Welcome to the official pages of

Flamingo

Commodore Plus/4 Emulator
for the Amiga

Last update: 20.10.2006

Table of Content

• Introduction
• Features
• Requirements
• Screenshots
• Downloads
• Contact
• Related links

Those were the days...

Can you remember? Or you used to have a Commodore 64? I used to have a Commodore Plus/4... Never heard of it? Well, yes: it was less popular, than his older brother, the C64.

You were one of the users/coders/graphicians/scene members...? I was. I was for a long time on Plus/4. This was my first computer.
I will never forget that day, when we met the first time. He was not a Commodore Plus/4 but some similar: a Commodore 16.

I just loved those small games, they used only 10 Kb of memory, so no space for huge animations, nice pictures were available, programmer should use all of his skills to optimize his code, use hardware tricks, and other "black magic".

Those were the days...

But now, it is the past. Part of history, and always a sign to warn you: don't forget where you came from.

I, probably you too, enjoyed MUCH MORE that time.

Those were the days... But it is the past already.

So, I was always looking for an emulator, a real Plus/4, C16, C116 emulator for the Amiga. The only one I found was A4, which was less than I could ever expect. I waited, waited, nothing happened. Then a day I woke up, and started coding. And after a year of work, here it comes: a real emulator.

Where did this name come from? Why Flamingo? A beauty bird, flies in the sky among clouds... Untouchable, unreachable, over all of us? The story of this name: here, in Hungary was a -that time great- paper magazine, called Commodore Világ. Once in this mag -in the readers' forum- started a huge dispute about C64 vs. Plus/4. (There was always a topic, nowadays called PC vs. Amiga, or Linux vs. Windows...) Once, a C64 lover called the Plus/4 "skywalker flamingo". I just liked those words, always remind me that time.

What are the features in Flamingo? Here you are:

• overall hardware emulation of Commodore Plus/4, including all system components (except the four built in programs - it is a bit of irony, those programs gave the name of the machine :)
• sound emulation can be configured for either direct or buffered sound emulation (for better digital sound output), or it can be simply turned off, if it drives you crazy :)
• SID card extension emulation
• selectable graphics drivers for AGA, ECS or graphics card machines
• joystick support, which can be retargeted to the keyboard
• frame skipping mechanism for slower machines
• disk emulation, which is including real program loading/saving patches to the Amiga file system
• CPU speed setup, you can virtually speed up the emulated main processor of the machine - isn't it fun playing Total Eclipse, Castle Master and Mercenary like Doom? :)
• snapshot saving and loading, a snapshot file contains the actual state of the emulated machine, thus you can save game states of games which has no such feature

Roughly that was all, but the development of Flamingo is stopped for a long time, if you need more advanced features, then I suggest to take a look on Vice.

Requirements for the Amiga system

• Kickstart 3.0
• External libraries:
  asl.library,
  gadtools.library,
  iffparse.library (for snapshot operations),
  6581sid.library (for SID emulation),
  cybergraphics.library V40 (for Cybergraphics video modes, Picasso96 would do the job also),
  lowlevel.library V40 (for joystick support)
• At least 68020 processor. (A 68040 or higher is strongly advisable.)
• ECS, AGA or CyberGfx compatible card. (CGFX card is advisable with
  native chunky mode, or a PowerPC coprocessor for chunky2planar.)
• Some free memory (About 1.5Mb, but it depends on video driver you use.
  Fast Ram advisable too.)
• BASIC and Kernal ROM image from a Plus/4 in one file (the ROM memory area from $8000-$FFFF).
• PowerPC processor and WarpUp V4 for PowerPC version and PPC-based AGA video driver

ROM Images

How can you obtain ROM if you have a real Plus/4? Not an easy process, but here we go:

1. Start the Plus/4 and enter into monitor mode. (Command: MONITOR and press RETURN)
2. Type this line: 'T 8000,FCFF,8000' and press RETURN.
3. Type next line: 'T FF40,FFFF,FF40' and press RETURN.
4. Last line saves it onto floppy: 'S"romimage",8,8000,FFFF' and RETURN.

Obviously do not type the aphostrophes (')!

5. Transfer the ROM file from floppy somehow to the Amiga. I suggest using the Easy1541 package from Aminet.
6. Use the start address chopping utility from the A64 package, and it
is ready to use.

Please note: copying ROM image on this way from other emulators might not work, some emulators using patched or modified ROM image. (Just as Flamingo patches the ROM itself.)

Isn't it easy? That is right, go for a download instead of this misery... ;)

You can download ROM images from here:

http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/c232s.html

You will need the BASIC 3.5 ROM and Kernal ROM. After downloading you have to join them together into one file called "romimage". You can join them by this command line on AmigaOS:

"join basic.318006-01.bin kernal.318005-05.bin as romimage"

Or by this command line on Windows:

"copy /B basic.318006-01.bin+kernal.318005-05.bin romimage"

Be careful: the downloaded files may start with loading address (eg. hex. 00 80), but it is not needed, you have to remove it some way. (Not too easy without any tool, you can find a tool for this purpose in the A64 package.)  Those suggested files on the web page are just fine, no need to remove the loading address.

Legal note: using ROM image is illegal, if you do not own a real C= Plus/4. Using the emulator and the Plus/4 (or more emulators) in the same time is also illegal. (Funny things, eh? I will never understand the legislation. Guess what the lawyers are doing for living... ;)

Some screenshots for your entertainment:

The graphical interface of Flamingo V1.54 (click to enlarge)

Auf Wiedersehen Monty is running under the emulation of Flamingo

A small game (called Lloyd game written by me in 1992) is running under the emulation of Flamingo

Flamingo.lha - version 1.54 complete archive for AmigaOS3.x and WarpOS, both Motorola 680x0 and PowerPC executables are included.

Flamingo.readme - readme text in plain text format for the complete package.

Flamingo68k_SRC.lha - Motorola 680x0 sources for version 1.54.

Flamingo68k_SRC.readme - readme text in plain text format for the source package.

Check out my contact page, click here!

The Plus/4 World - the best Plus/4 Archive ever

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