Steppenwolffan21 Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 Well I won my c64 auction on ebay for $15.91 and $35.15 for shipping. I know it was a little pricey altogether but it's my first C64. After hooking everything up including the floppy drive and turned it on, I realized there ain't much to do anything with it. I got a Music Composer program and quickly found myself bored with it. Are there any games that you reccommend for it ( besides Ultima ) In the auction I got: 2 C64 Boxes C64 main unit printer c64 floppy disk drive vic flopy disk frive crapload of literature auction here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...me=STRK:MEWN:IT So did I do good? Please PM me if you have any games or programs you'd be willing to sell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Famicoman Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 Well... I say nice find, but a bit pricey. What v. printer is that? If I was you, I'd program games myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 (edited) I have about 35 some odd floppies for the C64 that I'll never use. (originals) Not sure abuot their functionality but if your interested I can send pics. All I would ask is like $5 via PayPal to cover shipping. Edited August 6, 2005 by Clint Thompson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steppenwolffan21 Posted August 6, 2005 Author Share Posted August 6, 2005 Wow sweet, that made my day! Any games by any chance? Is there anything I could possibly do besides send you the $5.00? lowery1500@bellsouth.net - could I see some pics please. Thanks alot ya'll for your replies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steppenwolffan21 Posted August 6, 2005 Author Share Posted August 6, 2005 Well... I say nice find, but a bit pricey. What v. printer is that? If I was you, I'd program games myself. 905510[/snapback] I would if I could, but I haven't learned programming code... yet. Is it Basic? I'm starting to use some basic now because of my Pc. Jr. The printer says Commodore. I will get you some pics as soon as I get my picture from my grandpas. Like I said, I wanted a C64, because I haven't had one yet, so I was willing to pay a hefty price to get one. I was a little disapointed though, because in shipping, it rear right side cracked Oh well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 (edited) Wow sweet, that made my day! Any games by any chance? Is there anything I could possibly do besides send you the $5.00? lowery1500@bellsouth.net - could I see some pics please. Thanks alot ya'll for your replies. 905561[/snapback] Actually that's all they are.... are games. Quite a few SSI games in there including some other rare ones. Some I'd want to play if I had a C64 that is... I'm pretty sure I have Alternate Reality as well... (unsure if it's complete with all disks) but you'll know I guess. I'm not sure if you have the setup but I'm looking to get that SMB3 clone/demo on a floppy disk at some point of time for the 800... I'll shoot an email when I get home. Edited August 6, 2005 by Clint Thompson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GARTH Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 If you search ebay or google for a device called an xe1541 or x cable for short you can download disk images and transfer them to the c64 drive, you will need some knowlege of dos and an os that supports it ie win 95/98/me, definitely not xp or nt the software to do it is called star commander and is freely available on the net. A site called gb64.com has around 16000 game images for downloading the hardest part is getting the double density floppies as they are getting hrder to find the 64 is very well supported with software , Wish i could say that about the 128 which i own there wasnt ever much software written for it apart from a few text adventures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/c64haves.htm Some of the items I have for sale are perfectly okay to work on NTSC machines despite being of PAL origin, and some are NTSC to begin with. If you buy anything, I might dig up some spare disks to copy a few bits on (I have the full PC->1541 setup here) if you have any games you'd like http://www.gamebase64.com You've got all these to pick from (another project I work on heh) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panda_racer Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 dude, i have that same basic for beginers book in my room... learn that thing up then, well get some more programming books.. but then you can write your own games. i think you could write a text adventure with the knowledge from that book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimerians Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 You definitely want the Xe1541 cable and a program called Star Commander thats DOS based. With these two things you can transfer any game you want to floppy and play them on your C64 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supercat Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 You definitely want the Xe1541 cable and a program called Star Commander thats DOS based. How do those compare with getting an MMC interface for the C64 and transfering stuff that way? I have oodles of C64 disks I'd like to get transfered to durable media. