What's new Pussycat too?

I recognise those Amiga titles

Nice Pics Al and Andy, a little pricey for the C64C, but it seems to be in good nick..

Not been to a retro shop in years, every sat me and my mate Jim used to walk around the West End, we would always nip in to CEX (or Software city as it was before CEX took the shop over) and have a nosey around. Sadly all that stopped just after 9/11, we watched it unfold on a giant TV in a shop on Tottenham Court Road, we because we could not hear the audio thought it was some new action film trailer, I said to Jim, those effects are pretty good, then a breaking alert banner flashed up, and we saw it was for real. After that it didn't feel safe down there, so the trips stopped, mind you, it was hell for me by then with the knee's, so did me a favour.(by that I mean the walking around and not the shocking death of all those poor people, that didn't do any one a favour)

Don't even know IF there is a retro shop near me, not that I'd likely go considering my drop in retro mood..

Just seeing the pics is enough for me..

Turned my C64 on the other day, not to play, but to upgrade the Ultimate 1541 carts firmware..Did it then off it went..

Oh, got diagnosed with PTSD the other day, it's been sitting on top of my depression all this time..Explains the night terrors and much of the mood issues.

Watched Guardians of the galaxy 3 with Serena, twas the web digital version, will get the Blu ray when that's out in August, do like to own the Marvel and DC films.

Well that's my news snippet, glad you lads are getting some treats, a happy chappy is a good chappy..

 

Many thanks once more, Paul.

You are such a great guy spreading the retro lurve and I know we wish things were better for you health and neighbour wise and you didn't have these shitty things to contend with.

Just hope that the digital treats and being with your nearest and dearest helps put a smile back on your face as do our retro shenanigans, hustling, bustling about, trading and bartering and every now and again us guys manage to unearth the odd shiny gem for our collections.

Keep smiling through, mate.

 

I do my best and I come here for a laugh with my good mates, while I may not play much now I still enjoy seeing others really enjoy doing whatever it might be. I really like Al's globe-trotting and love of getting around, it's not so easy for me now but hearing about his travels is just great. Listening to others love of retro life is still a buzz to me. I watched the Youtube channel, 8 bit show and tell, it's mainly for Commodore folk but the host, Robin just has a great way of explaining stuff, the one I watched was him fixing a decade's old game on the C64 that was released with a bug that meant you could never finish the Brit version. In the episode he explains how he found the bug and fixed it, it was absorbing to me and really enjoyed it. So my retro thoughts are not all dead.

The point being, I still love hearing you guys talk about the stuff that interests you all, I may not be much of a do'er now but this all still makes me smile. Remember, I can still walk, talk, fart (something I apparently do too much) and get around, I'm not in the poor state Mr Hawking was, as yet, so don't feel too sorry for me.

To quote Sir Elton John, I'm still standing...

 

BLOODY MARVELLOUS!

Keep standing/farting and enjoying life to the retro max - in a laid back stance, Paul, you king of the micro rock n rollers.

We salute you, buddy - you keep us micro motivated.

 

Thanks Andy... Had a hair cut in a barber shop (as opposed to a butchers, Asda or any other shop), gave Serena a day off from using the clippers.

Now almost look human and not some cave beast with straggly, unkempt hair. I almost look like how I did when I wore a suit and tie and carried a briefcase (it actually did have work in it and not just sarnies)

 

I'm just glad we can't smell your farts over t'internet Paul

Seriously though, you guys are what keeps me coming back here on a regular basis. Plus, I'd happily have a pint of something non-alcoholic and a natter in person with any of you and you can't say that about everybody you get to know via internet forums!

Keep smiling through Paul. Remember there is always somebody worse off than yourself (usually a Sunderland supporter).

p.s. guys, it's been raining non-stop here today. Think I might need to emigrate to sunny North Yorkshire after all....

 

LOL! You two crack me up.
Paul, his haircut and briefcase with his pack up in (imagined) and Al's reflections on the damp Scottish weather and wanting to "emigrate" down to North / East Yorks... where it's about to persist it down all tonight and tomorrow so really... we're Scotland Mk II, mate!

Anyhow, couple more pics of disks discovered for the Amiga.

You might spot summat that brings back a memory or 3 and I will do a couple of "play test" vidz this week.

