Dan’s MEGA65 Digest Podcast

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

[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...

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...

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...

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...