Dan's MEGA65 Digest : Dan Sanderson
What's new with the MEGA65 personal computer
Tue, April 15, 2025
MEGA65: The First Ten Years
MEGA65: The First Ten Years. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for April 2025.
Tue, March 25, 2025
What's New in v0.97
What’s New in v0.97. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for March 2025.
Wed, February 19, 2025
Screenful of BASIC 2025 compo
Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for February 2025. A new BASIC code competition for the MEGA65 10th anniversary!
Sat, February 01, 2025
Disassembling Crossroads, part 2
In last November’s Digest , we started a project to dissect the classic C64 title Crossroads , published by Compute!’s Gazette magazine in December 1987. We got a handle on how the game works by playing it, and by inspecting the running game state in Retro Debugger , a C64 emulator with memory visualization features. In this issue, we’ll get up close and personal with the Crossroads machine code, using a tool called a disassembler . Combined with what we’ve learned, and some world knowledge of Commodore programs, we can begin to produce human-readable assembly language source code for the game. Crossroads was so popular that Compute! commissioned a sequel, Crossroads II: Pandemonium , which was published in December 1988. I did some searching to see if anyone has disassembled the Crossroads games already, and discovered an excellent disassembly of Crossroads II by Github user hyphz. For the sake of the exercise, I did not look closely at this disassembly at first, but I do expect the original Crossroads to be similar in many ways. We won’t do a full disassembly of Crossroads in a single newsletter, but we’ll answer some of the most important questions. Before we do that, let’s see what everyone else is up to! PET core pre-release Olaf “Rhialto” Seibert is working on a Commodore PET core for the MEGA65, and has invited everyone to help test a pre-release version . The Filehost download includes core builds for R3 and R6 boards, and a copy of the necessary ROM files that you install on the SD card in a folder named pet/. Do keep in mind that this is a pre-release and may be missing features. Check out the Commodore PET core on Github to see source files and file bugs. Many thanks to Rhialto for this exciting project! Gaplus arcade core muse continues to deliver arcade core goodness! This month, it’s Gaplus, the third game in the Galaga series from Namco. As usual, you will need to download the Gaplus core , locate MAME ROMs on the Internet, then follow the set-up instructions to produce the files for the SD card. The Gaplus core is available for both R3 and R6 mainboards. I encountered an issue with the R6 version when using HDMI video where after a few seconds the game video becomes a static screen of vertical bars. This does not occur ove
Sat, February 01, 2025
Disassembling Crossroads, part 2
Disassembling Crossroads, part 2. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for January 2025.
Fri, December 13, 2024
Santa's Souped-Up MEGA65
Hey everyone! I hope you’re all ready for some end-of-the-year relaxation, maybe some time off work, spent with family, in whatever temperature extreme you’re experiencing in your hemisphere. I also hope you’ll get some time to play with your MEGA65, because you’re gonna need it! There are so many project announcements this month that I’ve decided to dedicate this entire issue to new downloads, to celebrate everyone’s talent and enthusiasm, and to give thanks for our wonderful community. We will finish our Crossroads disassembly project in January. SidPlay65 There’s a new way to make music with your MEGA65, thanks to MEGA65 developer LightTangent! SidPlay65 is a MEGA65 program that re-implements the SIDPlayer music system from Compute! Publishing. It plays single-SID and dual-SID songs, and supports some advanced SIDPlayer format features like colorful PETSCII banner displays and karaoke lyrics. SIDPlayer was one of several major tentpole products for the Commodore 64 from Compute!, along with Crossroads and the hit word processing package SpeedScript . The initial version of SIDPlayer appeared as a type-in in the book All About the Commodore 64, Volume Two by Craig Chamberlain. It included rudimentary music editing software, and a player routine that could be embedded in your BASIC or machine language programs. Chamberlain revised the system and published the Enhanced SIDPlayer in the book COMPUTE!’s Music System for the Commodore 128 & 64 , this time with a companion floppy disk instead of type-in code. The SIDPlayer system was a huge hit in the United States, and C64 owners produced thousands of songs and shared them on online services like Delphi and Quantum Link . Some SIDPlayer songs were written to be played on two SID chips simultaneously for a total of six simultaneous voices, made possible by either having two C64s, hacking a C64 to add a second SID chip, or using the SID Symphony Stereo Cartridge from Dr. Evil Laboratories. Today, this legacy lives on in the Compute!’s Gazette SID Collection (CGSC). You can download the whole set to play on your C64 or MEGA65, or browse and play the collection in a web browser with the website DeepSID . LightTangent <a target="_blank" href="https://gitlab.com/fptech/rev-si
Fri, December 13, 2024
Santa's Souped-Up MEGA65
Santa’s Souped-Up MEGA65. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for December 2024.
Fri, November 15, 2024
Disassembling Crossroads, part 1
One of my all-time favorite games for the Commodore 64—and I know I’m not alone in this—is Crossroads, the single-screen maze shoot’em’up by Steve Harter, published in Compute!’s Gazette magazine as a type-in program in December 1987. The game features dozens of enemies of a variety of types and colors, all fighting each other in a cacophony of attacks and explosions. You’re dropped into the fray to collect items called “spars,” which provide you some protection against attacks, and which the enemies also consume. The game supports one or two players on joysticks, and both players battle for survival simultaneously. Some people like to say that typing in programs from magazines and books helped them learn how to write programs of their own. I can see how that might be true for BASIC programs, though I can’t honestly say I learned anything from type-ins when I was in grade school. For programs written in languages other than BASIC, Compute! offered no way to learn. In this interview with Steve Harter by Kirk Israel, Steve says he wrote Crossroads in assembly language, but Compute! never published assembly language listings for full programs in magazines. Instead, Compute! published such programs as columns of numbers, along with a helper program that assisted with keying these values directly into memory. The most you could learn from these type-ins was data entry, and perseverance. (As an aside: I’m aware of only two cases where Compute! published full assembly language program listings for the C64, both as books: the LADS assembler and the SpeedScript word processor . Steve wrote Crossroads using LADS.) Over the next two issues of this Digest, we’ll crack open the original Crossroads program and see what we can learn, using two modern reverse engineering tools for your PC. This month, we’ll take a look at Retro Debugger , a C64 emulator with real-time memory visualization features. To keep this newsletter to a reasonable length (😬) we’ll discuss just enough to get started, and ask a few specific questions of interest about the game. As always, let us begin with some MEGA65 news! New Filehost feature: high score tables Filehost has a fun new feature for competitive MEGA65 gaming: high score tables! When you upload your game to Filehost, you can choose to enable “Highscore submission.” This allows players to submit their high scores by clicking the plus ("+") button on your game’s Filehost detail page, uploading a screenshot as evidence. All score submissions must be approved by you before appear
Fri, November 15, 2024
Disassembling Crossroads, part 1
Disassembling Crossroads, part 1. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for November 2024.
