Jolt Country

Have we done this before? I feel like I've asked Flack this six times and I always forget the answer. Flack, what is the Flackwell X. O'Hara-recommended Commodore 64 FLASH CART?

Knuckles brought my C64 from Rochester last weekend and assuming the power supply is in there, I'm gonna figure out how to hook it up and play all the games I THOUGHT I was gonna play when I got my Atari 800 hooked up to a modern-day TV.

Links are fine. Please do not feel the need to patiently write many sentences about a question I've asked you seven times and forget the answer to. This can also be a catch-all apology thread.

The end all, be all of Commodore flash carts is, in my opinion, the 1541 Ultimate (1541u).

Many earlier Commodore flash carts (like the MMC64 and the 1541-III) only support "single file" programs. If you want to play "defender.prg" then those devices will do it. However, any games that's a multi-loader (something that loads from the disk multiple times) won't work with those. I don't know about the MMC64, but the 1541-III doesn't support writing back to images.

The 1541u is essentially a replacement for the 1541 disk drive. It reads and writes D64 disk images. With a second floppy disk drive attached, you can copy data back and forth between D64 disk images (which is what emulators use) and real floppy disks. The Commodore literally sees mounted D64 disk images in the 1541u as real disks. For all intents and purposes, it's 100% compatible.

There have been three releases of the 1541u. The first two are discontinued.

1541u (the original, discontinued): this is the one I own. For most people this device does 100% of anything you would ever need. For serious, hardcore users, this device does 98% of anything you would ever need. I don't believe this version supports d71 or d81 disk images, but it does support d64 and g64 ones (all I've ever used).

1541u + ethernet (1.5, discontinued): the second run of the 1541u added an ethernet port and supported networking. I guess it didn't work great or didn't work for everyone the same way because it got dropped.

1541U-II (current model): the current version of the 1541u is the 1541U-II. It no longer has ethernet, but now uses micro-sd cards instead of plain sd, emulators dual disk drives, supports USB sticks, and had a few other features. The II supports tape images along with reading/writing to g64, d71, and d81 disk images. It also supports stereo SID files and a few other new features, like Super CPU emulation and a real time clock.

All the new features on the II are thing you couldn't do on a stock Commodore 64 anyway. The C64 wasn't in stereo and I never had a Super CPU (I couldn't even tell you what supports it and/or uses it) and it never had a real time clock so there's no point in me upgrading. The original works great -- no, PERFECTLY -- for my needs. I still say to this day it's the greatest single peripheral I ever purchased for a classic computer, period. I'm so, so happy with my purchase.

When/if you get one, check the torrents/newsgroups for the GameBase 64 collection, which is essentially every single game ever released for the Commodore 64, in d64 format, ready to go. Dump it on an SD card and, boom, you have 20,000 C64 programs ready to play.

Current price for the 1541u is 129 pounds, which according to Google is $205. Worth. Every. Penny.

The closest competitor to the 1541u is the Chameleon. HOWEVER this device is currently in BETA and not all features work and it's still in development and some of the people associated with the project don't have a great track record of supporting their projects for the long run. So, buyer beware.

Episode 109 of You Don't Know Flack was dedicated to the 1541 Ultimate: http://podcast.robohara.com/?p=38

Also, I have somewhere around 4 or 5 spare Commodore 64 power supplies out in the garage. If yours doesn't work, let me know.

Thanks man, I'll ask a quick question and then hang up and listen off the air: was this a repeat? Had you already told me all this information before? Is this negatively affecting our friendship?

This is not affecting our friendship, at least not negatively. I love talking about old computers and would gladly answer the same question 10 times in a row, especially knowing that the person asking the question is legitimately interested in hearing the answer.

I don't know if I told you all this information before or not. I have terrible short term memory and now my long term memory is going too. I've discussed it before, yes, but remembering who asked the question and on which forum I posted it ... the mind wanders.

I hope you end up getting one of these. They're really awesome.

There's a kinda/sorta similar thing out there for the Apple II, but the guy is making them by hand. Last year he sold 300 of them and they were all quickly spoken for. I'm hoping to get in on the next batch.

If it isn't affecting our friendship negatively, then that's fine, I'll keep posting till it does.

I registered and filled out all the forms to get one. I can't tell if they -- wait, the next batch is in pre-production. I should mention that the next batch is in pre-production. They want me to "reserve" a copy, which is fine, so I tried to do that. But then they started Europing about giving them money to confirm it or something, but I left before that part.

So I think I reserved a copy!

Ah, good deal. I guess he makes them in batches or something and likes people to commit before he has them made, which is crazy because people are always waiting to buy one.

I was thinking about this the other day. Back in the day, people used to build items and put them up for sale and people would buy them. Then we got to the point where people would commit to buying something, and then people would have the item built and sell them. Then we got to things like Kickstarter where people actually pay for items before they are built, to fund them. I wonder where we will go from there? Like maybe people will pay me in case I come up with a good idea in the future.

I think the thought was deeper right after I had taken all that medicine.

Let me ask you this! I'll turn this thread into my one-stop shop for Commodore questions.

Is there a cord out there that lets you go from the C64 to RCA input jacks?

Also, I think there's a good chance that I am gonna finally finish Wasteland on the C64. I'm gonna start another thread about "epic"-level C64 games.

This is the cord you seek. I don't think I have a spare one or I would mail one to you. On Lemon64 you might be able to find one from a US seller and save some shipping money.

You know, I might have one of those in my attic still.

No guarantees, It's been years, but I could have sworn that I saw one in a random box of junk just a while ago.


THE
ANCIENT RELIC
AARDVARK

(edit: Sorry, man. It's been tossed out. I can hook you up with an original xbox controller or a gamecube adapter though.)

I will double check tonight, but I don't think I have a spare one either. As easy as C64 hardware is to come by, it's the cables that connect the pieces that seem to have been lost or tossed aside. I'll bet I don't find one serial cable for every 10 disk drives I come across.

A few times now, I've bought stuff in bulk. One was power supplies. Some guy came up with a bunch of them and put them up for sale for $5/each, I think. IIRC he had 8 or so and I bought them all.