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THE SWRAP COMMODORE SHOW IN CHICAGO

Jim Butterfield

A couple of times a year, SWRAP (SouthWest Regional Association .. ) gather to talk about what's going on in the Commodore 8-bit world. This meeting was in the Chicago area in early September 2001, and here are some of the highlights. -

You can read more, (and see pictures), by going to the SWRAP web site at http://swrap.net/ .

The hotel where this was held was redoing its telephone system; this cramped the style of some of the displays, since they couldn't show a live internet connection.

Roger Lawhorn programmed a stereo SID system driver, which included options for the various configurations of dual-SID systems.

Nick Coplin, from Perth, Australia, adding PC hard drives to his 64 by exploiting discarded 386-generation PCs. Nick is also doing AVI work. His web site at www.64hdd.com gives details. Nick told me that his next stop was the UK; I don't know if he'll be able to touch bases with ICPUG there, but I've tried to set up contacts. At the time of writing I don't know how it will work out.

Jason Peterson repackaged his Commodore 64 into an old PC case, adapting the PC power supply for the job and including disk drives. Saves desk space and adds portability (luggability?)

Maurice Randall is a name of fame in this area; he has, among other things, produced the GEOS upgrade called Wheels and has developed interfaces to the internet from both the 64 and 128. But the big news is that he has taken over the Commodore product line from CMD, who have shifted into other activities. CMD developed a considerable number of Commodore-compatible products, including JiffyDOS and a hard drive system. Maurice spent some time showing early prototypes from CMD; some of these ended up as products and some were "dead ends". When asked about future products, he indicated that he has some plans along this line, but his current priority is to satisfy the backlog of outstanding orders.

Greg Nacu showed JOS, a multitasking operating system for enhanced Commodore, (SuperCPU), systems. It's fast and flexible, with something of a Unix flavour. Greg indicated that he has a new URL called gregdac.findhere.com, but I couldn't link up to it to look in on his work. http://www.king.igs.net/~billnacu/comhome.html works better for me. From there, you can link to the JOS website at http://jos.sweetcherrie.com/jolz64 . (Again, Greg had mentioned jos64.com, but I couldn't get that one working.)

Dale Sidebottom demonstrated the handling of graphics, such as JPEG and PostScript, on Commodore 8-bit equipment. No, detailed graphic images can't be displayed, but they can be passed along to a printer, along with other formatting in Wheels. Dale has been using a PostScript compatible printer for this work, but now PostPrint allows PostScript images to be converted for use on an inkjet printer. Dale was demonstrating the formatting and printing of T-shirts from images taken at the show.

Jeri Ellsworth is a relatively recent arrival to the CBM scene, but the projects she is working on are dramatic and exciting. She's more than just a pretty face; she's undertaking some remarkable designs at both the chip and board level to create a new super version of Commodore-style computers called the Commodore One! You can find pictures and design information at http://www.geocities.com/cm_easy/ , which includes photographs of some of the prototype equipment. The work is still a project in progress, but Jeri had some intensive discussions on possibilities and features with show attendees and she was able to demonstrate a partially working system - the video interface was shown and is relatively complete.

I was asked to speak, and did so briefly, basing part of my presentation on the article I wrote long ago for ICPUG, now posted at http://www.icpug.org.uk/national/archives/010616ar.htm, which I called "nostalgia squared". When I wrote it back in 1991 it was nostalgia ... now there's a whole new view of the same data.

I closed the show by offering to sell my clothing as souvenirs to the attendees. The room emptied out rather quickly, I thought. But I did manage to give away my Commodore braces to Nick Coplin; possibly, you might see them being worn proudly during his visit to the UK. And, no, my trousers did not fall down, although I saw a number of digital cameras trained on me in case I should be wearing Commodore underwear. Sigh: isn't it true that there's always someone to lower the tone of a show?

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