http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive en-us N/A webmaster@the-commodore-zone.com Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:14:19 PDT 20 http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/5/A-YAK-for-Christmas.html Thanks for visiting and look forward to some interesting developments next year...

Over the last few months I have been working on a new article on the legendary game designer and programmer Jeff Minter (aka the YAK) and Llamasoft. It was my intention to publish this a few weeks ago, but I decided to hold off, due to some additional articles that I have been able to source from old computer magazines to complement this new article. There is a wealth of information available on the Internet about Jeff Minter but I think the assembled articles that have been published on TCZ will be a useful resource, because I have included old articles that have never been reproduced/published on the net, until now. One or two are stellar. If you are a Jeff Minter fan you will love this, if you don't know too much about Jeff Minter then you soon will!

The following articles about Jeff Minter have been published and are now live on the Commodore Zone and available in the new Legends of the C64 - Jeff Minter category:

Jeff Minter - original Legends of the C64 article by TCZ webmaster.
Goatbuster - The Jeff Minter Interview by Tony Takoushi, which appeared in Big K.
The Camelid Tour '84 by Jeff Minter, which appeared in C&VG.
The Minterview by Kevin Cox, which appeared in Your Commodore.
Minter Mania by Jeff Minter, which appeared in Commodore Horizons.

These articles contain some rare photos of Jeff Minter. Also included is the Llamasoft presentation to Google Inc. by Jeff Minter, recorded 6th March 2007 and is available courtesy of YouTube and The Official Google Channel.

If you would like to comment on these articles then please use the comment/rating feature available.

In addition to the Jeff Minter content - there are two additional articles that have been published:

For all you Taskset fans, the Legends of the C64 - Taskset category now contains:
The Biggest Game In The World by Tony Takoushi, which appeared in Big K.
This article also contains a rare photo of the Taskset team. This article should of been included in the original upload for Taskset, but unfortunately due to time constraints it never made it.

The Legends of the C64 - Programmers category now contains:
Software Superstars by Tony Takoushi, which appeared in the last ever issue of Big K. A wonderful article which some Commodore fans have probably never seen, simply superb! A discussion with top Commodore game designers and programmers:
Tony Crowther (Percy the Potty Pigeon, Loco and Suicide Express).
Matthew Smith (Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy, also co-director of Software Projects).
Jeff Minter (Hover Bovver, Attack of the Mutant Camels and owner of Llamasoft).
Andy Walker (Jammin, Cad Cam Warrior and Seaside Special - the Tasket team leader).

This article contains some great photos and information.

Hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I did reproducing them for the Commodore Zone. Great fun and nostalgic!

Have a great Christmas and see you in the New Year. I'm signing off to watch my favourite actor Cary Grant in the Bishop's Wife! Well it is Christmas, and of course the obligatory glass of sherry - a must with this film...

]]> no@spam.com (TCZ webmaster) Sun, 23 Dec 2007 00:00:00 PST http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/5/A-YAK-for-Christmas.html http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/4/Patience-is-a-virtue.html
Lots of developments are in the pipeline and the promised games review area will become a reality next year. I am still in discussions with regard to the game image database project - this is taking much longer to sort out than I originally envisaged - mainly due to being distracted from the website for so long - which has meant a number of opportunities have been missed to kickstart this project.

A number of big decisions have essentially been made - and I can move forward with a plan of action to bring them to fruition. Most of the features asked for will be implemented over the coming year. Which brings me to another point. Sorry for not responding personally to some of your emails. I will get around to this but at the moment there is quite a backlog to sift through!

Interesting that although I've been away from the scene for most of this year - not much seems to of happened with regard to the main C64 websites. But of course there was the very sad news that the legendary and acknowledged Commodore guru Jim Butterfield had passed away on June 29th 2007. A wonderful man who will be missed greatly in the Commodore Community for his sterling work and achievements. Sincerest condolences to Jim's family. Earlier in the year the Commodore community also lost the computer musician Richard Joseph the gentlemen responsible for some of the great game soundtracks on the C64 and Amiga computers. A sad year indeed. For more information, check out the wikipedia entries for Jim Butterfield and Richard Joseph.

