago on a Commodore not so far way...
Shaun Southern's classic Trailblazer, one of the most loved games and the biggest surprise of it's time fell out of the sky from no where Christmas 1986. It made our jaws hit the floor because for the first time we had something very unique and special on a machine you would of thought it impossible. Indeed we are talking about the most colourful, breakneck speed of chess board tiled flooring game since Sega gave birth to Space Harrier the arcades!
Trailblazer was here to test our 8bit reflexes to the limit and the fan's flocked in their 1000's to play it, (on a C64 maybe) but it's one title that has stayed in our hearts for as long as we can count the grey hairs on our head! One such Plus/4 enthusiast DrMistry of Mstar Games has set about making his very own version for XBOX 360 called Blazin' Balls. Once again the Cosmic Causeway is in play as well as the endless chasms of doom and all the colour floor tiles you know and love, but this time things have been taken up a gear with DrMistry adding his own spice to the mix. For the first time you now have coins to collect along the way adding to the challenge for those high score freaks among you! There is also a new ball bounce mechanics in play allowing you to jump higher if you have the skills to pull them off and new to the game is an earthquake like tile which shakes the screen and the floor starts to shrink before your very eyes!! Just like the original this is pure arcade gaming heaven and for only 80mps from the Xbox 360 marketplace this is like taking candy away from a babies hand at that crazy price! Two years in the making and a brand new machine with HDTV 720p support to play it on! What are you waiting for... The original Custom Sound track??? Make your own. :)
In the mean time head on over to the official Xbox 360 Marketplace to find out more. Link: Blazin' Balls |
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| | Myth Beats Politics | | Posted by Luca on 2010-04-09 |
 Being a citizen too, a scener has to raise his voice, debating his own views in the public and social matter, be a participating element in his nation's politics.
On the occasion of the first election turn in Hungary (will be held in April 11), Monarchy (who else?) takes its position, releasing Busopunch, a little placid stand-taking production, which explains the group's point of view about the weakness that many people noticed around this event. The matter has been afforded...with a taste of local folklore, as you can see.
Thanks Csio, your faith in politics will be very appreciated ;) |
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| | SVS Ultimate Map Updated To Version 1.6 | | Posted by SVS on 2010-04-08 |
 SVS has released the new version of main Plus/4 software info source: Ultimate map. A lot of little improvements and bugfixings.
You can download it from here.
(Ultimate Map has been downloaded 1570 times till current date!)
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| | Conan Comics Preview | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-04-08 |
 Hot on the tails of the update from SVS, MMS is back again with another picture show. Conan Comics Preview features the late John Buscema's artwork, it's a part of Conan: The Garden Of Death And Life. Love it? Hate it? Let your opinions be heard, the author would be happy to receive any feedback. Enjoy! |
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| | Hires Color 4 | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-03-07 |
 The first news of the month comes once again from Erich: he just released the 4th installment of the Hires Color series. The two disk sides contain a total of 32 converted high resolution images, using the Magica viewer. Check it out! |
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| | Commodore Free 36 Now Online | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-02-03 |
As the news title says, the latest issue of Commodore Free is now online! Download it today, there are a few interesting things for the Plus/4 enthusiast: an interview with Mike Dailly, a C16 programming article and mentions of the recently released RoePipi games.
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| | SVS-Calc Goes To 1.5 | | Posted by Luca on 2010-01-18 |
 ...And in the beginning of year 2010, the best 8bit spreadsheet tool ever gets higher!
Yes, the author, SVS/FIRE, decided to improve his best piece of code, unleashing the serious nature of Plus/4, and now we have SVS-Calc V1.5!
Apart of tons of needed bugfixes, there are several new features to discover:
- complete scientific notation is now allowed in any cell with auto-reduced notation;
- grid can be reduced in order to have full view of your sheet;
- formulas can now use external values stored on disk;
- paste special;
- emulators' synchronized digital clock with alarm;
- and much more! (...even an Easter egg!)
Look at the Youtube Ad to get a picture of what you can expect from it. |
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| | First Release Of 2010! | | Posted by Csabo on 2010-01-05 |
 Litwr is here to surprise all of you with a little demonstration of the graphics capabilities of the Plus/4:Happy New Year!
I have to humbly present my first and probably the last demo: HN2010YC. The presented dot drawing subroutine is about 5-6 times faster than BASIC PAINT and maybe several hundreds times faster than BASIC DRAW for single dots. Excuse me absence of sound and other effects. This demo is still raw but if I begin to polish it then it would be probably never released. |
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