95DosBox wrote:

Which PC/DOS software didn't work on the PCjr?

A lot, apparently, according to Wikipedia, about 60% of PC software didn't work, including many important office applications such as WordStar and Lotus 1-2-3:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr#Not_fu … y_PC_compatible

95DosBox wrote:

The only thing I can think of is maybe the DOS programs didn't have sufficient memory.

It also wasn't entirely hardware-compatible and BIOS-compatible with the PC.

95DosBox wrote:

And IBM did release their own sound card but it was a dud. I own one but never bothered to try it out. There weren't really any mainstream games that supported it and even Adlib which had the initial footing couldn't compete with Sound Blaster which emulated the Adlib.

You mean the IBM Music Feature Card? Those are very rare, so better hang on to it!
It was never meant for games, it was meant for professional musicians. Nevertheless, many of the early Sierra games support it.

I loved a couple games on the 64 enough to learn how to code 6502, crack a couple and assemble them into a two game cartridge.

Legacy of the Ancients and Legend of Blacksilver are pretty outstanding for their day.

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=128480

Scali wrote:

95DosBox wrote:

Which PC/DOS software didn't work on the PCjr?

A lot, apparently, according to Wikipedia, about 60% of PC software didn't work, including many important office applications such as WordStar and Lotus 1-2-3:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PCjr#Not_fu … y_PC_compatible

95DosBox wrote:

The only thing I can think of is maybe the DOS programs didn't have sufficient memory.

Scali wrote:

It also wasn't entirely hardware-compatible and BIOS-compatible with the PC.

Most of the problems in that link you provided seem to point to not enough memory causing the incompatibility. They had foreseen 128KB programs not working properly on the original 64KB of RAM. Later the IBM PCjr came with 128KB of RAM which I seem to have that version. Then 512KB sidecarts were developed to boost it to 640KB as an effort to save the IBM PCjr from extinction.

95DosBox wrote:

And IBM did release their own sound card but it was a dud. I own one but never bothered to try it out. There weren't really any mainstream games that supported it and even Adlib which had the initial footing couldn't compete with Sound Blaster which emulated the Adlib.

Well I'm kind of suspicious that if you upgraded the IBM PCjr to 640KB that it wouldn't run those DOS programs. A lot of the early IBM PCs were the just an XT with less RAM. Once you had enough memory you could try using DOS 5.0 or 6.0/6.22 and try those DOS programs they claimed were incompatible. The default DOS 2.10 I believe was what it ran on back in the day but it also could have been DOS 1.10. I know I ran a few games on it. Mainly the IBM PCjr version of King's Quest which was pretty awesome on that system. If I get a chance to buy and load up my PCjr to 640KB I could test if it truly was incompatible. I always considered it be an IBM PC but with a superior 3 voice channel output and capable of 16 colors.

I was even able to modify mine to use a 3.5inch floppy drive as the boot drive so you could get up to 720KB per disk possibly with the right DOS version or just use them as fake 360KB disks which is what I was using them as. I don't think it recognized 1.44 disks or it could be due to the DOS version. The thing was pretty slow. 4.77MHz would be my guess matching the IBM PC. The floppy drive mod allowed me to play 3.5 inch disk games or if need be I would convert a 5 1/4" disk onto a 3 1/2" with the copy protection still on it. I think I might have played Marble Madness on it even for fun. I can't remember I think maybe the IBM PCjr might have had 128KB of memory not 64KB. I recall some early games needing 128KB of memory to run properly.

You mean the IBM Music Feature Card? Those are very rare, so better hang on to it!
It was never meant for games, it was meant for professional musicians. Nevertheless, many of the early Sierra games support it.

Yup that's the Music card. I think Space Quest 3 supported it in the install program so I was eyeballing that over the years and finally snagged it but I never had the time to try it. I even stumbled upon some IBM PC emulator that worked in an Apple ][. I'm not sure where that IBM card went but it was ISA and I think the board was full length similar to the 8bit Sound Blaster card. I wanted to do a sound comparison on the game and yeah there was quite a bidding war even back a decade or so when I got it. I thought I overpaid on it then but it was too hard to pass up an IBM labeled genuine device.

