60k memory expansion for the commodore 64
This document was byte by byte converted from Vitality #2 (English diskmagazin by Albion). Article written by Ramos/Samar and Glover/Samar.
+60K EXPANSION for "COMMODORE POWER"
Few months ago my group, Samar started to upgrade our beloved c64 machine. You will ask "WHy?!" There are many reasons,i will point out just these most important ones. Firstly In Poland but also in other countries, there aren't many people that could use some additional c64 hardware like Turbo cards Reu expansions ect. Secondly many people just cant afford such an upgrades. So we decided to start to upgrade our computers by ourselves, like the people from Atari 8 bit scene do. There are not too many people that know something about Atari scene, but this one exists! Its really small, and have the members only in few countries (like Poland,Hungary, Slovakia or England) but its alive. People upgrade their machines there very often,they creates Stereo sound systems, increase amount of memory ect. One day i wanted to expand memory in my c64, but i couldnt find the Reu expanision anywhere! After some searching i found it, but the price was such high, that i droped the idea. Some time later Mr.Fiz of Samar decided to do such a thing by his own, and he succeed !. He upgraded also the Assembler source code, that it could use also new biggest possibilities of expanded memory.( new orders ect) With this tool you could type the source code as long as you wish, without the fear that you run out of memory and something will fuck up. We call this expansion as 60K RAm Expansion, and here you will find the instruction how to do it!. On the disc together with the magazine you will find also the picture "how to connect all things" and some tools that use the expansion card. At the very beginning only coders from our group upgraded their machines, as we thought other members wont have any advances from this card. But we were wrong! We did some tools and what happened ? If you have Burst and then you install +60k you can feel what FAST coping means. Its much faster than in two drives mode, for sure. Unfortunatelly if you dont have Burst +60k dont increase the speed of coping, but insted of it you dont have to swich the disc so often! Just try. With +60k every graphician can finally do longer and better animation than with standart memory ect. Samar until now, created few usefull tools for this expansion, but there are still not too many of them (scene isnt everything, we have also to study, work ect). So if you decide to install this expansion please try to create some cool tools that will use the possibility of this hardware! More software for that expansion increase the amount of people that will decide to install it thats clear! For now, about 20/30 people from the scene use this opportunity, but we would like to increase this amount! SAMAR want to make this project more popular, so we will create a special demo AIR POWER, some more tools and cool game,that will run only with +60k expansion In the near future we will try to spread one more interesting upgrade for c64. It will be a music card named SID POWER. It will create the possibility to use SIX CHANELS and STEREO sound ! Isnt it amazing ?! I dont know if we will be able to present the instruction for this tool in this VItality issue,as Glover/Samar didnt code the Music Editor for this expansion yet, but just wait for it. After this thing we will try to do something for graphician, but you will have to wait for that a bit longer, as it isnt piece of cake at all.. All in All we decided to Upgrade our old c64 a bit, and create something that we call "COMMODORE POWER", standart machine with all these already done and planned expansion installed. In this way the life of c64 should be a bit longer for sure! AS whole instalation is not too complicated, maybe soon majority of the sceners will use these expansions, and then we will be able to create MUCH MORE with our beloved machines !!! Now, we want just to spread informations about whole project, and increase the amount of sceners that use these expansions...
Ramos
Now lets move to the main part of this article...
HOW TO INSTALL +60k EXPANSION IN YOUR CBM64 ?!?
Lets start with the instruction.. Firstly you have to gain some extra cash and visit nearest HardwarE and Electronic stuff shop. There you have yo buy:
- Four parts: 7400,7402,74139,74174
- Two "memory ram" every one with 32K (4464)
- One switch
- A wire (aprox.1 meter)
When you will have it , we can start to install the ExPansion... Firstly unscrew your c64, and find on the main field inside, the 101 Resistor. Using the tools get it outside. Put these four extra parts (7400,7402 ...ect) on the separate field ( look at Picture-File,added to this issue of magazine). Get the VIC out and connect its 10 pin with 12 pin of 74139 dice. Then connect 10 "female" pin from Vic Base together with 15 pin of 74139 dice. You have to follow the same steps connecting 4464 but there you have to conect 16 pin of this dice with 4 pin of 74139 dice.
SmaLL NOte !
ON The PICTUre (added to this issue of VTL), there is a little MISTAKE ! The 4464 dices have there 20 PInes, and in fact it have just 18 ! So pin number 16 is the third one from right side... OK ?! Thats all about the Installation of +60K expanssion Im not the author of this upgrade, as Mr.Fiz is the one. Check out the INstaLLation PIcturE file and some EXTRa Tools for this Expansion that you should find together with Vtl#2. Im not responsible for any mistakes done by you during installation...
Glover
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