Posted By
ruff-in-the-jungle
on 2013-02-27
00:43:46
|  turbodos cartridges
hi there
theres plenty of turbo dos/freezer cartridges available for c64/128 systems. were any ever produced or are being developed for plus/4 range as well? if so where can i purchase one?
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Posted By
gerliczer
on 2013-02-27
02:57:22
| Re: turbodos cartridges
Hi ruff-in-the-jungle,
Unfortunately there were no such things for the 264 range of machines. Freezer is practically impossible AFAIK. There were some utility cartridges that have tape turbo functionality (see the hardware section). I don't think any of them can be bought nowadays, since the whole 264 family was only produced in the low 100,000s the market for these things were not large enough to produce them in large quantities. Collector items, you know.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-02-27
04:10:39
 | Re: turbodos cartridges
The 264 series was all about holding the Run/Stop key and pressing the reset button. 99% of games allowed you to use the build-in monitor where you could do memory dumps straight to tape or disk, ultimately allowing users to create .PRG's without any additional hardware of most commercial games.
The thing with C64 was a lack of a Rest Button unlike 264 so many creative people made cartridges in all shapes and styles having the numbers out there to buy them.
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Posted By
Hans
on 2013-02-27
09:17:56
| Re: turbodos cartridges
Hi ruff,
As said before, freezers for the 264 range weren't really necessary because of the "freezing" feature as described by MIK: Just press Run/Stop + Reset Button and you're in the very heart of the machine. Working here needs, of course, some knowledge of the 6502 / 7501 Assembler language.
Speeders have been an invention within the C64 world. Besides of the poor C64 basic dialect 2.0 which was very "basic" itself, compared to Basic 3.5, the 1541 floppy was unbearable slow. The parallel 1551 had an average speed ratio of 1:3 compared to the 1541. Therefore, utility cartridges like e.g. "The Final Cartridge" were well known within the C64 community. They were able to speed up the lame C64/1541 a little, and provided also a reset button (which the bare C64 didn't provide).
There have been, of course, also cartridges been launched for the Plus/4 expansion port. Most of them provided applications such as Script/Plus, Calc/Plus, Financial Advisor, etc.
The first SD2IEC modules were developed for the C64 (We've got such for our machines as well). The SD2IEC made all datasettes and floppies obsolete.
Reg's,
Hans.
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Posted By
RobertB
on 2013-02-27
23:43:59
| Re: turbodos cartridges
Well, not a cartridge, but JiffyDOS for NTSC and PAL Plus/4's is now "officially" available, and you can get plenty of speed with a JD-enabled 1541, 1571, 1581, FD-2000/4000, CMD HD, SD2IEC, or uIEC. And the DOS wedge that comes with JiffyDOS is an added bonus.
See http://www.go4retro.com/
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
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Posted By
ruff-in-the-jungle
on 2013-02-28
04:09:33
| Re: turbodos cartridges
thanks guys, glad to see so many helpful replies to such a lame question 
thing is c64/128 carts are often so much more than only a turbo dos/freezer package. best example would be ide64 i suppose - which is IMHO the best commodore related 3rd party hardware ever developed.
having JD installed would be nice if it does not require desoldering the original kernal chip, i could not and will never do to my plussy.
also is every sd2iec JD compatible?
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-02-28
05:38:58
| Re: turbodos cartridges
A far as I know sd2iec is treated much like a 1541 drive on C16/Plus4 machines out of the box at it's most basic level? I don't have one personally to honestly say...
Maybe the hardcore C64 owners who dabble with the odd 264 could tell you. There are more people out there with C16/Plus4's than let on to actually having them as most will be linked to the C64 scene, not the other way around and even though I love C64's too and have 4 of them I still use tapes and disks, that being genuine original released software at this time. My Action Replay Mk IV spends more time collecting dust than being used in the machine as it did cause the odd commercial game to crash or fail to load... That left me with using game cartridges only such as Myth and Navy Seals ect... I'm a gamer at heart. Sorry.
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Posted By
siz
on 2013-02-28
06:52:55
| Re: turbodos cartridges
I received JiffyDOS for my PAL plus/4 last week from Jim but haven't installed it yet. The KERNAL (and every other) ROM chip is socketed on the plus/4 so you don't have to solder. And it's an overlay chip so there is a switch on a cable that can toggle between stock and JiffyDOS KERNAL.
My SD2IEC is being posted today from Andre of the other topic so I can test them together when it arrives.
The IDE64 (and 1541Ultimate) are really good hardware but unfortunately a similar functionality impossible for the 264 series as they don't allow DMA transfers from the expansion port (the processor can be disabled from the buses by the TED only).
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Posted By
ruff-in-the-jungle
on 2013-03-01
01:55:25
| Re: turbodos cartridges
i see how you can get by without a nice utility cartdridge if youre focused on gaming mostly - they do come in handy when theres ie a debugging task to do though. anyway - i have ordered a jd chip, hopefully this will at least reduce load times a bit.
thanks for all your help!
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Posted By
Luca
on 2013-03-01
04:07:58
 | Re: turbodos cartridges
Dunno if my example gets closer to what you asked, but Pause Plus exists and it's a rare missing one...
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-03-01
16:39:08
| Re: turbodos cartridges
Yes and as rare as memory upgrades for the C16 from Anco, never seen any in all these years! A real shame to be honest.
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Posted By
ruff-in-the-jungle
on 2013-03-02
03:21:19
| Re: turbodos cartridges
does anyone develop any new carts for plus/4? you've got some very talented people on the scene from what i've seen so far perhaps someone feels up to it?
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Posted By
MIK
on 2013-03-02
04:40:22
| Re: turbodos cartridges
If there is one home brew cartridge that is not available in big numbers but is always in demand in any form it's the SID Card. A big bundle of them were made not so long ago.
Topic: SID-card scheme?
http://plus4world.powweb.com/forum/18439
No one making 64k memory carts for C16's which I'm sure if they did would go down well.
No game carts other than the original Commodore ones have been made either yet I see in the C64 scene they borrowed our Kikstart and have it running on a GS64! 
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