There are already at least two board designs. One like mine here, a short cartridge with buttons on both sides. The other design has longer board and the buttons are at the back in the usual way.

You North-American folks are probably pleased to know that RETRO Innovations is going to manufacture and sell them as well.

And yes – this is your JiffyDOS on a stick .. err.. cart solution!

Seriously, calling EasyFlash 3 just that is a vile devaluation (and I’ve seen it already happen). It’s much more than “just” a KERNAL on a cartridge.

What is EasyFlash 3 and what can you do with it?

First of all EasyFlash 3 is an EasyFlash-compatible re-programmable cartridge. It has all the same functionality as the original EasyFlash design. In fact EasyFlash 3 is seven EasyFlash cartridges on one board. And all of the seven EasyFlash slots can be programmed and launched from a on-screen menu upon reboot. Which is a great thing.

But the most distinctive feature of EasyFlash 3 is its KERNAL replacing ability. It seems to be a most desired feature to some audiences to be able to change C64′s KERNAL without having to install a new ROM chip inside the machine. And that is exactly what you can do with EF3. The EF3 has eight banks for C64 KERNALs that can be programmed with different KERNAL binaries.

In addition to EasyFlash cartridge and KERNAL functionality the EF3 is able to emulate freezer cartridges. EF3 has two banks reserved for Action Replay, Retro Replay or Nordic Power compatible cartridge images. Additionally there is a bank reserved for Super Snapshot 5 image.

Last but not least the EF3 offers USB connectivity. USB can be used to transfer data and files between PC and C64 and to program or update the EF3 CPLD core. Later on it will be possible to flash also the EasyFlash banks over USB as soon as the needed software is released.

EasyFlash 3 menu

The different operation modes are selected from a built-in menu. The desired EF, KERNAL or freezer bank is simply started by a single key press. It also means that the different operation modes can not be used at the same time.

The menu starts up on C64 startup or whenever the cartridge’s menu button is pressed.

One more thing that the menu feature is a built-in EasyProg. This version of the familiar EasyProg is used to program all the different banks and bank types in a similar manner as the original EasyFlash cartridge is programmed.

KERNAL replacement in a cartridge

EasyFlash 3 promises to work as a genuine KERNAL replacement, while being a fully external cartridge, with some magic and wizardry. Nothing needs to be connected to the motherboard, no strings attached so to say. The KERNAL started from EF3 cartridge is supposed to act as fully compatible KERNAL – just as if the binary was installed as a ROM chip. I have every reason to believe it does so. All KERNAL binaries I tried work as expected. Including one bizarre modified KERNAL I extracted from one of my breadbins. So any C64 KERNAL can be run very effortless with EasyFlash 3. Just make sure it’s a valid KERNAL binary and exactly 8 192 bytes.

This is very handy if you would like to have a custom KERNAL, e.g. a disk speeder, but are not comfortable grabbing a soldering iron or just not interested in taking the effort to have and install the KERNAL internally.

Having several different KERNALs available makes switching between them a childs’ play. It’s also very easy to test KERNAL binaries on a real machine with EF3.

One more benefit is the portability. The selection of KERNALs becomes available for any C64 just by plugging the cartridge in.

But do not mistake into thinking that there is no more reason or benefit in installing a physical KERNAL ROM. There are. E.g. one major benefit of KERNAL disk speeders is that they leave the cartridge port unoccupied. Obviously this is not the case with EF3.

EasyFlash 3 as EasyFlash or freezer cartridge

There’s not much into this topic really. Each of the EasyFlash banks work like a single original EasyFlash cartridge. They can hold EF or other supported types of cartridge images. From the menu it is just chosen which bank is activated.

The freezer cartridge banks work in similar manner. E.g. if you have Action Replay programmed into a bank and activate it, the EF3 acts as if it were a genuine Action Replay cartridge with additional RAM and all. In freezer cartridge mode the reset button acts like in the selected freezer and the ‘special’ button acts as freeze button.

For some reason the Super Snapshot 5 cartridge image has a reserved slot of its own.

USB data transfer

At the time of writing the official USB tool is not yet released. However there are a set of USB Utilities by Tom-Cat. These tools can be found at the Forum64 EeasyFlash 3 section. A driver for EF3 is required on the PC for the USB connectivity.

Tom-Cat’s utilities makes it possible to copy files between PC and a disk drive attached to C64, or to read complete disks to disk images or vice versa over the USB. Also executing a .prg file from PC on the connected C64 is possible with these utilities. These operations require a server program running on the C64 and then the operations are started on the PC.

