Category: Computers

Learn more about DOLORES, the Apple II graphics library behind the recent release for the platform, Angry Birds

Not long ago, I posted about the development of Angry Birds for the Apple II, including the gameplay video showing it in all its glory! One of the things that most impressed me when I saw Angry Birds was how low-resolution graphics could look so good on a game. It is not the only example of excellent low-res games out…

Apple has released the source code of the Apple Lisa OS, and we should follow the trend!

With my busy life, this is not exactly hot news, and you all might have seen it elsewhere, but I thought it would be nice to write something about it anyways. The Apple Lisa was released 40 years ago, and although it is considered a commercial failure, it paved the way for how you interact with the computer you are…

Microsoft’s undocumented TRS-80 Color BASIC syntax

Although I started out my home computer life with a Commodore VIC-20, I ended up moving to a 64K Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (“CoCo”) mostly because of its Microsoft Extended BASIC. Having built-in commands like PLAY, DRAW, PAINT, LINE and CIRCLE let me do graphics that anyone with an Extended BASIC CoCo could run. On my VIC-20, I had…

A message from David Pleasance for all orders who ordered his german book of “Commodore the inside story”

A message from David Pleasance for all orders who ordered his german book of “Commodore the inside story”: English translation (thanks to amiga-news.de) Due to e-mail losses, he asks for the current delivery address for sending the printed version to amiga@lookbehindyou.de with the subject: “INSIDE STORY GERMAN VERSION”. Subscribers of the e-book version, on the other hand, should send their current e-mail…

Scene World Podcast Episode #157 – Robert Neal’s RetroRGB

RetroRGB is THE portal to learn all about how to get the picture the best way out of such retro consoles to your modern TVs! Robert Neal is the master behind behind this portal which is the go-to address for console info of all kind as well, thanks to its extensive Wiki which is a whole database, YouTube videos, podcast…

Planeta Sinclair has announced the nominees for the 2022 Game of The Year

After having announced the judging panel (here), Planeta Sinclair posted the list of all games that will run for “best of” in different categories, including the most important: GOTY. To elect the nominees, first, the judges had to go through a list of 130 names and vote for five favourites (10 for GOTY). The result of this list is what…

YAPE 1.2.2 – Commodore Plus/4 Emulator gets a new version

It looks like the emulator developers have been working hard these past few weeks. YAPE 1.2.2 was released today, bringing important changes. These are the most important new features and bug fixes that made it to this release: SID card mouse emulation (in DirectInput mode) Manufacturer-dependent RAM powerup patterns copy the emulator window to the clipboard as a bitmap the…

The results for the 2022 “Beauty and the Beast” programming contest for the TRS-80 has been announced

(Article partially reproduced from trs8bit newsletter) This year’s competition centred on the popular Wordle 5-letter word guessing game. There were two ways to enter: write a version of Wordle for your favourite TRS-80 (the “Beauty” section) or show us how well the Wordle dictionary and answer list can be compressed (“Beast” section). Before getting into the winners, I’d like to…

Retro Gamer Nation – Top Commodore 64 Games for 2022

The Commodore 64, as one of the most popular computers of all time, is never short of great games released every year, and 2022 was no exception. To help celebrate the C64 retro gaming scene, Retro Gamer Nation has posted a video with the results of the C64 Gamers’ Choice Award 2022. The best games were picked by an exceptional…

Excellent Shoot’em Up game for the MSX available for free

SHMUP! Kai was released two years ago by Imanok, one of the most talented MSX developers out there. Now, he decided to make the game available for free. If you look at the gameplay video below, you can see that SHMUP! Kai is a game at the same level as Zeta Wing for the Commodore 64 or many commercial games…