Commodore 64 peripherals
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This article is about the various external peripherals of the Commodore 64 home computer.
Contents |
[edit] Storage
[edit] Tape drives
In the United States, the 1541 floppy disk drive was widespread. By contrast, in Europe the C64 was often used with cassette tape drives (Datassettes), which were much cheaper, but also much slower and less reliable than floppy drives. The datasette functioned similarly to a 300 baud modem, converting audio analog sounds into digital format. It plugged into a proprietary cassette port on the Commodore 64's motherboard. Standard blank audio cassettes could be used in this drive.
The datasette's speed was very slow (about 300 baud). Loading a large program at normal speed could take up to thirty minutes in extreme cases. Many European software developers wrote their own fast tape loaders which replaced the internal KERNAL code in the C64 and offered loading times often faster than standard-speed floppy disc. Novaload was perhaps the most popular tape loader used by the majority of British and American software developers. Early versions of Novaload had the ability to play music while a program loaded into memory, and was easily recognisable by its black border and digital bleeping sounds on loading. Other fastloaders included loading screens, giving the user some nice computer artwork to admire while the program loaded. Perhaps the most advanced fast loaders included minigames for the user to play while the program loaded from cassette. One such minigame fastloader was Invade-a-Load.
In addition to speed problems, datasette users had to contend with interference from magnetic fields. Also, not too dissimilar to floppy drive users, the datasette's read head would become dirty or often slip out of alignment. This meant that many tapes would often produce errors half-way through loading a large program. A small screwdriver could be used to retune the tape heads, and a few companies capitalised by selling various commercial kits for datasette head-alignment tuning.
As the datasette lacked any random read-write access, users had to either wait while the tape ran its length, the computer printing messages like "SEARCHING FOR ALIEN BOXING... FOUND AFO... FOUND SPACE INVADERS... FOUND PAC-MAN... FOUND ALIEN BOXING... LOADING..." or else rely on a tape counter number to find the starting location of programs on cassette. Tape counter speeds varied over different datasettes however, making recorded counter numbers unreliable between datasettes. The ability to load files from tape by name was an advantage of Commodore's system; most platforms only allowed the counter-based method.
An optional streaming tape drive, based upon the QIC-02 format, was available for the Xetec Lt. Kernal hard drive subsystem (see below). Very few were ever sold, most likely due to their high price.
[edit] Floppy disk drives
Although usually not supplied with the machine, floppy disk drives of the 5¼ inch (Commodore 1541 and 1571) and, later, 3½ inch (1581) variety were available from Commodore.
The 1541 was the standard floppy disk drive for the Commodore 64, with nearly all disk-based software programs released for the computer being distributed in the 1541 compatible floppy disk format. The 1541 was very slow in loading programs because of a poorly-implemented serial bus, a legacy of the Commodore VIC-20. A common joke advised users to "go grab a cup of hot chocolate milk" after entering the command to load a program on the C64. After their first experience, many users chose to take the joke literally.
The 1541 disk drive was notorious for not only its slow performance and physical size compared to the C64, but also its unreliability. Perhaps the most-common failure involved the drive's read-write head mechanism. Many complex software copy-protection schemes used data stored on nonstandard tracks on floppies, forcing the drive, while reading the data, to seek to track zero, which caused the head to slam into a mechanical stop. This produced a loud, telltale knocking sound and, more seriously, would over time often move the head mechanism out of precise alignment, resulting in read errors and necessitating repairs. Some demos even exploited this to force the disk drive to play crude tunes (Bicycle Built For Two was one) by varying the knocking of the mechanism.
Also, as with the C64, 1541 drives tended to overheat due to a design that did not permit adequate cooling (often fixed by mounting a small fan to the case). Many of the 1541's design problems were eventually rectified in Commodore's 1541-II disk drive, which was 100 percent compatible with the older "lumbering hippo" 1541s. Due to the fact that the power supply unit was not housed inside the drive case, the 1541-II size was significantly smaller and the unit did not overheat.
In the following example, where '*' designates the last program loaded, or the first program on the disk, '8' is the disk drive device number, and the '1' signifies that the file is to be loaded not to the standard memory address, but to the address where its program header tells it to go—the address it was saved from. This usually signifies a machine language program, as opposed to a BASIC program.