Transferring disk images to or from floppy disks over the USB connection with these utilities may not be the fastest way to do it, but it is very effortless one once the setup is running. I continued my old and boring disk archiving project just for the fun of it!

One thing I leaned was that the USB port is not active if you start KERNAL or freezer mode or choose to “Kill the cartridge” from EF3 menu.

As soon as the official USB transfer tool is available, it should offer some similar features and presumably be the fastest way to program an EasyFlash bank.

Summary

I hope my description gives a good idea on what you can do with EasyFlash 3 and how its features are used.

The supply for new gears for C64 is so overwhelming that I feel spoiled. Yet EF3 manages to do something that no other device has made possible so far – being a true KERNAL cartridge. Not settling only to that, but combining it with the EasyFlash and freezer cartridge functionality plus the USB connectivity, this single cartridge gives a lot. Not to forget its easy and straight-forward useability.

In the recent years there have been so many wonderful modern hardware peripherals for C64. In my opinion, the EasyFlash 3 is amongst the best ones. I would encourage anyone with the interest for it getting one.

EasyFlash 3 board and the original EasyFlash side by side.

EasyFlash 3 under excited testing in my project machine.

You know the classic Suncom’s Totally Accurate Controller MK2, right? The favourite Atari-standard joystick of countless people, with the reputation of being indestructible. Other than durable, it’s also a very good game controller. The design is simple, you can hold it in your hand very comfortably, no matter if you’re left or right-handed. And the feel and tactile response is top-notch.

While not completely fail-proof, at least TAC-2 withstood abuse much better than most other joysticks that were commonly used with Commodore 8-bits, Amigas and Atari computers.  Both the durability and usability are result of very, very simple yet functional design.

I mean, have you ever looked inside of that controller? It appears that there isn’t anything that could ever fail.

Here’s a picture of TAC-2 dismantled. You can completely take the stick apart and put it back together without using any other tools than a screwdriver, which is needed for the three screws that hold the case together.

The buttons and directional switches are nothing but robust construction where metal part presses against another when you press a button or the stick into some direction. In its simplicity it’s ingenious.

But in fact there are some common issues with TAC-2. The buttons tend to become unresponsive over time. As with any switch, metal oxidation is the reason. Or plain dirt. Eventually this may happen with the directional stick too. But in fact, you could try to rub the contact surfaces cleaner without even opening up the controller. Just wiggle the stick around or rotate the button with your thumb while pressing it. You know you used to do that!

When this instinctive maintenance method didn’t work anymore, you probably had to open the controller. A common trick was to flip the metal washers of the buttons around, so you had a fresh metal surface to act as the button switch. Another seemingly common thing (I’ve repaired few TAC-2s over the years and seen this thing done by others) was to clean the contact surfaces with sand paper. While this works at first, I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea. Preferably use some corrosion removing and protecting spray and something less rough to rub the surface clean. That should help better against re-oxidation.

Another thing that may happen with TAC-2 is that the internal wiring does not make a proper contact anymore. The wires are not soldered into the “switches” but use simple wiring connectors. Also these may oxidize or even become loose. Pressing them back and forth or applying some corrosion removing spray usually does the job. For a loose connector use nose pliers.

Another thing you can’t prevent by good design is wiring or cable degradation. Movement and shocks translates into small mechanical stress to the wires that run inside the cable or controller, and eventually, one of the lines may simply break.

This is exactly what had happened to one TAC-2 I had. The joystick was completely dead, so it had to be a broken ground line. The broken spot was near the connector so I simply cut the cable behind the broken spot and soldered an off-the shelf D9 female connector in place. It’s not pretty, and it doesn’t sit in the controller port as tightly as the original connector, but at least it works.

At the same go I completely dismantled the controller, cleaning all the parts and contacts. Here’s some pictures as I went, putting the controller back together:

The metal clips that are used as the switch contacts are all identical. Two of them have wires soldered onto them for cross-wiring the buttons.

By the way, the wires are colour coded: White for up, blue for down, orange for button and so on. Apparently it used to be an unofficial standard for joystick makers of the time.

I applied light vaseline for the contact surfaces. It should help both wear and corrosion of the contacts.

TAC-2 in its full glory! Now this stick should operate reliably for another twenty plus years!