SaxxonPike wrote:

I loved a couple games on the 64 enough to learn how to code 6502, crack a couple and assemble them into a two game cartridge.

Legacy of the Ancients and Legend of Blacksilver are pretty outstanding for their day.

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=128480

I remember most of the C64 games were programmed in pure BASIC. What programs did you use to crack into the C64 game? Was there some special program to decrypt the BASIC language file?
How did you transfer the program to the cartridge? Are most cartridge games unprotected so you can dump them and run them on a floppy?

I know Lode Runner came on both the floppy version and the cartridge.

Maybe if there was some sort of cartridge to USB flash drive interface you could run any C64 image through it and dump the game using your PC into it. Then you could use the actual C64 hardware to play the games without the floppy delay.

gdjacobs wrote:

95DosBox wrote:

gdjacobs wrote:

Amiga was also eaten from the inside out by parasites like Mehdi Ali.

I don't know if I can completely agree it was all that man's fault. Although cutting the R&D must have been a cost saving measure to keep the company afloat. If there was something they could have done was increase software support from gaming companies since it was mainly geared towards gamers. Although the most famous use of the Amiga was the CGI for Babylon 5. That would have been their best selling point if only... 😲

Cutting R&D was one of the moves he made to extract cash from the business in the form of big payouts to himself and Irving Gould. This was to the detriment of other shareholders, employees, and customers. There was no business strategy to it beyond short term greed.

With competent leadership, Amiga would have been challenged to compete with IBM, Apple, and the other players in the market. With Ali at the helm, there really was no chance.

Have you seen some of the crap they did in R&D that never turned into a product, and some of the crap they did try and actually sell? All the money sunk into the C16 and other non gaming 8 bit systems was wasted, same with the C65. They looked into half assed AAA video and talked about ditching the 680x0 processors which would have killed their software library.

I look at Commodore as having hit 2 homes runs , first with the C64 and then with the Amiga 500. They made a ton of money on those that was wasted in other areas and could not expand either as time went by. What made the original Amiga so cool is also what made it hard to expand in any meaningful manner (1.44mb drives that had to spin at half speed so the decade old chipset could keep up, video that was pretty much the same from the A1000 to the A3000 with a few bonus features around the A1200/A4000 just before bankruptcy). Failed consoles didn't help.

95DosBox wrote:

I remember most of the C64 games were programmed in pure BASIC. What programs did you use to crack into the C64 game? Was ther […]
Show full quote

SaxxonPike wrote:

I loved a couple games on the 64 enough to learn how to code 6502, crack a couple and assemble them into a two game cartridge.

Legacy of the Ancients and Legend of Blacksilver are pretty outstanding for their day.

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=128480

I remember most of the C64 games were programmed in pure BASIC. What programs did you use to crack into the C64 game? Was there some special program to decrypt the BASIC language file?
How did you transfer the program to the cartridge? Are most cartridge games unprotected so you can dump them and run them on a floppy?

I know Lode Runner came on both the floppy version and the cartridge.

Maybe if there was some sort of cartridge to USB flash drive interface you could run any C64 image through it and dump the game using your PC into it. Then you could use the actual C64 hardware to play the games without the floppy delay.

BASIC is just tokenized. Meaning each key word is a single byte, and there's a few more for preserving line numbers. It's not encrypted at all. And the games that use BASIC pretty much have to keep the code in the open so the KERNAL can read it.

I used VICE's debugger to step through the code and Transmission to disassemble it outside the emulator. I wrote my own tool for decrypting EA's disk protection for Legacy, and I used VICE's debugger to use Epyx's own Vorpal system code to extract the data files from Legend. I also wrote my own program to assemble the EasyFlash cartridge file, and developed a file system driver that would replace the drivers in both games. (They were both custom, separate from most game code and pretty easy to replace.)

Lots of cartridge games are unprotected, but some use special tricks like writing to the ROM space. If it's a cartridge, nothing happens. But if it's a file loaded from disk, it's in RAM instead, and the program gets modified in memory. Some cartridges also have special banking hardware that needs to be converted.

