well, this is exciting, look you see. also, be warned, for it might be quite a lengthy post. but one that is hopefully of some use or interest to one or two (maybe a few) out there. and for anyone that is not particularly interested, well, i guess this shall not be exciting. sorry.
every now and then i get what would best be described as a "sales mail" in my email. normally yes, one would (or could) call such "spam", but in fairness the predominant number of such mails i get are from businesses what i have done shopping with, and i have ticked that they may trouble me. despite this, i do understand that it is fashionable to complain anyway, but i do not.
once in a while i shall click on such an advert. not often, but sometimes. i can't give a specific, but maybe 2 or 3 out of every 10. and, of those clicks, there are instances where something which has been drawn to my attention by a mail of this nature gets bought. whereas the official David Bowie store has been unsuccessful in overcharging me for items pertaining to (their words not mine) the 37th anniversary of Let's Dance and the 47th anniversary of Aladdin Sane, another business of a not particularly musical one persuaded me to buy this.
yes, as the title of this post gives every indication, the commodore 64 mini, or c64 mini as it would appear to be branded by some. also further yes, presented in the greater glory of commodore 64 mode for the picture. but, oddly, i think i shall refrain from using that mode for the rest, for to capture images of the c64 in action in c64 mode seems rather too "meta" for me.
this magnificent, wonderful device (if you are in a rush for a review - although i would encourage you to read on, for there are a few tips) has been available, or "on the market", for a couple of years now. it was so, though, that the pricing was initially around £100, and then dropped down to somewhere around £75, possibly as far south as £50.
despite the obvious nostalgia pull upon my wallet, it was so that i had no sense of temptation. why not? for somewhere north of 20 years, now, one has been able to download, gratis (as in for free) some c64 "emulators" for a standard computer, the best of which is easily CCS64 and second best is Frodo. also, virtually every game ever made for the machine is out there on the web, too. yes, for free, and in the overwhelming majority of instances legally free, for the developers or programmers have said they "do not mind or object" to fans reviving them.
so how did this end up being purchased? let us be honest here, the primary driver was the price. market forces (or maybe that the same company has unleashed a new model called "the C64") have worked, and in the previously mentioned email sale thing, it was at a price north of £30 but also significantly south of £35. adding this to the fact that (at time of writing) the invisible war still ranges on against the new plague means i have a lot more time at home to fill than i am used to, and, well, here we are.
it is quite important to note aspects of the last paragraph. yes, this is the c64 mini that i have. the smaller, compact version (i think or suspect it is one of them "raspberry pi" things shoved in a plastic case) which does not have a working keyboard, it being there for display only. the full size one they make, the c64 or if you like c64 "maxi", has a working keyboard, lets you do vic-20, etc, for a lot greater cost. as in, that one is well north of £100. yes, it shall be so that the trials and tribulations of no (conventional) keyboard gets looked at here, along with the triumphs. so share my glory, so share my coffin, and all that.
many details, and things you will need to load, download, etc, are on the official site for them what made this. and, in a baffling move in this day and age, they have gone and changed their stated website address, as it appears on the box and packaging. evidently the printed address, www.thec64.com, no longer exists. now the correct one is retrogames.biz, which is unfortunate. i tend not to like these ".biz" or similar domains, as all too often they are the choice of fraudulent types looking to con and trick. not the case here.
getting the device up and running, is, alas, not as straightforward as unpacking it and plugging it in. no. as the warning on the side (which was not visible or mentioned on the website) makes partially clear, one is required to bring their own "plug". which, it becomes clear, by which they mean one of them "adapter" things designed for a traditional, standard or if you like conventional usb cable. oh.
sure, they provide you, as you can see above, with the usb cable used for power, which is one of them "mini" or "micro" usb to standard, normal usb things like you would have with the overwhelming majority of non-apple phones to charge them. and, as you should be able to work out in the picture above, they do include everything else, except of course a television to plug it in to.
why no plug? you would have to ask them what made it for the specifics. but, at a guess, to keep costs down, or reduce the packaging. or maybe they went on a straightforward assumption that, predominantly, the target market for this device would have several such "ac adapter plug with usb capability" in and around their home.
fear not, then. despite them wording it like you need something quite specialist via the means of using the "proper", full name, a "5v output ac adapter with usb capability" actually translates as "that plug what they give you to charge up a phone or tablet with". if you take the time to read the small print on any such adapter or "phone charger plug" you have at home, invariably you will note that it does indeed indicate a 5v output.
