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From: rbernardo on 20 Apr 2008 04:20
[two reports combined and edited]

From: Lord Ronin
Date: Mon Mar 17, 2008

***Disclaimer/Warning***
Da fullowin iz ritten da next murn and wth liddle sleep un nah
coffeieeee
yut.
----------------------------------------------------------

Sunday morn at 3 am. We are still on the phone with our dedicated #8
(weirdwolf) who through the mega-graces of the bus system in the
Portland Metroplex missed the bus from there to Astoria. #8 will have
his rants on that one I am certain. 'Cause I gots mine {EG}.

Expected here at 9 pm Saturday night. Was not a pleasant thing to see
his nickname show up in the chat around that time, as we were to burn
the CDs for
MossyCon and he was going to show us how that was done, plus a few
other computer
related problems were to be rectified without Lord Ronin (myself)
using the
ever-present big and heavy hammer.

Between 9 pm-ish and 3 am, using Xchat for IRC switching between
screens,
creating a minute problem for #8's phone and having to recharge it, we
did
burn the 10 CDs for the Con.

A lot of thanks go to #8 (supercommodore-Destined!/weirdwolf...) for
taking all that time to work with us on how to burn a smegging CD with
this new Linux flavour. Finding out that the CD/DVD burner isn't
working,
and we had to replace it with the old one from the previous set-up.
Then, files that
were downloaded not installing for the burn, and I guess those that
use non
C=64/128s are familiar with this scenario a lot more than I.

Up at 10 am, or earlier. Coffee on the boil, cats demanding food. Set-
up time was to
be 10 am at the pizza place. Reminds me some or a few of us
attendees should send some letter of thanks in some format to them.
Well,
at 12:10 pm, over an hour after the event was to start and 2 hours
after the
set-up time, no ride yet, and that was a bit worrisome, after last
year's
medical problem for Robert. Worries started to cross our minds. Nope,
things were just running a bit late. I called the pizza place... yeah,
me
using a phone... hey, it was a real, rotary dial C= phone. Talked to
Gene
Woods, who told me Robert was on his way. Shortly after that, Robert
was at
the shop.

Couple of bags of things from us, along with #30 and myself, crammed
into
the boat of a car of Robert's. Well, compared to those Tonka toys that
are
on the road now, it has been called a boat, even if the backseat
hadn't been stacked
with items. Well, the interiour of that car is made for
Robert. Not 6'2" me or 6'7" #30. And I hate seatbelts as well. Oregon
mandates the
use of them. Political rhetoric aside.

Stopping at the back door of the pizza place, I showed Robert the back
way there (really, it is legally highway 30) to avoid the center of
town
traffic. We off-loaded ourselves and the bags. Now I must add here
that
through a misunderstanding, we had previously collected a supply of
Amiga
items. These were originally to be for Robert. They were put in the
trunk
and back seat. Want to thank Robert here for being so understanding
about
the mix-up and then seeing that many of the items were dupes for his
group and allowing us to keep those items in order that we may start
to
rebuild the Amiga section after the sho-vah stole the club's stuff.

There was a line of tables that held many items that were just for the
show.
Robert had the one that Jack Tramiel signed at the CMH event in
December.
Really, that C=64 should have been under glass and with an alarm
system.
An Amiga 4000 with several autographs as well as a 128DCR keyboard
also
autographed by some of the engineers. A lovely presentation of a
collage
of the late Jim Butterfield. Going past that to the right was a
collection of electronic controls that reminded me of my homebrew days
in
electronics, though cleaner and neater. This was connected to a SX-64.
Along in that area was a Lt. Kernal system that as I understand has a
few
additives and is working. At the end of the line past a FD-2000 was a
VIC-20, for which #30 and Steve Jones had to return to the shop in
order to
replace the PS that went out on it.

But at the start of the line, right next to the back door was a
Commodore
PET 2001. Not working and was slated for Ray Carlsen for repair.
Neither
#30 or myself had ever seen a real PET 2001 in real life before. Now I
understand
the reason for the term that was used to describe the keyboard. But
hey for us
lefties, the cassette thing is on the left side of the keyboard.