Going from disk to cartridge is somewhat easy for single load games, but if there's any attempted access to the disk drive past the first load, it'll fail. There's also the issue with cartridge ROM replacing RAM, and that means you'd likely have to copy/decompress the whole game to RAM and magically turn off the cartridge. I did this with my EasyFlash driver, but not all cartridges have the hardware to do this. You need to be able to control a pin on the cartridge slot via hardware.

Funny you mention USB to Cartridge interface: the 1541 Ultimate cartridge is just that. I just bought one. It plugs in the cartridge slot, and can connect to both the serial (disk) interface and tape interface, and emulate both a datasette drive and a 1541 drive, as well as most cartridge images. A shame it can't allow EasyFlash images to be written to- my cartridge conversion of the two games listed above saves games right to the cartridge, and that doesn't work on the 1541u.

SaxxonPike wrote:

BASIC is just tokenized. Meaning each key word is a single byte, and there's a few more for preserving line numbers. It's not en […]
Show full quote

95DosBox wrote:

I remember most of the C64 games were programmed in pure BASIC. What programs did you use to crack into the C64 game? Was ther […]
Show full quote

SaxxonPike wrote:

I loved a couple games on the 64 enough to learn how to code 6502, crack a couple and assemble them into a two game cartridge.

Legacy of the Ancients and Legend of Blacksilver are pretty outstanding for their day.

http://csdb.dk/release/?id=128480

I remember most of the C64 games were programmed in pure BASIC. What programs did you use to crack into the C64 game? Was there some special program to decrypt the BASIC language file?
How did you transfer the program to the cartridge? Are most cartridge games unprotected so you can dump them and run them on a floppy?

I know Lode Runner came on both the floppy version and the cartridge.

Maybe if there was some sort of cartridge to USB flash drive interface you could run any C64 image through it and dump the game using your PC into it. Then you could use the actual C64 hardware to play the games without the floppy delay.

BASIC is just tokenized. Meaning each key word is a single byte, and there's a few more for preserving line numbers. It's not encrypted at all. And the games that use BASIC pretty much have to keep the code in the open so the KERNAL can read it.

I used VICE's debugger to step through the code and Transmission to disassemble it outside the emulator. I wrote my own tool for decrypting EA's disk protection for Legacy, and I used VICE's debugger to use Epyx's own Vorpal system code to extract the data files from Legend. I also wrote my own program to assemble the EasyFlash cartridge file, and developed a file system driver that would replace the drivers in both games. (They were both custom, separate from most game code and pretty easy to replace.)

Lots of cartridge games are unprotected, but some use special tricks like writing to the ROM space. If it's a cartridge, nothing happens. But if it's a file loaded from disk, it's in RAM instead, and the program gets modified in memory. Some cartridges also have special banking hardware that needs to be converted.

Going from disk to cartridge is somewhat easy for single load games, but if there's any attempted access to the disk drive past the first load, it'll fail. There's also the issue with cartridge ROM replacing RAM, and that means you'd likely have to copy/decompress the whole game to RAM and magically turn off the cartridge. I did this with my EasyFlash driver, but not all cartridges have the hardware to do this. You need to be able to control a pin on the cartridge slot via hardware.

Funny you mention USB to Cartridge interface: the 1541 Ultimate cartridge is just that. I just bought one. It plugs in the cartridge slot, and can connect to both the serial (disk) interface and tape interface, and emulate both a datasette drive and a 1541 drive, as well as most cartridge images. A shame it can't allow EasyFlash images to be written to- my cartridge conversion of the two games listed above saves games right to the cartridge, and that doesn't work on the 1541u.

You should put some sort of C64 Logo in your profile. 😀 I'll need some time to digest what you said after I wake up. I did amass quite a few Copy software programs for the C64. I think Mavericks was one that I remember using. Those cracking skills will definitely come in handy.

I do have Legacy of the Ancients and of different computer platforms. I think I might have it for all the computer versions it was released. I was into collecting as many of these old games at a time. The Security Code wheel I recall. I still haven't had time to play it to figure out which computer version had the best graphics and sound. 😕

Unknown_K wrote:

I look at Commodore as having hit 2 homes runs , first with the C64 and then with the Amiga 500. They made a ton of money on those that was wasted in other areas and could not expand either as time went by. What made the original Amiga so cool is also what made it hard to expand in any meaningful manner (1.44mb drives that had to spin at half speed so the decade old chipset could keep up, video that was pretty much the same from the A1000 to the A3000 with a few bonus features around the A1200/A4000 just before bankruptcy). Failed consoles didn't help.

