PUBLISHED IN VANDALISM NEWS GOLD EDITION (#50): onslaught.c64.org, December 2008

The Chameleon Cart from Individual Computers
- An all-included ultimate gadget getting your c64 back in action?

By Jonatan "Macx" Forsberg


Old 5,25" disks that no longer work, the breadbin won't connect with a proper screen, calling the boards seems to work better with your PC. Might as well run it all emulated? The obsolete computer is finally made redundant, or is it? Individual Computers is about to launch a cartridge that intends to solve all these problems without having to switch to an easily carried 8,9" netbook. As you do not agree with the fake SID sounds anyhow, and as the Commodore 64 looks darned sexy on your desk, perhaps this gizmo is worth a closer look?

At both x06 and x08 I had a chat with the guru behind the project, Jens Schoenfeld at Individual Computers, and at both parties I felt the ideas he wanted to implement seemed pretty interesting. At the latest X he was fiddling around with the c64 connected to a modern flat screen, via some odd previously unseen pre-beta cart. As it appears the actual product may soon see daylight, I decided it was time to ask a few questions and clear things out about the Chameleon.


First of all, already at x06 I heard about a VGA output that should be made available through an an unbelievable way of "sniffing": The video chip shares the bus with the CPU, and this shared bus is on the expansion port. Chameleon will sniff the bus and see all the data that the VIC is pulling from memory. This data will be used to build a new picture, which is to be written to a frame buffer. The frame buffer will be output to a VGA monitor at a higher frame rate in order to have VGA-compatible frequencies, Mr Schoenfeld explains.

It sniffs the raw data or is it an actual screen output. Is there a built in VIC-II emulator in the Chameleon, or how does the buffer work?

Actual screen output is not available on the expansion port (only on the monitor port). I was thinking of using the screen output, but that would have been analogue. I want the picture in the best possible quality, and that is digital. Yes, the complete VIC-II is cloned in Chameleon in order to generate the exact same picture. Peter Wendrich and I have found quite some new things about the chip, and if there are demos that don't work right, the hardware is re-configurable. This means that the hardware can be updated with an internet download, comparable to the C-One.

Many cartridges produced in the recent years were lacking the plastic cover protecting it from dust, however Jens Schoenfeld tells us the Chameleon will be sold cased. Other features it will include is a REU with 16MB (cycle-exact implementation), a PS2 keyboard connector, an optional RRnet, and a "perfect freezer" which he expounds: The C64-internal CPU is switched off and replaced with an external CPU in order to have more control over the system, which allows the "perfect freeze" that also knows the contents of write-only registers. This CPU will either run at 1MHz (C64 standard), or at higher speeds, meaning Chameleon can also be considered an accelerator. As opposed to other accelerators, this one does NOT use the 65816 processor, but a 6502 that has all the well-known illegal opcodes. There are three speeds you will be able to choose between; 1MHz (C64 standard); 2MHz (C128-like, including the selection in the VIC-2MHz register) and "top speed", which will depend on the available memory bandwidth (high VGA frequency will result in slower CPU speed, as memory is shared).

What about the built in diskdrive, will it run all my .d64s?

The 1541 will be fully-featured, meaning that it is the whole setup with the 6502 processor, VIAs, ram and an emulation of the rotating disk. This thing will run floppy-speeders, trackloading demos and programs that use the extra CPU power in the floppy. The mass-storage media for the emulation is an MMC/SD card slot, which will also be available to software that has been written for MMC Replay. The interface for choosing disks or flipping disksides in a big demo will be simple, something like pressing "freeze" - going to the 1541 menu - choosing an image (.d64 or .g64) - "restart".
 
We further talked about problems of finding the one disks in a huge list, and I stressed the importance of working solutions for people like myself with literally thousands of disksides converted to anonymous .d64s. Of course different disk boxes can be imagined to be different directories, but a disk has a cover where it is possible to jot something down about its contents. If such a feature was to be emulated somehow, I believe it would be appreciated. An idea of being able to add meta-data to the disk images would perhaps be an option, I told him to ponder on. Such meta-tags could include those necessary comments: "side b of Biba/Arise and note from Dr Soft". Showing the directory of the disk is of course another option, but it all melts down to how the given limitations and especially it seems, if it all can fit onto a c64 screen.

Mr Schoenfeld was also talking about a feature he calls an encyclopaedia about the c64 within the c64. This is what he said about "the book": We all agree that the C64 is the perfect learning machine, but it can be painful searching for all the info online. It is even more painful with pretty much every C64 book being out of print. "The book" is a function available from within the freezer menu. Imagine you're in an assembler and you want to check a register map - press freeze, look it up, and press restart. Collecting all the info about the machine will depend on many people who help doing this - in other words: Authors wanted!


Some may argue that not much is left of the actual c64 with the Chameleon plugged in. The more pragmatic will feel if it turns out to work smoothly, that this may actually be the gadget that makes it possible to get a real setup up and running again. With all your disks on it, it can be plugged into the screen you already have on the desk and connected to your router: The Commodore 64 could actually be situated there, next to the external hard drive of your soulless pc. It might become absolutely beautiful. No matter what the critique would be, the Chameleon is proof of yet another nail removed from the c64 coffin.

Jens Schoenfeld told me that if things work out as planned, the Chameleon should be able for order in the first quarter of 2009. However, as it is company policy of Individual Computers not to take money in advance, an option of pre-ordering is not available. Money is only taken for things that I can deliver immediately, and there is still quite some development to be done on the Chameleon. People have lost too much money on other companies' or person's projects that have never seen the light of day, he says, probably taking a hint at the current state of the OpenPandora project. And that made me think of the CMD FD-2000 I ordered and paid for in 2004. I am still told I am on the next batch...

For further updates on the Chameleon, please feed www.icomp.de into your browsers.