It’s the Christmas season, which means the obligatory Commodore Christmas Demo is getting a workout in the lounge when people come over. I’ve been setting up my “daily driver” Commodore 64C with the TV instead of my 8-bit monitor setup in the study, which lead me to remember a few things.
First, the Commodore 64 is awesome! I’ve been getting more stuck into 486-era PC hardware and the Apple II of late, but it bowls me over just how good the graphics and sound are every time I use it, especially for the time it was designed and released. It’s no wonder so many of my GenX friends and older have these machines etched into their soul. Compared to everything else at the time, it must have felt like an …
It’s the Christmas season, which means the obligatory Commodore Christmas Demo is getting a workout in the lounge when people come over. I’ve been setting up my “daily driver” Commodore 64C with the TV instead of my 8-bit monitor setup in the study, which lead me to remember a few things.
First, the Commodore 64 is awesome! I’ve been getting more stuck into 486-era PC hardware and the Apple II of late, but it bowls me over just how good the graphics and sound are every time I use it, especially for the time it was designed and released. It’s no wonder so many of my GenX friends and older have these machines etched into their soul. Compared to everything else at the time, it must have felt like an alien delivered the goods. I’m more a tinkerer than a gamer, but wow.
The experience also reminded me that I wanted to try some other cartridge loaders. Hey look, the topic of the post, and it only took me three paragraphs to get into it. I have an SD2IEC, and a Pi1541 in a beautiful little injection-moulded case, but there’s something about loading software from a cartridge that just feels right on a Commodore. It’s faster, sure, but it also feels nostalgic in a way loading something from a disk doesn’t. Though even having disks with software on it is fast disappearing.
Modern cartridge loaders all support various disk images and formats, so your first step is figuring out what software and games you want to run, then determining what’s compatible. Very early Commodore 64s also suffer incompatibility issues which can be fixed with mods, though that doesn’t affect my kit.
We have more options than I thought.
I learned about this from Adrian Black. Loading software onto it takes a while, and it’s a bit tricky to use at first. But it’s party trick is that it can also load custom KERNALs without mods. I have a customised version of JaffyDOS, along with an older JiffyDOS, and even the BASIC shipped with the Commodore SX-64. I’ve been extremely happy with this cart, to the point where I bought a second one as a backup. I also have an earlier EasyFlash kit on my pile of hobbies that I’ve been threatening to build one day.
I learned about this from Jan Beta. I don’t have one, but I’ve watched enough videos to see it looks much easier to load software than the EasyFlash. It’s by far the most affordable cart on this list, so I’m tempted to get one to try for bulk importing software to try.
This is less of a cartridge loader and more a Swiss Army Knife for your 64. It seems to do almost everything, from disk and tape drive support, to USB data transfers and stereo audio output, and even memory expansion. Long-time reader and contributor Rebecca calls it the “VIC-20 PenUltimate cart” for the 64, which I think summarises the value well. If you’re getting started and haven’t bought any other peripherals, the extra cost is probably worth it.
I learned of this while looking up cartridge loaders for the Commodore 264/TED family. This cart supports dozens of different platforms, which makes it compelling for my collection of random hardware.
Yes, this is as much a post for me to remember these as well. Please contact me if you know any more; I know I’m forgetting a few.