IainGrimm

I bought an XM1541 cable a few weeks back and have been using that with GUICBM4WIN to transfer the D64 images onto floppy. I tend to test the discs on Vice first to make sure they are good, Project Firestart for example, I had 2 versions and both were faulty, one of them the main sprite distorted / glitched when moving and the other Side 2 wasn't working, grabbed the version from Gamebase and it works exactly how it should. I have an old PC with the Parallel Port setup on the 3rd floor of the house on the lower shelf on a table to my C64 so easy to just swap out the connection between C64 & PC, I will however be getting a Zoom Floppy some point for future proofing and another disc drive so no swapping needed. When it comes to tapes like previously mentioned you use Audiotap, play them out of your PC speaker or headphone socket, connect a lead to headphone to a Mic In on a tape recorder and hit record, alignment on the recorder needs to match where the C64 tape deck alignment is and don't have the volume set to high or you get distortion and it won't load, a bit of trial and error is required until you get it just right.

Have Life of Pixel through PSN on my Xperia, it is a really good game, controls work nice for touch screen, done the first set of levels, some of the Spectrum levels and started on the BBC Model B levels. Wasn't aware that it was available on the PC in all honesty, need to pick it up.

We originally had a C16 then upgraded to the C64 and then late 80's I bought the Amiga when I started working. C64 was the main backbone though with getting it early 80's and still used it even when I had the Amiga 500. I still have the machine (Breadbin) but it died earlier this year so now using a C64c, still use my AR4, 1541 disc drive and the likes also

I have been planning on getting one of these for my Amstrad CPC464 at some point this year (I will also need the ram expansion and board that allows multiple cartridges plugged in as I also need a DDI Clone which allows connection of the HxC so its going to be a bit pricey for that machine), only gripe some people have with it is that you have to convert the files into their format but it is no real biggie as there is a batch conversion option. Well worth investing in with it supporting many different machines, some people even take out their floppy drive and mount it in the case and cut holes into said case to see screen etc.

Yeah, you actually have the desktop built into the ST machines also (granted the first models had to be booted from a disc) which makes it ideal for things like the UltraSatan. The Amiga does suit running from discs much better, put a disc in and away you go, Workbench is handy and required for some items like the old Lucas games and some applications require a Workbench area to be able to load (EasyADF you boot from the floppy and then it gets files from the Workbench disc to operate properly, great thing to have on 600 or 1200 as it allows the emulator adf files to be transferred back to discs). Overall though I am the same, I will use discs (and tapes on my 8 bits) where possible. With my Acorn Archimedes A3010 you can put a hard drive in it but its a right mess around so everything I have on that is on disc and I won't be even attempting to put a hard drive in it. Thing with the Arc also is that maximum size it supports when it comes to a hard drive is 160Mb, doesn't allow multiple partitions either unlike the ST.

Why not go with the C64 biggest rival back in the 80's, a ZX Spectrum Granted you may have to import one from the UK as they weren't big in the states and you will also need to get PAL to NTSC converter and a device to up the voltage to our 240 but overall it could be worth your time. Not forgetting thousands of PAL games cheap on tape are available all over the net, you can also get a Divide interface which has built in Kempston Interface (allows connection of standard 9 pin Atari joysticks) and has an SD card which you can run all the games from once downloaded, you can get them from Lotharek site. I would go with a 128k +2A or the original 128k Toast Rack model as the extra ram is used in quite a few games and certain multiload games load up in one go so no extra loading required.

I got the 520STe last Christmas, boxed complete with manuals and the software starter pack and a few extra games for £60, upgraded the ram which took all of 10 minutes to do, ram was only around £15 delivered. Then bought a D type scart cable from Retro Gaming Cables and the UltraSatan from Lotharek and PP's driver so it was around the £200 mark for the full setup. Little pricey overall but well worth it, still cheaper than going for an Amiga 600 / 1200 then ram expansion, accelerator board and the internal hard drive setup for WHDLoad. Reason I haven't upgraded my 600 is due to the price of the kit needed to bring it up to same standard as the STe. I would say go with a 520STe then gradually add to it till you have the full setup, most expensive item is the UltraSatan, you also have to buy the lead for it to connect to the ST.

Using the Fast Load on something like the Action Replay Mk4 speeds things up nicely on discs on C64, use it all the time. Tape loaders are slowwwwwww but you usually get a decent pic and some loading music, I do love tapes still, prefer discs now but tapes are cool. Thing is in the UK disc games in most cases had to be ordered in specially, not many places actually held any stock, Top Soft near us back in the 80's did carry a few disc based games, normally when stuff was initially released and it was mainly the D&D games that are disc only, we did order a few games in like Zak McKraken & Neuromancer and I remember picking up Armalyte from there on disc. USA seems to be more disc based on the system but UK and Europe everything was on tape, most of the places you bought a C64 the C2N was included in the bundle and also a few tapes to get you started. Anyhow, I have 3 gripes with the C64, first is the newer SID revision, at times it isn't as good as the one that shipped in the Breadbin, things like sampled speech on Myth which was released 89 you can barely hear it on my C64c but crystal clear on the Breadbin, on the flip side of that a lot of devs did better use the newer SID in the C64c. Joystick Ports, like previously mentioned, having to swap them all the time between 1 & 2, don't know why they just didn't standardise and agree on a single port to use and second could have been used for a second player on games that supported it. Joystick buttons, granted early 80's one joystick button was all that was needed, later games though a second button would have been nice, playing certain games having to tap space with your foot for a secondary fire function, or even a second button to jump rather than pushing up. Then there was the Commodore 16 & +4, why didn't they use standard connections on the ports, granted you can get the circular plug to 9 pin for the joystick but when you look at the range in general all peripherals were compatible with each of the machines (C64 & c, 128, Vic 20), with the C16 & +4 they changed all the connectors, I feel the +4 especially would have done a lot better if they followed the standard connections, it had 64k ram (granted no Vic2 chip dedicated for graphics or the legendary SID) but it was a decent machine for the time.