Tue, October 22, 2024
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start
Everyone who owned a Commodore 64 had at least one joystick, a game controller consisting of a lever that could be pushed in eight directions and a single action button. Games based on this controller typically involved the player using the stick to move an avatar—a spaceship, a person, a creature—as well as pushing the action button to activate a weapon against some enemies. The button on this kind of joystick was almost universally referred to as the “fire” button for how often it was used to launch missiles or shoot bullets. Then came the Nintendo Entertainment System with its gamepad controller, a plastic rectangle with a directional thumb pad, two action buttons, and two more business-like buttons intended for pausing the game and accessing menus. NES games, especially Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda , popularized a new game design language based on the two action buttons. While Mario-like platform games were made for the C64 and its one-button joystick, expecting the player to shove the joystick forward (“up”) to jump, every generation of gamers that followed the NES expected to be able to jump in a platform game by pressing one of the two action buttons. The vast majority of C64 games used the one-button joystick protocol. But there have been several attempts, both vintage and modern, to bring multi-button gaming to the C64, and to other computers with 9-pin joystick ports. This is of particular interest to modern retro game developers who want to use multi-button game design conventions while coding for the C64 and MEGA65. In this Digest, we’ll explore a bit of the history of 9-pin game controllers, and investigate several methods used to implement multi-button schemes. We’ll look at the fundamentals of game controller electronics, and game controller programming. We’ll also take a closer look at several modern game controllers and controller adapters you can buy today for your MEGA65. But first news! More MEGA65 parts available separately Last month , we noticed that Trenz Electronic is now making the MEGA65 mainboard available for preorder as a standalone part. Trenz has since added more MEGA65 parts to their store : the MEGA65 keyboard, the plastic case, the floppy drive, and the power supply. The keyboard is a sophisticated part, including the mechanical key switches, keycaps, cable, metal frame, and LEDs. The case includes other plastic bits such as the ALPS floppy drive eject button and reset button cap. You could, in theory, assemble a full MEGA65 from the
Tue, October 22, 2024
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start
Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for October 2024.
Mon, September 16, 2024
Greetings from Chicagoland
It’s a busy month! I just got back from the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest (VCFMW), the large-and-getting-larger-every-year vintage computer show. This was my first visit at this particular show, and it was great fun. I bring back a few photos, a few stories, and too much stuff from the free table. But first, the news. Catching up on pre-orders; mainboards now available separately Trenz Electronic is making steady progress on shipping all of the pending MEGA65 preorders, on schedule to get everyone taken care of by the end of the calendar year. A new pre-order for a MEGA65 placed today should have a lead time of only a few months. If you placed a pre-order and have received an email with an invoice, be sure to submit payment promptly. Invoiced but unpaid orders expire within a few weeks, to allocate inventory to others waiting on a pre-order. (Thankfully, you can just re-make your expired order, and you’ll receive it fairly soon.) With this milestone comes some exciting news! Trenz Electronic is now accepting preorders for MEGA65 mainboards without the enclosure, keyboard, or floppy drive. This is great for electronics projects, custom enclosures, or just keeping a spare. You can make your own keyboard with some effort, and the floppy drive is a standard IDE drive and cable. The standalone mainboards are expected to ship in mid-2025. Many owners of the 2022 edition of the MEGA65 (mainboard revision R3A) asked for the ability to replace the mainboard with the latest hardware revision (R6), and it’s great that Trenz is providing this option. This is just my opinion, but if you simply want a MEGA65 with the revised hardware, you might get a better result buying a complete new computer, and selling your 2022 edition on the secondary market. The mainboard is more than half the cost of the computer, and unless you want to keep the spare R3 board, you’re unlikely to recoup that cost after an upgrade. Of course, there are no guarantees on the secondary market, but it’s worth giving it a thought. Personally, I own two MEGA65s and a spare board, a Nexys dev board—and dozens of other computers. But you might not want to follow my example. Speaking of owning lots of computers, Trenz has lifted the one-per-person limitation on MEGA65 pre-orders. If you want to outfit a classroom, hand out MEGA65s at parties, or just make a cool fort out of the boxes, now is your chance! Thanks as always to everyone at Trenz Electronic for their partnership on the MEGA65 project. Filehost messaging feature Filehost , our commun
Mon, September 16, 2024
Greetings from Chicagoland
Greetings from Chicagoland. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for September 2024.
Mon, August 26, 2024
EasyAsm
There’s tons of new stuff for you to download and try this month! kibo has launched a new implementation of a classic graphic adventure game engine capable of playing Maniac Mansion. The group Megastyle has released several new MEGA65 titles. And I’m launching a project of my own: an on-device assembly language programming tool for the MEGA65, called EasyAsm. Much to discuss, let’s get started! SCUMM v2 player, by kibo You can now play the LucasArts graphic adventure-comedy game Maniac Mansion directly on your MEGA65! kibo made a new implementation of the SCUMM v2 game engine for the MEGA65 capable of playing the classic game, which he calls "MegaSPUTM." This hugely impressive project uses the game data files from the Amiga version, and supports full color graphics, digitized sound, and multiple input devices. To play Maniac Mansion, you need to acquire the original game data files. If you own the disks, you can use Amiga disk management tools to extract the .LFL files. MegaSPUTM works with both the English and German versions of the data files. The full procedure takes a few minutes. I got it up and running like so: * Download kibo’s SCUMM v2 engine from Filehost. Expand the .zip archive to produce D81 disk image files mm1.d81 and mm2.d81. * Retrieve the .LFL files from the rooms/ folder of the first disk of Maniac Mansion for the Amiga. If your media is in the form of an ADF disk image, there are several tools you can use. I found this cute browser-based ADF reader , which does everything locally on your computer and doesn’t require uploading data to a remote server. It’s a bit obnoxious that you have to select and “download” each .LFL file individually, but it works, and doesn’t require installing anything. * Use a D81 disk image tool to place the .LFL files from the first ADF onto mm1.d81. Here too you have your choice of tools. I like droid64 , a Java UI application. If you use DirMaster and possibly some others, you may need to rename the files to use lowercase .lfl before adding them to the disk. (droid64 will lowercase it in transit.) * Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the 2nd game disk and mm2.d81. * Transfer mm1.d81 and mm2.d81 to the root of your MEGA65’s SD card. Now on the MEGA65, MOUNT and BOOT the mm1.d81 disk image. Crank those speakers, and use a joystick or a mouse! The original Maniac Mansion game included a printed booklet entitled “Nuke’m Alarms Owner’s Disarmament Quick Reference Guide,” which was needed early in the game. Similar to SCUMM VM and Disney's own
Mon, August 26, 2024
EasyAsm
EasyAsm. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for August 2024.
Thu, July 18, 2024
Let's paint!
I feel like painting today. Let’s paint! Oh, uh, but first… The Silent Enigma The Silent Enigma is a new demo by Gurce, based on the song by Anathema . Gurce wrote the demo in BASIC 65 with the Eleven IDE, with assembly language helper routines in Mega Assembler and Acme , and an extended version of grim-fandango’s MEGAPLOT library . The current version of the demo requires customized versions of the MEGA65 core and ROM to run on MEGA65 hardware. Gurce discovered a need for a new feature of the KERNAL for combining BASIC and machine code routines, and also discovered a core bug while getting it to work. We’re working on getting these improvements into the core platform. In the meantime, Gurce is distributing modified core and ROM files with the demo . Check out retroComb’s video debuting The Silent Enigma , along with an interview with Gurce. And don’t miss the Eleven and assembly language source files included on the disk! My talk at PaCommEx NW is online My talk about the MEGA65 at Pacific Commodore Expo Northwest 2024, Lessons from My First Two Years with the MEGA65 , is now on YouTube. My thanks to Robert Bernardo for producing the event, to Stephen Jones and SDF.org for sponsoring, and to everyone who attended. We had three MEGA65s on the floor this year, including a live unboxing of a freshly delivered unit! C64 core v5.1 released The C64 core for the MEGA65 , one of the best things you can do for your favorite computer, has a new update. Version 5.1 adds support for the R6 mainboard, the board in all MEGA65s being delivered this year, and can take advantage of the R6 board’s bidirectional expansion port lines for Kung Fu Flash, MSSIAH, and freezer cartridge support. This update also includes improvements for all mainboards, including the ability to share the MEGA65’s Real-Time Clock with GEOS, using an appropriate driver. Don’t forget that the MEGA65 has a new feature that can select the C64 core automatically when a C64 cartridge is installed. If your MEGA65 was delivered this year, your firmware is already up to date with this feature. If you have an
Thu, July 18, 2024
Let's paint!
