In this thread, we fight the Commodore vs Spectrum wars all over again.

new C64 game!!
http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=95999

want this book, but out of stock at the moment. It's an anniversary book of both the spectrum and commodore. (flip the book over and the Commodore front page is on the back page)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-ZX-Spectrum-Commodore-Book/dp/190822276X/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1334608682&sr=8-10

why do screenshots of (and my memory of the actual) c64 games look so blocky when it's resolution was 320x200 at 16 cols? were most games done at a lower res to save ram?
― Britain's Obtusest Shepherd (Alan),

I can answer this now. the commodore sprites could either be hires or lores, the lores were multicoloured and had to be lores as they used 2 bits to represent the colours in each pixel. therefore ended up being stretched in the horizontal.

Does anyone know of a good book that would go into the history (and technical details if possible) of the microprocessor and its design?

I've seen this one on Amazon:
The ZX Spectrum Ula: How to Design a Microcomputer (ZX Design Retro Computer)

but wondered if there was a more general, ie not ZX specific, book?

(not really after a detailed book about the electronics, more of a higher level - the people involved, history of how the designing came about etc)

I typed a thing and ILX ate it. Bah. Anyway. I glanced at a friend's copy of ULA book, seems v heavy on technical electronics details.

Brian Bagnall's "Commodore: A Company on the Edge" is a p. readable mix of personal history, comparisons of rivals, etc, with a little technical detail, but maybe not enough for you, especially if you want something specifically about microprocessors and custom logic arrays? I was pleased to see a couple of pages about the SID sound chip but they weren't very in-depth regarding the electronics or the audio capabilities, and here's all it has to say about the C64's equivalent of the ULA:

The engineers wondered how they could create such a complex memory layout before CES. They found their salvation in the Programmable Logic Array chip (PLA). According to Russell, “I remember finding that chip and saying, ‘Oh, that will do exactly what we want!’”

The PLA chip acted like glue to hold the different parts of the system together. Yannes could simply insert the PLA chip and program it later. “I didn’t have time to design all the logic before they laid the PC board out, so I just took a PLA and named the signals I needed and told them to lay that out,” recalls Yannes. “While they were laying it out, I could figure out the coding for the PLA. That got us to the show.”

Also it doesn't get into the Amiga - there's an interesting-looking book about that which I haven't read called "The Future Was Here" but I think that's more about how software programmers worked around hardware limitations rather than how those limitations came to be. I think it's more technical than the Commodore book but less so than the Spectrum book, though, but maybe too late in the home micro era for you.

Can't think of anything not platform-specific, sorry, and even there most of what I've read has been either glossy picture books with no real content or online anyway. The Register had a series of (mostly) 30th anniversary posts which were surprisingly interesting: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site%3Atheregister.co.uk+Archaeologic (they don't seem to have a browseable archive, though I'm not sure all the articles I'm thinking of have that buzzword at the top)

btw above half-formed opinions of the Amiga book are (mostly) from reading the Amazon preview but also partly from reading an Atari VCS book in the same series - the VCS one ("Racing the Beam") is p. flimsy for the price but the Amiga one looks better

Thanks, I'll definitely check that Commodore one out. I think I'll have to read multiple books about this subject to fully appreciate it.

Currently reading The Story of the Computer, not the most inventive of titles and it's not great but its a good starting point. Was only cheap (as you'd guess) and goes into analogue computing too.

It's got good reviews hasn't it. Noticed someone in the reviews mentioned a new edition covering the Amiga, but I don't see any proof of that.

This was one of the online articles I was trying to remember, about cartridges and other design decisions in the early days of home consoles at Fairchild and Atari: http://www.fastcompany.com/3040889/the-untold-story-of-the-invention-of-the-game-cartridge

(admittedly not quite what you asked for, which is probably why I couldn't remember enough about it to find it at the time)

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_c64?and%5B%5D=emulator%3Avice-resid&sin=

perhaps a more useful link:
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_c64?and%5B%5D=emulator%3Avice-resid&sin=&sort=-downloads

"Sex Mission (Disc 2 of 2, Side A)"

They've released a full sized C64-mini. I'm so tempted but what can it really do that I can't already do with emulation? That keyboard though, ooooh.

If anyone used to play Dizzy games, there's a free new one :

https://yolkfolk.com/WonderfulDizzy/

well that's my week sorted

1984 llamasoft game gets update in 2021

https://llamasoftarchive.org/8bitgames/revenge-of-the-mutant-camels/

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair (81)

Sonic on the C64 (needs RAM expansion) but wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGp4a00OeRs

More info
https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=78945