Classic Computing 2023

MEGA will be attending the Classic Computing 2023 event in Dietzenbach (near Frankfurt am Main / Germany) next weekend. It is open to the public on Saturday and Sunday (30.09. and 01.10.). We will present various iterations of the MEGA65, answer questions, update your MAX10 FPGA, and talk about retro computing. Oliver “lydon” Graf will be there for the whole weekend, and other members of the team will also be visiting. So if you are in the vicinity, please visit and say hello!

mega.museum

We have reached official museum status and visibility and aquired the mega.museum domain. Created in 2001 by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), .museum is a legacy top level domain dedicated to museum activities.
The French Association for Cooperative Internet Naming (Afnic) was designated by ICOM in 2018 as the world registry operator for .museum to increase its use and adoption, thus supporting the digital transformation of museums.
Especially when navigating from a mobile device, typing “mega.museum” is a nice way to reach this site. We are happy to be part of a small selected group of institutions owning a “dot museum” domain!

C64 for MEGA65

MJoergen and sy2002 just released the Commodore 64 for MEGA65 core version 5 and their MiSTer2MEGA65 framework version 1.0.
MEGA65 owners can now easily and of course freely add another personality to their computers: An incredibly compatible and enhanced C64! As a reminder: this is not emulation but virtual hardware with the same speed and capabilities as the original, you get perfectly sounding dual SID chips, REU RAM expansion, simulated and real cartridge compatibility (including flashing and using all EasyFlash versions), full IEC port compatibility, old TV support, flicker free HDMI and a lot more.
The core is so compatible that almost all (99.9%) of all demos ever produced work flawlessly – including the latest from 2023. Download the .COR file, put it onto your SD card, start your MEGA65 with NO SCROLL key pressed and flash the C64 core into slot 2 or higher. If you have upgraded your slot 0 core, the C64 core will be auto-selected once a C64 cartridge is inserted. More infos -as usual- on Discord.

Open Doors Extension

We received a lot of feedback to re-open doors after the MEGA65 launch event and open doors day – so here is an extension! And yes, you will still be able to play one of the most famous extensions in the history of video games: the Nintendo 64 DD, pictured in the flyer. We are looking forward to meeting many of you and having great conversations.

Zzap64!

Most if not all C64 fans will remember the british cult computer magazine Zzap!64 which recently was reborn through a Patreon campain, not only as a digital download with great fresh titles for the Commodore 64 on the so-called cover disks, but even as a real paperback magazine if you add just a few more bucks.
We are more than proud that issue number eleven not only contains a hardware review by Christian Simpson aka Perifractic – it even introduces the new MEGA65 CORNER! This means there will be frequent reports and news around the MEGA65 and especially games to be enjoyed on the platform. What an honor!

MEGA65 batch two

Despite the worldwide situation the 2nd batch of MEGA65 computers is shipping in this a busy yet successful year – making it a total of 920 MEGA65 out in the wild! The PCBs are currently being tested.

Everybody owning a MEGA65 from batch 1 or a DevKit can freely upgrade their machines to the current stable state. As usual all necessary files and information are available at the FileHost.

Just in time the famous C64 core has been published as Release 4 boosting original C64 compatibility to an impressive level. We wish everyone a nerdy Christmas!

First timers: Dan’s MEGA65 Welcome Guide is a good place to get up and running. Additionally join the Discord server and head to the channel #welcome-new-owners. To keep you updated Dan’s MEGA65 Digest gives insights into the development and specific topics such as the “Sounds of the SID” in the latest entry from November.