Let’s paint! Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for July 2024.
Tue, June 18, 2024
KERNAL of Truth
The Summer of MEGA65 begins! The latest delivery batch is in progress, and many preorder holders are receiving their new favorite computer. If you’re new to this Digest, welcome! Here you’ll find news about the MEGA65 and community projects, and interactive feature articles of things you can try for yourself. Read the Digest while next to your MEGA65 and PC for the best experience. Also, every Digest has a read-aloud audio edition. Click the audio player at the top of the email or website, or subscribe to “Dan’s MEGA65 Digest” in your podcast player. I don’t know how many people listen to it, but I enjoy making it. In this Digest, we’ll start taking a look at the MEGA65 KERNAL, the main operating system of the computer. We’ll build off of last month’s discussion of interrupts and the CPU memory map, and try writing a MEGA65 version of a classic KERNAL extension: a desktop time-of-day clock. Let’s get started! Batch #3 is arriving! MEGA65 home computers are now arriving with their new owners! Trenz Electronic has begun sending out the third manufacturing batch, and will continue to fulfill pre-orders steadily. Congrats and welcome to everyone receiving a new bundle of joy! Back in January, we were able to confirm with Trenz that this manufacturing batch will be large enough to cover all preorders placed up to that point. I continue to use that as a conservative estimate. New preorders placed in the last few months may need to wait a bit longer—or maybe not. For all we know, Trenz may be able to make quick work of another batch and get everyone taken care of. Rest assured that everyone involved in this project wants you to have a MEGA65 as soon as possible. Of course, you can still order the MEGA65 if you haven’t already. Tell your friends! MEGA65 at the Pacific Commodore Expo Northwest, June 22-23, 2024 If you’re near Seattle, Washington, USA this month, I will be presenting the MEGA65 at the Pacific Commodore Expo Northwest , June 22-23, 2024. Admission is free. The space is cozy and filled with Commodores, and this year we have access to additional space for presentations. I’ll have my MEGA65 at a table all weekend for people to try. I gave a talk on the MEGA65 at last year’s PaCommEx NW that went reasonably well, despite being hastily planned. Here’s hoping that I’ll have this year’s talk figured out in time. 😬 MEGA65 at the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest, September 7-8, 2024 I’m working up plans to be at the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest , September 7-8, 2024, at the Schaumburg Convention Cen
Tue, June 18, 2024
KERNAL of Truth
KERNAL of Truth. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for June 2024.
Sat, June 01, 2024
Racing the Beam
At least once before in this Digest I’ve said something about how there’s a way to write a program to perform precisely timed actions, but the actual technique would have to wait until a future issue. In this issue, we’ll start looking into this, with a focus on synchronizing a program with a particularly useful hardware feature: the raster beam . To do this effectively, we’ll introduce an important programming paradigm supported directly by a feature of the CPU, called interrupts . To get that to work, we’ll also take a brief look at how to uninstall the KERNAL operating system by changing the system’s memory map. Any news? Trenz Electronic is busily assembling new MEGA65s, still on track for delivering the next batch in the next few weeks. The Discord and Forum64 board have been quieter than usual, with everyone starting new projects or resting up from previous ones. I can’t wait for the rush of new people joining and asking questions! If you have a project in progress that you’d like to see featured in the Digest, let me know ! You can also announce your project in the #announcements channel on the Discord, and upload your work in progress to Filehost for others to try. Beginners welcome! Some of the coolest stuff we’ve seen for the MEGA65 has been written in BASIC by people like you just trying things out. The time keepers Every computer contains a component that generates a clock signal, a fast and precisely timed electronic pulse that drives the digital devices in the computer. Like turning the crank of a music box, these pulses advance the internal mechanisms of each device through their various stages to perform computations, and to generate signals of their own. The clock signal also synchronizes the devices with each other, so they can communicate with one another over their electronic connections. MEGA65 programs can take advantage of three specific devices driven by the system clock to execute code with precise timing: the CPU, the VIC video chip, and the CIA chip. The CPU The CPU uses the clock signal to perform the machine code instructions of a program. Each instruction requires a certain number of cycles to perform, where each cycle takes a fixed amount of time based on the clock. For example, the lda #$ff instruction, which loads the byte value $ff from the program code into the accumulator register, takes two CPU cycles to complete. The cycle cost of an instruction depends on the instruction and addressing mode, but it’s typically between 1 and 6 cycles, and as many as 14 cycles for fancier operations like the 45GS02 Q-register instructions. In its default MEGA65 mode, the MEGA65 CPU performs instructions at 40.5 million cycles per second, o
Sat, June 01, 2024
Racing the Beam
Racing the Beam. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for May 2024.
Fri, March 15, 2024
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu
[Did you know: All issues of the Digest have an audio version! Search for “ Dan’s MEGA65 Digest ” in your favorite podcast app, or check out the audio player at the top of each issue. — Dan] There are two methods for making sound and music with the MEGA65, as it is currently implemented. The first method is the four SID chips, programmable devices that generate waveforms with requested parameters using analog electronic components. We took a dive into the SID chips back in— November 2022 ?? How long have I been doing this?? … The MEGA65 can produce sound another way. Pulse-Code Modulation (PCM) describes a waveform as a sequence of values over time, literally the shape of the desired waveform as a series of high and low numbers, as if drawn on a graph. The computer feeds these numbers into a device called a Digital-Analog Converter (DAC) that produces the waveform in that shape, as if rapidly changing the position of a speaker membrane according to each value. The MEGA65 has four DACs, and these waveforms are mixed with the rest of the audio system to produce the stereo audio output of the computer. With PCM, a computer can reproduce real-world sounds captured by a microphone, such as human speech or musical instruments. Today, we take this extremely for granted: modern computers generate pretty much all sound using PCM waveforms. We used to call this “digitized sound,” in contrast with “synthesized sound.” Now we just call it “sound.” While PCM gives a computer program much more control over the generated sound, the trade-off is memory: relative to the memory sizes of 1980’s computers, PCM sound data takes a huge amount of space, depending on the length and quality of the sounds. In this issue, we’ll look at how to control the MEGA65’s DACs to play digitized sound, as well as techniques for wrangling sound data for use in your programs. As usual, we’ll spend a bit too much time nerding out on theory and file formats. Are you ready? Here we go. Featured Files Bomb’em All by btoschi, an explosive action game for two to four players. Drop bombs, pick up items, and break through walls while trying to trap your opponents in the blast zone. The game supports the Four Fun joystick adapter for four joysticks, or can be played with a mix of joystick and keyboard controls. BASIC Star Galactica by jim_64, a space battle adventure. Des
Fri, March 15, 2024
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for March 2024.
Fri, February 16, 2024
Sprite Attack!