Met Steve Jones and a man whose name escapes me, but I think it was
Bilud, and his handle is Nightlord. Wasn't his accent that tossed me
as
his English is very good. But that it just had to happen that day.
Sinus
problems blinded my left eye (I'm left-eyed dominant), and the ear
infection returned so I was deaf in the right ear. Plus I am horrible
at
remembering names. There was also Gene Woods, who has popped by the
shop
from time to time seeing how things are going with us, even though it
is a
few hundred miles and several hour drive for him. Good that he could
come
to the event, as originally that wasn't in the plans for his schedule.
Bad
that he could come to the event, because his main schedule got
frelled.

Robert had set up a tab at the pizza place for us. Didn't know that at
the start. At the first, since most of us had not met each other at
least
in real life, we sort of just talked about ourselves and C= related
things.
Had some pizza and drinks, mainly soda pop for the group. Of course, I
had
to be different and have beer, but as the oldest one there, I can be
eccentric at times (most of the time). Talked to Nightlord about role-
playing games.
He had played some in the past, 2nd Edition AD&D, and IIRC he had done
that in
college with friends in his native Turkey. I think that I went
overboard on the
desires we have to create C= RPG games and tools on the C= for RPG
games, but he did
seem interested in the idea.

Wildstar arrived, having to walk over the hill, and it is a mean hill;
I
can't do it anymore. Plus it was a nice cool day with drizzle. OK,
people
from Southern California may call it a rain, but those of us in the
Northwest would
call it a light drizzle.

Did have the enjoyment of a couple of deer going past the windows, as
they
came up from the bay and back into the woods on the hill. Nice touch
for
the day.

Eventually, we had to settle down some time around 2-ish. Nightlord
(hope I
have his handle correct) did the first presentation. Now I couldn't
hear
well so some others should go into this one. Also the tech level was
not
the same as mine. In essence, he created some demos in the scene which
he
had shown earlier on a non C= laptop with the emulator. Looked very
good,
and the speed was smooth. At that time he was explaining many points
of how
it was done. I caught the part of using the cpu and mem in the 1541 at
the
same time things are being done in the 64.

But that wasn't his main presentation. This was his compiler thinggy;
I
can't do the name justice. So basically, I can say that he has created
a
Commodore C++ compiler. Does only work in emulation for creation. But
as I
understand, the work can be placed on stock 1541 disks. He knows his
tech
and was presenting it well to those other hardware people who asked
some
poignant questions. MossyCon was honoured with the display of a Tetris
clone that runs at a good speed. Created with this new compiler for
us.
Sadly, he could not release it yet. Still working on the documentation
first. He wishes that to be done before the item is released.

Next up was the fat, old, hippy freak. My presentation was on the use
of
Geos, such as GeoWrite, GeoPaint, GeoPub, PostPrint and GeoDos. In the
creation of the items that I was able to convert into .pdf files and
burn
onto the CD. Only the burning and the converting was done on the Linux
system. The rest, even the zipped .D64s, were done on the C= with the
SCPU.
Passed out most of the CDs we had made. Few games and a lot of the
writings that I have done for the group. Showed off the actual raw 96-
page
copy of a 1st ed AD&D adventure completely created and printed on the
C=.

SMJ (Steve) was up next. He described his Prophet 64 thing. Now I
could follow some
of this, because I do have an ancient background in electronics and
once could play
musical instruments. But there was that hearing problem,
and most of his presentation had a crying baby and an irate child
screaming
in the other part of the pizza joint. What I could see, and the screen
was
on a SX-64, was a bit small for my eyes. Well, the screen showed a
lot of items that were to me impressive. But the sounds that he was
able
to create with his homebrew box and some other modded electronics
equipment, well, I have never heard SID sound so clean... as if it was
one
of those megabuck synthesizers. True, he had modded the SX to be a
stereo
with two sid chips. Started off his presentation with his laptop,
where he
had documented in pix the different steps and alterations of the
SX-64. I
could follow that part. But even deaf in one ear, that sound was
fantastic.