LOAD "*",8,1
It wasn't too long after the 1541's introduction that third-party developers showed that the notoriously-slow floppy drive operation could be overcome by a piece of clever software that took over control of the serial bus signal lines and implemented a better transfer protocol between the computer and floppy drive. In 1984 Epyx released its FastLoad cartridge for the C64 which replaced some of the 1541's slow routines with its own custom code, thus allowing users to load programs at a fraction of the time (~ 1/5th). Despite being incompatible with many programs' copy protection schemes, the cartridge became so popular among grateful C64 owners (likely the most-widespread third-party enhancement for the C64 of all time) that many Commodore dealers sold the Epyx cartridge as a standard item when selling a new C64 with the 1541.
As a free alternative to FastLoad cartridges, numerous pure software turbo-loader programs were also created that were loaded to RAM each time after the computer was reset. The best of these turbo-loaders were able to accelerate the time required for loading a program from the floppy drive up to a very remarkable factor of 20x, demonstrating the default bus implementation's inadequacy. As turbo-loader programs were relatively small programs, it was common to place one on almost each floppy disk so that it could be quickly loaded to RAM after restart.
The 1541 floppy drive contained a MOS 6502 processor acting as the drive controller, along with a built-in disk operating system (DOS) in ROM and a small amount of RAM, the latter primarily used for buffer space. Since this arrangement was, in effect, a specialized computer, it was possible to write custom controller routines and load them into the drive's RAM, thus making the drive work independently of the C64 machine. In fact, there were many software packages that took advantage of this; for example, certain back up software allowed users to make multiple disk copies directly between daisy-chained drives without a C64.
Several third party vendors sold an IEEE-488 general purpose interface bus adapter for the C64, which plugged into the machine's expansion port. Outside of BBS operators, few C64 owners took advantage of this arrangement and the accompanying IEEE devices that Commodore sold (such as the SFD-1001 1-megabyte 5¼ inch floppy disk drive, and the peripherals originally made for the IEEE equipped PET computers, such as the 4040 and 8050 drives and the 9060/9090 hard disk drives).
As an alternative to the feeble performing 1541 or the relatively expensive IEEE bus adapter and associated peripherals, a number of third-party serial-bus drives appeared that often offered better reliability, higher performance, quieter operation, or simply a lower price than the 1541, although often at the expense of software compatibility due to the difficulty of reverse engineering the DOS built into the 1541's hardware (Commodore's IEEE-based drives faced the same issue).
Like the IEEE-488 interface, the serial bus offered the ability to daisy chain hardware together — that is, one device (disk drive or printer) would be connected to the Commodore 64 and the others would be connected to each other in sequence. This led to Commodore producing (via a third party) the Commodore 4015, or VIC-switch. This device (now rarely seen) allowed up to 8 Commodore 64s to be connected to the device along with a string of peripherals, allowing each computer to share the connected hardware.
It was also possible, without requiring a VIC-switch, to connect two Commodore 64s to one 1541 floppy disk drive to simulate an elementary network, allowing the two computers to share data on a single disk (if the two computers made simultaneous requests, the 1541 admirably handled one whilst returning an error to the other, which surprised many people who expected the 1541's less-than-stellar drive controller to crash or hang). This functionality also worked with mixed combinations of PET, VIC-20, and other selected Commodore 8-bit computers.
Later in the 1990s, Creative Micro Designs produced several powerful floppy disk drives for the Commodore 64. These included the FD-Series serial bus compatible 3.5" floppy drives (FD-2000, FD-4000), which were capable of emulating Commodore's 1581 3.5" drive as well as implementing a native mode partitioning which allowed typical 3.5"HD floppy disks to hold 1.6 MB of data - more than MS-DOS's 1.4 MB format. The FD-4000 drive had the advantage of being able to read hard-to-find enhanced floppy disks. In addition, the FD series drives could partition floppy disks to emulate the 1541, 1571 and 1581 disk format (although unfortunately, not the emulated drive firmware), and a real time clock module could be mounted inside the drive to time-stamp files. Commercially, very little software was ever released on either 1581 disk format or CMD's native format. However, enthusiasts could use this drive to transfer data between typical PC MS-DOS and the Commodore with special software.
There was one other 3.5" floppy drive available for the Commodore 64. The "TIB 001" was 3.5" floppy drive which connected to the Commodore 64 via the expansion port, meaning that these drives were very fast. These devices appeared from a company in the United Kingdom, but unfortunately did not become widespread.