The PET was big and the VIC-20 was very successful too, then of course the C64 really got the ball rolling for Commodore. From what I've read the VIC-20 could somewhat be considered good planning but the C64 was a managerial shot in the dark that happened to hit the bulls-eye thanks to the engineering talent that happened to be working there at the time. The VIC-II and SID chips weren't designed for the C64, but rather already existed and were being marketed to game console designers, set-top-box makers, etc. The CES was rolling around so they slapped together "something" with the chips at their disposal - including 64K ram, which just happened to be available in quantity and coming down in price at that time.

Like they'd done previously, Commodore didn't reward the engineering talent appropriately for their work and they promptly left - the SID guy went on to found Ensoniq from memory?

95DosBox wrote:

I do have Legacy of the Ancients and of different computer platforms. I think I might have it for all the computer versions it was released. I was into collecting as many of these old games at a time. The Security Code wheel I recall. I still haven't had time to play it to figure out which computer version had the best graphics and sound. 😕

For Legacy of the Ancients and Legend of Blacksilver, you can't go wrong with the Commodore 64 versions. Those are the originals, and the best. The PC received a CGA graphics version of Legacy, which is okay, but not the greatest looking. And both of these games got Apple II releases, which are colorful, but don't play quite as smoothly.

I had a chance to talk to Johnny Klonaris, who wrote the intro music for Legacy as well as some assembly code for the games. It seems that all non-C64 versions were ports done by other shops.

badmojo wrote:

Like they'd done previously, Commodore didn't reward the engineering talent appropriately for their work and they promptly left - the SID guy went on to found Ensoniq from memory?

That is correct! I'd love to have seen the original SID chip plans come to fruition, as it was supposed to be far more capable than what ended up going in the system.

SaxxonPike wrote:

For Legacy of the Ancients and Legend of Blacksilver, you can't go wrong with the Commodore 64 versions. Those are the originals […]
Show full quote

95DosBox wrote:

I do have Legacy of the Ancients and of different computer platforms. I think I might have it for all the computer versions it was released. I was into collecting as many of these old games at a time. The Security Code wheel I recall. I still haven't had time to play it to figure out which computer version had the best graphics and sound. 😕

For Legacy of the Ancients and Legend of Blacksilver, you can't go wrong with the Commodore 64 versions. Those are the originals, and the best. The PC received a CGA graphics version of Legacy, which is okay, but not the greatest looking. And both of these games got Apple II releases, which are colorful, but don't play quite as smoothly.

I had a chance to talk to Johnny Klonaris, who wrote the intro music for Legacy as well as some assembly code for the games. It seems that all non-C64 versions were ports done by other shops.

badmojo wrote:

Like they'd done previously, Commodore didn't reward the engineering talent appropriately for their work and they promptly left - the SID guy went on to found Ensoniq from memory?

That is correct! I'd love to have seen the original SID chip plans come to fruition, as it was supposed to be far more capable than what ended up going in the system.

There was another game I recall using that same exact Security Code Wheel style.

Have you tried Starflight from Electronic Arts also? It used a Purple one instead of the Black one in LOTA.
Did you ever crack that launch code request before launching from the space station?
I think when you save the game state it somehow rewrites the codes back each time so you might to patch it after each saved game state? This would be an interesting game to play off of that USB C64 Cartridge adapter. How much did you pay for that?

badmojo wrote:

Like they'd done previously, Commodore didn't reward the engineering talent appropriately for their work and they promptly left - the SID guy went on to found Ensoniq from memory?

I didn't know this but it figures. Ensoniq has the best non-genuine OPL3 implementation and the most user friendly PnP ISA cards I have.

appiah4 wrote:

badmojo wrote:

Like they'd done previously, Commodore didn't reward the engineering talent appropriately for their work and they promptly left - the SID guy went on to found Ensoniq from memory?

I didn't know this but it figures. Ensoniq has the best non-genuine OPL3 implementation and the most user friendly PnP ISA cards I have.