Robert followed with showing the different units that he had brought.
Starting with the PET and going through the different autographed C=
items. Now if I had my own transport and could run fast enough, he
would
have had less to take back with him {VBG}.

I left out that there was a framed set of stamps. Robert had sent a
pic
of Jeri to a place that places the image on a real, usable, 41-cent
USPS
stamp. This one is framed for display. He donated one sheet for the
raffle, and I understand another will be for another con/expo raffle.

But for the actual hands-on work, we had to borrow my SCPU in order to
see the Metal Dust game. This was placed on Robert's SX-64, the one
that I
would like to liberate for the ACUG. I mean it does have in the second
drive bay a FD-4000. But I am addicted to C=. By using a cord, this
was
able to be connected to the 1702 monitor at the VIC-20. Not sure about
the
entire game. Around three 1581 disks in a nice box. Robert did state
that
it has a tendency to try to save the high score, but when it does
that, it
smegs up a file on the disk, and the game is dead. What I saw with a
couple
of volunteers was a multi-colourful, fast, sideways scroller.
Spaceship
shooting at the asteroids and planetoids that race from the right side
of
the screen. My working eye had trouble with the background and the
foreground. There is just so much on the screen, at least seen about
7'
away, that I couldn't tell what was what. But I'll accept that the eye
problem was to blame.

Another hands on display was a set of finger joysticks in a box. This
is
an actual C= game, from about 1984 IIRC what was on the paperwork.
Does
use a disk, and one cannot use regular joysticks. I was struck at the
sight on the table of how the box and joysticks reminded me of a RC
plane
set-up. Good thing I did, as that is what this game is about. You are
flying a RC model plane. Well, the testers did give it a try. High
marks
for innovative crashing all around. {LOL}

Last in that demo presentation was the VIC-20. There was one cart that
had
IIRC 38kb or ram, but a switch out of the three broke off, cancelling
that
one. But we did see and play with the 100+ games in one cart for the
VIC-20. Ah, no one got even close to finishing the first level of
Donkey
Kong, and playing Congo Bongo with the keyboard was a bit hard, though
there is a
joystick options.

One last thing, and it is out of place in the demo part. Robert showed
off
the new MMC2IEC IIRC it is called. He had both sets, but lost his PS
unit for the
display. I was impressed at not only the fact that here is another
new piece of C= related Hardware, but looking at what appeared to be a
micronised DreamCast memory cart and finding it was at least a gig in
size.
Then learning that one can place 1541s onto it and use it like a 1541
drive. I think that I will learn more and save up.

Well, a lot more happened, but this is very long. We left the place
around
8 pm. Later, Robert & SMJ arrived at the commune, where, yes they did
see and Robert
had some of the Kittybox cake. More pix were taken. Talked on games
and the like.
Went to the shop, the ACUG GHQ. Spent time there talking about C=
things and looking
at the items in the shop. Eventually, at some point past 2 am, the
guys headed back
to the motel. I crashed, and for some inane reason, was up early in
the morning. Oh,
yeah, I am up. as Robert was bringing some Amiga things for us. Great
time, met new
C= friends IRL, and hope we will be doing this next year.

BCNU
Lord Ronin from Q-Link
(Feel Free to repost if it is worth it)


---------------------------- Original Message
----------------------------

1b. Re: MossyCon4
Posted by: "Nightlord" bilgem cakir
Date: Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:43 pm ((PDT))


Hi everyone, here is my report of MossyCon.

MossyCon took place in beautiful town of Astoria, Oregon. I took off
early in the
morning and picked up my new friend and fellow UPCHUG member Gene
Woods from Tacoma.
Then we drove south towards Astoria.