[edit] Hard drives
Late in 1984, Fiscal Information Inc., of Florida, demonstrated the Lt. Kernal hard drive subsystem for the C64. The Lt. Kernal was revolutionary in that it mated a 10 megabyte, Seagate ST-412 hard drive to an OMTI SASI intelligent controller, creating a high speed bus interface to the C64's expansion port. Connection of the SASI bus to the C64 was accomplished with a custom designed host adapter. The Lt. Kernal shipped with a sophisticated minicomputer-like disk operation system (DOS) that, among other things, allowed execution of a program by simply typing its name and pressing the Return key. The DOS also included a keyed random access feature that made it possible for a skilled programmer to implement ISAM style databases.
By 1987, the manufacturing and distribution of the Lt. Kernal had been turned over to Xetec, Inc., who also introduced C128 compatibility (including support for CP/M). Standard drive size had been increased to 20 MB, with 40 MB available as an option, and the system bus was now the industry-standard small computer system interface, better known as SCSI (the direct descendant of SASI).
The Lt. Kernal was the most technically advanced hard drive subsystem ever offered for Commodore 8 bit computers and was capable of a data transfer rate of over 38 KB per second (65 KB per second in C128 fast mode). An optional multiplexer allowed one Lt. Kernal drive to be shared by as many as sixteen C64s or C128s (in any combination), using a round-robin scheduling algorithm that took advantage of the SCSI bus protocol's ability to handle multiple initiators and targets. Thus the Lt. Kernal could be conveniently used in a multi-computer setup, something that was not possible with other C64-compatible hard drives.
Production of the Lt. Kernal ceased in 1991. Fortunately, most of the components used in the original design were industry standard parts, making it possible to repair the units. Also, several enthusiasts were able to reverse-engineer the host adapter and its boot firmware. As a result, Lt. Kernal subsystems continue to be used by hobbyists.
Also available for the Commodore 64 was the Creative Micro Designs CMD HD-Series, still available from CMDRKey. Much like the Commodore 1541 floppy drive, the CMD HD could connect to the Commodore 64's serial bus, and could operate independently of the computer with the help of its on-board hardware. A CMD HD series drive included its own SCSI controller to operate its hard drive mechanism, in addition to hosting a battery powered real-time clock module for the time-stamping of files. The stock operating speeds of the CMD HD-Series units were not very much faster than the stock speeds of a 1541 floppy drive, but thankfully the units were fully JiffyDOS compatible. Faster parallel transfers were possible with the addition of another CMD product, the CMD RAMLink and a special parallel transfer cable. With this arrangement, the performance of the system doubled that of the Lt. Kernal. One advantage the CMD products had was software compatibility, especially with GEOS, that prior solutions lacked. Unfortunately, CMD missed opportunities to develop the drive's auxiliary port into a printer spooler device (as promised in the user's manual). Support for external SCSI devices (such as CD-ROM and Zip drives) was also noticeably missing. SCSI devices could be connected to the external SCSI port, but could not be used from the HD without workarounds or special software.
User operation of these hard drive subsystems was similar to that of Commodore's floppy drives, with the inclusion of special DOS features to make best use of the drive's capabilities and to effectively manage the vast increase in storage capacity (up to a maximum of 4GB). An unavoidable problem was that total 1541 compatibility could not be achieved, which often prevented the use of copy-protected software, software fastloaders, or any software whose operation depended on exact 1541 emulation.
The enthusiast-built "IDE64 interface" was designed late in the 1990s, attaching itself in the Commodore 64's expansion port, and allowing users to attach common IDE hard drives, CD-ROM and DVD drives, ZiP and LS-120 floppy drives to their Commodore 64s. Later revisions of the interface board provided an extra compact flash socket. The IDE interface's performance is comparable to the RAMLink in speed, but lacks the intelligence of SCSI. Its main advantage lies in being able to use inexpensive commodity hard drives instead of the more costly SCSI units. 1541 compatibility is not as good as commercially developed hard drive subsystems, but continues to improve with time.
[edit] Input/Output
[edit] Serial communications
Likewise, because Commodore offered a number of inexpensive modems for the C64, such as the 1650, 1660, 1670, the machine also helped popularize the use of modems for telecommunications. The 1650 and 1660 were 300 Baud, and the 1670 was 1200 baud. The 1650 could only dial Pulse. The 1660 had no sound chip of its own to generate Touch Tones, so a cable from the monitor /audio out was required to be connected to the 1660 so it could use the C64 sound chip to generate Touch Tones. The 1670 used a modified set of Hayes Commands.
