WarpSpeed

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WarpSpeed Screenshot
WarpSpeed Screenshot
Technical Info
ROM 16 kbyte
RAM None
Hardware features 1 Button Reset
1 Switch C64/C128
Manual PDF: WarpSpeed Manual

PDF: WarpSpeed Manual with Schematics

WarpSpeed Manual.txt
CRT ID 16
WarpSpeed

WarpSpeed created by the Alien Technology Group and distributed by Cinemaware became available in early 1988 and was pretty late on the general release already. All the reviews we found are dated late 1988 which might have humiliated it even further when being compared to other cartridges at that time. WarpSpeed has a switch to allow it to be used in C128 mode and there were two ROM versions found so far. The manual thanks the Jason Ranheim company who made the Capture cartridge - likely for support on the wiring mess up which requires a decoder to translate a raw eprom dump to a working C64 binary.

The advertising was especially boring since it was always the same advert on all magazines.

WarpSpeed Advert
WarpSpeed Advert

Functionality

  • Fast serial I/O (1541, 1571 and with WarpSpeed v2 also for 1581 floppy disk drives)
  • DOS wedge
  • Monitor (Pi-sign)
  • File and disk copier
  • Disk sector editor
  • Utility commands using arrow up - allowing to kill fastload and OLD

Speeding

On Lemon64 LordCrass also

tested Archon (183 blocks) with the Warp Speed on a 1571 drive in 1541 mode:
 skew 10: 20 sec
 skew 6: 14 sec
 Warp Speed V3 (1571+8k+parallel, skew 1): 2.7 sec

and notes the interesting information

The V1/V2 carts will not allow you to set a different interleave. It is hardcoded to save files at interleave 6. This only happens with the built-in file copier, or if you save a file from BASIC or the  ML monitor.
So if you used the file copier to make the copy that you did, it should be at the optimal interleave for the cartridge. 

Cloning

Creating you own WarpSpeed cartridge is detailed at https://github.com/SukkoPera/OpenC64WarpSpeed


Binaries

Cartridge_Speeder_all_rr.c64.org.rar contains:

The WarpSpeed Source Code (originally found at iAN CooGs' site) remains separated from the above. Lord Crass' version working with Merlin128 is included instead.

Weblinks