For now, I can't keep my paws off that pinball... definitely got that "just one more play" effect and me one armed bandit just jammed in the coin slot, so had to take the front off that and sort it - just call me "the attendant" (toilets a speciality).

I'll get me coat...







Ah, PD disks - love em or hate em there were.... thousands of em!

 

Thanks for the kind words gents, I'm a bit like Cuprinol (wood staining gear from old TV advert), I'm exactly what's on the tin. I'm the same in real life as I am on the net. And you guys are the same, I also could sit down and have a cuppa with anyone on here and feel right at home.

Don't worry Al, it's been a bit miserable down here for the last two days, swapping between blue and clouds to WET WET WET..(No, not those Scots lot )

My goodness, PD disks, the number of those I had to dump from Bob's, I thought about bringing them home and then thought that I had so much from Bob's that Cindy would be a little miffed with that lot. Easily 20 plus disk boxes and so many PC cover CD's. His missus was a manager of a shop / post office and the sold mags in there, but if Bob was actually buying these then he spent a blooming fortune on mags..

I can't really make fun of it as like all of us I collected so many disks that just sat in boxes for years. I think I may have looked at some of them, maybe once, but most were unseen.

Went into Asda last night, I thought the nice ladies who worked there might comment on me looking smart for once, sadly no, unlike Sean Connery, my sex appeal seems to have waned over the years In fact he's got more sex appeal being dead than I have

Sort of related, I'm not windy by nature, it's a result of the 15 plus tablets I have to take in a day, the omeprazole is a killer, fills me with wind, tried other stuff but that made me throw up and other nasty side effects. And although I joke about it, it's actually quite painful, good for a laugh but at a painful cost.

Any of us on meds know the not so clever side effects..

 

You always, without fail, manage to say it how it is, Paul.

All your aches, pains, emotions, thoughts, memories... they all come flooding back and your recollections of that great mate of yours, Bob, before he went right downhill. I know you guys both shared your love of computing together and of course you did your bit by helping him at the bitter end, caring for him and being there and then after he had passed, helping sort out what was left and giving a helping hand with the shifting of all of his "collection" - which as you say must have been boxes and boxes of stuff collected over the decades that he had his computing hobby and interest.

Think we all would have liked to have saved something but again, like you point out, our other halves care little for stacks of old smeggy dusty disks (have never been able to understand the female race?!) and so our intuition and self-preservation kicks in and we leave well alone in case us and the "imports" end up with a size 7 up our arses and sat together outside on top of a skip.

Sorry about the fading sex appeal, mate... I feel it too - not that I ever had much, but what I did have seemed to fade with me receding hairline and as for side-effects from drugs... jeez, you have my full sympathy there, Paul. I aint too bad as yet but I know I've got all that fun to come... bleedin hell... I know they never said that life was gonna be easy but we definitely need some POKEs and a few cheat codes on ere, guys.

 

In truth, dumping the disks may have been the best choice, I can't imagine anyone actually wanting them and the cost of sending them would put folk off. If you want to see it done properly then read this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-66136597 , the guy has done amazing work.

I joke a bit re the sex appeal, I normally get on with the ladies out there, I'm always polite, but I'm 44yrs married and I know where my loyalties lie. So I have a laugh and a joke with the nice ladies but never more than that. I already have 2 full time lovelies to look after.

Yeah, the meds area pain, some are to counteract the effects of others but most are pain relief, but the omeprazole is a real buggers, within an hour or less of taking I'm like a human whoopie cushion, but I have to be careful as it also upsets the stomach and I get diarrhoea so have to be sure before I parp!!

Sort of related to Bob, poor Cindy is going through it with her mum, the mem loss and confusion is really building, plus the mum's sudden loss of hearing is making her very ratty towards Cindy. It's a situation I've been in twice but there's nothing much I can do to help Cindy bar warn her of the problems to expect and assure her that it isn't her fault, but the actual effect on Cindy is draining.

Still, chin up and all that..

 

Aye, Paul.

You once more tell it like it is... warts and all... life is like this... people around us, including us, starting to find the going tough. Propped up by meds and certain organs/senses not as sharp as they were and we have to watch out for stuff like... where's the nearest toilet/plan our days around proximity to "facilities".... god, shoot me NOW!

Know what you mean about the disks.... 1000s to plough through in many retro hordes and like you say.... postage costs going through the roof.

