Tommy Powerz

Arcade

Three machines from my childhood bedroom, written once more. Every part is mine: the processors, the chips, the operating system. Not a byte from Commodore or Atari, and still it all runs.

Runs in the browser

3lite C64

6502VICSID3ROM

The machine it all started with. Processor, video chip and sound chip are written from scratch, following measurements of the real chips. Instead of Commodore's operating system, my own one boots: the 3ROM, with its own BASIC in German and English. You can start typing like it is 1983. F2 starts PigMan, a game I wrote. And 61,000 pieces of scene music are waiting, played by the rebuilt sound chip. Anything that needs the original operating system does not run here. That is the price, and I pay it gladly.

Start the 3lite C64

Runs in the browser

Amigo500

68000PaulaKickstart

The Amiga 500 was my machine in the scene. The rebuild has its own 68000 processor, checked against a million single steps of the real chip, zero deviations. Copper, Blitter and Paula are written anew. Instead of Commodore's Kickstart, my own one boots, which is why the box is called Amigo500 and not Amiga. The library holds the demos from the parties of 1989 to 1992, and a shelf with my own traces from the days as Magic Drummer.

Start the Amigo500

Runs in the browser

3lite Atari 2600

6507TIARIOT

The smallest machine and the hardest exercise. The Atari has no frame buffer: the processor paints each line the moment the beam draws it. My rebuild does exactly that, line by line. I measured 2,201 cartridges, 2,037 of them run. The processor is the same one as in the C64, trimmed by the wires the Atari never had.

Start the 3lite Atari 2600

All three run in the browser, with no install and nothing sent to a server. The machines speak their own language; only the C64 also speaks English.

Blog

No schedule, no newsletter

I write when I have thought something through. Every text carries the date I wrote it, not the date it went online. That is on purpose: ideas have a date.

2026-08-09

AI Democracy

A state goes into the mirror: honest, naked, with all its numbers and mistakes. Then the people give feedback. Everyone. Any time.

All posts

About me

I am the happiest eleven-year-old in front of his C64.

Born in 1971; in 1983 a C64 stood in my bedroom. First BASIC, then assembler. I have not stopped since.

At sixteen the Amiga came, and with it the scene. I was Magic Drummer, first for the music, then for the code: intros for Skid Row and Endless Piracy, the logo drawn on graph paper at school and the coordinates typed in at night. My bulletin board was called Crackhouse. A few of those intros still run today, in archives, kept alive by people I have never met.

Tommy Powerz comes from the music. I had a song with a DJ called Frankie Flowerz and no name of my own. So: if you are Frankie Flowerz, I am Tommy Powerz. It rhymed. The name stayed; the music I put down in 2008.

Since 2006 I have run platforms that must not stand still, since 2012 with my own company in Berlin. On the side I am building an AI that works with me, and circuit boards an expert advised me against.

And at night I rebuild the machines from back then. This time without anyone else's ROM.

Machines

C64
Amiga 500
Atari 2600

Built by hand

3ROM instead of KERNAL
own Kickstart
own SID
own character set

Scene

Magic Drummer
The Sunriders
Skid Row
Endless Piracy
Crackhouse BBS

Today

Platforms since 2006
an AI of my own
circuit boards

The long road

1983

The C64 in the bedroom

First BASIC, then assembler

One machine, one manual, no internet. Whatever I wanted to know, I had to try out. The rest of this site hangs on that box.

1988 to 1992

Magic Drummer

The Sunriders · Tarkus Team · Skid Row · Endless Piracy

First music, then code, then both from one hand. A bulletin board of my own, Crackhouse. Intros that still run in archives today. Being in Skid Row Germany was an honour back then.

since 2006

Platforms

Operations, not projects

For almost twenty years, systems I built have been running every day, for people I do not know. Run something that long and you learn the difference between finished and shipped.

2026

The machines, once more

3ROM · Amigo500 · 2,201 cartridges

Three emulators with their own firmware, an AI of my own, my own circuit boards. This time without anyone else's ROM, and with a machine that codes along.

Beyond the screen.

What else is on the desk.

Music

Tommy Powerz

The name comes from the music, not from the scene. In 2008 I stopped releasing tracks. The synthesizers are still here, and the C64's sound chip just got work again.

Circuit boards

Soldering iron

A year ago an expert advised me against it: several years, several engineers. Now I am building the board anyway, together with a machine that never learned any of this. Whether it works, I do not know. I keep writing it down regardless.

An AI of my own

On the side

It reads my mail, keeps my books, helps build the emulators and built this site with me. The same exercise as the ROM, one floor up.