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Friday 31 October 2014

1541 Ultimate II Guide 3 : Software!

For those of you who were not around in ye olde days of the 1980's: there was a LOT of software released for the C64/C128.  You can find d64 files all over the net. Still, that will be a lot of work and if you do not know what the good games or SIDs are you are not going to find the right ones.

So this post is about getting a collection of C64 software and music onto your UII as fast as possible, and in a way that will make you enjoy using your UII.

The easiest thing to do is to download all the stuff at once, and then find the cool stuff by going to review sites so that is what we are going to do.

Gathering The Goods


Music
One word (or acronym): H.V.S.C. These folks gather all known SID files into a large archive for all of us to download. As the UII has a built-in SID player, this is great for us.

The archive can be obtained from their website: http://www.hvsc.c64.org/


Software (read: Games)
The best thing to do is to download Gamebase64, their website is here. Although the front end tools are downloadable from the website, the actual c64 software is not! Luckily, there are torrent seeds for this collection. You can find it easily if you know how to use Google. The full package contains 4 ISO files, and the latest version is V12 (as on october 2014)

Demos
The C64 is famous for kick-starting the demo scene. Even today, demos are released which push the boundaries of the C64 capabilities. Some of these demos have to be seen and heard to be believed. The best resource for demos is the CSDB (Commodore 64 Scene DataBase) which can be found here.  The menu on the right side of that page shows the best demos, most recent demos and the best coders.  Grab some of these demos and be amazed.

Organizing

You could copy the base folders of HVSC and GB64 to your SD card, but it would look awful on the UII, and the directories contain a lot of files so browsing the content will take ages. Luckily there is a tool which was made especially for this problem. It will scan the game and music folders, reformat the names and folder organisation and output all of this to a new location. The tool is called Gamebase 64 Reorganizer SD. You can find it here: http://www.obliterator918.com/gamebase-64-reorganizer-sd/

After starting the tool, you will see a screen like this. I have already selected the base folder of my gamebase collection and of HVSC. Pressing GO! will start outputting to my selected output folder.


This is the result of re-organizing Gamebase64 and HVSC on my computer:


That's a lot of games and music. And I drank a cup of coffee while all this was being done for me. Excellent. All that is left is copy the output folder to the SD card and fire up the UII. Copying WILL take a long time, so hang on.

Note: the music files will be placed in the corresponding game folder. This may not be what you want. In that case, do not include the HVSC in the tool selection, and copy the music folders to the SD card. This may be the better option if you are composer/demo focused and not game focused.


This is what it finally looks like on the UII:


So nice, and you won't have to touch these folders again for a long long time.

That's it for this post. I hope you can use this post as a guideline to organizing your collection.

Saturday 25 October 2014

1541 Ultimate II Guide 2 : File use

This is another post in my series of guides for the 1541 Ultimate II (UII) cartridge. This post is all about the most common file formats, file management and settings related to these files.

File Management

The UII primarily uses a micro-cd card for storage. Getting files from your PC to the UII involves inserting and removing the card from the cartridge. There is also a USB port on the UII and this can be used with USB sticks and drives. So the sane thing to do is to use the SD card for the static files (like game and audio collections) and to use the USB port for moving stuff to and from the PC.

There is currently no native way to copy from the USB to the SD card using the UII. Copying can be done on a PC but this can become quite annoying especially because the micro-sd cart is small and the UII slot is not perfect either.

But help has arrived. The first version of a file manager has been released to the scene by LFT. It's ye olde directory opus, but tailored for the UII, hence u-opus.  You can find the progam here: http://csdb.dk/release/?id=133734.


You must enable the Ultimate Command Interface in the UII settings (press F2) because this c64 program is talking to the UII through this interface. So, start transferring and copying. This program is a huge timesaver.

Although you can use high capacity SD cards, do not place all files in a single directory. It will take ages to load the directory or navigate through it on your trusty old c64. So, break up your directory in sub-directories. You can create directories with the UII by pressing F5 to get into the action menu.

I hope a future version of u-opus will allow the creation of folders and the movement of files. There is no reason it should not. :)

File Types

There are a number of files used with the UII:
  • d64: This is a 1541 floppy disk image
  • g64: a RAW representation of a floppy disk. 
  • t64: Tape file image
  • sid: SID music file
  • bin: UII firmware update file
If you want more technical information, this site is an excellent reference. But as a user there really is no need to get into this.

Let's get into each file type and check out the possible uses.

d64: The most versatile image for use with the UII. You can browse through these images without first mounting them and select individial files to run by pressing the right arrow when on a d64 file. Running a file will bypass normal 1541 operations and the file will be instantly moved into memory and run. You can also 'mount & run' the file which will mount the disk and then issue a normal load command.

g64: These are mainly used for software which makes use of non-standard file formats, like capture cartridges or copy software. You can only mount these image files, not browse through them in the UII. After mounting load the directory by using load"*".8. Don't use g64 files if you don't have to, there is no advantage otherwise.

t64: Images of file (or files) loaded from tape. You can only load and run the content of these files as there is, of course, nothing else associated with these files. Loading and running is, like with d64 files, instant.

sid: Great fun! Select a .sid file to start the UII SID player. If the tune has sub-tunes you can select it and play those.  Make sure you use a UII firmware which has the player activated. Check out the UII website for the firmware descriptions. I currently use the 2.6k drive+audio firmware.

bin: The firmware update file must be placed in the root directory of the SD card. Using the USB port for this will not work, even though there is an option in the USB settings to allow boot from image files from the USB port.