I wanted to be able to hook up an Amiga 500 to TV with decent picture quality for an upcoming gaming session. Instead of using lousy composhite signal or the dreadful RF antenna cable I wanted something much better because modern TVs don’t forgive low-quality video signal. In fact, flat panel TVs tend to make old systems look really bad. Low resolution and sharp, pixelled graphics (in contrary to e.g. real life video) transferred using blurry and noisy signal, and then displayed stretched and processed on a HD panel. You know it ain’t gonna be pretty! The best way to prevent the worst eyesores is to use high quality video signal at least.

So, off to make a RGB SCART cable for that Amiga.

The most convincing diagram I found for such cable was at Ian Stedman’s site. Instead of blindly building wirings using diagrams found off Internet I like to cross reference things. After having a look at Amiga RGB port’s pinout one of the connections in Stedman’s diagram was starting to look suspicious.

Amiga RGB pin 13 to SCART pin 18

According to NT Rautanen’s pinout information on the Amiga RGB port pin 13 is “Ground Return for External Clock Enable”. Connecting that to blanking signal ground did not seem logical to me. Additionally, NT Rautanen’s page specifically says  that do not connect pin 13 with pins 16-20 on the Amiga RGB port.

As it turns out Stedman’s diagram is likely to do just that. It is likely that most TVs and monitors with SCART socket have all the ground lines at SCART socket connected. I backed up this assumption with the TVs in our household using a continuity meter. In other words connecting Amiga RGB port pin 13 to any SCART ground connects it with the common ground.

Other than that, Stedman’s diagram looked good, including all the control signals and some resistors to adjust the voltage levels.

I built my cable according to Stedman’s diagram, except for the above mentioned A13-S18 line. I also used the suggested 220 ohm resistor instead of the 75 ohms in the blanking / RGB mode selection signal (SCART pin 16).

Here is Stedman’s diagram with the modification I did for my cable:

The cable I had and used for this was 8-wire shielded data cable. Six wires was needed for the signals, so two wires and the shielding copper web was left for the ground. I connected all the relevant ground pins making use of the remaining wires and the shielding. The more ground pins connected the better, I think.

Left: The Amiga end of the cable in the making. RGB signal wires and resistors soldered in.
Right: Cable ends ready for test.

I measured the voltage levels on the control and sync signals when the cable was connected to TV, and they were well in the specified range.

• SCART pin 8, status & aspect ratio: 11,5 V, telling the TV to switch to this AV input in 4:3 aspect ratio.
• SCART pin 16, blanking signal & RGB-mode: 1,2 V, telling the TV to use RGB signal.
• SCART pin 20, composite video/sync: average voltage level of 0,6 V

The Amiga RGB port does not provide audio, so the cable needs additional RCA plugs for left and right channels, which can be found at the back of the Amiga. I used some leftover AV cable which I cut and soldered to the SCART plug and ran alongside the video cable.

The cable works fine, and on both TVs I tested it the picture quality is very good (Samsung LCD, Panasonic plasma). The TVs accept the signals without problem, and both TVs switch to AV mode and displays the picture in correct mode and ratio without touching any settings. The picture is very sharp and quite stable. There is only very slight vertical wobbling in the picture, but we are talking about a magnitude of 1/10th of effective (signal) pixel at most. On Panasonic considerably less than on Samsung. It’s possible that using a cable better suited for analog signal would eliminate this slight defect.

Left: Finished cable.
Right: Cable connected to Amiga – excuse me for not having the lid on!

Ok, I was happy, but vintage machines on a modern HD TV just does not look “right”. I dug out my Philips CM 8833 monitor and had a go with that. To my disappointment the picture was missing the red component. I wouldn’t be taking that so I started investigating. I double-checked with completely different system and RGB cable and clearly the fault was not in the cable but in the monitor. I opened the monitor casing hoping that I would find a clear discontinuity in the red signal line, hopefully near the SCART plug. I had to dismantle the monitor internals quite a bit before I got access to the underside of the circuit board where the SCART plug was soldered to. A word of warning: CRT tubes use very high voltages. There’s a risk of serious electric shock if you stick your finger to a wrong spot.

And as it turned out, the fault was obvious. Many of the SCART plug’s connections were broken off from the PCB. I simply heated up the connector legs one by one and applied some fresh resin.

Put everything back together and tried again. Brilliant picture I tell you!

The tube does not scale or process anything, it now displays the video signal in its rawest, purest form. Although low resolution, the picture is sharp! The picture consists of lines of light, not of blocky pixels. The lovely scanlines are there. Just like it should be. It’s perfect!

Now some pictures I took for comparison.