The drive was fun because of the nice chat we had and also because of
the
lovely scenery. Especially after we took off of I-5, the scenery
became
really beautiful. After about 3 hours, we reached Astoria and the
pizza place that
MossyCon was going to take place around 11.30 am.

When we arrived, a familiar face, Robert Bernardo from FCUG, was there
and he had
already unloaded a large number of exhibition items onto a long table.
Among them,
there were a Jack Tramiel-signed C64, a Bill Herd-signed C128, a Dave
Haynie-signed
Amiga 4000, and a PET (which does not need to be signed to be
special :) ).

It took a long time for everyone to come in, but eventually everyone
did, and we
ordered pizza and started hanging out. During that time, I tried to
prepare for my
demonstration of my new C++ compiler for 6502 called "Cepp". I did not
have the
latest version of the compiler binary on Windows. I had transferred
the sources from
Linux to the machine that I was going to use to demo. I worked on
compiling them for
the Windows machine for about half an hour, and then finally got it
working. I also
made sure that I can compile a C64 program with Cepp. All was well, so
I went on to
chat with others. Later on, I was the first to do a demonstration. I
tried to
briefly introduce the Cepp compiler and showed a proof of concept game
that I wrote
in C++ and compiled with Cepp. The game is called Cepptris, obviously
a Tetris
clone.

One of the visitors was Steve from Seattle, who came with a modified
SX-64 and some
audio equipment. After a while, it turned out Steve was a musician,
and he was using
his equipment together with Prophet 64 program to make authentic SID
sound in fusion
with his music. Later on, he demonstrated the modifications he had
made to his SX-64
and also demonstrated different parts of Prophet 64. I was very
impressed by the
quality of sound he gets out of his stereo SID-modified SX plus some
effects
hardware he adds. The capabilities of the Prophet software were also
quite
impressive. I was also amazed by Steve's knowledge about the different
sound
equipment that Prophet64 software was borrowing ideas from. I would
love to see him
on stage one day. He is a great guy with lots of knowledge and
creativity. I will
try to hijack and bring him to our UPCHUG meetings :)

Lord Ronin was another very interesting character; the type of guy
that I would like
to hang out with for a long time for the rest of my life. Very
intelligent with
resident sarcasm and sometimes hard to follow for me as he
generously uses so many references to TV shows and books that I have
not been
exposed to, coming from a different culture. But I felt just listening
to him and
constantly making mental notes of what to go investigate later was
very refreshing
and challenging in a very fun way.

Lord Ronin has also prepared a whole host of role-playing game
scenarios and
tools as well as a few text-based games for the meeting that he handed
out to us. As
I have not had a chance to check those out yet, I can not report on
them, but I am
sincerely looking forward to trying out those games. I would also be
very interested
to see what kind of games/projects we can come up with together.
Another host of
mental notes for me right there.

I also met with two more ACUG members, David and Rick (Wildstar). We
had a lot of
nice chat with Rick about the demoscene graphics and coding. We
watched a number of
demos on the emulator. It is always fun to meet someone so demoscene-
aware in US as
the fellow C64 users in US are generally slightly disconnected from
the demoscene
(mostly due to most demoscene products being in PAL)

Later on Robert demonstrated a group of things. Metal Dust on Super
CPU, some VIC-20
cartridges, and an interesting model plane simulation that came with
its own analog
controller hardware. The amount of niche software and equipment that
people produced
for these computers that sometimes never made its way over to Europe
simply amazes
me. The types of business software, weird hardware etc. makes me
realize how
dominant the machine really was and what a wide range of application
areas it was
used on.

Around 7:00 pm, we took off, as we had a 3-hour drive. It was a very
good day, and I
would like to encourage everyone around the area to take the time and
visit the next
MossyCon.

I can see a nice symbiosis of all of us there, and I can see potential
interesting
projects that can span out of the group of people at MossyCon.
Additionally, as UPCHUG becomes more active again, I am excited to see
the
level of support and productivity we can muster together here in the
Northwest in
the days ahead.
 | 
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