Commodore 128 Files

In my opinion (which holds as much water as a wet piece of toilet paper), the Commodore 128/128D is one of the best 8-bit computers ever made. You can tell the entire world agrees with me because they made a plethora of software to take advantage of all the neat hardware that’s built into it. Oh wait, they haven’t. Bummer.

Still, occasionally I fumble across something that I find interesting for the C128, or I code/compile something myself. This is a list of that neatness. Anything I made has no support whatsoever so let’s hope it works for you 🙂

Preboot

Preboot (currently at version 1.4) is an auto-boot menuing system I’ve created for the Commodore 128 in 80-column mode out of necessity. I own a CMD-HD (and clones) and when I turn on the 128, it boots whatever my default partition is – normally Wheels 128, or GEOS, or something else. If I don’t feel like booting into one of those systems, I have to RUN/STOP-RESTORE it before it boots too far. This is where the name Preboot comes in.

In the original 1.0 release, it existed only to switch partitions and boot the bootblock. Now it can boot any program, load and save the contents of your REU (which is REALLY helpful if you use GEOS or Wheels 128), and boot whatever partition you’d like. As I feel the need, I’ll add more features to it. Enjoy.

Version 1.4 released 6/23/17. This fixes a weird bug that corrupts the config file.. I hope.

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Infocom for the Commodore 128 in CP/M mode.

The Commodore 128 has a great advantage, depending on who you ask, about being able to use CP/M – an OS used for over a decade before the dominance of MS-DOS. This opens up the C128 to the large world of both commercial and public domain software written for this OS.

Infocom was known for writing a large amount of text adventures for many systems. For the Commodore 128, only a handful took advantage of the 80 column screen and extra memory. What we got instead was the very slow, very 40 columns of the Commodore 64.

Some time back, someone had asked if the text adventures could be written for the Commodore 128. Though I’m sure it’s not an original idea, I thought about seeing about using the CP/M mode of the 128 to port the games. Many Infocom games were written for CP/M, and the games themselves were OS independent – they just requires an interpreter for their machine. So I spent about a week converting most games over to the 128.

This -requires- a 1571 drive (as the data was too big for a 1541), 80 columns, and a C128 of course. If you have a 256K REU or larger, this will use it. Enjoy.

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FM Radio for the 128

There’s a great project for adding a FM radio to your C64 for about $5 here. The only problem is, the software is C64-only. Luckily, the source code for the player was released and I recompiled it for the C128. You can download the compiled version below.

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CP/M on the Commodore 128

With all this talk of CP/M, you’d probably want to use it, wouldn’t you? Of course you would. However, there’s a lot of confusion on how to set this up. I wrote up a document (that also contains 3 disk images) on how to get the most of CP/M on your C128, and include a bunch of utilities to make your life easier. Check it out below.

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GEOS 128

I use GEOS frequently on the C128 as it’s usable on a system with 80 columns, 2Mhz speed, REU, etc. It seems though that many of the applications were made for the 40 column only mode. I am going through a bunch of GEOS applications and am compiling a list of apps that work in 80 column mode which are attached below. Enjoy.

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Particles! 25th Anniversary Pics Volume 1?

Hey look, I completed something finally! Here’s a small release for your Commodore 128 in 80 column mode (might require 64K VDC, not sure). It’s a slideshow of all the pics sent up for our 25th anniversary converted to the 128. Well almost all. 13 pics take up almost an entire 1581 disk. Maybe there will be a volume 2? Either way, here’s a D81 – no D64s as it would take up too many disk sides. It’ll run off of any drive so put it on a CMD HD or SD2IEC if so desired.

I don’t think it runs in VICE. Tested system is a 128DCR with a CGA2RGB connector on a NEC 1970 monitor.

Enjoy.

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