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Famicoman Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 I know its a Commodore printer, but what number is on it? The language is BASIC. Its very simple to learn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimerians Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 You definitely want the Xe1541 cable and a program called Star Commander thats DOS based. How do those compare with getting an MMC interface for the C64 and transfering stuff that way? I have oodles of C64 disks I'd like to get transfered to durable media. 905656[/snapback] I never done it that way so I'm not sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad2600 Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 If you search ebay or google for a device called an xe1541 or x cable for short you can download disk images and transfer them to the c64 drive, you will need some knowlege of dos and an os that supports it ie win 95/98/me, definitely not xp or nt the software to do it is called star commander and is freely available on the net. A site called gb64.com has around 16000 game images for downloading the hardest part is getting the double density floppies as they are getting hrder to find the 64 is very well supported with software , Wish i could say that about the 128 which i own there wasnt ever much software written for it apart from a few text adventures. 905612[/snapback] So this means I can't use my older computer with XP to work with one of those cables? That sucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 So this means I can't use my older computer with XP to work with one of those cables? That sucks. 905706[/snapback] Make yourself a boot floppy or boot CD, with DOS on it, place the C64 files on your secondary drive (non NTFS formatted) or on the CD itself. Done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 The auction was a little pricey, although mostly due to the shipping involved (I'm lucky in that the C64 was quite popular around here, so I can often find hardware at thrift stores for cheap). The printer kinda kills it, since those old 80's printers are big and bulky and generally quite worthless these days. However, you got boxes and manuals and such, which is a nice touch. If you really want to learn programming, you'll probably want to start with BASIC. BASIC is pretty easy, and it looks like you got some decent manuals there to help you start off with it. In case you didn't already know, BASIC is built into the C64, so you don't need to buy anything extra (although you'll want some disks to save your programs on). The whole machine is quite accessible with BASIC too, so you can easily do sound and sprites and all kinds of other things without too much effort. If you get dissatified with BASIC, you also have the option of learning Assembly Language. You'll need a machine language monitor program in order to type this in, but ASM will give you absolute power over the machine, and you'll learn a lot by using it. It's not for the faint of heart, but it's worth learning a bit of it. There are quite a few books out there on 6502 assembly language, and you can probably find some really good sources on the internet for information. Although it was already mentioned, I'd recommend you visit this site and either make one of the cables or buy one from him (depending on how handy you are with these things, I made an X1541 cable when I was 12 or so, they're not too hard). Once you have that, you'll want a program called Star Commander (Programmed by the same guy who makes the cables) to transfer files between your PC and the 1541. Once you have all this set up, you can simply download .d64 files off the net (same ones that you'd use with emulators) and copy them to disk so you can use them in a real system. Oh yeah, you'll need to find some blank 5.25" disks too... look for "double density" disks, as I've heard "high density" disks can be troublesome in these old drives. Buying software off eBay and such can be risky, as the disks often become unreliable over time. There's also a cartridge port on the back of the machine, although most of the better games were too big to fit on a cartridge. There's another product that you might find interesting called the Catweasel, made by Individual Computers (Jens Schoenfeld). You see, the format that Commodore used on their disks is a little unusual, and the (relatively stupid) floppy drive controllers on IBM PC computers are incapable of reading/writing this format (There are some exceptions, but they're not really worth mentioning). The Catweasel is a fully programmable floppy drive controller, and IS capable of reading and writing to C64 formatted disks. It's also capable of reading and writing many other formats that PC's are normally incapable of, in case you're into TRS-80 or Amiga or whatever. Depending on what version of the Catweasel you'd buy, they also have some extra features like a socket for a real SID chip, joystick ports, etc. This is a much more costly method than simply building an X1541 cable, but it's more convenient in the long run. --Zero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supercat Posted August 6, 2005 Share Posted August 6, 2005 There's another