All these photos are directly from the camera without any further processing – so they are quite big. Taking pictures from TV is a bit tricky. I did my best to avoid scanlines on CRT, and on flat panel TVs there are some moiré on the pictures. Of course you can’t see either of these effects on a plain eye. These pictures are provided only to give an idea of the differences. The best pictures to compare are the Turrican stage photos.

First off are some pictures taken from the Philips CM8833 monitor using composite signal. The signal is generated by the external A520 video module.

And then similar pictures from the same monitor, but using the RGB SCART cable.

Now pictures taken from low-end Samsung LCD TV (the model is LE23R86BC if you’re interested of such details) using the RGB cable.

And finally, pictures taken from Panasonic plasma-TV (TX-P42G20E), again using the RGB SCART. The second Turrican stage picture is taken using a zoom mode on the TV, so that the picture fills most of the screen area.

Just a quick heads-up, I recently ordered some stuff from Retro-Donald’s Sinchai-Shop. Finally the goods arrived, and above you can see the loot I got.

Top: Micromys V3. Below, from left to right: EasyFlash 3, MMC2IEC + programmed AVR, Nano SwinSID, Super PLA.

Sinchai.de is an online shop that is specializing in Commodore 8 bit accessories and DIY kits. Unfortunately the site is in German only, as is all communication and support. Additionally the information and instructions for the products may be very slight, and most of the product support seems to be at the German C64 forum Forum-64. The shop supports the community there and vice versa it appears.

At least the product assortment is very interesting, and they ship worldwide. And Google Translate is your friend if you are like me and don’t speak nor read German.

Apart from the language barrier and almost three weeks’ delivery time I’m very pleased with the experience. Might be that Donald is busy putting the now-released EasyFlash 3 boards together! The pieces I finally got are of good quality, and the packaging was well done. Postage rates were reasonable, and generally, so are the prices at the shop. My recommendations.

Quick run-down of the stuff I ordered

Micromys V3 – It’s an adapter for connecting PS/2 mouse to C64, Amiga or Atari computers. I had no particular reason for getting one, just thought that it might come handy some day.

EasyFlash 3 – Awesome cartridge. It’s a multi-function cartridge like no other before. Being EasyFlash, it provides 7 fully EasyFlash (original) compatible slots. Additionally it provides few slots for Action Replay and similar freezer cartridges. And the real deal with EF3 is that it acts also as an external KERNAL replacement. So yes, you can change the C64′s working KERNAL with this cartridge – no wires, no soldering, no nothing. The cartridge features also a USB connector for firmware updating.

EasyFlash 3 boots into a menu from where you can launch the EasyFlash, freezer cartridge or KERNAL binary slots. All the binaries are updatable using built-in EasyProg that supports EF3′s features.

I have only quickly tested this baby, and I’m fascinated! Hats off skoe!

MMC2IEC – This is a MMC2IEC board kit that I ordered together with programmed AVR. It’s one of the many hardware designs that can run the magnificent sd2iec firmware. You may think of this as DIY uIEC if you like (which is kinda silly and misleading, as MMC2IEC is originally made as a DIY-friendly design, and the only thing common with uIEC is that those both now run the independent sd2iec firmware on a ATmega AVR chip). The board + SD card slot alone is mere ten euros, and with programmed AVR 20€. The other parts are not included, but you can get those from your electronics dealer for just few euros.

Nano SwinSID – This is basically identical to Micro SwinSID, only a smaller design. When it is equipped with SMD crystal like this, it is really small. The footprint, or area,  is exactly same as SID chip’s, and it’s only slightly thicker.

Super PLA – No really need for this either, I just wanted to try it out. It’s a replacement for the fail-prone PLA chip used in the older C64 models. All “breadbins” and the early C64 C models have the PLA chip, and it’s one of the most common ones to fail, causing the C64 appear as dead, or malfunction in a variety of different ways. Being a proprietary special logic chip it is difficult to replace without getting compatibility issues. I have understood that this is one of the better replacements.

I will get more detailed with these items as I get more familiar with them. Stay tuned.

Built into the old IBM case is a C64E motherboard (the new, short board) from a late C64 C and a much older 1541 disk drive. Basically the machine is an original hardware setup – including the original power supplies. The C64 motherboard is mounted horizontally at he bottom of the case. The C64 PSU is attached to the flank of the case – not very discreet I know. The drive mechanics of the bulky 1541 drive fit perfectly to one of the 5 1/4″ drive bays. The motherboard (or logic board) and transformer have been relocated around the mechanics.