once you have that plug sorted, and connected it all up (tv is via hdmi only, yes they do indeed include that cable if not the television), well, of you go. very instantly and very quickly you can get racking on any one of the conveniently numbered sixty four games included. but, at this stage (and sorry if free flowing advice is scattered here), you may wish to head along to the official site and download the latest "firmware", which is a fancy way of saying operating system, i guess. you will indeed need your own usb stick for this. one downloads it on a pc, pops it on the usb stick, plugs the usb into the c64 mini, and selects system or what have you.
the reason for doing this is quite straightforward. whilst the games included are (mostly) smart, it is highly likely that you will want to play some old favourites, which can be obtained with relative ease off of the internet. for this you have to have the latest firmware (whatever that is) installed, which lets the device read games off of a usb stick. for good measure, a new free game is included with the firmware update, farming simulator or something.
how "mini" is the "mini" aspect of a c64 mini, then? well, see the image above. whereas i believe a lot of the internet likes the notion (or concept) of "banana for scale", it struck me as being appropriate to use scale comparisons ranging from 1983 to 1985, via 1984. so, in the above, there is an indication of the size of a mini c64 when compared to an ex-rental VHS copy of Body Double, the cd issue of Now That's What I Call Music 4 and the cassette single ("cassingle") of Relax, by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
yes, it probably does say a great deal of me, and illustrates the notion of regression, that such items are within very close reach to me at any given time so that i may give you such a comparison. but don't you worry about me, i wouldn't worry about me.
for those not particularly interested in faffing with "firmware" upgrades, or simply choose not to use usb memory sticks for religious, political or sexual reasons (or any such combination), what games come with the device in an "as is" sense? i believe they are listed on most sites that sell the device, and the official one, but for a wonky picture showing them, here you go.
well, yeah, that picture is not so great, sorry. well, anyway, what many would consider the rolls royce of commodore 64 games makers, epyx, are very much represented. one gets their "biggest" titles, which includes impossible mission one and two, pitstop 2 and i think all of the games variations, be it summer, winter, californian and/or world. and super cycle. for those disposed of a more the English way of doing things games, plenty of titles - monty mole, monty on the run, boulder dash, bounder, paradroid, uridium, everyone's a wally (sadly without the song on the other side of the game tape) and plenty of others are all here.
so how, exactly, with no functioning (actual) keyboard, does one play these games? with a joystick, but of course, which yes, is provided in the singular. you can purchase an extra, if you so wish, with the going rate being, from what i can see, 1p south of £20. from what i recall the Quickshot 2, the greatest joystick of all, cost about £7.99 some 35(ish) years ago, so that is nasty inflation.
the commodore 64 was pretty much always a joystick only machine for games. some required the odd use of a keyboard, and of course "adventure" (or in some countries "quest") games required typed commands only. mostly, in the 80s, if playing games via keyboard only was your thing, then the zx spectrum was for you. or the zx spacktrum, or zx spackertrum, if you like, but i suspect i would never ever be quite so disparaging.
behold the joystick in the above image, them, for your viewing pleasure. for scale, well, please observe the size of it compared to the mini c64, and consider the size of the mini c64 in regards of the size comparison for it previously presented. much better than the "game pad" which seems to be about the only thing you can get for so-called modern so-called consoles.
one, to go a bit non non-linear, link for you to use and keep in mind would be https://www.thec64minizone.com/ for reasons that shall become clear. but this will be very true in respect of something called a "cjm configuration".
an initial drawback of no functioning keyboard, then, was that some games suggested that they would be impossible to play on this c64 mini. whereas calling up the virtual keyboard to press F7 (or similar) to start a game was fine, it is just not practical to do it in a fast paced game. my assumption, then, was that some classic games - ghostbusters, predator and ace to name but three - would not get played. but there were others.
of course one of the very first games i tried on it was frankie goes to hollywood. it remains possibly the greatest game ever, based as it is on the best band ever. there was much merriment and delight from me when i found that it played perfectly, worked perfectly and sounded as ace as ever.
then it was time to move on to another game, which just so happened to be the pictured above and in video form below bruce lee. and it was, alas, oh dear time. it appeared that it was not going to run as intended, or at all.
yes, quite. in the above video you can see an inanimate bruce lee getting his head kicked in off of the ninja, and off of the green sumo voodoo buddha like character. normally bruce would be able to be controlled to fight back, either punching or kicking these people until they disappeared. but, alas, the joystick produced no movement.
some other games - notably kikstart ii - also featured a lack of response on the joystick. oh, dear, i said, and oh bother. whilst playing what was on the machine and things like frankie goes to hollywood were boss, not being able to play other favourites was something of an issue. there was a school of thought to say maybe i would have been better just retaining the (around) £30 and simply making do with the different pc emulators i have used from time to time, over the last 20 or so years.
