[XCSSA] "Red Storm Rising" Ultimate Challenge Battle Disks

Tue Sep 30 20:53:26 CDT 2008

"Robert,

I got one of these from E-bay,
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI
tem&item=380067128142

So far I haven't gotten it to work in Ubuntu but that is hopefully just 
a setup problem.
I did work in Win XP on one of my dusty old machines so I'm copying some 
games now... ;-)

As long as the disks are not copy protected I should be able to make 
.d64 images for you.

/Fredrik"

Looks like we may have something for October's meeting.

The Battle Disks are special modified game save disks and I do not believe they are copy-protected so we may be able to transfer them to the PC. Then transfer the images to a flash drive then to my Mac so I can do something with them, probably scan the contest documents into a computer then package it all together for C-64 fans.

I also looked through my closet for my contest documents and I have all but the first three pages. But I have not finished looking through everything.

I also found four of the Commodore Magazines that mention the contest and results thereof. They are in excellent shape and look almost as new as when they were printed. The Battle Disks are also in excellent shape but that may be because they haven't been touched since the contest ended almost twenty years ago. I seriously burned out on "Red Storm Rising" trying to qualify then go through the contest itself. So I haven't played the C-64 version since then. The last time I played "Red Storm Rising" was when I acquired the Amiga version many years ago.

IF my job doesn't interfere then I plan to bring my disks, magazines, and contest documentation to the October meeting along with my Mac and a flash drive for transfer.

But I also intend to bring my Xbox 360 as well but not necessarily for a show-and-tell. There is talk that there is an update for GTA IV and I hope to hook up to Xbox Live long enough to acquire it. But if you want to look at GTA IV I'll accomodate.

So it'll be a mixture of the old and the new.

Although, I should add, I actually looked at the website of the person who designed it and it also has instructions on how to build you own cables. One thing I don't understand is that this transfer device and DIY cables use the parallel port. I thought the 1541 was a serial device. If it is then why not use the serial port or make a 1541-to-USB transfer device for easier use? Maybe I'm missing something.....

I also snagged a couple of disk packages of 360K discs from AllGen myself. I'll bring some of those if you like.

I still don't know what happened to my reply that got bounced. Netzero's mail service leaves something to be desired. So, for this lenghty response, I am writing it in TextWrangler then I will save and copy/paste. That way, if something bad happens, I have a backup copy.

While I am talking about Netzero, Mac OS 10.5.x and dial-up, I can now upload my gaming FAQs directly to websites now. However, I still cannot upload attachments to any letter I make. I made a topic at Apple's forums and there has been little response. But, based on what info that came up from other users, Apple is aware of the problem.

But Apple is blaming Netzero and Netzero is blaming Apple so I do not think there will be a quick resolution to this problem. However, making letters with attachments is something I rarely do and with one website (IGN.com) so it is not a big deal but I would still like to have this resolved.

And, finally, I have one question. Does anybody know of a power supply that can output +5VDC (250ma) and -5VDC (250ma)? I am thinking about making an external RGB box that can accomodate op-amps for weak signals (like the Ninetndo 64) and the best op-amps I found seem to work best with a split supply. Google has been of little help especially since it mistakes the - symbol with a plain dash so I end up with responses for single supplies with +5VDC.

--Robert Allen Rusk (RARusk)

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