Site news (years 2008 & 2009)

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MADrigal
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Site news (years 2008 & 2009)

Post by MADrigal » Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:54 am

June 16th, 2008

Today's main news is right on the top of this page, and it reads "Forum".
Too many times I thought that creatiVision fans and enthusiasts deserve to have a place to gather and discuss as a true "community". Collector Dieter Koenig and I tried to offer people a forum last year, but we then had to delete it due to excess of spam subscriptions. The new forum looks much more secure, is set to discuss software, hardware, collecting and I personally designed a skin and avatars matching this website's graphics!
Let's make this a true community on the new CreatiVEmu Forum!

Now let's go on with the other news!

I recently came across a Deep Sea Adventure cart and, as I opened it, I found 2 EPROMs containing a 6 KB ROM program, instead of the usual 8 KB program I usually found. I dumped the EPROMs and now you can get the "new" ROM from the usual Download page.
Of course there's a new CreatiVE-UI interface (release 1.06) containing the database infos for the newly added ROM.

Another great news from the "emulation" area: my good old friend Giovanni Ortu was finally able to update his CvEmu2 emulator (release 0.6.1) now including a nice in-game menu allowing players to save game state, load/save BASIC listings and screenshots. Unluckily the audio emulation isn't available yet, but Giovanni told me he's gonna release a new version soon, so stay tuned!

Some new great pictures were added to the Releases database. Listing the hardware:

- creatiVision Mk-II console (international, box)
- creatiVision console (Switzerland, box)
- Rameses console (international, pictures)
- Funvision console (international, box)
- VZ-2000 console (Australia, pictures)
- Moving-key keyboard (international, box and manual)

Plus a couple of game boxes and manuals scans:

- Auto Chase (Germany, box and manual)
- BASIC (International, box)
- Planet Defender (Germany, manual)
- Tennis (Germany V2, box)
- Tennis (Australia V1, box)

Thanks go to Adrian Scheel, Basilio Lenzo, Paul Hayter, Giovanni Ortu and Norman Pelz.

Last but not least, as a member of the CreatiVEmu team I was invited to join the Video Games History 2008 which took place in Monza (Italy) on May 23/25, 2008. The creatiVision system caused much interest in most visitors, and we even had the chance to set a "Sonic Invaders" tournament in "2-players versus" mode! I'll soon post pictures and a full report on the CreatiVEmu Forum!
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Re: Site news

Post by MADrigal » Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:41 pm

July 13th, 2008

A few very good news today for Amiga users: Amigan Software just released the Amiga-OS porting of FunnyMu Unofficial 0.48 - I've just been notified by James Jacobs (the author) himself!
You can get the file from their website, or from our downloads page.

Some more new contents on the Releases database:
- BASIC (international, manual)
- Crazy Chicky (reissue, box)
- Tank Attack (reissue, cartridge) with different sticker and named "Tank"
- Tennis (reissue, cartridge) with small font on sticker

Enjoy!
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Re: Site news

Post by MADrigal » Sun Mar 01, 2009 1:59 pm

March 1st, 2009

I spent the past 6 months designing the new website, re-scanning most of the previously available boxes, manuals, carts, etc. to a higher resolution, adding a ton of new stuff... and well I'd never think it would be a such long and hard work!
But in the end I'm done, thanks to lots of friends who contributed by sending new stuff. Guys, you do deserve a special big thanks: Anders, Massimiliano, Federico, John, Jens, Reinhard, Frèderic, Adrian... too many to list this time!

Since the website's been rewritten completely, I won't point you to a specific area, but I suggest you to view all the available pages, with a focus on the new "Releases database" and "Articles" pages: they're truly full of precious informations, lots of new articles and obscure stuff!

Last but not least, look at the new project by CreatiVEmu Team: Diagnosticart: it's a brand new "multicart" with very special (and rare!) contents and a new package, released in very very limited quantity for true CreatiVision fans only!
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Re: Site news

Post by MADrigal » Sun Mar 22, 2009 3:28 pm

March 22nd, 2009

Pre-orders for the forthcoming Diagnosticart were closed on March 16th.

We originally planned to produce 30 carts, but in the end we got 40 pre-orders.

We're currently manufacturing all the needed stuff, and will contact buyers as soon as we're done!
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Re: Site news

Post by MADrigal » Sun May 03, 2009 4:48 pm

May 3rd, 2009

While we're producing Diagnosticarts (will be shipped next week!) I stumbled upon new "obscure" items which recently surfaced in Germany:
- an odd BASIC instructions manual in German language, printed on A4 paper with a computer printer (looks like an earlier version of the more common instructions manual typed on a typewriter);
- a stunning "CreatiVision Demo Tape" with very very interesting content, quite different to the common "Wizzard Demo Tape"

I immediately added all stuff to this website archives. You can grab the new BASIC manual (in PDF format), and pictures and WAV recording of the "CreatiVision Demo Tape" from the Releases page.
You can also download the BASIC listings which were included in the tape, in plain text format (for use with the FunnyMu emulator) from the BASIC programs page.