Spaceships. Aliens. Marios. Goombas. Bullets. Fireballs. Mouse pointers, text cursors. Any of these could be a sprite , a feature of a computer graphics system dedicated to things that move. The sprite capabilities of the Commodore 64’s VIC-II chip super-charged video games and user interfaces beyond a single screenful of character text or a bitmap image. The MEGA65 includes support for VIC-II hardware sprites, and has sprite-related BASIC commands that make them easy to use in your programs. In this Digest, we’ll review the VIC-II sprite system’s capabilities, try out the sprite features added to Commodore BASIC for the C128, C65, and MEGA65, and step through a development workflow for using sprites in BASIC games. And we’ll try putting these pieces together to make a simple arcade game. But first… The User’s Guide, 2nd edition, now available You can now buy a spiral-bound printed copy of the MEGA65 User’s Guide, 2nd edition ! This new edition has been updated substantially from the 1st edition printing from two years ago. It covers the upcoming v0.96 release, with instructions for new features like Ethernet file transfer, and revised information on important topics like upgrading the firmware and using disks. The BASIC reference has been updated with corrections, polish, and material on new features. And there are handy new appendices on screen codes and system colors. Whether you have the 1st edition and want to upgrade, or don’t yet have a MEGA65 and just want a useful book to go with Xemu, getting the 2nd edition in print is a great way to enhance your MEGA65 experience. I wrote a FAQ with more information , including what’s happening with the manuals bundled with new MEGA65s. Let me know if you have any questions. Release testing update The v0.96 release package has been in public testing for a month, and we’ve been chasing down issues and polishing it up for factory installation on all of the new MEGA65s. This process should be complete a week or so after you read this. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the testing effort! What happens next: the v0.96 release package will be made official and sent to Trenz for the factory installation on new machines. It will be declared the new stable release for R3A and R6 mainboards, and made available on Filehost. Everyone with the “retail” MEGA65 will be encouraged to upgrade. DevKit and Nexys board owners will need to wait, just a bit. In order to meet the assembly schedule, we have had to defer preparing new cores for these boards until after this release.
Fri, February 16, 2024
Sprite Attack!
Sprite Attack. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for February 2024.
Tue, January 16, 2024
The New Hotness
It’s time! We have a shipping schedule for the next batch of MEGA65 computers, and a candidate for the next platform release. Everyone is invited to help with testing, so let’s get to it! Shipping update! Trenz Electronic has announced that the next batch of MEGA65 computers will ship on June 1st, 2024. We currently expect that all preorders up to this point will be included in this batch. If you need to make adjustments to your preorder before then, contact sales@trenz-electronic.de . Once we clear the preorders, remaining stock will become available for purchase in the Trenz Electronic store , while supplies last. Please bear with us while we work through any last minute issues that might change these estimates. And thank you so much for your patience! I can’t wait for you to receive your MEGA65! v0.96 release candidate now available to test! To make the new delivery schedule, we need to hand over the gold masters of the next release of the MEGA65 firmware and system software, as well as the updated User’s Guide, to Trenz Electronic by January 31st. Release v0.96 of the firmware, ROM, and system software will be installed at the factory on all MEGA65s about to ship. Of course, it will also be available as a free upgrade for all existing MEGA65s. This next release has a ton of new features and bug fixes—and we need testers! If you have a MEGA65, you can install the release candidate on your machine to help test. If you don’t have a MEGA65 yet, you can still help by testing the new version of the ROM with an updated version of the Xemu emulator. Testing the release candidate on a MEGA65 To begin, be sure to back up your SD card, or use an alternate SD card, before proceeding with testing. I usually just move the SD card to my PC, then copy all of the files from the SD card into a folder on my desktop. This doesn’t back up the configuration or Freeze states, but personally I don't keep important freeze states around long term. Alternatively, you could also use a disk imaging utility to back up both the hidden configuration partition and the files partition. If you’re using a fresh SD card for testing, remember to prepare the card first using the MEGA65’s SD Card Utility. Insert the card in your MEGA65, hold the Alt key while switching on the computer, then select the utility from the menu and follow the prompts. This erases all data on the card. Here’s how to get the files for the release candidate: * Release v0.96 RC core and system software . Select the latest build that begins with mega65r3-r-0.96, such as mega65r3-r
Mon, January 15, 2024
The New Hotness
The New Hotness. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for January 2024.
Thu, December 14, 2023
robotfindskitten, part 3
Our robotfindskitten adventure continues! In part 1 , we introduced the robotfindskitten experience, and described tools and techniques for building an rfk game in BASIC 65. In part 2 , we started building a similar toolkit in assembly language, starting with KERNAL routines, memory access techniques, and screen memory registers. This month, we complete the toolkit, and I present my own attempt at an assembly language version of the game. But first, a whole bunch of new stuff! R5 main board in testing! The new R5 main board test units have arrived and Paul has started the “bring-up” process , adapting the FPGA core to the design changes. With some minor corrections to the assembly, this should resemble the main boards that will ship with new MEGA65s going forward, including all pending pre-orders. Many thanks to Paul, Trenz Electronic, and the hardware testing team for the work they are doing. Unicone, by deathy deathy has another new game release! In Unicone , you are chasing a unicorn that poops ice cream. Move your ice cream cone left and right to catch falling ice cream scoops dropped by the unicorn. A fun game in the tradition of Kaboom! (or its lesser known ancestor, Avalanche ), Unicone features high resolution graphics, sampled sounds, a wide variety of control schemes, and a unique ice cream balancing mechanic for extra challenge in later levels. Download Unicode from Filehost . Want to see how it works? deathy has generously released the C source code to Unicone using an open source license, and the assets using a Creative Commons license. The code builds with the Calypsi C cross-compiler , a modern retro development suite by hth313 that recently added support for the MEGA65’s 45GS02 CPU. Check it out! The Ghosts of Blackwood Manor, by Stefan Vogt Stefan Vogt, the author of the adventure games Hibernated and The Curse of Rabenstein , has a new adventure out for multiple platforms including the MEGA65. The Ghosts of Blackwood Manor is an interactive horror game with three possible outcomes, and each outcome fills out the story. And of course, Ghos
Thu, December 14, 2023
robotfindskitten, part 3
robotfindskitten, part 3. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for December 2023.
Tue, November 14, 2023
robotfindskitten, part 2
Last month’s Digest introduced robotfindskitten, a programming exercise that unites several major concepts of game programming: updating the display, reading user input, generating random values, timing events, and including and manipulating large amounts of static game data. I offered examples of each of these tasks in BASIC 65, and proposed that these could be used to make a robotfindskitten experience for the MEGA65. In this issue, I want to start reviewing these topics again in assembly language. Without BASIC’s help, the program will need to turn to hardware registers and low-level programming techniques to achieve similar effects. Some of these topics are too large for a single newsletter, so we’ll take this in two parts. I’ll try to keep things simple by limiting this to just the needs of a robotfindskitten program. Applications that require higher speed or more memory may need more sophisticated techniques. This month’s Digest will focus on using the KERNAL, printing messages, and drawing characters to the screen—barely scratching the surface of the MEGA65’s graphics capabilities. Next month, we’ll finish robotfindskitten in assembly language with random values, user input, item descriptions, and a simple animation delay. Shipping update The work continues to finalize the new R5 main board hardware for the next delivery batch of computers. Getting the test hardware has taken longer than anticipated, and we are now expecting manufacturing lead times to put the batch #3 delivery in early 2024. Importantly, the team has decided to proceed with the full verification process for the new design, and not skip any steps just to accelerate the schedule. The MEGA65 is manufactured in small volumes in a not-for-profit operation, so we can’t afford to rush the process and risk having to re-make and replace hardware. We want every computer delivered to be as high in quality as possible. Some pre-orders have been pending for a very long time now, and we thank you for your patience! If you have a pending pre-order and need to make changes, contact Trenz Electronic customer support. Tristam Island Tristam Island , by Hugo Labrande, is a new text adventure game for multiple platforms, including the MEGA65. You can get the deluxe boxed edition , from publisher poly.play for 35 EUR. The deluxe edition includes the game on 3.5" floppy disk and on microSD card, a hint book, immersive props such as a rock sample and a postcard, and more. You can also get the digital-only edition for $3.99 USD. Thanks to Hugo for the great game and for supporting the MEGA65, and to poly.play for publishing fun collectible boxed software for our favorite platform! Updated Z
Tue, November 14, 2023
robotfindskitten, part 2
robotfindskitten, part 2. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for November 2023.