eventually, i clocked the issue. the games which were not working were ones which required the player to have the joystick plugged into controller port 1 on the original commodore 64, whereas generally it was port 2 for such. i did indeed take to "an internet" to see if there was a way around it, and it turns out yes.
just for the sake of showing it, here you go. above is an image of the "virtual keyboard" you can bring up by pressing a special button on the back of a joystick. in this instance, i did so in order to press the rather virtual - and legendary - f7 button to commence the game.
how, then, does one get a commodore 64 joystick port one game to work on the decidedly only joystick port two c64 mini? by renaming the game. when you obtain commodore 64 games off of the internet (and blessed be those who have re-encoded and uploaded them all), they have file names like, and let's use bruce lee as the example, brucelee.t64, or brucelee.d64, brucelee.tap and brucelee.prg.
to get the game to work, you add _J1 (underscore j1) to the file name, just before the "." for the file extension. in continuing with bruce lee, you have to rename the file either brucelee_J1.t64, or brucelee_J1.d64, or whichever extension is on the end. you are clever people, you shall work it out.
no, that picture above is not bruce lee. it is quite a different sort of game. perhaps not one that i would willingly choose to play, per se, but i felt an obligation to. as the commodore 64 was (no, is) celebrated for both its immense colour combination possibilities and the great works of art which it was possible to create on it, it struck me as sensible to choose a game which combined both elements to show all of you how it works.
so, after changing the name of brucelee.t64 to brucelee_J1.t64 on my pc, i reloaded it on to a usb flash drive memory stick thing, put it back in the c64 mini and tried it. and, i am most delighted to say, it worked. yes, then, that was "a bit" of time i spent playing bruce lee.
what, you wish to have another look at how the "virtual keyboard" works? i can see no reason why not to do so.
as you can see, then, the virtual keyboard is quite good and effective enough for pre-game options, such as selecting an opponent, or starting the game. but it is not practical to pull it up when, say, you want to leave a bait trap in ghostbusters to knack the marshmallow man.
for the record, i selected candi as an opponent in the pictured game. on reflection, candi was always better, at every option to have done so perhaps i should have chosen candi.
how about the problem (or issue) of games which require you to use the keyboard and the joystick whilst all the action is on? well, this is where something called a "cjm configuration" file comes in. as you will have observed, or noted, the joystick has a fair few buttons on it. yes, it is possible to program these buttons (configure them, i guess) to "do" the action of a specified button on the keyboard that is required in a game.
right, good, and hello indeed, candi, that game seems to be working perfectly well. oh, my, i say, three queens, that was quite lucky for me. candi did indeed have to buy some more cash with a certain item so as to keep playing.
let me be as clear as i am honest here so far i have not actually tried this out. but, if you go to that c64 mini zone web internet site thing linked earlier, they explain how you do it. also, and most importantly, they have an absolute mountain of already created "cjm configuration" files for a whole load of games.
shall i be having a go at getting one of these configuration files to work? i would certainly expect so. for a start, i'd rather like to play ghostbusters again, as that was quite class. and all them other games what i mentioned. but, i cannot do everything all at once.
purely for the sake of some extra (or more) video here, yes, that is what happens to your character when you get killed, or die, in dragon's lair. a notoriously difficult game, that one. but also a game of legend, as the arcade machine looked like a Disney animated film, which meant in the early 80s it had the most impressive graphics. which kind of translated over to the commodore 64 perfectly well.
another issue for the c64 mini is "multiple" or double sided disc games, or indeed classic commodore 64 games which used both sides of a tape. there is no way on the mini c64 to select or change discs in a game, at least not that i could see. which is something i think you can do on the "maxi" c64, and indeed on pc emulators like ccs 64 and frodo.
this subject came up because a dear friend asked if the game pictured below, in which you can kind of make out a reflection of me (if for some reason you wanted to), worked on the device.
indeed that is racing destruction set, where you could make bonkers race tracks for bonkers vehicles using all sorts of different and bonkers levels of gravity. great and fantastic fun, but very time consuming. the game used four sides of tape, and you had to keep loading, reloading and updating stuff to build it all.
no, i have not had a go at it yet, as the system of setting up the .t64 or .d64 files to "work" in unison on the c64mini looks complex. but, perhaps you are more clever than what i am. if so, you should head to that the c64 mini zone website linked above, as they have step by step details of how to do it. and yes, perhaps one day, i shall.
one other solution to the multiple disc / tape issue with classic commodore 64 games on the c64 mini is, it would seem, to "convert" them to virtual cartridges, or if you like .crt files. doing such would be beyond my levels of capabilities, but again there are plenty of guides out there, and there are several generous, kind and talented types who have already done this, beautifying the internet with files of them as you search.