An external power cord plugs into the rear of the machine. The mains voltage is routed to the original transformers trough a two-stage switch and fuses. The two stage switch makes it possible to power the C64 without starting up the disk drive and also to switch off the 1541 while C64 remains on.

The obvious issue of keyboard was also solved in a rather straightforward manner. The keyboard ribbon was simply cut, and then wired to the PC’s serial port connector at the back of the machine. An extension cable for the keyboard was done from old printer cable, which then plugs into the port. Not pretty but does its job!

The other necessary connectors were also routed to the back of the machine. A composite video, dual mono audio and RF antenna connections were routed to the added back plate of the machine using RCA plugs. The transparent back plate is in place of the missing PC PSU. Joystick ports are available at the bottom, as the motherboard barely fits inside the case.

The C64 and 1541 use the case’s power and HDD LEDs as their power LEDs. The power button of the case acts as a reset button for the C64.

The history

It was year 2000. Together with friends we were going to Assembly, and had computer places reserved – the only time I’ve had. We wanted to take something unusual with us – not only PCs. So together with a friend of mine we started to build one of my C64s into tower case. We were able to source the case cheap from another friend, but without PSU. We had only limited time to build the machine, so we went with the original power supplies. So there weren’t hardware modifications really, the speciality was the C64 and disk drive in a tower enclosure. For finishing touch we painted the case and installed a strobe light inside the case.

At the time case modding wasn’t a mainstream thing – at least not here in Finland. As a result, our tower C64 caught some attention, with its special paintings hinting what’s inside, flashing strong light inside. The machine was also featured in MikroBitti’s official party report Awake.

After the party the machine remained in my friend’s use for some years. At some point I got the machine back. I remember it had issues with power supply at that point, thanks to some cheap solutions we did originally – the exposed power connector to C64 main board was busted. The machine ended up being stored away for many years.

Restoration begins

At some point I dug the machine out to start examine what its condition really was. The first thing to do was to dismantle the machine so that I got the components out from the case. With the parts taken out I was able to test them separately using known good PSU in a safe set-up.

I replaced the busted power connector of the C64′s motherboard with temporary wired-in DIN plug connector that is compatible with the C64 PSU. Now I could connect the motherboard like any ordinary C64 to any setup I wanted. After years of not being used the C64 booted up fine. The first startup took some extra seconds before the screen came up. After the first power-up the machine booted normally. I suspected that the electrolytic capacitors may have aged for not being in use for a long time, but luckily freshened up after powering them. In a less fortunate scenario some of the caps could have shorted destroying themselves and possibly some chips. Still I decided it’s better to replace the caps.

The disk drive was also operating ok. Setting it up for testing wasn’t as easy thanks to the relocated transformer block. Just have a look at my test setup. Would make a cool installation!

Luckily everything works like a charm!

I didn’t plan to put everything back as they were, but to make some enhancements, stuff that we weren’t able to do back when we built the machine and also do some precautions and maintenance.

The things that have been done so far

Dismantling, cleaning and lubricating of the drive mechanics.

This one is a Alps drive with pull-down lever. There was a lot of goo in the bearing. Cleaning and lubricating the parts with fresh oil loosened the drive upper spindle noticeably. A word of advice: There are several small parts in the spindle assembly, including springs, washers and a lock ring. The lock ring was stiff as hell at least in this drive. Don’t loose it, don’t break it. When it comes off, the spindle assembly comes apart. Keep track of the order in which the parts were.

Removing of the KERNAL + BASIC ROM and installing a socket for KERNAL update.

This was the first time I desoldered a chip. I first practiced by removing some chips from another, dead spare C64 motherboard. With that I was able to remove chips quite easily, it just took a lot of time and patience. This board gave me troubles though. For some reason I had severe difficulties getting the solder out from the holes with this one. I ended up breaking few traces which I then had to fix with jumper wires. I wired them below the board for aesthetical reasons.

Here the motherboard is installed with JiffyDOS with a Flash memory based ROM. These are available from RETRO Innovations store.

Replacing of the electrolytic capacitors

Replacing the capacitors is rather trivial and a precaution more than anything. More about this later on.

I have more things planned, but everything rest is yet to be done. I will write more as I progress, stay tuned!

I made this one as the 8580 version. Here’s the board – without and with SID chips.

For the convinience of installing it from one C64 to another if needed, I made all external connections and jumper settings using pin headers. When the board is like this, the second SID address selection is done by setting the jumper block in the 2×4 pin header to correct position. Instead of manually changing the jumper block’s position, I’m able to replace the block with 2×4 female pin header that is wired to e.g. a rotary swithch. That way the changing of second SID address can be done externally.