Creating disk images with the UII

Maybe you like to program on your C64 and you need a place to store source code files, or you want to create a floppy to save all your high score files on.

You can create new d64 and g64 files with the UII. Press F5 to open the UII Action menu and select 'Create D64' or Create D64'. Type in the name of your new file. The name of the file will also be the label of the floppy directory.
The Action menu is dynamic, so make sure you are positioned on a location where you can actually create files, otherwise the option will not show up.

Conclusion

The files mentioned in this post are the ones you will work with the most, so it's good to know what each file is for and capable of. That's it for now. This post will be updated when I found out more about these files and their uses. 

Tata!

Monday 20 October 2014

1541 Ultimate II Guide 1 : Hardware


The 1541 Ultimate II (UII from now on) is a device for your Commodore 64/128/SX, and it enables you to use MicroSD cards and other USB devices (sticks, disk drives) with your classic micro computer. But it can do a LOT more, which will become more clear with a series of posts.

I love this device but the documentation for it is terrible and outdated, so I decided to play around with it and see what kind of functions and features I can get running (or not) and document those.

These posts will be updated if and when I receive new information or find additonal problems/solutions.

This first post is about using the UII on different CBM machines and hardware combinations. Later posts will be about functionality.

Important: Firmware

Use the most recent version of the firmware, unless it breaks something important you want to use. I am running the 2.6k firmware which is the latest at this moment (oct 2014).

Firmware updates can be downloaded from the official site.

Updating the device is easy:  you put the downloaded update.bin file in the root of your SD card and turn on your computer. The UII will reset and it will run the update tool. Putting the update file on a USB device will not work, you must use the SD card.

C64

The UII was made for the C64 and it shows. The device works flawlessly.







C128

I do not own a standard C128 (an issue I will have to solve soon) so I was unable to test scenario's on a C128.  Reading about it on the internet suggests there are no real problems with using a C128.

There are some differences though. Using a UII on a C128 has some disadvantages because the UII does not support certain features. These are:
  • 80 column mode: You cannot see the UII menu when in 80 column mode. Go back to 40 columns, and return to 80 columns when you are done.
  • *.PRG direct load: Loading a .PRG directly from the UII is not working. If you do this the C128 will go into C64 mode and try to run the program. You must mount the disk files and load your files from there.
If the C128 goes into C64 mode when turned on you must disable any C64 cartridge image. Enter the UII and press F2, select the option ‘C64 and cartridge settings’, select the ‘Cartridge’ option, press ENTER and select ‘none’.

C128D

In addition to the changes described above, the C128D has a built in floppy drive located on device ID 8, and there are bound to be some troubles.

Insert and connect the UII in your C128D, and turn it on. This may result in not getting a READY prompt. Resetting the C128D again with the reset button does give a READY prompt though.

The device ID for the built in 1571 is 8, but that is also the ID of the virtual drive in the UII. There are people who disconnect the physical drive by cutting wires etc. I shudder at the thought of doing that, so I set the UII device ID to 9 and 10. To do this, press F2 and go to the option ‘1541 Drive A settings’, then set ‘1541 Drive Bus ID’ to the appropriate value. Do the same for Drive B, or disable it.
Using drive id 9 or 10 can cause some problems with disk based multiload programs as these expect 8 or 9. This can be solved by giving the built in drive a higher device number, and then using id 8 and 9 for the UII virtual drives.

How to do this. First, assign device number 11 to the built in drive by entering the following commands:

OPEN 15,8,15
PRINT#15,"U0>"+CHR$(11)
CLOSE 15

You can now set the first UII drive to id 8. This will also re-enable the use of the default C128D drive commands, like DIRECTORY, DLOAD, etc. This change is of course temporary. The internal drive will be number 8 again after a restart or reset of the machine.

You may also have problems when loading or mounting disks. This often happens because of a timing setting in the UII. There are two settings in the ‘C64 and cartridge settings’ menu that might need adjusting. I use 100ns for the setting ‘CPU Addr valid after PHI2’, and ‘PHI2 edge recovery’ is set to Enabled.

Considering all these issues and work-arounds I suggest you use a Commodore 64 or 128 (minus the D) with the UII: it just is not worth the hassle. Still, it IS possible to use the cartridge on a 128D.

SX-64

I personally have small issues when using the cartridge in my SX-64.

There are issues, and mostly these are about the same issues as reported under the C128D section: timing settings and the internal drive. You can play around with those settings when you experience problems, with one exception: you cannot change the internal floppy drive ID as you can with the 128D, unless you open up your SX-64 and modify the hardware. I've been working with the UII on the SX-64 for a bit and of course the UII works great as drive 9, but multi-load games and demos suffer. The UII drive WILL work as drive 8, but the internal disk drive will be in a constant error state as they will be in conflict, but loading files DOES work.

I've read that early SX-64's were not able to use the REU (RAM Expansion Unit) cartridge by CBM. Later models were able to, as of serial number GA4. As the UII has REU functionality this may or may not be a problem for you.

The SX-64 also does not have a cassette port. So if you want to make TAP files using your own tapes, you are out of luck with the SX-64.

Again, as the SX-64 is basically a C64, use that instead for your tinkering.  As with the C128D you can disconnect the internal drive. I don't like to modify the hardware though so I just use my C64. Those are cheap you know, unlike my SX-64 :)

Conclusion

It shows that the UII was initially made for the C64. It can be used on different hardware of the same family but not without small quirks and some issues.  My advice is to use a C64 for your general use, and only use the other machines if you REALLY have to (or have no other hardware of course)

The next post will be about using the UII file types. See you then.