scuzzblog0001

Date: December 1st 2006

Subject 01: Collection Advent Calendar
Subject 02: Robocop3

Entry 0001: Blogs: 2

C-A-R ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 01

Hi

Time to open the old C-A-R Christmas Advent calendar with
my very special selection of goodies from the collection.
The idea being that I will share with you my 25 most
favourite items from the collection and explain why....

OK December 1st 2006 and its [ roll of drums ]

The Commodore SFX ~ Sound Expander

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz269.htm

scuzz blog diary entry for this item

Travelled to Newbury today to collect a keyboard. Waited at
the Road Chef like some kind of drug junkie. The walls of
the restaurant were fully glazed and beyond were faces
staring out at the car park. Arrives my retro dealer who
popped the boot and transferred the goods for cash in hand.
Must have looked strange the transfer of C64 and full size
keyboard. Anyway we parted.

The keyboard was marked with numbers which came off
with a bit of white spirit. What was just wonderful however
was the gadget in the box to which I had no knowledge. This
turned out to be the SFX Sound Expander. I got quite excited
when I saw just how expensive these sold for in their day,
and just how rare they were.

I connected the keyboard, expander and C64 together plus
tape machine and like magic the software downloaded and
there before me was a fully functioning musical keyboard
playing through the TV. I was amazed. Later I managed to
get another of these boxed, plus the Sound Sampler...
Always thought the lady on the box looked like Victoria Wood.
[ sugar me I`m back onto Acorn Antiques ... :-(   ]

And the cost ...... Ł18.

[ quote Secret Weapons of Commodore ]

The SFX Series: SFX Sound Expander, Sound Sampler,
Music Maker, External Keyboard

http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/sfx.html

Whatever Commodore's motivation(s) might have been,
the corporate affiliations are known a bit better. The SFX
in "SFX series" is short for the now defunct(?) SFX Computer
Software, a division of UK corporation Music Sales Limited.
In fact, Commodore did not own the copyright on the SFX
devices nor the SFX software; all of them appear to be
owned by MS Ltd. These devices seem to be work-ins
for Music Sales' lines of sheet music, songbooks and
music peripherals, and the SFX devices were probably
a cooperative venture to capitalise on the then-growing
interest of computerists in music synthesis. Most of these
devices appeared between 1984 to 1986 (an article from
the Toronto PET Users Groups, forwarded to me by
Todd Elliott, fixes the Canadian introduction of the Music
Maker at November 1984); no one knows how long they
were manufactured, but it's unlikely they were produced
much beyond 1987 or 1988.

[ end quote ]

[ Test Demo Disk ]

From Father Christmas Bo

http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/demodisks/c64/sfx/index.html

/pub/cbm/demodisks/c64/sfx/  TEST DEMO

Commodore SFX Sound Expander test/demo disk. The copy
protection (looking for 22,READ ERROR,18,18) has been
removed by changing the two bytes in block 26,1 at offsets
$23 and $2A from $AC to $AE.

[ end ]

Well there you go Dec 1st 2006 Advent Door opened ... Day 2 tomorrow.

ROBOCOP3

Hi

Protect the innocent.. Uphold the law..Serve the public trust.
Robocop3 brings you a totally unique movie tie in. A fast 3D
polygon theatre of action featuring.. ALLEYWAY SHOOT OUTS,
CAR CHASE, JET FLIGHT PACK and arm to arm combat with
ROBOT NINJAS.

You get the Movie Adventure or the Arcade Adventure

1991 Ocean Software Limited... Strange that the book only
refers to Amiga 500, 1500, 2000 and 3000 plus the Amiga
1000, and yet the box says A1200 and A600. For a 1991 
game that seems a bit odd.

[ response from Andrew B ]
> 
> A search on Lemon Amiga ( www.lemonamiga.com/?game_id=905 ) revealed the
> game was made by Digita Image Design, who made a few other games for
> Ocean. It also showed that, according to that site, it was only made for
> the A600 & A1200, aswell as being ported to the Atari ST.
> 
> I own Robocop 2, for the Spectrum, but only made it to level 4 (of 5) a
> couple of times :( It was a very cool game, especially for the Spectrum.
> It was only a 2D platform game though, with the occasional puzzle.
> 
I guess the acid test as they say is to try it
on the A500. The manual is def for this game
and only mentions the early machines. This wasn't
unusual by the way, did happen all the time
during that transition from A500 to plus then 1200.
Did catch a few game developers out.