Ensoniq also built some of the best professional sampler workstations from the late 80s until the mid 90s. I owned & used their original 13-bit EPS sampler, VFX synth and 16-bit ASR-10 sampling workstation in my studio and all were way ahead of their time. Some bands still use the ASR-10 to this day. When Creative bought them, unfortunately, the pro music portion of the company got buried.

SaxxonPike wrote:

I visited my Konzel grandparents very frequently and was absolutely mystified at these magical devices. My grandfather had a dual-drive Commodore 64 setup (which I later found out was somewhat uncommon because it required some soldering!) Part of their software library included some classic games and educational software, and I got to play around on it, on both the 386SX computer they owned and the Commodore 64.

I ripped this off of the blog you had posted. Although I was curious about the C64 dual-drive issue requiring soldering. I remember using two 1541 drives because I used them for disk duplication. I don't recall needing to solder anything and simply worked. I haven't tried more than two floppy drives but I wonder if four could be used on it? Maybe you can shed some light on what kind of drives your grandfather was using or had photos? Were these standard 1541 drives or some other model?

95DosBox wrote:

I ripped this off of the blog you had posted. Although I was curious about the C64 dual-drive issue requiring soldering. I remember using two 1541 drives because I used them for disk duplication. I don't recall needing to solder anything and simply worked. I haven't tried more than two floppy drives but I wonder if four could be used on it? Maybe you can shed some light on what kind of drives your grandfather was using or had photos? Were these standard 1541 drives or some other model?

The 1541 is wired to device 8 by default. If you want to use two unmodified drives, that means that everytime you power them on, you need to first connect one, send some software command to change its device to anything other than 8, then connect the second drive.
There are two jumpers inside the 1541 to change the default device. So if you want to do that, some soldering may be required.
Back when I used two drives, I added a switch to the second drive, so I could flip the jumper from the outside.
There are four possible jumper/device settings (8, 9, 10, 11), so up to 4 drives can be daisy chained.
See also here: http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue47 … vice_Number.php

Scali wrote:

The 1541 is wired to device 8 by default. If you want to use two unmodified drives, that means that everytime you power them on, […]
Show full quote

95DosBox wrote:

I ripped this off of the blog you had posted. Although I was curious about the C64 dual-drive issue requiring soldering. I remember using two 1541 drives because I used them for disk duplication. I don't recall needing to solder anything and simply worked. I haven't tried more than two floppy drives but I wonder if four could be used on it? Maybe you can shed some light on what kind of drives your grandfather was using or had photos? Were these standard 1541 drives or some other model?

The 1541 is wired to device 8 by default. If you want to use two unmodified drives, that means that everytime you power them on, you need to first connect one, send some software command to change its device to anything other than 8, then connect the second drive.
There are two jumpers inside the 1541 to change the default device. So if you want to do that, some soldering may be required.
Back when I used two drives, I added a switch to the second drive, so I could flip the jumper from the outside.
There are four possible jumper/device settings (8, 9, 10, 11), so up to 4 drives can be daisy chained.
See also here: http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue47 … vice_Number.php

I suppose when using two drives for disk duplication you don't have to deal with jumper assignment? I remember hooking the two C64 1541 drives up but I could have adjusted a jumper to deal with drive conflict but I still don't see any soldering requirements.

95DosBox wrote:

I suppose when using two drives for disk duplication you don't have to deal with jumper assignment?

Yes you do, as I said: every 1541 is hardwired to device 8 from the factory. So you can't connect two or more of them at the same time, because they'd all pick up the same commands.

95DosBox wrote:

I remember hooking the two C64 1541 drives up but I could have adjusted a jumper to deal with drive conflict but I still don't see any soldering requirements.

A ''jumper' in 1541 parlance is not what you may be accustomed to from PCs, with those pin headers and little plastic things you can shove on them.
In the 1541 a 'jumper' is still the oldskool style of jumpers: a jumper is just two solder pads, either with a trace connecting them, or with the trace cut (see the link I posted earlier).
So to adjust the device number, you either need to cut traces, or restore a trace between two pads. The former can usually be done without soldering, by just cutting it with a knife or so. The latter definitely requires soldering.
As I said, I connected a switch to the two jumper pads on one of my 1541s. I believe that was a common solution. If you would put two switches on the back, you could set it to any of the 4 possible drive configurations from the outside.

