Been with the 64 for almost 2 decades since 1982... Upgraded to the latest model in 1984 with the non soldered chips so I can swap out the SID chip whenever it burned out... 😃 Or add a chip in a swap out... Ran Commodore Special Interest Groups SIGs in South Florida for yrs. Has lots of software and utilities even from my German partners across the pond... Those were EXCITING TIMES and made peace with many Atari and IBM BBS's during the computer wars of the 80s I lived thru! Atari and Apple has basically the same stuff and 6502 chip... And we came out with the first Windows environment with Apple CPUs back in the day... I remember it all and Warp Speed or Warp DOS as I call it was my Main creature comfort... My guests and friends found it elaborate when they saw its speed and online loading Bobsterm Pro or Novaterm which were my favorite terminals to use with lightning 300/1200/2400 baud speeds! Back then that was FAST... And CompuServe CI$, Playnet, Q-Link, etc... All networks of Old and nearly forgotten... But it's alive within me... Been online nearly 4 decades and Commodore 64 was my favorite past time online and offline.... ALWAYS! ❤ Couldn't live without Warp Speed... EVER!!!! ❤ Take care AKA: Optimus (P1), Galvatron, and Kruge from the 1980s... 😃
I had the Super Snapshot Warp 25 fast load on my C64. The sound of it rapidly switching tracks on my 1541 drive and saving me so much time has stayed with me and associated with it a feeling of power. To see the graph at 8:15 showing not even 3KB per second at warp speeds has really put things into perspective!
Fairly late in the life of my 64 I bought a 1581 because it was supposed to be faster. Plus I wsa downloading a lot of games from BBSes. This was in the early 90s. It was the same exact speed as the 1541 and none of the fast loaders that I knew of were compatible with it. But then I found a compute!'s gazette article with a 1581 fast loader. Damn was that thing fast. 50 plus k (over 200 blocks) in under 10 seconds.
Thank you for testing this cartridge in detail. Interesting to see that the fast loader benefits a lot from saving the files with the same fastloader. I did some tests with normally saved files and with that, the Warp Speed was just as fast as the Epyx one. I never heard of it until I got to buy one a couple of years ago. And I only bought it, because it was cheap and the name 'Cinemaware' was intriguing. Over here in Europe, it didn't get that great reviews. I guess it was because of the Final Cartridge III and the Action Replay V being in the same review. And Rightfully so, imho. The Final Cartridge and the Action Replay in special are much more useful to the average user. Not only that they both feature faster load routines, they both feature excellent freeze functions which the Warp Speed lacks. The Monitor looks pretty good. I haven't done too much with the monitors of the FC3 and the AR, but I could surely work with the monitor of the Warp Speed. Back in the days I didn't use any utility cartridge. I had my C64 modded with SpeedDOS in 1986 which is a parallel Speeder which was very popular in Europe, especially in Germany where I live. It wasn't the fastest, but it was reasonably cheap and very compatible. It also had some nice advantages over the utility cartridges: It also accelerated multi-load games, so you would also speed up loading in games like Maniac Mansion or Pirates which load all the time. Those Utility cartridges usually didn't do that. The other huge feature (at least for me) was that the extra parallel cable allowed the use of such programs as '15 Sec. Copy' which copied an entire disk in 15 seconds or 'Burst Nibbler' which could be used to copy protected disks. Both were were great and very useful if you copied a lot of disks 🙂 Speed wise it was about as fast as JiffyDOS which I have never heard of back in the days. So it was significantly slower than the Action Replay, but first of all, the Action Replay wasn't available in 1986 and the above mentioned features really outweighted the speed difference for me. Nowadays I mostly use an Action Replay Mk 6 which I emulate with a Kung-Fu Flash Cart since I don't own a physical copy of the AR6, yet. They are sort of expensive. I do own an AR Mk.5 but that is with a hacked ROM by Cyberpunx. Haven't quite figured out what the difference to a normal AR5 is. BTW... do you know what this C64/C128 switch actually does? Will this cartridge work in C128 mode or does the switch only prevent the C128 from starting in C64 mode as those cartridges usually do?
Nice work, this is a cartridge I didn't know much about. It does seem to be the top of the heap for the non-freeze models. By the way, if you put the timestamps at the left of the text in the description then TH-cam will automatically populate the playbar with chapters.
I too remember seeing the ads for the Warp Speed in magazines. I had an Epyx Fastload that served me well in the old days. There seems to have been better fast loading cartridges out later on. Being a kid at the time, I couldn't afford to spend $40 on another fast loader.
Warpspeed is the cart I had as a kid. I loved it. I eventually got an epyx fastload but still like the warpspeed better. Now I use action replay the most. I wish I would have had one of those when I was a kid.