Fri, October 13, 2023
robotfindskitten, part 1
A new month, a new feature, a new game, a new demo, and a coding exercise that really brings the room together. Let’s dig in! Available to test: New keyboard scanner We’re getting closer to having a complete release candidate, with features being finalized and bug fixes piling in. There’s one new feature that’s near and dear to my heart, and I’m thrilled to be able to share it with anyone up for early beta testing. The very first thing I noticed when I got my MEGA65 is how the typing experience felt nostalgic. Even with the new mechanical key switches and the 40 MHz CPU, the ability for the computer to recognize key presses felt exactly like a Commodore 64 did back in the day: sluggish and imprecise. I like nostalgia as much as anybody, but I type much faster today than I did when I was nine years old. I wished my MEGA65 could handle fast typing more like a modern computer, so I could enjoy on-device composition without slowing myself down. It was one of the first feature requests that I filed with the MEGA65 team. Paul and company started working on an idea for fast typing, and an early version of the chipset support required made it into the core last year. The feature wasn’t wired up to the KERNAL ROM, and only a few built-in applications used it. I brought it up again with the team this summer, and we had many design discussions and tried several ideas. I learned a bit of FPGA coding, and even built a high-speed Linux PC just to build and test new cores and ROMs. I’m proud to present the all-new MEGA65 hardware-accelerated keyboard scanner. Using the latest development core and ROM beta release , you can now enjoy a typing experience that is more accurate and more reliable for fast typists throughout the BASIC screen editor and many applications. These changes will be in the v0.96 release, and you can test it today and file any bugs you find. I also wrote a test plan and detailed description of how it works . I plastered this all over the instructions, but I'll repeat it here: the latest ROM beta versions (920387 or later) require the latest development core. If you use the newer ROM with an older core, typing won't work. You *can* safely use older ROMs with the newer core, so you can revert to the legacy keyboard scanner at any time if you encounter any issues just by going back to an older ROM (920386 or earlier). Also, the latest ROM betas will not work with the Xemu emulator until emulation for the new core feature has been added (hopefully soon), so stick with 920386 or earlier in Xemu for now.<
Fri, October 13, 2023
robotfindskitten, part 1
robotfindskitten, part 1. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for October 2023.
Sat, September 16, 2023
Survey 2023 Results
The MEGA65 Community Survey 2023 is now complete! It opened on August 14, ran for three weeks, and received 509 submissions. A HUGE thank you to everyone who submitted! Let’s do a quick update, then onto the results! Release testing update We do not yet have a formal release candidate for the upcoming v0.96 release, which is intended to be the factory installed release for the next delivery batch. We are still waiting on test hardware for the revision 5 main board to arrive. Once it does, we will clean up the changes and document a formal test process that you can try on your own computer. In the meantime, we’re sharing out early test plans for some major features. Before I get you all excited about early availability, please know that what’s currently available is not the release candidate. By definition, development versions are riskier than release candidates, and do not necessarily represent what will be in the release candidate. In particular, do not attempt to flash a development core to slot 0 unless you own a JTAG adapter and know how to use it to recover from a broken state. Keep a stable core in slot 0, and use any other slot for the development core. We’re working on making it safer to upgrade slot 0 without a JTAG adapter, but this is not yet ready for testing by people that don’t actually have one. While it is possible to have multiple MEGA65 cores installed and switch between them, this is not the case for system software files (.M65 files) on the SD card. We haven’t noticed any issues using newer system software with the earlier stable core, but keep this in mind while troubleshooting issues. Here are the development builds of the platform components: * mega65-core development builds ; the mega65r3 build is for production units and DevKits * mega65-tools development builds ; macOS versions can be built from the development branch of the repo * Latest ROM beta release (owner registration required); patch files (free access, patching instructions ) Available to test: Ethernet file transfer You are invited to help test Ethernet file transfer, a feature in the development version of the core and tools. See these instructions for testing Ethernet-based file transfer</a
Sat, September 16, 2023
Survey 2023 Results!
Survey 2023 Results. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for September 2023.
Mon, August 14, 2023
The MEGA65 Community Survey 2023
Hey all! I’m keeping this issue short, because there’s something more important for you to do instead of reading. The MEGA65 Community Survey 2023 The MEGA65 Community Survey 2023 is now open. This survey is for anyone even a little bit interested in the MEGA65, whether you own one, have preordered, are still considering it, or don’t intend to order but still enjoy seeing what’s going on. This includes anyone not subscribed to this Digest, so please share this link. Responses are anonymous. We will share aggregate anonymized results in a future Digest. Full-text replies will be kept confidential to the MEGA65 Steering Committee. We’re targeting 400 responses for this year’s survey. If everyone subscribed to the Digest responds, we’ll hit that easily. (Please only take the survey once, so we get accurate counts.) Here’s that link again: please take the survey . Your response will go a long way to guiding the future of the MEGA65 project. Thank you! New Galaga core! After you have completed the survey, it’s time to hit the arcade! Run don’t walk to the Galaga core for the MEGA65 by muse. This isn’t just a version of Galaga for the MEGA65, this is Galaga, a port of the original arcade hardware architecture running directly on the MEGA65 FPGA. The core even supports connecting a vintage VGA monitor turned on its side to fully replicate the arcade experience. Installation requires a few steps, including fetching the original Midway Galaga ROM from the Internet (using the link provided) and running a Python script. See muse’s installation instructions . When starting the core, give it a minute to go through the arcade hardware test routine. The core displays its keyboard controls briefly; press the spacebar to dismiss. Press 5 to insert a quarter, then press 1 to start a one-player game. You can control the game via a joystick in port 1, or use the keyboard: A and Z move left and right, and the Cursor Up key fires. The P key pauses. As with the C64 core, press the Help key to open a settings menu. Huge thanks to muse for this effort, and to all of the original implementors of the core. (And to Midway too, but they already have all of my lunch money.) R4 is now R5 Last month I mentioned that there will be a new revision of the main board that will start shipping with the next delivery batch, known as R4. Due to restricted availability of a component, the board <a target="_blank" href="https://c65gs.blogspot.com/2023/07/last-minute-changes-to-r4-board.html
Mon, August 14, 2023
The MEGA65 Community Survey 2023
The MEGA65 Community Survey 2023. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for August 2023.
Tue, July 18, 2023
Cross Development for Fun and Profit, part 2
In last month’s Digest , we introduced cross development , the practice of writing MEGA65 programs using a modern PC. We looked at several tools for writing programs in the BASIC 65 language and in 45GS02 assembly language, and we welcomed a new BASIC-like compiled language with MEGA65 support called XC=BASIC. Let us take one step further into the world of compiled languages. The C programming language is one of the most widely used programming languages in computing history, suitable for everything from microcomputers to mainframes. It was the language that built the Unix operating system —or maybe it was the other way around. Fifty years later, C is still in widespread use, for better and for worse. As fun as it is to write in assembly language, larger programs benefit from a language with a bit more structure to manage the inherent complexity of software. There are several cross-development tool chains for writing Commodore programs in C, and these can also be used to write programs for the MEGA65. In this issue, we will try using one of these tools to write our first C program, and walk through the concepts involved. We’ll look briefly at other tools and resources for getting started with C programming for microcomputers. And we’ll consider a much newer language vying to be the C of the next fifty years, called Rust . Featured Files We’ve been talking about coding tools lately, so let’s do an all-tools edition of Featured Files! The Coffeebreak Compiler by TOS22. Matthias wanted a comfortable way to hack on assembly language code directly on his MEGA65 that he could extend with modern conveniences. The result is a lightly structured custom language and IDE that accepts inline assembly code and produces machine code programs, similar to ubik’s Eleven for BASIC. Press the Help key to browse the built-in documentation and tutorials. MEGA65-Forth alpha by carthibar. MEGA65-Forth is a project to build an interpreter and interactive environment of the Forth programming language for the MEGA65. This is an early release with some features still in progress, but enough has been implemented to start learning the language. It is based on FIG Forth 1.1 . Check out the <a target="_blank" hr
Sat, July 15, 2023
Cross Development for Fun and Profit, part 2
Cross Development for Fun and Profit, part 2. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for July 2023.
