Compile VICE under Ubuntu 10.04 (x64)

C64 August 1st, 2010

VICE is an excellent Open Source Commodore C64 emulator. Problem is that the version packaged in the Ubuntu repository is quite old (and buggy as hell under x64). So let’s fix that :-)

First, make sure you have build-essential and libxaw7-dev installed (if not a quick sudo apt-get install build-essential libxaw7-dev will fix that).

Now download the VICE source code from here. Unpack the source and fire up your favorite text editor. We have to fix something :-)

If you try to do a ./configure and make you’ll end up with the following error:

x11video.c:268: warning: function declaration isn’t a prototype
x11video.c: In function ‘shmhandler’:
x11video.c:348: error: ‘X_ShmAttach’ undeclared (first use in this function)
x11video.c:348: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
x11video.c:348: error: for each function it appears in.)
make[7]: *** [x11video.o] Error 1
make[7]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make[7]: Leaving directory `/home/kmandla/Downloads/vice-2.2/src/arch/unix/x11/xaw'
make[6]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[6]: Leaving directory `/home/kmandla/Downloads/vice-2.2/src/arch/unix/x11/xaw'
make[5]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[5]: Leaving directory `/home/kmandla/Downloads/vice-2.2/src/arch/unix/x11'
make[4]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[4]: Leaving directory `/home/kmandla/Downloads/vice-2.2/src/arch/unix'
make[3]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `/home/kmandla/Downloads/vice-2.2/src/arch'
make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/kmandla/Downloads/vice-2.2/src'
make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/kmandla/Downloads/vice-2.2/src'
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

We’ve to work-around this issue. First, open vice-2.2/src/arch/unix/x11/xaw/x11video.c with you favorite editor. Go to line 348 and replace “X_ShmAttach” with “1″. Save the file.

Now fire up a console and run ./configure. After a few seconds you can do a make and later a sudo make install.

Done :-)

Before you start x64 make sure you have the C64 roms installed (get them from the Windows installation package of VICE and put them into ~/.vice)

Memories :-)

VICE (x64)

Happy retro hacking!

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Running Version 7 Unix on a PDP-11 emulator

Oldskool, UNIX July 20th, 2009

Version 7 Unix, released in 1979, was the last Bell Laboratories release to see widespread distribution before the commercialization of Unix by AT&T in the early 1980s. It was originally developed for Digital Equipment Corporation‘s PDP-11 minicomputers and was later ported to other platforms.

At http://simh.trailing-edge.com I found not only a PDP-11 emulator but also a disk dump of a real 7th Edition Unix system. Yep, that UNIX is now close to 30 years old. But what’s missing are instructions on how to make it work.

So here is what I have figured out by trial and error.

First, download the source code and compile it (Linux) or if you are running Windows download the executables from here. Next, download the Version 7 Unix image and unpack it into the same directory as the PDP-11 emulator files.

Should look like this

Start the PDP-11 emulator with pdp11.exe.

Great, a whole rack of equipment in a command shell :-)

Next, we have to set the CPU we want to emulate and the terminal interface. Type in the following commands:

The PDP-11′s CPU is now a 11/45 and our terminal has the “high-order bit” cleared. Now let’s mount the disk image and boot from the image.

Ok, it boots but something is wrong. Let’s have a quick look at the file system.

This was a very hard nut to crack but after reading the V7 manual I figured out that there are (at least) two things missing. A temp directory and a user + a user directory. Let’s fix that :-)

ok, tmp directory fixed, let’s see what’s in the passwd file.

There is a user called dmr with a home directory set to /usr/dmr. Let’s create that. Press CTRL-D after the last unix command (^D if you use Linux)

Great, a logon prompt!

Yeah, it works! There is even a C compiler (cc) installed.

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Compile UADE under Mac OSX

Amiga, Mac OSX, Oldskool June 28th, 2009

I am a big fan of good old Amiga chip tunes and was looking for a player for them under OSX. UADE (Unix Amiga Delitracker Emulator) can play more 200 formats.

UADE on OSX depends on libao (for sound) and pkgconfig. Download Macports and install it. After the installation open a terminal and install libao and pkgconfig using the following commands.

champb01:~ cham$ sudo port install libao
—>  Fetching libao
—>  Attempting to fetch libao-0.8.8.tar.gz from http://distfiles.macports.org/libao
—>  Verifying checksum(s) for libao
—>  Extracting libao
—>  Applying patches to libao
—>  Configuring libao
—>  Building libao
—>  Staging libao into destroot
—>  Installing libao @0.8.8_2
—>  Activating libao @0.8.8_2
—>  Cleaning libao
champb01:~ cham$

champb01:~/src/uade-2.12 cham$ sudo port install pkgconfig
Password:
—>  Fetching pkgconfig
—>  Attempting to fetch pkg-config-0.23.tar.gz from http://distfiles.macports.org/pkgconfig
—>  Verifying checksum(s) for pkgconfig
—>  Extracting pkgconfig
—>  Configuring pkgconfig
—>  Building pkgconfig
—>  Staging pkgconfig into destroot
—>  Installing pkgconfig @0.23_1
—>  Activating pkgconfig @0.23_1
—>  Cleaning pkgconfig

champb01:~ cham$

Now download the UADE source code archive and untar it. Open a new Terminal window and execute the following commands.

champb01:~/src/uade-2.12 cham$ ./configure –without-xmms

Configuring for MacOSX
Using memmem() replacement
Using canonical_file_name() replacement

UADE and frontends is installed to      : /usr/local/bin
Data directory                                            : /usr/local/share/uade2
Uadecore directory                                      : /usr/local/lib/uade2
Man (documentation) directory           : /usr/local/share/man/man1
Installer                                                     : /usr/bin/install
Make                                                        : /usr/bin/make
Target CC                                                  : gcc
uadecore                                                   : yes
uade123                                                    : yes
uade123 sound output                                  : AO
XMMS plugin                                               : no
Audacious plugin                                          : no
uadefs                                                       : no
Text scope support                                      : no

champb01:~/src/uade-2.12 cham$

Now type in the following commands

make

make soundcheck

make install

No errors? Perfect :-)

So, but how do I get some tunes? Easy :-)

Type in

rsync -avz zakalwe.fi::chip /local/path/

(replace /local/path with a suitable directory, this will transfer thousands of tunes – more than 330MB – onto your hard disk)

Let’s play some music! Type in

/usr/bin/uade123 /path/to/the/tunes -r

UPDATE:

Here are a few examples (mp3)


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LNX Archives

C64 June 3rd, 2009

After restoring data from an old DDS tape I came across an interesting file called eldorado.lnx. Eldorado sound interesting but what the hell is a .lnx file? Oh yes, that’s an old archive standard once popular on the good old Commodore C64.

And how can I get the files out of that 20+ years old archive?

Some googling later I found an archiver called starlynx that can decompress lnx archives into files or a D64 image.

What was in the archive? It’s a demo called Eldorado by Origo.

Here is a screenshot of one of the parts.

Multiplexer + Starwars scroller – nice :-) (D64 download)

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