The Commodore 1650 shipped with a rudimentary piece of terminal software called Common Sense. It provided basic Xmodem functionality and contained a 700 line scrollback feature.
In the United States, Quantum Computer Services (later America Online) offered an online service called Quantum Link for the C64 that featured chat, downloads, and online games. In the UK, Compunet was a very popular online service for C64 users (requiring special Compunet modems) from 1984 to the early 1990s. In Australia, Telecom (now Telstra) ran an online service called Viatel and sold modems for the C64 for use with the service. In Germany the very restrictive rules of the state-owned telephone system prevented widespread use of modems, prompting the use of inferior acoustic couplers instead.
Like the VIC-20, the C64 lacked a real UART chip such as the 6551 and used a software emulation. This limited the maximum speed to an error-prone 2400 bit/s. Third-party cartridges with UART chips offered better performance.
Later in the Commodore 64's life, CMD developed two serial communications cartridges for Commodore Computers, the "Swiftlink" and the "Turbo 232". The latter was capable of handling a 56k Hayes modem at full speed, enabling reasonable dial-up internet access speeds.
The Retro-Replay expansion cartridge enabled the addition of the "Silver Surfer" add-on serial board, which also enabled 56k modem connections.
[edit] RAM expansions
Over the years, a number of RAM expansion cartridges were developed for the Commodore 64 and 128. Commodore officially produced several models of RAM expansion cartridges, referred to collectively as the 17xx-series Commodore REUs. While these devices came in 128, 256, or 512 KB sizes, third-party modifications were quickly developed that could extend these devices to 2 MB, although some such modifications could be unstable. Some companies also offered services to professionally upgrade these devices.
One downfall of the various Commodore-made 17xx-series devices was that some models required a heavy-duty power supply if they were used on a Commodore 64. A number of third-party clones were developed, some of which were designed in such a way as to eliminate the need heavy-duty power supply. The other main downfall is that the RAM in these cartridges was only accessible via a handful of hardware registers, rather than being CPU-addressable memory, and they did not provide any kind of on-board RAM disk functionality (though a utility disk was supplied with some REUs, which provided a loadable RAM disk driver).
One popular exception to the disuse of the REU was GEOS. As GEOS made heavy use of a primitive, software-controlled form of swap space, it tended to be slow when used exclusively with floppy disks or hard drives. With the addition of an REU, along with a small software driver, GEOS would use the expanded memory in place of its usual swap space.
Berkeley Softworks later developed its own 512 KB RAM expansion cartridge - the GeoRAM. This device was purposely designed for use with GEOS, although some REU-aware programs were later adapted to be able to use it. Some time later, the GeoRAM was cloned by another company to form the BBGRAM device (which also sported a battery backup unit).
CMD devised their own externally-powered 1 or 2 MB RAM expansion, marketed as the CMD RAMDrive, which was explicitly designed to be used as a RAM disk. Its primary feature was that the external power supply kept the formatting and contents of the RAM safe and valid while the computer was turned off, in addition to powering the device in any case. A driver was provided on the included utilities disk to allow GEOS to use the RAMdrive as a regular 'disk' drive.
CMD later followed up with the RAMLink. This device operated similar to the RAMDrive, but could address up to 16 MB of RAM in the form of a 17xx-series REU, GeoRAM, and/or an internal memory card, which also provided a battery-backed realtime clock for file time/date stamping of files saved to it. It also features a battery backup, thus preserving the RAM's contents. Drivers were provided with the RAMLink to allow GEOS to use its memory as either a replacement for swap space, or as a regular 'disk' drive.
CMD's Super CPU Accelerator came after this, and could house up to 16 MB of direct, CPU-addressable RAM. Unfortunately, there was no on-board or disk-based RAM disk functionality offered, nor could any existing software make use of the directly-addressable nature of the RAM. The exception is that drivers were included with the unit to explicitly allow GEOS to use that RAM as a replacement for swap space, or as a regular 'disk' drive, as well as to make use of the acceleration offered by the unit.