Wed, June 21, 2023
Cross Development for Fun and Profit, part 1
Cross Development for Fun and Profit, part 1. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for June 2023.
Wed, June 21, 2023
Cross Development for Fun and Profit, part 1
There’s something wholesome about writing a program on a vintage computer. Such a computer was designed to give equal attention to programs written by their operator and programs written by software companies, and included everything you would need to get started writing such programs. Compared to modern software development, the constraints of on-device retro coding can be comforting and inspiring. When all you have is a Commodore, some graph paper, and a reference manual, you can concentrate on creating programs and solving problems without distraction. Professional software companies didn’t always do it this way. Larger companies often used other computers to produce Commodore software, such as a mainframe computer with larger storage, computation, and multi-user collaboration capabilities. They would write code using languages like C, and use specialized tools that combined the efforts of programmers and artists into data that could be written to a disk and run on a Commodore. Known as cross development , this workflow gave these companies a competitive advantage: they could work faster, collaborate better, reuse code across projects, and even develop their programs for multiple kinds of computers at the same time. Today, many hobbyists use modern computers to write programs for vintage machines. There are so many good cross-development tools at our disposal that we can’t cover them all in one Digest. This month, we’ll consider the advantages of cross development, and survey a few tools you can use to write MEGA65 programs in BASIC and assembly language. We’ll highlight recent developments in these tools made specifically for MEGA65 programming. And we’ll introduce an exciting new cross-development language that has just added MEGA65 support: XC=BASIC. Get full access to Dan’s MEGA65 Digest at m65digest.substack.com/subscribe
Mon, May 15, 2023
Bitmap Bonanza!
The MEGA65’s VIC-IV video chip has multiple graphics modes. Each mode and feature pulls ideas from some point in vintage computing history: terminal-style text output, character graphics, hardware sprites, palette banks, full-screen scrolling, and even Amiga-style blitter objects and graphics-optimized DMA operations. Several VIC-IV modes are fully backwards compatible with the VIC-II of the Commodore 64 and 128, and the VIC-III of the Commodore 65. In today’s Digest, we’ll be looking at the VIC-III bitplane graphics mode. While this mode doesn’t show off all of the MEGA65’s capabilities, it’s one of the more fun modes to use with BASIC 65 thanks to its library of 31 drawing commands and functions. In Featured Files, we’ll see a new game that takes advantage of BASIC 65’s graphics system to draw vector art. We’ll also try using a built-in feature to display full-screen high color photographs and illustrations. Featured Files This month’s Features Files are all brand new, hot off the presses! Onion Cake and the Hungry Dinosaurs , by Gurce. This short comedy adventure game combines a text command interface with gorgeous full-screen vector art by Gurce’s sister Ayca and original music. You get to watch the BASIC code fill in the image as it loads each scene, and the code cleverly uses the MEGA65’s memory and DMA features to cache the render so they display instantly on subsequent visits. Gurce wrote a MEGA65 vector art editing tool, called VART , to develop the image format used by the game. Both the game and the editor are written in the Eleven programming environment. Onion Cake and the Hungry Dinosaurs is inspired by another MEGA65 game, Escape from Onion Cake by MrZaadii, from his Mega65 Games Pack from 2018. MrZaadii’s game also uses bitplane graphics with pixel art, pre-dating some of the newer graphics features that were added by the MEGA65 team. Don’t miss Gurce’s behind-the-scenes presentation of the making of Onion Cake. Old Mine Hoist by GeirS. This addictive one button game has you lowering a box of supplies down a perilous mine shaft. Struts on the mineshaft walls and barrels of dynamite risk damaging your payload. How far can you get? Rescue Inc. by SirLazaru
Mon, May 15, 2023
Bitmap Bonanza!
Bitmap Bonanza! Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for May 2023.
Wed, April 12, 2023
Fun with PETSCII!
PETSCII is a set of 256 values that can be printed to the screen of a Commodore computer. Most of these codes refer to characters, such as letters, numbers, punctuation, and Commodore’s unique set of graphics glyphs that can be typed from the keyboard. Other codes are control codes that manipulate the state of the screen and printing system, such as to change the color of subsequently printed text. The PETSCII character set is part of what gives Commodore computers their distinctive style. Drawing pictures by typing PETSCII characters and codes is one of the first things everyone does with a Commodore, and there is a long tradition of crafting murals of PETSCII art for demos, games, and computer bulletin boards. If you’re reading this, you’re probably pretty familiar with the capabilities of PETSCII on a Commodore 64. In this Digest, we’ll review the PETSCII character set, and see how the MEGA65 can learn a trick or two from Commodores that predate the 64. We’ll also take a look at PETSCII control codes that are newer than the C64, and see how we can make special use of PETSCII strings on the MEGA65. Featured Files Here’s more stuff you can download and try on your MEGA65 today! M3wP Solitaire by M3wP. Every computer needs some card game fun, and this Solitaire game has it in spades! Connect a mouse to port 1 and play the classic Klondike Solitaire with rich multi-color playing card graphics. You won’t be able to resist just one more hand. Don’t have a vintage Commodore 1351 mouse or Amiga mouse? Get the mouSTer adapter and connect a modern USB mouse. Make sure the mouse mode is set correctly in the MEGA65 Configuration menu (hold Alt while turning on the computer, then select 1) to match the mouSTer configuration. If you’re one of the lucky ones to receive a modern Amiga Tank Mouse from their Kickstarter campaign, that also works with the MEGA65. Lemonade for two by ubik. An innovative two-player version of the microcomputer classic business strategy game. Use your limited funds to buy supplies based on the weather forecast, sell lemonade in your neighborhood, and leverage your profits into expanding your business. Out-match your opponent and win it all! Proc
Wed, April 12, 2023
Fun with PETSCII!
Fun with PETSCII! Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for April 2023.
Wed, March 15, 2023
A Rorschach Test on Fire
A Rorschach Test on Fire. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for March 2023. This month, we have featured files, featured features, new hardware, and a classic programming exercise to play with. Let’s get started! Featured Files Get this month’s Featured Files from Filehost and keep them on your SD card for showing off to your friends! LUMA by Shallan50k. Shift the components around on a playfield to fire lasers at targets. Use a joystick in port 2: select a piece, hold the button, then push it in a direction. Try to solve each puzzle in as few moves as possible. Wave Hero by GeirS. A watersports-themed one-button runner with smooth gameplay, a gorgeous color palette, and authentic SID sounds. Use just the button of a joystick in port 2. This adaptation of a C64 game includes source code written in Millfork . Mandelbrot Explorer 65 by lydon, with assembly source . The fractal so famous there’s a song about it . See also Mega-Mandelbrot by Liquidream, in BASIC. An external floppy disk drive for the MEGA65 In addition to the 3-1/2" floppy disk drive built into the MEGA65, the computer supports connecting a vintage Commodore 1581 external floppy drive to the IEC port. These drives are difficult to obtain, with working units listing for upwards of $400 USD on eBay. If you want a second drive for your MEGA65, there’s a new option! Foenix Retro Systems is taking pre-orders for a new Commodore-compatible 3-1/2" floppy drive, the FNX1591 . Like the 1581, it supports double-density (DD) disks, for 720KB of storage per disk. The FNX’s firmware can be updated over USB, and it can store multiple firmware options that can be selected by a switch. Another switch can set the IEC unit number. The drive uses a modern power supply and power switch, and sports two IEC connectors for daisy-chaining devices. The FNX1591 is intended to be compatible with all computers that work with the 1581, including the MEGA65. You can preorder one today for $275 USD + $45 USD flat rate shipping. Delivery is estimated for April 2023. The drive
Wed, March 15, 2023
A Rorschach Test on Fire
A Rorschach Test on Fire. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for March 2023.
