"Jet Load" cartridge
Leif Bloomquist
I recently ran across an interesting cartridge. It's obviously home-made,
but I'm wondering if it's a one-off or if anyone's ever seen one of these
before.
It has a home-made Dymo Label on it that says "JET LOAD", an on-off switch,
and a reset button. There are also a summary of instructions printed onto a
sticker with a dotmatrix printer. The instructions are the usual wedge
commands - / ,%, ! for monitor. It also claims to do a screen print if you
press CTRL-P, but I never got this to work. Inside is an EPROM, an IC, and
some other components (resistors, etc).
At first glance, it seems to be a copy of the Epyx Fastload cartridge that
someone's modified in a hex editor. It works exactly the same way. But I
used the little program that Cameron posted a few months ago which shows you
a "secret message" inside the Epyx cart, and it wasn't there.
All I could find with Google was that CCCC had one for sale in 1999. So
it's not unique (or maybe it's the same one!), just not at all common.
Does anyone have any more info?
Regards,
Leif
--
Call Jamming Signal BBS - Hosted on a real C64!
Telnet to bbs.jammingsignal.com Port 23
www.jammingsignal.com
Nick @ 64HDD
If you have the ability to dump the EPROM, then a few of us could check
out the code and Epyx compatibility using VICE, etc
- Nick
Maurice Randall
> I recently ran across an interesting cartridge. It's obviously home-made,
> but I'm wondering if it's a one-off or if anyone's ever seen one of these
> before.
> It has a home-made Dymo Label on it that says "JET LOAD", an on-off switch,
> and a reset button.
> it's not unique (or maybe it's the same one!), just not at all common.
> Does anyone have any more info?
At one point in time, I think it was around 1989, CMD ran a promotion
where if you sent in a speed-up cartridge, speed-up rom, etc, you
could trade up for and get a discount on a new JiffyDOS system.
CMD ended up disposing of many of the common and duplicate items that
were sent in, but kept some of the oddball ones. I have that
box of items now.
There are three JET LOAD's in there. One of them is in the same cartridge
case that is used with the SwiftLink, Turbo232, etc. It looks like
a prototype because it has a prototype board with an eprom and also
a small breadboard with an IC mounted on it. There is no reset switch
and no on-off switch. This might be a pre-production unit.
Another JET LOAD is just a board with no case. It says V1.0 on the
board but there is a sticker on it that says "NEW IMPROVED JET LOAD
V2.0 4/86" There is a sticker on the eprom that says:
"THIS SIDE UP. V2"
"BETTER SOFTWARE"
"P.O. BOX 974"
"LIMA, OHIO 45802"
The third JET LOAD is just a board without the case. It says V2.0
on the board. But this one has a reset switch and a label showing
where to wire up the on-off switch.
Maybe there were only a few of these ever built.
Among the other items that were traded up for JiffyDOS:
* Cartridge that says "TURBOMENU" on it and has a reset switch.
* Epyx FastLoad with an on-off switch mounted on it.
* A hacked up FastLoad that's been sawed in half.
* TurboRom (rom chip, not an eprom)
* Datel Utilities on a JiffyDOS type board
* BetterWorking TURBO Load and Save cartridge
* SNAPSHOT 64 (maybe a very early version of Super SnapShot?)
* 64br - This is a rom and IC mounted on a board about double
the size of a JiffyDOS board and plugs into the rom socket.
It also has a switch and 4 jumper clips.
* BRV2 - This is similar to 64br but an even larger board and
plugs into a 28 pin socket instead of the 24 pin like the 64br.
It also says (c) C.L.D 1986, so this must be something that
Chip Level Designs did. This also has a switch and four jumper
clips.
* Fast-DOS (cartridge with an on-off switch and a reset button)
* GT4 from PRO-LINE Software
* EZ-LOADER V1.0 (just an eprom)
* MAGNUM 1541 - just an eprom. Maybe this is the drive portion
and there should be another eprom for the computer.
-Maurice
--
** Maurice Randall - Click Here Software Co.
** High-Performance for your Commodore
** email: mau...@cmdrkey.com, sup...@cmdrkey.com
** web: http://cmdrkey.com
Jerry Kurtz
It was offered by the folks at Kracker Jax.
I traded the info for an Epyx Super Cycle parameter for a Snapshot 64
cartridge. I think I made out great. The parameter was a single byte
change :)
LocalH
> * SNAPSHOT 64 (maybe a very early version of Super SnapShot?)
I'll confirm this - years ago, I had an SS v1, and the manual mentioned
improvements over the previous product, which was called "SNAPSHOT 64".
It's made by the same people, but obviously isn't as featureful as, say
SS v5.
Leif Bloomquist
As requested, here's the dump of the Jet Load EPROM.
http://www.jammingsignal.com/c64/jetload20.bin
-Leif
