Miscellaneous software updates

Readers might have noticed that lately I have been releasing updates for my command-line client applications and utilities. This is due to the fact that such applications and utilities have been coded over the course of many years and I’ve been making field learnings or writing useful libraries since some of them were initially released.
Therefore, I am refactoring some of the earlier utilities as well as planning a complete rewrite of a few others.

One of the utilities that I will be decommissioning is the d64-lc-dump program (currently referred to as the DC2N4-LC command-line client in my Software page). I plan to create a dc2n4-lc-utils project and include the functionality of the former in the latter, along with the functionality to update the firmware of the DC2N4-LC device.

Stay tuned for more!

DC2N4-LC command-line client 2.4.0 released

Version 2.4.0 of the DC2N4-LC command-line client is now available within my Software page. Binaries are available for Windows, macOS (Intel), Linux x86_64 and armv7l.

This is a minor release that improves the initial device synchronization.

Commodore 64 Cartridge Dumper command-line client 2.1.3 released

Version 2.1.3 of the Commodore 64 Cartridge Dumper command-line client is now available within my Software page. Binaries are available for Windows, macOS (Intel), Linux x86_64 and armv7l.

This is the first publicly available release of the client. Bear in mind that the firmware update option is only relevant to the Pro-Micro based boards. Blue Pill based boards do not support updates via the USB serial port.

IECHost command-line nibbling utilities 1.4.2 released

Version 1.4.2 of the IECHost command-line nibbling utilities is now available within my Software page. Binaries are available for Windows, macOS (Intel), Linux x86_64 and armv7l.

This is the first publicly available release of the nibbling utilities, which require the use of the extended IECHost firmware that ships with them, instead of the standard IECHost firmware. The former is backward compatible with the latter, but I recommend not mixing things: use the standard IECHost firmware when running non-nibbling software and the extended IECHost firmware when running nibbling software. Best even, have two IECHost devices: one for non-nibbling purposes and one for nibbling purposes, so you can reduce the overhead of switching between different firmware versions.

IECHost command-line utilities 1.9.0 released

Version 1.9.0 of the IECHost command-line utilities is now available within my Software page. Binaries are available for Windows, macOS (Intel), Linux x86_64 and armv7l.

This is a minor release that includes:

• Conversion between ASCII and PETSCII
• Warpcopy of disk contents to 35-track D64 files (prompted by a request from Christian Vogelgsang, aka lallafa)
• Updated version of AVRDUDE for Windows binaries

IECHost GUI client version 3.8.10 released

Version 3.8.10 of the IECHost GUI client is now available within my Software page. Binaries are available for Windows, macOS (Intel), Linux x86_64 and armv7l.

This is a minor release for a few enhancements and bug fixes. Details of the changes are available through the issue tracker.

IECHost GUI Client: zoom 4x

IECHost GUI Client: further development ready for being released

This evening I went back to and finished some development I had paused back in July 2022: allow users to zoom drawing areas in the main window of my IECHost GUI Client.

Here’s a preview of the main drawing area zoomed 4x:

IECHost GUI Client: zoom 4x

Stay tuned for the official release!

Pro-Micro board replacement in my devices

Over the years, there have been a few instances of users whose DC2N4-LC or IECHost device ended up with a broken micro-USB port. The recommended fix for this situation consists in replacing the Pro-Micro board completely, given its low cost.
However, once a new board is fitted, users still require the firmware to flash to it in order to be able to use their devices. For this reason, I created a generic ATMega32U4 firmware that can be flashed to a replacement board and then used in conjunction with my client software to flash either the DC2N4-LC or the IECHost firmware.

Here’s a download link to the archive, which includes an example script for Windows, as well as the ancillary binaries required for updating (namely avrdude and its dependencies): generic firmware dowload link.

Remember: once the generic firmware is flashed to a Pro-Micro board, the specialized firmware for DC2N4-LC or IECHost has to be subsequently flashed using one of the client applications.

ALBERT preview version 1.0.47 shared

Version 1.0.47 of ALBERT is now available within my Software page.

This is an Easter preview version shared with those interested in creating Commodore 64 images that extend into the left and right borders of the visible screen.

ALBERT: the pixel editor for extended Commodore 64 images

You might want to check the documentation that comes within each distribution archive for more information!

Working towards an Easter preview for ALBERT

Despite being quite busy with work, I am slowly getting through the TODO list for the preview of ALBERT that I plan to release on Easter. The Windows and macOS build pipelines are complete, but I am looking at bundling the Linux version with Flatpak.

Here’s what the Linux version looks like at the moment on my build machine running Debian 11.

ALBERT running on Debian 11

There’s no appreciable difference within the GUI across all OSes, of course 🙂

Stay tuned for more!