[edit] Input devices
Commodore produced joystick controllers for the Commodore 64, largely compatible with Atari joysticks, as well as paddles (which were not Atari compatible). Commodore's paddles were originally intended for the VIC-20, but sadly very few C64 games could take advantage of them. Commodore's joysticks were often derided because they were not particularly robust, especially for extreme gameplay. Many gaming enthusiasts preferred third-party joysticks, while some enthusiasts even built their own joysticks and controllers for the Commodore 64, or modified controllers from other systems to work on it. While the Commodore 64 only had two joystick ports for use, a few different kinds of four-port adapters were constructed by enthusiasts, which allowed up to four joysticks to be used on the Commodore 64, with appropriate programming. Not many games could take advantage of these however.
Commodore had two models of computer mouse, namely the 1350 and the 1351. The earlier 1350 was only capable of emulating a joystick, by sending rapid joystick direction signals as it was moved, and thus was not very useful. The later 1351 used a more traditional proportional mode, sending signals to the computer that indicate amount and direction of movement. The 1351 also supported a mode identical to that of the 1350. CMD's SmartMouse was compatible with 1351-aware and also included a third button and a built in real-time clock module as well. The NEOS mouse also existed, but it was not compatible with 1351-aware software as it was simply a joystick emulator.
The Inkwell light pen came with its own drawing software, and was compatible with GEOS.
The Koala Pad, an early form of touchpad was also available, came with its own paint software, and was compatible with GEOS as well.
[edit] Other peripherals
The Commodore 1701 and 1702 were 13-inch (33 cm) color monitors for the C64 which accepted as input either composite video or separate chrominance and luminance signals, similar to the S-Video standard, for superior performance with the C64.
Early in the Commodore 64's life, Commodore released several niche hardware enhancements for sound manipulation. These included the "Sound Expander", "Sound Sampler", "Music Maker" overlay, and External music keyboard. The Sound Expander and Sound Sampler were both expansion cartridges, but had limited use. The Sound Sampler in particular could only record close to two seconds of audio, rendering it largely useless. The Music Maker was a plastic overlay for the Commodore 64 "breadbox" keyboard, which included plastic piano keys corresponding to keys on the keyboard. The External keyboard was an add-on which plugged into the Sound Expander. These hardware devices did not sell well, perhaps due to their cost, lack of adequate software, marketing as home consumer devices, and an end result that turned many serious musicians off.
CMD produced a SID symphony cartridge later in the Commodore's life. This cartridge gave the Commodore another SID chip for use to play stereo SID music. This saved Commodore 64 users from needing to modify their computer motherboards to enable it with dual SID chips.
Creative Micro Designs (CMD) was the longest-running third-party hardware vendor for the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128, hailed by some enthusiasts as being better at supporting the Commodore 64 than Commodore themselves. Their first commercial product for the C64 was a KERNAL based fast loader and utility chip called JiffyDOS. It was not the first KERNAL-based enhancement for the C64 (SpeedDOS and DolphinDOS also existed), but was perhaps the best implemented. The benefits of a KERNAL upgrade meant that the cartridge port was free for use (which would have normally been taken up by an Epyx FastLoad cartridge or an Action Replay), however the downside meant that one had to manually remove computer chips from the C64's motherboard and associated floppy drives to install it. Aside from the usual 1541 fast load routines, JiffyDOS contained an easy to use DOS and a few other useful utilities.
[edit] Freezer, Reset, and Utility cartridges
Probably the most well-known hacker and development tools for the Commodore 64 included "Reset" and "Freezer" cartridges. As the C64 had no built-in soft reset switch, reset cartridges were popular for entering game "POKEs" (codes which changed parts of a game's code in order to cheat) from popular Commodore computer magazines. Freezer cartridges had the capability to not only manually reset the machine, but also to dump the contents of the computer's memory and send the output to disk or tape. In addition, these cartridges had tools for editing game sprites, machine language monitors, floppy fast loaders, and other development tools. Freezer cartridges were not without controversy however. Despite containing many powerful tools for the programmer, they were also accused of aiding software pirates to defeat software copy protections. Perhaps the best known freezer cartridges were the Datel "Action Replay", Freeze Frame MK III B, Trilogic "Expert", and "The Final Cartridge III" cartridges.
Another important development is the Retro Replay and its additions. The Retro Replay is basically a remake of the popular Action Replay freezer cartridge, but with some fundamental improvements. First, it is flash-based, meaning that the ROMs can be modified anytime. Second, it has two flash ROMs and can therefore hold two independent cartridges (between which you can toggle whenever you reset the computer). It is also not a must to install a cartridge ROM, you may also install all your favourite software in one ROM bank and have it handy all the time and without loading times. Third, it has an Amiga clock port. The amiga clock port (known from the Amiga 1200) allows you to install further hardware. For the C64, these additions exist: Silversurfer (a RS232 modem port), RR-Net (an Ethernet port). Only the Amiga clockport on the MMC64 supports the mp3@c64, which allows playing mp3s on c64 directly from MMC/SD card. None of these additions require more than the 64 KB of RAM or the 0.8 MHz a C64 offers.