I will probably be fixing some issues with the website over the next few weeks - which may mean that the website will be down for a few hours while some essential maintenance work takes place.

The Emulators area has been updated so the new version of CCS64 v3.4 and Vice v1.22 are now available. Also David Horrocks Hoxs64 will be added shortly. This emulator seems to be getting some favourable comments and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

The most popular area on The-Commodore-Zone is the JaC64 Java Emulator, followed by Speech Box, and then David Crane, just edging out Rob Hubbard. Interestingly however the most bookmarked and favourited article is Rob Hubbard...

Again, really pleased to see how well Zorro is doing in the End Zone. It has not only topped Bruce Lee, but by a significant margin! So much so, that I can't see Bruce Lee ever beating it again! Never expected this - I always assumed Bruce Lee would be way more popular.

Due to the downward trend of the US dollar and that the server and software we primarily use or license is based in the USA. I have taken the opportunity to finance the website in advance and 'lock-in' the running costs for the next 3 years. This means that even if there are any price rises in terms of server or software - TCZ won't be affected. It also shows a committment on our part to maintain and update the website over the coming years.

Which brings me on to the following - The Commodore Zone is actively looking for visitors that are knowledgeable about C64 games or C64 history to help with various website areas. So if you would like to help out and make some pocket money then please use the Contact Us button to discuss further.

As always thanks for your ideas and support. I will blog again before Christmas and hopefully add a few updates. Remember, if there is something you don't like about the site or something you want added just use the Contact us button from the menu above to tell us.

]]> no@spam.com (TCZ webmaster) Sat, 27 Oct 2007 00:00:00 PDT http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/4/Patience-is-a-virtue.html http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/3/So-whats-going-on.html Quite a lot actually! Just thought I would bring everybody up to date on where things are at - regarding all things Commodore Zone.

The new C64-Game database is near completion, it has been successfully beta tested and we are just tidying up a few things before it goes live, hopefully this week.

The new C64-Image database is also near completion, the database game categories need to be setup but it should be live this week. There has been a lot of discussion regarding how we are going to encourage visitors to submit game images for the database. An idea has been put forward, and we are giving it serious consideration. More on this as soon as the details are finalised.

The C64-Review database is still being worked on, but we have decided to make some major enhancements to what was originally planned, so it will take a few more months to complete this. This will be worth waiting for!

As you may already know, HVSC has recently released a new update (no. 46) of the HVSC which incorporates a new directory structure and now contains around 33000 entries! The C64-Music search facility has had a major update to incorporate this. You can now search the entire HVSC  (46) archive online by Sid Artist, Sid Tune or Copyright Year and each SID that is listed on the search results page can be downloaded or listened to (yes we have finally added the long-promised JSIDPlayer by Joakim Eriksson, so you can click on the 'Listen' hyperlink next to each SID to play it online.)

When all the major updates are out of the way, e.g. the game, image and review databases. Then we will focus on providing new article content for the website, including hopefully a major addition to the End Zone.

Speech Box is still the most viewed article on The-Commodore-Zone, followed by David Crane, and then Rob Hubbard.
A bit surprised, but happy to see how well Zorro is doing in the End Zone. It topped Bruce Lee this week!

Thanks for your ideas and support. I will keep you posted with any further developments.

]]> no@spam.com (TCZ webmaster) Sat, 24 Feb 2007 00:00:00 PST http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/3/So-whats-going-on.html http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/2/A-Very-Happy-New-Year.html Thanks to everyone who is visiting, and for the feedback, especially with regard to the new games database - more on that later (changes are afoot). You may of noticed some server problems, e.g. slow access at times, this is due to additional traffic, visitor numbers are up and not surprisingly its requiring more resources, we will keep an eye on this and if necessary introduce some speed enhancements. Earlier today we had to reset the website article stats, so this means the popular articles and categories are zeroed! This is a one-off reset, but was necessary to correctly track visitor numbers to articles.

C64 Games Database - ok, big changes afoot. As webmaster I've been looking at the feedback and understand some of the comments made, so I'm going to make a major decision regarding this. The Game database will be moved to new software - ironically its the software we were going to use in the first place but could not for technical reasons, which have now been resolved. So, the plan is to re-build the games database from scratch with the new software. This decision affects the C64-Image database development.