Tue, February 14, 2023
What I Wish I Knew About Machine Language
I spent six years of my early childhood on my Commodore 64, between ages 6 and 12. I wrote many programs, all using the built-in BASIC language, learning everything I could from reading the Commodore 64 Programmer’s Reference Guide and typing in program listings from Compute!’s Gazette magazine . I learned a lot from writing BASIC programs, but the one lesson I took away over and over again was this: to make anything really cool, like Marble Madness or Skyfox , I’d need to know machine language. Machine language felt like dark magic. In Compute!’s Gazette , all the games with the cool graphics and high speed action were printed as columns of numbers, a pages-long incantation that if you typed it correctly would conjure a video game. The Programmer’s Reference had a chapter on machine language that I stared at endlessly trying to make sense of it, but it only made a passing reference to the fact that I needed additional software to write it. If I were older or had a friend with more experience, I would have known what utility cartridge to ask my parents for as a birthday gift, but it was too much for my kid self to figure out all by myself in a basement. In fairness, Compute!’s Gazette did publish the occasional machine language coding tool, like Fast Assembler in the January 1986 issue . The companion disk to the issue even included the source code for Fast Assembler itself, the first time I had ever seen a complete machine language program listing. I remember making a small change and running the assembler on its own code, which produced a new version of the assembler that printed my name instead of its own. But that’s as far as I got. In this issue of the Digest, we’re going to answer the questions I had when I was a kid. What is machine language? What is an assembler? And what in the name of Chuck E. Cheese is hexadecimal? We’ll also look at ways you can start learning machine language right now with your MEGA65. Featured Files It’s time once again for Featured Files, where we highlight stuff you can download from the Filehost and try with your MEGA65 today! Mega Wizards
Tue, February 14, 2023
What I Wish I Knew About Machine Language
What I Wish I Knew About Machine Language. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for February 2023.
Mon, January 16, 2023
Exploring MEGA65 hardware
Exploring MEGA65 hardware. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for January 2023.
Mon, January 16, 2023
Exploring MEGA65 hardware
I think many of us were first attracted to the MEGA65 project for its hardware: the Cherry MX keyswitches in an authentic Commodore layout, the precision recreation of the Commodore 65 injection molded case, the 3-1/2" floppy drive—not to mention modern conveniences like HDMI video out and an SD card slot. It has taken nine years of hard work and persistence of vision to bring this project to the point of being something everyone can purchase and enjoy. In this Digest, we’ll look at the recent history of the MEGA65 hardware, including the Nexys FPGA development board on which most of the firmware was written. We’ll take a tour of peripherals that work with the MEGA65, both vintage and new. And we’ll look at hardware experiments in progress that may provide a glimpse of the MEGA65’s future. But first! Resources for new owners The latest batch of MEGA65s is being delivered, and it’s been super exciting to see all of the messages and photos from proud new owners in the Discord. If you’re a new owner, welcome to the world of personal computing! We have many more resources for getting started with your MEGA65 than we did a year ago. There’s a new documentation landing page , which has links to the latest version of the User’s Guide. Last year I wrote a MEGA65 Welcome Guide intended to help new owners get up and running. I’ve been keeping it up to date to be useful whether you received your MEGA65 last May or this January. You’ve already found this Digest . You might also enjoy the back issues, available on the website. That documentation landing page is part of the MEGA65 Wiki , a relatively new resource that we’re still building. If you’d like to contribute to the wiki, reach out to Gurce on the Discord chat server . You can also read and post articles on Filehost , another great resource. Featured Files It’s the Digest’s first recurring segment! Here at Featured Files, we look at cool stuff that has been posted to the MEGA65 Filehost . Download and try these on your MEGA65 today! Mega Sisters , by Endurion. A version of the 1987 Commodore 64 classic The Great Giana Sisters , this multi-stage adventure pays homage to familiar side-scrolling platformers while adding a few twists of its own. Endurion, aka Georg Rottensteiner, is the auth
Sat, December 24, 2022
Back to BASICs
One of the most satisfying things you can do with a vintage computer is to turn it on and start writing a program. With nothing but your curiosity, a little persistence, and maybe a book and a pad of scratch paper, you can craft a program that solves a problem, performs a task, produces a work of art, tells a story, or generates an interactive experience. In this Digest, we’ll look at a few ways to get starting writing programs for the MEGA65 using the built-in BASIC 65 programming language. This won’t be a BASIC tutorial—there are hundreds of vintage books on that subject , and you already have the MEGA65 User’s Guide . There are additional chapters for beginners in the MEGA65 Complete Compendium . Instead, we’ll focus on several ways to create and run BASIC programs with your MEGA65, and with your PC. But first! Batch 2 shipments have begun! Trenz Electronic has announced that batch 2 shipping has begun, and some have already received their MEGAs! The next 400 recipients should receive shipping notices in the next few weeks, followed soon after by receipt of your very own MEGA65. Batch #3 is expected to deliver in the third quarter (July-September) of 2023. It’s too early to say how many units will ship in the next batch. Here’s hoping that FPGA supply will be flowing more freely next year. Has your shipping address changed? For those of us awaiting delivery of a pre-ordered MEGA65: If your shipping address has changed since you placed the pre-order, send an email to: sales@trenz-electronic.de Changing the shipping address in your Trenz Electronic website account settings will not update shipping addresses on pending orders. You must send them email to update the address on a pre-order. I know many of us have been waiting a long time for our MEGA65s. If your address needs updating, take care of it soon to ensure smooth delivery. Digest feeds You’re probably reading this Digest delivered as email via Substack. If you clicked through to the audio version with the play icon at the top of the email, you’re probably listening to it using a web browser on your desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone. You can read past and current issues, as well as manage your email subscription, on the Substack website: m65digest.substack.com Substack has a phone app, and it includes a built-in audio player. Alternatively, you can follow the Digest using your favorite feed reader. The Substack webs
Fri, December 23, 2022
Back to BASICs
Back to BASICs. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for December 2022.
Sun, November 27, 2022
Sounds of the SID
Sounds of the SID. Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for November 2022.