The Lt. Kernal hard drive subsystem included a push button on the host adapter called ICQUB (pronounced "ice cube"), which could be used to halt a running program and capture a RAM image to disk. This would work with most copy-protected software that did not do disk overlays and/or bypass the kernal ROM jump table.
[edit] Other Music and Synthesiser utilities
As the Commodore 64 featured a digitally controlled semi-analogue synthesiser as its sound processor, it wasn't surprising to discover an abundance of software and hardware designed to expand upon its capabilities.
Various assemblers, notators, sequencers, MIDI editing and mixer automation software were created which allowed users and programmers to create or record musical pieces of impressive technical complexity. Some software of note has included the Kawasaki Synthesiser range, Music System notation and MIDI suite and the MIDI-compatible Instant Music 'idiot-proof' sequential composer.
Notable hardware included various brands of MIDI cartridges, plug-in keyboards (such as the Color Tone or the Sound Chaser 64), Commodore's own SFX range which included a sound sampler and Sound Expander plug-in synthesiser and keyboard, the more recent Commodulator oscillator wheel and the Prophet 64 sequencer and synthesiser utility cartridge.
Recently a few professional musicians have used the Commodore 64's unique sound to provide some or all of the synthesiser parts required for their performances or recordings; an example being the band Instant Remedy. Also noteworthy is the Commodore 64 Orchestra who specialise in re-arranging and performing music originally composed and coded for the Commodore 64 games market. Its patron is celebrated Commodore composer Rob Hubbard.
[edit] Printers
A series of dot-matrix printers were sold by Commodore, including the MPS 801 and the MPS 803, although many other third-party printers were popular too - some having more advanced printing features than any of Commodore's models. Most Commodore printers were rebranded C. Itoh or Epson models with Commodore serial interface. Commodore also produced the DPS-1101 daisy wheel printer, which produced letter quality print similar to a typewriter, and which typically cost more than the computer and floppy disk drive together. The MPS-1000 dot matrix printer was introduced along with the C-128. A mini plotter device, the Commodore 1520, could plot graphics and print text in four colors by using tiny ballpoint pens. Most printers were attached to the C64 via the serial port (much like floppy drives) and were capable of being daisy chained to the system. Later, CMD created the GeoCable which allowed PS2-type ink-jet and laser printers to work under GEOS with a special device driver.
[edit] CPU accelerators
Like the Apple II family, third-party acceleration units providing a faster CPU appeared late in the C64's life. Due to timing issues with the VIC-II chip - the same issues that caused the 1540 disk drive to be incompatible and the 128's "fast mode" to be 80 column-only - CPU accelerators for the 64 were much more complex and expensive to implement than for other computers. So while accelerators based on the WDC 65C02, usually running at 4 MHz, and on the 65816 at up to 20 MHz appeared, they appeared too late and at a price of US$199 or higher were too expensive to gain widespread use.
The Turbo Master CPU, produced by Schnedler Systems, was a blue expansion port device which clocked in at 4.09 MHz. It also had a JiffyDOS option.
The most well-known accelerator for the C64 is probably Creative Micro Designs' SuperCPU, which gives the C64 a 20 MHz processor (instead of ~1 MHz) and up to 16 MB of RAM if combined with CMD's SuperRamCard. Understandably, due to a very limited "market" and number of developers, there has not been much software tailored for the SuperCPU to date— however GEOS was supported. Among the few offerings available include the overhauled GEOS system Wheels, a Wheels-based web browser called "The Wave", a Unix/QNX-like graphical OS called Wings, some demos, and a shooter game in the old Katakis-style called Metal Dust.
[edit] Present and Future devices
While CMD no longer produces Commodore hardware, new peripherals are still being developed and produced, mostly for mass storage or networking purposes.
The MMC64 cartridge allows the C64 to access MMC- and SD flash memory cards. And several revisions and add-ons have been developed for it to take advantage of extra features. It features an Amiga Clockport for connecting a RR-Net Ethernet-Interface, an MP3 player add-on called 'mp3@c64' has even been produced for it.
