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Commodore Free Magazine
http://www.commodorefree.com/
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Issue 98

Free to download magazine dedicated to Commodore computers.
Available as PDF, ePUB, MOBI, HTML, TXT, SEQ and D64 disk image.

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CONTENTS
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Quick Review of the 1541 Ultimate MK 2

Pioneer of the Home Computer Industry

News

Rough and Ready Guide to Commando on the Commodore range of machines

Sonic the Hedgehog c64 review

Review the sentinel c64

A DARK START TO "RUN/STOP-RESTORE" by Lenard R. Roach


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Editorial
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We have some more of the same for this issue, with a review of the 1541 Ultimate Mark 2 I just purchased for myself. A look at the game commando on Commodore formats to see which version came out the better-looking and more importantly, the most playable version. No one mentioned the trimmed-down
news section, so I am hoping this is a better way forward for the magazine.

News is all over the internet about Commodore and it did fill out the
magazine somewhat; it was turning into just Commodore news magazine.

It was mentioned I should go with a vblog or Youtube channel as they are monetised but there are so many good blogs out there -- adding another isn't something I had thought about doing. Anyway, I don't want to embarrass the competition with my stunning looks and youthful complexion and send them into some sort of inferiority complex.

Still, enough about the options. I am not taking and let's look at what we are doing. So it's the usual news sections, reviews, and other juicy gossip.
As usual help is always needed. Creating the text versions and Html versions isn't hard but time-consuming so too, is the disk version, so if you can spare any time to help out I would be more than grateful, as I am getting comments now about when these versions will be released.

Many of you may have more time, but I seem to have less and less spare time with looking after loved ones and just getting daily life chores is taking all my time away. Still hope you are looking forward to another issue. Again, any comments are welcome even the anonymous user who emailed me to just say " Commodore Free your crap" its all nice to hear (I think constructive comments are more welcome, though.)

If you're reading this and think, "Why haven't you mentioned about XYZ?",
maybe I don't know about it, you're welcome to write something about a game
or machine that you think needs more coverage or exposures. If you are
creating hardware and software I would like to promote that to our readers,
so drop me a line. The website was hit yet again with a malicious attack and email is still down. You can get me on the Lemon format via an instant message until we resolve these attacks. I just wonder why would you bother attacking
a Commodore website about news. Still..

Moving on then... Thanks for reading and I hope you like this issue . C=FREE is and will always be FREE !


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Quick Review of the 1541 Ultimate MK2
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The 1541 Ultimate Mk 2 is a cartridge for the Commodore 64 range of computers that can emulate various other cartridges and the Commodore floppy disk
drives. It also has features such as USB and an Ethernet port in the form of
an RJ45 commentor, the device has the ability to load TAP files voa its tape emulation, and includes a real-time clock. The 1541 Ultimate is based on an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) meaning that code can be rewritten to
the chip, think firmware updates.

Here is a brief review and history of the product:

The 1541 Ultimate Mk 2 was developed by Gideon Zweijtzer and released in 2010 as an improved version of the original 1541 Ultimate, which came out in 2008. People praise the 1541 Ultimate Mk2 for its professional build quality, sleek design, and wide range of functions.

It can load and run games and programs from USB devices with SD card readers
or USB thumb sticks, using .D64, .G64, or .PRG files with cycle-accurate 1541 support and as mentioned can load tap files or tape files. It can also therefore copy and archive floppy disks, and run CP/M and GEOS. The device
can emulate other cartridges such as the Commodore REU, Action Replay,
The Final Cartridge III, Super Snapshot V5, Retro Replay, or TurboAss with Codenet support. on-board Ethernet, can be used for Telnet or FTP and has a
USB host controller, which can connect to external CD/DVD drives, keyboards etc. As mentioned, it has a tape adapter that can emulate a cassette player, and a battery-backed up real-time clock that can keep track of file date and time compatible with the C64, C64c, SX-64, C128, and C128D, although some features may not work with the latter two models. Features a microSD card slot for program saving. IT also emulates 2 SID chips and can with the right software use them simultaneously for playback.

So not only can you mount disc images you can also load CRT or cartridge files and run or flash the device from these. One example of maybe some useful software would be the Commodore diagnostic software downloadable as a disc image from here https://c64os.com/buyersguide/1541-diagnostic

When we get to telnet and FTP things become less crystalised as these allow the device to ftp or telnet into the cartridge so it can’t be used as an ethernet port to access the internet directly like some of the other
cartridges out there. Example: retro replay net or rrnet cards on the client that telnets into the 1541, you can change settings and mount discs etc. FTP has the ability to upload files to the 1541 remotely from a pc or mac.

The 1541 Ultimate supports standardised file systems like ISO9660/Joliet
(think CD ROMS) and support for FAT16 and FAT32 devices, these are the formats of many USB thumb drives so you could copy files to and from your PC Mac, etc.

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* Origin: Dragon's Lair BBS: dragon.vk3heg.net Prt 6800 (39:901/280.0)