Author Archives: Steverd

The Expert Cartridge

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The Expert Cartridge by Trilogic

I do now if this was ever released in the USA or not. This was another memory snapshot cartridge.

Freezes – Freezes and saves programs to disk
One File – Programs are saved in one file
Compacts – Programs are compacted to reduce disk space used
Saves More – You can save 3 or more programs per disk
Not Needed – The cartridge is not needed for loading saves
Upgradable – The cartridge used RAM and disk based software for instant low cost upgrading
Monitor – Use the machine code monitor to cheat, gain extra lives, etc
Also for Tape to Disk backups

The cartridge was also reversed engineered and a reproduction was sold on Ebay.

For MORE information: The Expert Cartridge Project

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilogic_Expert_Cartridge

http://www.ar.c64.org/wiki/Expert_Cartridge

https://people.kth.se/~e93_msi/c64/expert.html

 

California Games Copy Protection

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I ran across this great article on Codetapper’s C64 site and wanted to share the link.

California Games intro on the C64

There was a quote from Chuck Sommerville about how great the copy protection was on California Games (it was Vorpal).

The article does a great job debunking the claim that all cracked versions of Summer Games came from the US Gold Cassette release.

Talking to crackers from Eagle Soft Incorporated

Eagle Soft Incorporated cracktro for California Games

When I downloaded games from BBS’s back in the day here in the USA, Eagle Soft was the most common cracking group, from the games I grabbed. But here is the link to this great article: https://codetapper.com/c64/rants/california-games-c64-copy-protection/

This is a must and great read! Thank you Codetapper.

Datel Toolkit IV

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Datel Toolkit IV – The Ultimate Disk Toolkit (the ad claims) – cost just $14.99

1. Disk Doctor V2 – Read & Write any track & sector, Repair damaged sectors, look underneath read errors

2. Header/Gap editor – Decodes & Displays ALL header information, including off bytes and gaps.

3. Disk Look – Sort a directory, Recover lost files, Display file start & end addresses. Disassemble any file directly from disk, Edit the BAM, and more

4. File Compactor – Can compact machine programs by up to 50%

5. Fast Disk Copy – Copies an entire disk in 2 minutes or less

6. Fast File Copy – Copies files up to 6 times faster

7. Formatter – Formats a disk in 10 seconds, Or format any track or half track

8. Error Edit – Quickly find and recreate all read errors – more

Download the D64 here: Toolkit 4 (TOOLS) (DS)