The Retro Replay is a hugely improved version of the highly popular Datel Action Replay Cartridge, featuring many soft- and hardware-improvements, such as 32 KB RAM (instead of the Action Replay's 8 KB) and 2 switchable ROM-Banks with a total of 128 KB for two 64 KB ROM-Images. It also has an Amiga Clockport that can hold an additional High-Speed-RS232-Serial- (called "Silver Surfer") or Ethernet- (called "RR-Net") Interface. Like the MMC64, all these peripherals are manufactured by the German Company Individual Computers. Unlike original Action Replay modules, Retro Replay has problems with Commodore 128.
In February 2008, Individual Computers started shipping the MMC Replay. It unites the MMC64 and the Retro Replay in one cartridge, finally built with proper case-fit in mind (even including the RRnet2 Ethernet addon). It contains many improvements, such as c128 compatibility, a built-in .d64 mounter (not speedloader-compatible though, because the 1541 CPU is not emulated), 512KB ROM for a total of eight cartridges, 512kb RAM, a built-in flash-tool for cartridge images and wider support for various types of cartridges (not merely Action-replay-based).
In April 2008, the first batch of 1541 Ultimate shipped, a project by the hobbyist VHDL-developer Gideon Zweijtzer. This is a cartridge that carries an Action Replay and Final Cartridge (whatever the user prefers) and a very compatible FPGA-emulated 1541 drive that is fed from a built-in SD-card slot (.d64, prg etc). The difference to other SD-based and .d64 mounting cartridges like the MMC64, Super Snapshot 2007 or MMC Replay is, that the 6502 that powers the 1541 Floppy and the 1541's mechanical behaviour (even sound) is fully emulated, making it theoretically compatible with almost anything. Fileselection and management is done via a third button on the cartridge that brings up a new menu on screen. The 1541 Ultimate also works in standalone mode without a c-64, functioning just like a normal Commodore 1541 would. Disk-selection of .d64s is then done via buttons on the cartridge, power is supplied via USB. There is a "Plus-Version" available with an extra 32 Megabytes of RAM (as REU and for future use), the basic version has just enough RAM for the advertised functions to work.
The IDE64 interface not only provides access to IDE drives, but allows for a connection to a PC and can directly access all PC drives, plus it can handle CF (Compact Flash) cards and in its newest version (v4) will also feature a USB connector. Today's computer mice can be attached via the micromys interface that can process even optical mice and similar. There are also various interfaces for plugging the 64 to a PC keyboard.
A special board for converting Commodore 64 video signals to standard VGA monitor output is also currently under development, also there is a board under development to convert the Commodore 128's 80 column RGBI CGA-compatible video signal to VGA format, although no tangible product exists at this writing.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Many users came to dread the telltale "RAT-AT-AT-AT-AT" knocking noise, since such knocking contributed to eventual disk drive alignment failure.
- ^ A clever modification could be made to older model Commodore 64 motherboards to piggy-back a secondary SID sound chip to the original SID chip. The resulting modification enabled the Commodore 64 to play sound in 6-channel stereo with the appropriate software.
- ^ The Commodore 64 had documented user-port pins which could be crossed to achieve a reset. In an attempt to activate game "reset" and POKE cheats, a considerable number of Commodore 64 users attempted to reset their machines by manually touching these pins with wire while the computer was switched on (pins 1 and 3 for those wanting to live on the edge, a rebent paper clip does a great job). Many users made mistakes and missed the correct pins, blowing their C64's fuse and resulting in a costly repair. This achievement was later known as the "Hamster Reset" in "Commodore Format" magazine (presumably because you could shove a live hamster into your Commodore 64 user port and achieve the same result). Smarter users soldered these pins to a button, which they mounted in the C64's case for handy resetting. Some programs utilized reset protection (by having the string 'CBM' at $8000 in the memory) which could be worked around by shorting pins 1-3-9 the same way as the "Hamster Reset" pin 9 (on the top side as opposed to pins 1 & 3 on the bottom) being the EXROM ROM expansion pin (thus overwriting data at $8000-$9fff).
[edit] See also
- Individual Computers - producers of the MMC64 and RR-series products
[edit] External links
- http://www.protovision-online.com - Makers of various new hardware upgrades
- http://www.lemon64.com/ - Includes some of the best Commodore 64 music software
- http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=235861&highlight=commodore - Music discussion board thread linking to many others relevant to C64 music.
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