that there above is indeed the screen which greets one when kikstart ii has loaded successfully. and plays just fine on the mini c64, thanks to the magic of that _J1 renaming (or introducing to the name) business.
again, this one is a game showcased here at the request of another (as in different) dear friend. they consistently put forward the argument that this is, as point of fact, the greatest ever commodore 64 game, no matter which other ones i from time to time suggest might be. like, for instance, football manager.
rather difficult is the task of arguing with the point of view. i mean, the game was quite class, and does indeed remain so to this day. besides the as-is game being smart, what with you getting to control a motorbike and ride it over ice, snow, fire and other such things, you could create your own smart tracks to race on. yes, we created some which were all just fire.
well, why would i not try and incorporate some of the magic of kikstart ii in video form for you? from what i recall, the game name - and indeed the music - are off of a kids show in the 80s, one that in a strangely specific way only appeared to be broadcast during the summer holiday. effectively it was about them posh kids down south what got given "scrambler" motorbikes doing obstacle courses. us in the somewhat poorer areas, or simply those of us who had parents what didn't think buying a f*****g dangerous device for the kids was a good idea, made do with this £1.99 game.
in anticipating your next question, no, not yet. with several thousand commodore 64 games at my disposal, and strip poker requiring a complete test, i have not had chance to do all that i have done before and would do again. so i have thus far failed to recreate a "mega" race track on kikstart ii which is all just a load of fire after a massive ramp. but, i will.
further requests from dear friends? certainly, since that has been all the last few images have related to in essence, and happens to be just about all that remains. so, here you go.
one quite fair thing to say about combat school is that it sits in a category pile of substantial size for me. and that is the pile of games which look absolutely class and great, but i turn out to be very rubbish at. no matter how hard i tried or concentrated, there were many games which others seemed to master but i failed at. hey ho.
somewhat differently to the tacit promises with other games, i can assure you that this game will probably not get played. what, why ever not? because, rather like daley thompson's decathlon, it is an absolute joystick f****r of a game. yes, you have to take a firm grip of the shaft of the (as it were) joystick and waggle it like mad. i am in no mood, and am not of a mind, to need to spend just 1p south of £20 for a new joystick on account of furiously beating my existing one; an endeavour highly or quite likely to end in failure to quality.
yes, since you are asking, i am aware of what "poke" cheats are. and no, it seems one is unable to add them to the games on the c64 mini as such, so i cannot cheat my way past tricky levels (which often would be "all of them") on games like combat school. but, out there on the internet, there are plenty of "cracked" versions of games for the c64 you can get which have "cheat" options built in for you. stuff, you know, like infinite lives, etc.
another request from a dear friend, then. indeed, certainly, and truly, perhaps predictably it was of course Spiros who asked me if stroker was available to play on the commodore 64 mini. oddly, and for some strange reason, the makers of the machine itself did not think to include this as a default, but one can easily download and play. and yes, it does need the _J1 amendment to the file name.
just what is the game stroker about? i would in all honesty prefer not to discuss it, thank you. one could reasonably, safely say that it is a sort of biology based game, and, well, let us just leave it at that for now. but please, by all means, go and search for it on the internet if you are curious and left not particularly satisfied by the answer.
exactly, to kind of change the subject, how am i getting on with candi and the comprehensive testing of the armed and fully operational c64 mini? well, if you are interested, yes, one final picture, but no, not from the end of the game, you filthy so and so's.
should for some reason you be interested in such, yes, i did complete this game, thank you, and i can assure you that the graphics of candi were so splendidly magnificent as i recalled.
to a question, then. is the c64 mini (or c64 "maxi if you have the funds) worth getting? quite a tough one to answer. good price, yes, but you can get all the games and a really good emulator for free, gratis, off of the internet. in minutes. what your £30 (or so) is being handed over for is a bit of plastic that looks like the c64, a "proper" joystick and someone else having gone to the effort of picking some games for you. proceed with caution.
for a "like for like" comparison, be it of a speculative nature, the retro tech of last year, the handheld Atari (here you go), still gets picked up and played with. will, a year or so from now, the c64 mini still routinely be plugged in and played? maybe, but infrequently at best. it is quite a shame that, due to the dynamics of game screen use, a handheld c64 just isn't going to be practical.
whew, or phew. many thanks indeed for reading this. it would be a bonus if any of this post has been useful, practical or insightful, but mostly nice one if this has triggered off some similar great memories for you. and, yes, to the observant. you are right. this was indeed deliberately (honest) published at 6:40am (proper English time), and on a date which allows numerologists to go 19 + 05 + 20 + 20 = ........
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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