I also did the priority hack (described in DualSID FAQ, A13). I made it in a little different way than is described in the FAQ. See the two small jumper blocks next to the SID #2 socket in the above pictures? That’s the jumper grid of the priority hack, only arranged as a row. A view from underside:

When the jumpers are in place the address lines are not swapped. I am not able to swap the address lines using the jumper blocks in my mod. Instead, I can again insert a header that is wired to a double pole double throw switch. If I am going to swap the priority of the installed chips, I want to do it with a switch anyway. Done this way the hack doesn’t take practically any extra space.

The address lines of second SID

To be able to select different addresses for the second SID chip four wires needs to be connected to the motherboard. The instructions tell you to take two of the addresses from KERNAL chip and two from expansion port. I wanted something cleaner so I started looking for alternate spots from the motherboard where these address lines could be found. Luckily all four lines could be found close to each other next to the RF modulator not very far away from the SID socket.

Note that this C64 is the newer C64 C model with the ‘short’ motherboard. To be precise it’s ASSY 250469 rev.3. In other models or revisions these locations may not be the same. If you are planning to take the address lines like this, make sure that they can be found here using a continuity meter. Better safe than sorry.

All done, everything ok. Plugged in:

The stereo sound

I have to say – it sounds good! The quality of stereo SID compositions I have listened so far varies a lot, but the better ones do sound very nice. I especially like the ones that have been made to stereo as opposed to six channel mono SID tune. Both approaches exists.

And if someone wonders why I have two 8580 chips configured as dual mono in the pictures, let me tell you – it ain’t so stupid than it might seem.

I listened to some non-stereo SID tunes with this setup using headphones. What came out of it was a surprising effect.

As you might know, SID chips are not identical, not even the newer 8580 chips. The SID chips are semi analog, the filters behave differently, the external filter capacitors affect the filter behaviour. In dual SID configuration both chips have their own output circuitry which are not completely identical. All these make slight differences to the output even from two similar chips. These differences would normally go unnoticed, but when you hear them as left and right channel, those small variations bring character to the sound.

The sound becomes more lively, it get’s a feel of space. Sometimes even effects that sound like stereo reverb may appear! I recommend anyone with the possibility to try out the dual mono with similar SID models and headphones.

Dual SID modification for a C64 is a nice hack thanks to the stereo or six channel possibility as it is. More than that, it also brings new life to the traditional mono sound! This is what makes this DualSID design so great – the mode of operation can be set with jumpers or switches as desired. Highly recommended!

I wanted to make a little comparison of the now supported fastloader’s performance using uIEC. Which is faster, EF fastloader or JiffyDOS? Will it take even less time to flash the cartridge if the cartridge image is compressed using EasySplit?

Hardware & software configuration:

• C64E (new, short board) with JiffyDOS KERNAL, switchable between standard KERNAL and JiffyDOS 6.01
• uIEC/SD v3.1 with sd2iec firmware 0.10.2
• Standard EasyFlash cartridge
• EasyProg 1.5.2
• EasySplit 1.0.0

The image I flashed several times using different configurations was Prince of Persia C64 version 1.1. It is a 513 kb cartridge image, closely half of the flash memory size of EasyFlash. When the image is compressed using EasySplit, the file size is 159 kb. In Commodore terms, the images were 2069 and 644 blocks respectively.

A nice feature of EasyProg is that it displays the time it took to flash the cartridge after the flashing is complete and successful. The times are directly from EasyProg. Each test was ran only once.

ELoad is the EasyProg fastloader.

Here are the results of my tests:

Fastloader	CRT image	Time

none 		.crt		19:28
none 		compressed	 9:53
JiffyDOS	.crt		 5:30
JiffyDOS	compressed	 6:01
ELoad 		.crt		 5:17
ELoad 		compressed	 5:57

Remarks:

Compressing this particular image roughly halved the time it takes to flash the cartridge if no fastloader is being used. However, in such case the gain is dependant on the image contents.

If either fastloader was used, it took more time to flash the compressed cartridge image. If sd2iec based mass storage is used to flash the EF cartridge, it makes no sense to compress the cartridge image.

ELoad is slightly faster than JiffyDOS. The difference is insignificant though, and with JiffyDOS it takes only few seconds to load the EasyProg that is needed for the flashing operation.