Thanks to my old-time friend Adrian Scheel from Germany, for providing such incredible stuff!
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Re: Site news

Post by MADrigal » Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:31 pm

July 28th, 2009

Diagnosticart sold out in a while, and was a big success! In the meantime I kept on searching for new informations for this website, in order to keep this project alive and fresh for all users.

I recently put my hands on a very odd Police Jump cartridge (Australian edition by Dick Smith) with an "obscure" orange sticker on front. New scans are available at the usual Releases page.
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Re: Site news

Post by MADrigal » Tue Sep 29, 2009 11:32 pm

September 30th, 2009

Here's huge updates today!

First of all, I wish to thank mr. Mauro Spadazzi from Rimini (Italy) for scanning and emailing me three articles concerning CreatiVision from a couple of ultra rare Italian magazines, that's Electronic Games and Computer Games. I never even heard about those articles before! Read them from the Articles page.

Now let's speak about new files. This time I'm proudly releasing the two ultra-rare diagnostic programs I got last year, and Giovanni Ortu dumped a few months ago. In addition, there's also the Diagnostic Demo by talented programmer Kurt Woloch. All three programs were originally included in the Diagnosticart cartridge. As for emulation, unfortunately not all of the three work on current versions of FunnyMu and CvEmu2, and we're still attempting to fix them in order to run the new ROMs correctly. Get files from the ROM programs page.

Last but not least, there's a new CreatiVe-UI graphics interface for use with FunnyMu emulator. Version 1.07 is available for download from the Emulators page.
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Re: Site news

Post by MADrigal » Sun Nov 08, 2009 9:47 am

November 7th, 2009

I've been recently asked to join the MESS team, in order to improve the CreatiVision driver. The existing driver was yet very good in terms of quality, but had a lot of mistakes related to the memory maps, optional peripherals emulation, non working ROMs, and informations regarding the console models and revisions.

Fixing it was not as hard as I thought at first: it took me a few hours to install the dev environment and apply all bug fixes. In a result, the "new" driver was successfully included in the MESS source code almost immediately.

The world famous multi-emulator (brother to MAME) now emulates all versions of the console and its clones to an even better level, making it probably the best CreatiVision emulator around.

Thanks a lot to the MESS guys for allowing me to join in. You can grab emulator with GUI, and source codes from the official MESS website.
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Re: Site news

Post by MADrigal » Mon Nov 09, 2009 1:01 pm

November 9th, 2009
Here we are with a new "big" site update.

I've been recently contacted by my long-time South African friend, Paul Rahme, who now lives in London. He sent me a lot of pictures of his South African CreatiVision, peripherals and games, all branded by Telefunken MicroTEK. I made a deep search on those pictures, got a few additional informations, and came to know that the console apparently sold in South Africa *before* than in Europe!

Of course you can download pictures of the console, the cassette tape player (with box), and six game manuals from the usual Releases/hardware and Releases/software pages.
Oddity: the tape player is named "Cassette interface module" instead of "Cassette storage module".

As a nice addition, Paul also sent me a copy of a wonderful 4-pages flyer from South Africa, showing the console, peripherals, and games, even having a brief introduction to almost all of the commands of the BASIC interpreter! Grab the flyer as a PDF file from the Flyers database.

Time to do some reading. Two Italian friends, Mario Verdi and Mauro Spadazzi, sent me a few scans from Italian magazines and books. Mario sent scans from the "Dizionario dei VideoGame" book - that's a pocket encyclopedia of videogames, where CreatiVision is also mentioned. Mauro sent scans from articles appearing on issues 2 and 3 of Italian magazine "Computer Games".

And it's now time for emulators! Nineteen months after the release of FunnyMu 0.48 Unofficial, I'm now releasing FunnyMu 0.49 Unofficial with a top-wanted feature: fullscreen mode. Here's what's new:
Changelog
=========
0.49 unofficial
* added fullscreen mode (select fullscreen/windowed option on funnymu.ini config file)
* minor fixes here and there, and cleanings to source code
Executable is available for Windows, and source code is available for Linux users. The new CreatiVe-UI 1.08 graphics interface helps Windows users to configure and launch emulator. All files available for download on the Emulators page.
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