95DosBox wrote:

I ripped this off of the blog you had posted. Although I was curious about the C64 dual-drive issue requiring soldering. I remember using two 1541 drives because I used them for disk duplication. I don't recall needing to solder anything and simply worked. I haven't tried more than two floppy drives but I wonder if four could be used on it? Maybe you can shed some light on what kind of drives your grandfather was using or had photos? Were these standard 1541 drives or some other model?

He owned a pair of 1541s. One of them had a switch on the back to make it drive 8/9. It was definitely modded in.

It's a serial bus, every drive listens all the time. They wait until a command is issued with their drive number on it and respond. Two devices with the same number causes two drives to put bits onto the bus at the same time. The bus conflict suddenly causes corruption in the communication. So they would definitely need to have had different drive numbers.

The 1541 Ultimate cartridge is not cheap, but it is quite well constructed. 150 euros. See more here: http://www.1541ultimate.net

Because it is hard coded to drive 8, and I am using a 128DCR with a built in 1571 also using drive 8, I had to modify the board so that the internal drive was instead 9. This has the caveat of fast loaders potentially not working with the internal drive, though.

Scali wrote:

Yes you do, as I said: every 1541 is hardwired to device 8 from the factory. So you can't connect two or more of them at the sam […]
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95DosBox wrote:

I suppose when using two drives for disk duplication you don't have to deal with jumper assignment?

Yes you do, as I said: every 1541 is hardwired to device 8 from the factory. So you can't connect two or more of them at the same time, because they'd all pick up the same commands.

95DosBox wrote:

I remember hooking the two C64 1541 drives up but I could have adjusted a jumper to deal with drive conflict but I still don't see any soldering requirements.

A ''jumper' in 1541 parlance is not what you may be accustomed to from PCs, with those pin headers and little plastic things you can shove on them.
In the 1541 a 'jumper' is still the oldskool style of jumpers: a jumper is just two solder pads, either with a trace connecting them, or with the trace cut (see the link I posted earlier).
So to adjust the device number, you either need to cut traces, or restore a trace between two pads. The former can usually be done without soldering, by just cutting it with a knife or so. The latter definitely requires soldering.
As I said, I connected a switch to the two jumper pads on one of my 1541s. I believe that was a common solution. If you would put two switches on the back, you could set it to any of the 4 possible drive configurations from the outside.

I have maybe about half a dozen or so 1541's. Most are still in the shipping box I bought. But the word was incorrect it is not a jumper I meant to say. It was one of those dip switches similar to the ones found underneath IBM XT keyboard to select between XT or AT. The ones you use a pen tip or a small flat blade screwdriver to push to ON or OFF, UP or DOWN if I recall. I'll have to double check it's been maybe close to 10 years since I really touched base with it. And before that I had just bought it and used it maybe a few times over a year since I didn't own one when it came out. I was mainly duplicating C64 copy protected disks. Legacy of the Ancients was one of them. I can't remember if I hooked up both 1541's to avoid swapping disks.

95DosBox wrote:

I have maybe about half a dozen or so 1541's. Most are still in the shipping box I bought. But the word was incorrect it is not a jumper I meant to say. It was one of those dip switches similar to the ones found underneath IBM XT keyboard to select between XT or AT. The ones you use a pen tip or a small flat blade screwdriver to push to ON or OFF, UP or DOWN if I recall.

Those would have to be modified in by someone.

SaxxonPike wrote:

Because it is hard coded to drive 8, and I am using a 128DCR with a built in 1571 also using drive 8, I had to modify the board so that the internal drive was instead 9. This has the caveat of fast loaders potentially not working with the internal drive, though.

Do you use the real drive much given you have the 1541 Ultimate? I added a switch to my C128DCR to turn the internal drive on and off, that worked well: Commodore 64 revival (warning, wall of pics)

What's your favourite fast loader? I use JiffyDOS on my C64 but have been messing around with the various fast loaders on the 1541UII+ to see how they compare, none are beating JD for ease of use / reliability so far.