Commodore 64 DTV Hacked

Sebastian writes "C64 DTV has been out for just under a month now and the Modders and Hackers have been hard at work. Here is a website dedicated to C64DTV modding. This one has nice pictures of the inns of C64 DTV and even some easter eggs."

Images..

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

"Forgive me for the large images, I didn't have the time to scale them down, these are just copied straight from the digital camera."

We may, but your server won't.

Re:Images..

[Rev Wally (814101)]

I think he's using his digital camera for his server. Down at zero comments.

Re:Images..

[Asmor (775910)]

Double click an image Hit "B" Ensure Batch Conversion is selected Hit add all Advanced options: Set new size to something smaller Voila! IrfanView makes everything easier. Seriously, it's a much bigger annoyance FTPing the files than resizing them (although that's mainly because I'm on day 1100 or so of the 30 day trial in FlashFXP and have to wait 30 seconds to get rid of the nag screen).

D'oh. Bad formatting.

[Asmor (775910)]

Dangit. I always forget to add the linebreaks. Is there something in my profile I can set to automatically interpret line breaks?

Re:D'oh. Bad formatting.

[WhatAmIDoingHere (742870)]

You can learn how to post on /.

If you want plain old text, select it from the drop-down menu next to "Preview"..

Or, you can throw in a pair of [br][br] and use HTML Formatted.

Re:And this is demonstration...

[bhtooefr (649901)]

IIRC, there was actually a C64 web server that survived three Slashdottings (or at least survived for a few hours). One of those times, it was ALSO running TWO VNC servers AND a RealAudio server (playing from the cassette drive). Pretty damn impressive, especially considering that the pages were dynamic, not static.

Hmmm Easter Egg

[Kurst (827682)]

This C64DTV is becoming better and better with each passing web day.

Got one for my younger brother for X-Mas. I'm hoping that there is some information what the 5 "easter egg" games are in the system so I can give that with the stick.

But did you have to...

[Phixxr (794883)]

...host the page on your new toy?

It's supposed to work like this...

[vasqzr (619165)]

Jeri has stated she wanted this to be expandable by end users. Too bad all devices aren't created with that mantra.

Re:It's supposed to work like this...

[Rico_Suave (147634)]

Good point. The /. headline makes it sound like people have gotten away with something potentially illegal, but it was *designed* to be hackable.

The SID (audio) emulation is apparently bad

[dstone (191334)]

The SID chip [wikipedia.org] is my All Time Favorite Chip, for the crazy bleepy goodness it produces and for relative ease of programming. Unfortunately, emulating the sucker is quite difficult because of its design quirks. I just scanned the C64 DTV hacking forums [dtvhacking.info], it sounds like the audio emulation leaves a lot to be desired. Sigh.

It's too bad, because a little plug & play C64 tracker or demo player or SID player at that price would have been a great toy.

Re:The SID (audio) emulation is apparently bad

[whathappenedtomonday (581634)]

emulating the sucker is quite difficult

if soft emu is enough, you might want to give quadrasid a try [refx.net]

Re:The SID (audio) emulation is apparently bad

[Rico_Suave (147634)]

The sound reproduction on some batches are bad. The ones not affected apparently sound just fine. Ones that are labeled "C64" on the stick are ok. *Some* of the ones labeled Commodore 64 are the affected ones. You can tell for sure by launching Winter Games and playing the Hot Dog event. If the drum sounds are indistinct (just a long wave of white noise), yours is affected.

I ordered two from QVC, and unfortunately both were afflicted with the problem. The manufacture date (located on the underside of

Re:The SID (audio) emulation is apparently bad

[Rico_Suave (147634)]

Hate to reply to my own post, but... this is straight from the designer Jeri's keyboard...

"This problem might relate to the TMode and the LFSR init. Can someone with a bad noise wavform strobe tmode with the 3.3v supply. This will reset the unit and set all registers to 0."

So that's a possible solution.

All of these gadgets I've seen are fairly hackable

[hal2814 (725639)]

I've been hacking the Pac and Ms. Pac controllers to use real arcade parts for a while now for friends. Their innards are also pretty well labelled and hackable. Granted, on the Ms. Pac the soldering is so poor that you might feel inclined to redo it, but if you're careful you can hack on of those just by cutting and stripping a few wires and using your wire conector of choice. I hope this trend keeps up.

Re:All of these gadgets I've seen are fairly hacka

[bill_mcgonigle (4333)]

I've been hacking the Pac and Ms. Pac controllers to use real arcade parts

Clearly you need a website. :)

Are the controls 1:1 wire-compatible or do you hack in a controller?

Re:All of these gadgets I've seen are fairly hacka

[hal2814 (725639)]

If I have time I'll set up a website. The controls are all wire-compatible. The ones I've opened up even color code the wires. I cheated on Pole Position (it uses an odd auto-centering pot setup I've never seen). I use a stereo knob off of my old stereo. It doesn't auto-center this way, but I'm working on a system for that.

I adore my 64...

[PhotoJim (813785)]

I'm not sure what's worse - the comedy of having a joystick with four attached floppy disk drives, or the fact that I want to own a joystick with four attached floppy drives. ;)