Ambassadors
For the first time in history the MEGA65 is in stock and can be ordered directly, including spare parts! With continued development on and for the computer, the community is more lively and growing than ever. It is over due to thank all the active people from this wonderful community. Today we picked and want to introduce three people who have become ambassadors for the MEGA65 community: Dan Sanderson, Steven Combs aka retroCombs, and Mirage from Booze Design – a great demoscene group.
Steven ‘retroCombs’ Combs from Texas continues to produce wonderful videos on the MEGA65 including User’s Guide deep-dives; his live streams are legendary. He is part of the community since the DevKits sold. Make sure to check out his channel!
Dan Sanderson is father of the MEGA65 Digest, a newsletter on MEGA65 news including a podcast you can subscribe for free. Dan also travels the USA to talk about the MEGA65 on conventions and with fellow YouTubers!
Mirage from Booze Design (NL) is an amazing demoscene artist who really pushes the MEGA65 to its limits. He is famous for many outstanding demos which can be found on the community disks, his latest work “HYPER BALLAD” from Björk can be found on the File Host.
Spring Loot
MEGA e.V.’s Spring Loot Event in Darmstadt, Germany, on March 23rd, 2024, was a nostalgic trip for gaming enthusiasts. Attendees indulged in classic gaming delights while exchanging programming intricacies and details about the MEGA65. Retro gaming stations beckoned visitors to relive pixelated adventures and engage in friendly competitions. The event invited to delve into the cultural impact of retro gaming. Further more it fostered a sense of community, celebrating electronic gaming’s heritage. MEGA e.V.’s commitment to preserving and showcasing retro gaming and art shone brightly, leaving attendees with a renewed appreciation for the medium’s enduring legacy.
Vintage Computing Festival Berlin
Next weekend (14.10. and 15.10.) MEGA will be attending VCF Berlin with various iterations of the MEGA65. Like on the weekend before at CC2023 Oliver “lydon” Graf will be answering your MEGA65 questions, update your MAX10 FPGA, and talk about retro computing. In addition there will also be a talk “MEGA65 – Peek the past, poke the future”, explaining history and future of the project.
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.