product that you might find interesting called the Catweasel, made by Individual Computers (Jens Schoenfeld). You see, the format that Commodore used on their disks is a little unusual, and the (relatively stupid) floppy drive controllers on IBM PC computers are incapable of reading/writing this format (There are some exceptions, but they're not really worth mentioning). The Catweasel is a fully programmable floppy drive controller, and IS capable of reading and writing to C64 formatted disks. It's also capable of reading and writing many other formats that PC's are normally incapable of, in case you're into TRS-80 or Amiga or whatever. Depending on what version of the Catweasel you'd buy, they also have some extra features like a socket for a real SID chip, joystick ports, etc. This is a much more costly method than simply building an X1541 cable, but it's more convenient in the long run. 905715[/snapback] I was curious if anyone made anything like that. I'd expect that if such a thing were properly designed, it would be able to read disks that were of marginal quality and were no longer readable in original equipment (nowadays it should be fairly trivial to read disks data as an analog signal, and apply digital signal processing techniques following the read). Does anyone know if the Catweasel or any other such device does this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osbo Posted August 8, 2005 Share Posted August 8, 2005 I made my own XE1541. The parts from jdr.com was like 2 bucks something like that. It will not work with XP. I tried the XM configuration, didn't work with my motherboard, so I went back to XE. 64HDD is a PITA to make it work, but it does work fine once u get it going. SC is a good program, but getting those 5.25 DD can be difficult. Good luck! I enjoy my C64 a lot and there are some good games out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue60 Posted August 9, 2005 Share Posted August 9, 2005 I love my C64 i got the same setup (but with only floppy drive) and 126 games (all copys) for $10.00 oh and 2 joy sticks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laner Posted August 9, 2005 Share Posted August 9, 2005 (edited) http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/c64haves.htm Hah! That's too funny... I had a C64-dedicated website called Laner's Electric Mayhem from 1995 to 2002. I've been aware of that site for some time, but never ran into who maintained it until now. I guess I just get a kick out of two C64 "Mayhem" sites http://web.archive.org/web/20010417101250/...ommodore64.net/ Edited August 9, 2005 by Laner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrickmanTerry Posted August 9, 2005 Share Posted August 9, 2005 http://www.mayhem64.co.uk/c64haves.htm Hah! That's too funny... I had a C64-dedicated website called Laner's Electric Mayhem from 1995 to 2002. I've been aware of that site for some time, but never ran into who maintained it until now. I guess I just get a kick out of two C64 "Mayhem" sites http://web.archive.org/web/20010417101250/...ommodore64.net/ 907241[/snapback] Wow! All this talk about C-64 makes me want to take it out of it's tomb (box full of computer junk) in the basement and fire it up again. I would love to try and transfer some of those games from PC to 5-1/4 floppy and play it on the real thing! It's hard to get many of my disks working. Some of them went corrupt over time. Not a media that lasts, unfortunately. *sigh* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted August 9, 2005 Share Posted August 9, 2005 Hah! That's too funny... I had a C64-dedicated website called Laner's Electric Mayhem from 1995 to 2002. I've been aware of that site for some time, but never ran into who maintained it until now. I guess I just get a kick out of two C64 "Mayhem" sites And I used to visit your site every so often as well Though I lay claim to the "Mayhem" name as I started using it back in 1993 Way back then everything seemed so small... and now I'm a large part of a number of C64 related things: Gamebase64, Lemon64, BIT Live, Retro64, RetroGamer magazine amongst a few things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AncillaryDrone Posted August 9, 2005 Share Posted August 9, 2005 It's hard to get many of my disks working. Some of them went corrupt over time. Not a media that lasts, unfortunately. *sigh* 907353[/snapback] I've got ones from 1986/87 that still work great, even the cheapo ones still work. I think taking them out for a spin once in a while helps. Oh and most importantly your 1541 should be very clean. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supercat Posted August 9, 2005 Share Posted August 9, 2005 I've got ones from 1986/87 that still work great, even the cheapo ones still work. I think taking them out for a spin once in a while helps. Oh and most importantly your 1541 should be very clean. 907501[/snapback] Is there anyplace to get a head cleaner these days? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayhem Posted August 9, 2005 Share Posted August 9, 2005 Just open up the drive, get a Q-tip and some isopropyl alcohol and swab the lens a bit. Use the other end to clean up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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