YES - I saw that Beeb story on the guy(s) who have been saving old media formats (tapes) from the late 90s and early noughties as there's so much never seen before material captured on it (ie. Nintendo's US office set-up which has since vamoosed). Deffo watch out for this bloke's media going digital and appearing online sometime soon.

Really feel for Cindy with her mam - heartbreaking when you're doing all you can and yet it aint good enough/she shoots her down due to her ailments.

You;ll guide her through, mate... but go careful with those mega farts as I can't see standard Y-fronts holding out, bud... ;-)

Take it easy, fellas.

 

I had an old man moment when waiting for my haircut. I slowly started to feel the need to pee (I drink lots of water) and it was taking ages to get to the chair. Thought that I'm gonna need to find an alley way on the way home..Thankfully, just made it..

 

Hi all,

has anyone heard from Graham Rolle recently, as I've tried to contact him through the site.

Regards

Andy

 

Hi Andy, good to hear from you.

No, fella.

I sent him my best wishes at Christmas and heard nowt.

I do know that his missus wasn't very well last time we did exchange greetings but that would be 12+ months ago.

I'll PM you his contact number if you wanted to maybe try a text?

Cheers, Andy.

 

I was talking to him in September last year about a UAV for my 65XE but he was having family health problems and the chat sporadic. Last spoke to him in March.

 

Hey, nice to see you on Andy, welcome back...

Can't help re Graham, not sure I'f I've spoken to him ever?

Hope all is well...

 

I remember back in the day deciding to get some music software for my Atari. My options were (available off the shelf in my area)The Music Construction Set from EA you now own Andy, and Activision's The Music Studio.

I decided to choose The Music Studio because judging by the back-of-box description, it seemed to have more features and be user friendly with the music painter option similar to Atari's Music Painter that Music Construction didn't have. And important feature for me since I couldn't read music, though if I enjoyed it enough I would learn too, was the reasoning. And the color graphics looked better to me than the high-res mono of Music Construction, at least on the small box images. Both were pointer and icon driven which I preferred back in the day as it made the Atari 8-bit look as modern as the 16-bit machines, less a desktop, just in-app.

In hind sight (with enlightenment coming just a few years ago) I wish I had gotten The Music Construction Set instead as I was very disappointed to discover the Atari version of TMS was a dirty port of the C64 version and therefore only utilized 3 of the Pokey's 4 voices since the original software was restricted to the C64's 3 voices or channels! Then I come to find out that not only does The Music Construction Set take advantage of all 4 voices with their 3.5 octave range, on the Atari version, but also allows you to set it for 3 voices which allows one voice to be the combined 16-bit 7 octave range! The Music Studio didn't do that, it just dropped a Pokey voice to copy the C64 version, unfortunately also with only 3.5 octaves per voice compared to the C64's 8 octave SID voices. At least with TMCS you can come close to the C64's octaves on one the 3 voices, but also the advantage of it being in much cleaner and more detailed 16-bit resolution!

Good grab Andy!

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-music-studio-_14318.html

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-music-construction-set_14317.html

 

Cheers, Matt.

You certainly know your onions there, mate, with all that tech spec - an incredible feat of programming to get all those features on an old 8bit utility but it just shows how wonderful the Atari (and Commodore) sound and graphics hardware was in the 1st place and the software was just beginning to appear which could bring this power to the people in an affordable way.

If you ever want this program, Matt, just shout... mind, you've probably got back-up versions a go-go.

Great to hear from you, buddy, and hope you're keeping well as we heard that Oklahoma and many parts of the states have been having it tough, weather-wise, again of late.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-66150778

 

One of the reasons I haven't been around much of late is directly related to the weather, but it's a good thing for my business with plenty of fallen trees and branches to clean up. But I'm still maintaining lawns at the same time, and even fell behind due to missing a week between taking a long Independence day weekend (in the past working through it) and then directly after 4 days of being rained out. So I've been working overtime, and in the usual summer heat with indexes plus 100 degrees F. Most days by the time I get home and check on my dogs, I take a cold shower and crash into my bed. We took this regular weekend off again since we caught up on the lawns. But it will be another long week ahead still doing the regular lawn schedule but also more chainsaw work after until it's all done. We have several large trees (trunks ~1 meter in diameter average) that were uprooted on regular customer's ranch. After that who knows, we usually run into a slow spell with late summer dry spells.