Sun, November 27, 2022
Sounds of the SID
[Did you know: All issues of the Digest have an audio version! Check out the player at the top of the email or Substack post. — Dan] The Commodore 64's Sound Interface Device (SID) chip was ahead of its time. While other personal computers were limited to simple beeps, the SID provided features comparable to professional sound synthesizers, with support for multiple kinds of sound waveforms, three-voice polyphony, and advanced filters and effects. Musician-programmers and game developers pushed the SID's capabilities to the extreme, finding clever ways to drive the chip to produce multi-instrumental arrangements. To this day, artists continue to contribute to a vast legacy of SID-based music. The MEGA65's audio subsystem includes four SID chips, alongside more modern sound capabilities. In this Digest, we will scratch the surface of how the SID works, and how to produce sound and music with the SIDs from BASIC. We'll also introduce a new music demo written for the MEGA65 that takes full advantage of all four SID chips. MEGA65 music is a big subject, and we'll cover more music topics in future issues of the Digest. But first, some news! New firmware release The new release bundle for the firmware and system software has completed testing and is now officially declared "stable." The new batch of MEGA65 computers being delivered by the end of the year 2022 will have this release installed at the factory. Anyone who received their MEGA65 computer earlier this year is encouraged to upgrade. Release bundles now have version numbers to make them easier to understand. The new release is known as release v0.95 , and includes the MEGA65 core dated October 2022 (20221012.18,93d55f0) and MEGA65 ROM 920377. The previous release has been retroactively labeled v0.9. I have updated the MEGA65 Welcome Guide to describe the upgrade procedure, and to welcome the new batch of owners. You can download the release v0.95 bundle from Filehost . Sign in with your account, make sure you have redeemed your owner code, then download the release package: * MEGA65 Core Release Package (mega65r3) incl. ROM (only accessible if you’re signed in) If you have any questions about upgrading, ask for help in the Discord ! Real-Time Clock replacement program The MEGA65 has a built-in Real-Time Clock (RTC) chip that keeps track of the date and time. If you haven't yet, you'll want to open your MEGA65 case and install a battery of type CR1220 on the main board. See <a target="_blank" href="https://dansanderson.com/mega65/welcome/openi
Tue, October 18, 2022
MEGA65 Adventures
Personal computers in the early 1980s ignited the home video gaming industry with their ability to display animated color graphics. Even so, the games with the best images were the ones with no graphics at all. Text adventure games told tales of fantasy, mystery, and suspense with you as the protagonist, rendering entire worlds using only the written word and your imagination. The effectiveness of the medium and the limited hardware requirements have made text games the longest living and most widely supported form. Archivists, hobbyists, and game authors have reverse engineered and ported vintage text games to modern computers, and evolved the form into the modern day. Thanks to members of our community who have continued that work, you can play a vast legacy of interactive fiction—everything from classic games to new releases—on your MEGA65. Hibernated 1: Director’s Cut A Cold Dark Place You wake up. A feeling of nausea grips you as you slowly regain control of your senses. You should open your eyes. >open eyes Blurred shapes slowly morph into a clear picture. It takes a moment for you to find your way back to reality. Has the Polaris-7 reached its destination? Still a bit shaky on your legs you climb out of the hypersleep tube. Hibernation Chamber The room is lit by a gentle blue light. A glance through the porthole reveals nothing but the endless vastness of the Centaurus constellation. Proxima Centauri must be very close now. But there is no planetary orbit in sight. It seems an incident has interrupted your journey to Proxima C1. The only exit is starboard. The status monitor of the hypersleep tube flashes intrusively. >examine monitor If this information is correct, then you have spent nearly 20 years in hypersleep. During this time a distance of about 4.1 light-years was covered. Proxima Centauri is 4.24 light-years away from Sol, which confirms the assumption that you haven't reached the target system yet. What's going on here? In Hibernated 1 by Stefan Vogt, you play Olivia Lund, a space-faring explorer whose long voyage to Alpha Centauri is interrupted by a mysterious alien vessel. With your artificial intelligence companion Io, you must board the vessel and learn its secrets to break free of its tractor beam. To play a text adventure game, you describe the actions of your character in abbreviated English commands. The story proceeds with each action, so you can take your time to read descriptions for clues and work out solutions to puzzles. In Hibernated 1 , you navigate around spaceships (yours and theirs) with commands like starboard, port, fore, and aft. You can also examine objects to investigate your surroundings. >starboard Lower Corridor Flashing red warning lights are reflected on the palladium glass. From here, you're able to reach every section of the ship. The hibernation chamber is port, while your private area is starboard. The docking bay lies aft. The passage fore,
Tue, October 18, 2022
MEGA65 Adventures
MEGA65 Adventures! Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for October 2022.
Tue, September 20, 2022
MEGA65: The Next Batch!
First off, thank you all so much for the outpouring of support for this Digest idea. I didn't expect to see so many of you subscribe to a newsletter sight unseen. I really hope it'll be an enjoyable use of your attention. And boy did we time this right, because we get to discuss big news in the first issue! Batch #2 is shipping soon MEGA's assembly and distribution partner Trenz Electronic has parts in hand for the next batch of 400 computers, and is scheduled to assemble and deliver them by the end of the 2022 calendar year. Soon there will be 800 MEGA65s in the hands of new owners, not counting the 100 Dev Kits. All batch #2 machines will ship with updated factory-installed firmware and system software, including fixes and improvements made since batch #1 shipped back in May. Batch #2 will include the printed User’s Guide from the first print run. If you receive a batch #2 machine, you'll want to download the most recent PDF as a supplement. I'll try to keep the Welcome Guide up to date as well. Trenz is planning these fulfillment batches based on the availability of parts, especially the Xilinx FPGA chips. The MEGA65 team has done a great job mitigating risk in the supply chain, with unusual pieces like the injection molded cases and floppy disk drives well stocked. (We were all surprised when the first batch was delayed due to a shortage of cardboard , of all things.) We can all look forward to continued fulfillment of pre-orders through next year. Help with testing for batch #2 The MEGA65 community made a huge push to test the factory-installed firmware and system software for batch #1. We're doing it again for the batch #2 release candidate—and you can help! The closer you can get your MEGA65 to the final configuration, the better for testing. If you own a MEGA65, a Dev Kit, or a Nexys FPGA board, jump in the release-test forum on the Discord . Check out the release candidate verification home page with links to downloads and instructions for testing and reporting bugs. You can install the latest core in slot 1 of the core management utility, and prepare a new internal SD card with the latest system software and bundled disk images. If you're one of the lucky ones to have both a batch #1 MEGA65 and a JTAG programming interface, you can install the candidate core in the special "slot 0," which is how batch #2 machines will be configured. Overwriting slot 0 requires opening your case to flip a tiny switch, as well as running some fancy comm
Sun, September 18, 2022
MEGA65: The Next Batch!
MEGA65: The Next Batch! Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for September 2022.
Thu, September 01, 2022
Keeping up with the MEGA65
The party was already in full swing when I got my MEGA65 back in March of 2022. I got mine as part of the first shipment of production units, the ones with the sweet injection molded cases, but 100 others already had the acrylic-encased Dev Kit beta units from the previous year. Many more were eagerly running the MEGA65 core on Nexys FPGA boards or testing the waters with the Xemu emulator . By the time batch #1 shipped, it included multiple disk images packed with demonstrations and games from an already thriving community. A flurry of essential firmware and ROM updates followed the March delivery, and it was important to keep up with developments. I was lucky to have just started a sabbatical from my software job and had the time to read through daily discussions on the MEGA65 Discord . I knew other newly minted MEGA65 owners that didn't have that kind of time and were struggling to dig into their new machines. For them and others, I wrote the MEGA65 Welcome Guide , a supplement to the already excellent documentation that tried to synthesize information about recent changes and practical advice, stuff too temporary for the official manual but still useful to the first 400 owners. And the new stuff keeps coming. I've been keeping track of all of the amazing things this growing community has been doing with the MEGA65 all year, from boxed retail games to music demos to tools and libraries to YouTube videos and tutorials. There was so much being posted, I built the @MEGA65Files Twitter bot as a way for people to be notified of new software and articles posted to the Filehost repository . As of this writing, the Filehost has nearly 200 downloadable files and over 60 articles. By the end of 2022, there will be 800 MEGA65s in the wild—not counting the 100 Dev Kits—and the pace of development is likely to increase. With more people and more activity, it won’t be sufficient to assume that everyone is reading the Discord chat. I think it's time for a newsletter. Whether you already have a MEGA65, have preordered one from a future batch, are jumping in with a Nexys board or the emulator, or are just curious about the MEGA65 project and its community, this Digest will keep you up to date. Firmware updates, shipping status, new software releases, ga
Wed, August 31, 2022
Keeping Up With the MEGA65
Keeping Up With the MEGA65, Dan’s MEGA65 Digest for August 2022.
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