If both JiffyDOS and EasyProg’s fastloader are activated, the EasyProg fastloader overrides JiffyDOS, and the result is the same with ELoad only.

I can only wonder why someone looking for Jeri Ellsworth nude has landed on my site. It must have been disappointment though, as I can assure that I don’t have any risky pictures of Jeri around.

Instead I can present you with some metaphoric retro nerd-porn involving Jeri in a different context. Behold, my C64 DTV signatured by Jeri – the creator herself!

C64 DTV hidden file showing the DTV-team.

How’s that for ya?

Also, I hope that the person trying to figure out if Commodore Amiga CD32 and Amiga CD32 are the same thing found an answer.

At the time of my overview there were only few EasyFlash tailored releases around, and I thought that the most prominent use of EasyFlash cartridge was the possibility to create EasyFlash multicart images from several single load programs using the Draco Cart Maker.

Since that, the EasyFlash tailored game releases kept on coming. These are usually some of the bigger games for C64, or even compilations of them, modified to run from EasyFlash without loading pauses, often including extra graphics, documents or other bonuses, incorporating bug fixes to the originals, and often with game or score saving feature writing directly to the flash memory. These features are sometimes found only in the EasyFlash patched versions.

At the moment there are quite a few EF releases already, and I’m sure new ones keep on appearing. Basically EasyFlash has become a new medium standard for C64.

And even more so with the phenomenal C64 port of Prince of Persia by Mr. SID. It’s a 1:1 port of the original Apple II game and graphically almost on par with the PC and Amiga versions. The famous fluid animation is there and the gameplay is identical to the original game. Not to mention it’s a great game and a classic, now for the first time ever available on C64 and C128. And it’s available only for the EasyFlash cartridge.

Making it EasyFlash-only was not a promotion spoof for the EasyFlash, the game really has to be in cartridge format to be possible at all on the C64. There’s an intriguing developer diary about the making process at the development blog.

These awesome games that make use of the EF cartridge’s possibilities are great, but in a way they also work against the cartridge itself. Let me explain.

One EasyFlash cartridge can hold only one EasyFlash specific cartridge image at a time. So every time you want to run something else from that cartridge, you have to first erase and rewrite it with a new cartridge image. While reflashing the cartridge is the whole point of EasyFlash, the growing library of EF patched games makes the one image at a time feel like a limitation! If not anything else, you would loose e.g. hi-scores saved within the cartridge.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just switch between different cartridge images without having to erase and rewrite them every time?

Luckily, that’s what the hardware developers have been thinking. Or then it’s because there’s a demand for it. Either way, there’s a new wave of more advanced cartridges that support the EasyFlash format.

The first one to appear was the Alien Flash Cartridge. It’s a 16 MB flash cartridge that can hold 16 EasyFlash banks. It also features an USB connection from which it’s possible to flash the EF banks or push programs directly to C64′s memory and transfer D64 images between disk drive and PC. Additionally, it has Action Replay compatibility.

An evolution of the EasyFlash cartridge, EasyFlash 3, is also on the way (In case you’re wondering about EasyFlash 2 – it didn’t go beyond prototype stage). It’s basically 7 EF slots plus configurable KERNAL cartridge in one!

In addition to these, Chameleon supports EasyFlash cartridge images already, and 1541 Ultimate-II will support them in the upcoming firmware version 2.4. Neither of these support writing into the image (e.g. hi-scores) – at least not yet.

Along with these new cartridges EasyFlash has evolved from fairly simple reconfigurable cartridge design into a standard for C64 cartridge releases. To me this direction of development seems the right way to go. The community has received a new platform that makes it possible to have advanced cartridge releases like the PoP C64 or cartridge patched Maniac Mansion + Zak McKraken. Modern disk drive alternatives are well covered (sd2iec, 1541 Ultimate, Chameleon), and even new devices acting as a Datassette exists. Latest now also the cartridge is a well supported modern medium option!

Like I told in my previous post I wanted to enter one of the graphics competitions in this year’s Alternative Party. I wanted to make my picture using C64 graphics formats, but I wasn’t planning to pixel the picture in native formats in the first place. Instead, I was planning to draw the picture using modern tools and then convert it! Shocking!

I already had a concept in my mind that I wanted to try out: to combine and use different screen modes for different parts of the picture. Of course it wasn’t possible to actually use different screen modes with the picture, especially with my non-existing programming skills. So the road I had to take was to draw the picture elements separately which I then converted to different graphics modes. The parts would have to be combined, and then finally, converted into final picture.