 

Was just looking at the news and saw that your area was getting a seriously warm time of it Matt, glad it's helping with business though. Keep fighting the good fight me old mate..

 

Yep, I'm with Paul and sending you all the very best, Matt.
Glad to hear that you're healthy, getting through the heat (and rain) and making hay, in terms of work, whilst the sun shines as we all know it can soon turn into being a lean spell shortly after a glut.
Take care and we hope to see you back on here when the time allows to once more rejoin us and enjoy your retro, music and gizmo/upgrading hobbies with us, Matt.

 

Like Matt who has had puppies, my next door neighbour has started to breed French Bulldogs. Not only are they the ugliest dog around, but they don't bark so much as squeak very loudly. She has four of them (silly cow) and one has just dropped its litter of pups. So now we have all her dogs screaming at all hours of the night. The Sque-ark they make is really high pitched and drives my tinnitus mad.Gonna have to ask her to move them out of the room directly next to our bedroom as it keeps Cindy up all night.

I don't seem to have a lot of luck with neighbours!

 

Eeeh, if it aint one barking mad "bitch", it's another!

So sorry, Paul.

My mate Mike at work had 2 french bulldogs - Winston and Winnie and Winnie had to go in the end as she would attack anyone - incl Winston - who came anywhere near her at feeding time.

It was hell on in their kitchen and they tried all sorts - incl a dog trainer, to no avail.

She now lives with one of their friends and can still get arsey at meal times even without a rival hound on the scene.

This breed seems particularly tricky.

Wishing you luck sorting out the neighbours and this additional noise disturbance.

 

Honestly, 100F+ temps is pretty much the norm for Texas and Oklahoma this time of year. If we are setting any records it's only by a degree or two. And I'm well used to it from working in it this time of year with my businesses since I went into business for myself around 2005-6. Honestly what we are getting here weather wise with storms, high winds and tornadoes is perfectly normal so far, and not comparatively drastic like what many parts of the world are getting.

Honestly what I'm more concerned about is the inevitability, IMHO, of WW3 and the super volcano of Yellowstone National Park. Neither of which the seriousness of the reality is being covered at all in the main stream media. I don't know how you guys get your world news, but my sources in the alternative media (which also have to be sifted through for some crazy's) is dire indeed. All being hidden from the public by our governments and media.

For example, if you guys are under the impression that Russia is being ground down by NATO in the Ukraine and in dire trouble, I wish I could say it was true, but the reality is it's a faint and distraction with Russia using only their moth-balled arsenals and mercenaries. They are allowing NATO to use up all their modern arsenals in Ukraine so we have nothing left to use against their real forces in the near future...very near. And it's Russia, China and Iran getting ready to get the U.S. out of the way for their new world order. The U.S. leaders (Elites)are bought and payed for by China and know full well they are weakening the U.S. and Nato for them.

I pray I and my sources are wrong, but the end of western civilization and the U.S. and U.K. in particular are going to fall within the next year. IMHO.

 

I've read some similar stuff, and I've read some headless chicken talk, we can only hope both of these sets of news are wrong for whatever reason. A lot depends on what type of war it would be, if the nuclear option is used then the damage caused all around would make it tactically a poor choice. Ruling over an irradiated area isn't much of a win. I've watched those governments you mentioned and there's a clear overall agreement between them, buddying up is a worrying state. Putin has been very keen to talk up nukes and deploying them in Belarus is indeed not a good sign. I can't imagine Putin going for a conventional war, he's always keen to make a big statement about anything.

Let's imagine it happens, I just can't see the same governments working in tandem afterwards, there's too much of wanting to be the elite power between all of them, the bickering would start quickly and the taste for blood would still be in their mouths.

It really isn't any sort of future, just a slow but steady road to total oblivion. My goodness, if the aliens are watching, I think they would be happy to see us savages gone..

As for Yellowstone, that too is a ticking time bomb, if that blows it's going to put a lot if not all the globe in darkness and damage everything. The US would be a wasteland for the most part and one wonders what would happen to the climate from that moment on. El- nino is already burning up places, mix that in with the chaos Yellowstone would cause is a thought that does strike fear. Whole parts of the eco system would simply cease to be..