The current games database is using software called PhotoPost. Problem is, although PhotoPost is the best image gallery software on the market, which is why thousands of websites use it. Unfortunately it required a lot of customisation to be used as a games database. We were basically using the software in a way it was not originally designed for, and that is why there are a number of techinical issues and limitations with the current setup. So, because the games database will now be using new software - this frees up PhotoPost for something else.

That something else will be the C64-Image database - the power of this software for images is really impressive, so it is ideal for this task. Originally we planned a basic 16 image gallery/slideshow as the C64 Image database, now it will be superior to that, there will be no set limits! Every game in the games database will feature in the image database and initially will have its own category and one image - over time as the website develops, many images will be added for all the games. This will be a mammoth task and require considerable efforts on the the part of TCZ, registered members and visitors, but the end result should be an impressive and useful image database resource.

Happy New Year ! and Thanks for visiting! Glad you are liking the new website. I will post more info soon.

]]> no@spam.com (TCZ webmaster) Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 PST http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/2/A-Very-Happy-New-Year.html http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/1/Back-For-Good-Sorry-for-the-lack-of-updates-in-06-but.html There hasn't been much activity on the Commodore Zone website since early January 2006. Although it appears we've been very quiet on the update front, there was a good reason. We have been preparing an all-new Commodore Zone - totally re-structured and re-designed from the ground up. This is to make the website more competitive and most importantly focus TCZ more around its legend articles and therefore take the website in a new direction. We have taken onboard most of the feedback about the old TCZ and I hope you will appreciate the results. Most of what you wanted has been incorporated, there are a few things still under development, like the review and image databases, but they are well on there way and should be online in the New Year, by end of January 2007.

If you have not already noticed - then I will only be to happy to point it out! Yes, the messy blue navigation menu buttons at the bottom of the screen and the dreaded frameset have finally been put to rest - yep, they are well and truly gone forever, consigned to the dustbin for all eternity!

I can also confirm that the 'End Zone' is included in this launch - and I think you will be impressed with what has been put together. Its basically a new spin on an old idea and I think we've got it right. Personally, although Bruce Lee is great, I think the Zorro flash video, with the well placed music is cool - you really need to watch the whole 30+ minute sequence - it really is neat and worth a look. Impossible Mission is not quite finished yet - but I have allowed it to go online - there will be some major additions to this, check it out in Feb 07 - I know whats planned and it will be the definitive guide to Impossible Mission ever...

At long last, how long has it been promised for? 1 year? I've lost track! But yes the Rob Hubbard legends article has finally been completed and is now online. Hope you like it. Thanks to Ville Nurmi and Andreas Wallstrom of C64.com and The Complete Works of Rob Hubbard (TCWORH) for spotting some grammatical and factual errors, which are fixed in the published version.

Throughout the entire website we have made feedback much more easier, every article page on the website has a submit comment facility.

It was a tight deadline to launch the website just before Christmas, but we've made it and thanks to everybody who made this possible. I want to say a special thank you to the company Interspire who developed the content management software we decided to use for the whole website and their software engineer Jordie Bodlay who was extremely helpful in solving a number of issues with the website - without which we could not possibly of hit the Xmas deadline. Thanks Jordie!

I hope you like what we've done, and please use the contact us facility available from the menu above - to tell us exactly what you think of the all-new Commodore Zone, good or bad, we want to know. I am expecting a few teething problems, so if you do come across any technical issues while navigating the website or have an idea, to make things easier/better for visitors then please tell us.

And to nick the title of a Take That song (amazingly this boyband have reformed again and have a number one in the UK!, how old are they?, old as me I think!) - we are Back For Good, we are not going away and get ready for lots of new developments next year...

That's it for now, I'm sure there will be another blogging after Christmas, about the upcoming review and image database facilities - but that's enough for now!

Enjoy! and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

I'm off to scoff a mince pie and drink some Bristol cream sherry... it must be Christmas!

Paul
TCZ webmaster

]]> no@spam.com (TCZ webmaster) Fri, 22 Dec 2006 00:00:00 PST http://www.the-commodore-zone.com/articlelive/blogs/1/Back-For-Good-Sorry-for-the-lack-of-updates-in-06-but.html