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Operating System Specific Discussions => Other Operating Systems => Topic started by: fishy_fiz on March 20, 2014, 02:29:12 PM

Title: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: fishy_fiz on March 20, 2014, 02:29:12 PM: Of late my passion for retro computing has re-ignited. C64 and Tandy Coco are where my passion (nostalgia?) lay, but most older systems are of some interest to me.
Despite some of these machines having support and software releases still, news of which sometimes filters through to sites I frequent, Ive not had much luck finding sites dedicated to such systems.

So, that said, this thread poses 2 main questions:

1). Who else still follows retro computing (not just for replaying an old favorite occassionally), and wha's your format(s) of choice?
2). Does anyone have some good sites for current happenings in the retro computing world (either dedicated to a specific system, or multiformat?

Near as I can tell (or find) there's not much out there along the lines of what Im looking for, and stuff like lemon64 or worldofspectrum (ie. aimed at people more interested in nostalgia than current developments) is the norm.
Given the volume of stuff still developed across these older machines it seems a niche worthy of being filled.
Any feedback is appreciated. For now though Im going back to my 6809/coco3 pdf scans :)
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: Darrin on March 20, 2014, 05:00:27 PM: If you want to get back into the C64 then pick up a Turbo Chameleon64 cartridge. You can still use your C64 as normal, but if you insert this cartridge it will take over the C64, give you a VGA video out port, a virtual floppy drive to use D64 images, access to T64 tape files, the ability to load cartridge files (Simons BASIC, etc), and lots, lots more.

Unfortunately it seems to be out of stock at the moment. :(
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: Rebel-CD32 on March 26, 2014, 10:54:18 PM: I like to keep my eye on the retro computing and homebrew gaming scene. Here are some of the sites and forums I lurk around:

SEGA
http://www.smspower.org/forums/
http://shinobiman.proboards.com/
http://forums.sonicretro.org/

NINTENDO
http://forums.nesdev.com/
http://nintendoage.com/forum/

ATARI
https://www.atariage.com/

MSX
http://www.msx.org/

Retro Game Blogs
http://www.retrocollect.com/
http://www.rgcd.co.uk/
http://amigagamer.blogspot.com.au/
http://www.amigapd.com/
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: Oldsmobile_Mike on March 26, 2014, 11:11:29 PM: I thought this site had a pretty nice design to it. Not sure how active it is, it just came up in a couple searches in the past:

http://www.talkretro.com/
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: RobertB on March 27, 2014, 01:40:37 AM: Quote from: fishy_fiz;761027
2). Does anyone have some good sites for current happenings in the retro computing world (either dedicated to a specific system, or multiformat?

For C= news, I like looking at http://www.c64.sk , at http://www.richardlagendijk.nl/cnp/home/index/1/en , and at the Google translation of http://commodore.hcc.nl/

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: Iggy on March 27, 2014, 01:59:31 AM: Well a friend of mine, Luis Antoniosi has designed an 80 column video card for pre-Coco3 Color Computers that uses the Yamaha V9958 video display processor.
This also has sprite graphics, higher res modes, and a great range of colors than the original 6847 VDG was capable of.
He has working prototypes of it and we've just received the first circuit boards back from a Chinese production run.
He has OS-9 and BASIC drivers he's working on.
And we've talked about adding an OPN4 sound chip to a future board.

So 6809/6309 based hacking continues...
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: Iggy on March 27, 2014, 08:23:14 PM: I'd really hoped to see more interest in this thread as I have interest that span a lot of older hardware.
In addition to the Amiga/MorphOS and Coco stuff I've been doing, I have an Atari 130XE with a 6309 processor installed in it, two Coldfire Evaluation boards, and some boards from the N8VEM home brew project.
And there is a project connect to the N8VEM developers that is working on a home brew 68040 based system that has my attention.

I wouldn't mind a specific forum for this stuff.
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: ElPolloDiabl on March 28, 2014, 01:11:10 PM: Every now and then I like to dig out an old title and play it. Some of the titles I thought I would never bother with again.

I've got Dos 6.22 installed in a Virtual Machine. It's a lot of fun when everything is so simple.

Check the indie titles on http://www.gog.com (http://www.gog.com) They do a lot of classic platform games.
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: Ral-Clan on March 28, 2014, 01:39:18 PM: You might want to listen to the Retro-Computing Roundtable podcast. It is fun and very informative in this manner.

Also Earle Evans' old "Retrobits" podcast is good to listen to (although the episodes are a few years old they are still relevant).
Title: Re: Current Retro Computing Happenings?
Post by: Iggy on April 07, 2014, 08:27:11 PM: Again, not Amiga related, but reflecting another of my Motorola based interests.
My friend [FONT="]Luis Antoniosi has posted a video on YouTube showing the finished 80 column display card for the Tandy Color Computer he calls the Wordpak 2+.
Notice that he has managed to stuff a Yamaha V9958 VDP, 4 64Kx4 drams, and the other circuitry into a standard program pak.

[/FONT][FONT="]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btTlrNovbc0[/FONT]