This gave me a good reason to start checking out the different graphics converting tools.

I started by looking for suitable tools. I knew about Timanthes and Project One, so I tried those. To my surprise Timanthes was a complete graphics suite for pixelling with some very advanced features – like a Photoshop for pixel graphics. However, I was going to use Photoshop anyway so I didn’t need any of those features. Project One in turn offers a simple pixelling interface together with very configurable converter that can convert multicolor images to different C64 graphics modes. I wasn’t planning laying pixels like bricks anyway so Project One’s converting tool offered just what I needed.

I wanted to include PETSCII in my picture so I needed a converter for that aswell. I spent quite some time searching until I found a tool called ChrStudio. It converts any truecolor image to monochrome bitmap using PETSCII tiles. So I was covered there too!

The result of different conversions would have to be combined and then converted again into some C64 graphics format. C64 screen modes have plenty of restrictions, and I was going to combine and layer hires, multicolor and textmode parts on top of each other without even considering the colour restrictions. I needed to use some modern converter and graphics mode that is able work around the restrictions and produce colorful hires image.

I was aware of converters like Mufflon and various Algorithm’s converting tools. During my initial tests MUSC-Hires Converter performed very well with some truecolor images I tried, and it exported C64 executable .prg file. Now my tool chain was sorted out, I thought, except that the exported .prg files were larger than the 16 kb size limit of the compo. Ok, it needs to be crunched.

Never before I have needed to do anything with crunchers – time to find out about those. So Exomizer seems to be popular these days, and it’s cross-platform and everything. Nice. Now, some test pictures converted first using MUSC-Hires Converter and then exomized were well below 10 kb. Everything’s sorted out!

Now, on with the drawing process!

First I needed a picture to convert. It was a natural choise to make something in the theme of the event which was, as the tagline “Red Machine” suggests, Soviet Union!

Step 1. Draw a former Soviet leader.

This was done using Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. This was also one of the most time-consuming parts of the work. Because of the limited amount of shades and colours on C64 I didn’t have to consider the use of colours at this point. Grayscale image would work fine.

Step 2. Draw a matching skull in black and white.

Again, Photoshop and tablet.

Step 3. Make some grunge to outline the skull part.

These were the central parts of the picture and were converted multicolor-like mode and monochrome PETSCII images. With some trial and iteration the results looked like this:

Half of the face after FLI-conversion:

The skull and the backdrop converted to PETSCII images:

And these combined:

Ok – so at this point everything looked good. Except that it was almost midnight the day before the event. I still needed to make some background for the picture. And I had a day at work in between finishing the picture and going to Altparty.

So time to move on and not think about it too much. From the very beginning I had imagined a crowd cheering or dancing in the background for some reason. The crowd didn’t come out quite as I had thought, but at this point I really didn’t care.

Using black, white and red would fit the theme so I came up with putting a red shaded star behind the character.The star and the crowd was then combined and converted to unrestricted hires picture with C64 palette. Originally I was planning to have the background in native hires mode with all the artifacts, but it didn’t work as well as I hoped so I gave up on that idea. Now looking back the background is the weakest part of the picture and also causing the most apparent errors in the conversion.

Now I had the background, the PETSCII parts and the face done. Yet I needed one more layer to add: poor Vladimir needed some shoulders and collars. After that was done the picture looked like this with the different parts combined:

Now I had the picture together. Time to throw it into converter. I had several attempts with MUSC-Hires Converter with different settings, and unfortunately even the best results produced quite a lot artifacts. It wasn’t nice to realize in 3 AM that the converter works that much better with truecolor images than with already “pixelled” graphics. At least I had working .prg file that was clearly within the size limit after exomizing. I had a look with real C64 only to see that it didn’t look quite as bad as on PC screen, but somewhat shite still. I was too tired to try anything more and went to bed.

Next morning I woke up with the motivation to have an attempt with Mufflon. And indeed, it performed clearly better with my picture. Now I only had to figure out how to make an executable from the output file. A deeper look into Exomizer help and familiarizing myself with start addresses made me a lot smarter. Now I had my picture converted into NUFLI looking a lot better and exomized to be an executable .prg file. Phew! Morning spent well!

Here is the final, converted picture as VICE screen shot:

And with PAL emulation which represents well how the picture looks like on real machine. Click for non-scaled view.

The name of the picture is
“In Soviet Party Picture Converts You!“
Get it?

And as a bonus and comparison, here are all the components and layers combined into one hand drawn picture in bigger resolution.