Excellent video and I am happy to see another channel covering the C64 so keep up the good work. I have a WarpSpeed V1 cart and do like the features of it. I really need to upgrade the ROM to V2. It is funny how they scrambled the ROM around but I think programming in a programmer won't matter much if I use the RAW BIN. But I agree 100% on the color changes and it is the main reason I don't use it as much. If it has the stock colors like the EPYX FL or the Super Snapshot it would be used more. The colors are not what I like either. I guess the code could be changed so that the colors are different and then a new EPROM burned?
If you own the cartridge easy flash 3 or kung fu flash cartridge for c64, you can use "Warp Speed V.2". It is contained in the file Multi-Easy.crt. ;-)
I never had one of these... always swore by my Fastload cart - but where it always failed me was copying or loading from a 1581 drive. I'd be very curious how the warp speed works (or doesn't) with the 1581... I suppose I could try this myself, I just never thought the Warp Speed was worth a darn. :) Guess I was wrong!
Get a 1581 with jiffy dos. Even with a compute's gazette type in program, I could load a 200 plus block game in less than 10 seconds. The Jiffy Dos is probably even faster. Plus you get 800k of storage per disk.
Great review; for the developers out there, wouldn't it be great to combine the fastest load routine with the fastest save one into a "final" final cartridge to get the absolute top performance from disk I/O?
V-MAX is evil. I cannot tell you how many times I had to reallign my drive because of that stupid copy protection. All copy protection ever did was harm legit users. I eventually just started downloading everything from BBS.
Been with the 64 for almost 2 decades since 1982... Upgraded to the latest model in 1984 with the non soldered chips so I can swap out the SID chip whenever it burned out... 😃 Or add a chip in a swap out...
Ran Commodore Special Interest Groups SIGs in South Florida for yrs. Has lots of software and utilities even from my German partners across the pond... Those were EXCITING TIMES and made peace with many Atari and IBM BBS's during the computer wars of the 80s I lived thru!
Atari and Apple has basically the same stuff and 6502 chip... And we came out with the first Windows environment with Apple CPUs back in the day... I remember it all and Warp Speed or Warp DOS as I call it was my Main creature comfort... My guests and friends found it elaborate when they saw its speed and online loading Bobsterm Pro or Novaterm which were my favorite terminals to use with lightning 300/1200/2400 baud speeds! Back then that was FAST...
And CompuServe CI$, Playnet, Q-Link, etc... All networks of Old and nearly forgotten... But it's alive within me... Been online nearly 4 decades and Commodore 64 was my favorite past time online and offline.... ALWAYS! ❤
Couldn't live without Warp Speed... EVER!!!! ❤
Take care
AKA: Optimus (P1), Galvatron, and Kruge from the 1980s... 😃
I had the Super Snapshot Warp 25 fast load on my C64. The sound of it rapidly switching tracks on my 1541 drive and saving me so much time has stayed with me and associated with it a feeling of power. To see the graph at 8:15 showing not even 3KB per second at warp speeds has really put things into perspective!
Fairly late in the life of my 64 I bought a 1581 because it was supposed to be faster. Plus I wsa downloading a lot of games from BBSes. This was in the early 90s. It was the same exact speed as the 1541 and none of the fast loaders that I knew of were compatible with it. But then I found a compute!'s gazette article with a 1581 fast loader. Damn was that thing fast. 50 plus k (over 200 blocks) in under 10 seconds.
This was my fastloader back in the day .. In 1989 I too my C64, 1581 and daisywheel printer to grad school.
Thank you for testing this cartridge in detail.
Interesting to see that the fast loader benefits a lot from saving the files with the same fastloader.
I did some tests with normally saved files and with that, the Warp Speed was just as fast as the Epyx one.
I never heard of it until I got to buy one a couple of years ago. And I only bought it, because it was cheap and the name 'Cinemaware' was intriguing.
Over here in Europe, it didn't get that great reviews.
I guess it was because of the Final Cartridge III and the Action Replay V being in the same review.
And Rightfully so, imho.
The Final Cartridge and the Action Replay in special are much more useful to the average user.
Not only that they both feature faster load routines, they both feature excellent freeze functions which the Warp Speed lacks.
The Monitor looks pretty good. I haven't done too much with the monitors of the FC3 and the AR, but I could surely work with the monitor of the Warp Speed.
Back in the days I didn't use any utility cartridge.
I had my C64 modded with SpeedDOS in 1986 which is a parallel Speeder which was very popular in Europe, especially in Germany where I live.
It wasn't the fastest, but it was reasonably cheap and very compatible.
It also had some nice advantages over the utility cartridges:
It also accelerated multi-load games, so you would also speed up loading in games like Maniac Mansion or Pirates which load all the time.
Those Utility cartridges usually didn't do that.
The other huge feature (at least for me) was that the extra parallel cable allowed the use of such programs as '15 Sec. Copy' which copied an entire disk in 15 seconds or 'Burst Nibbler' which could be used to copy protected disks.
Both were were great and very useful if you copied a lot of disks 🙂
Speed wise it was about as fast as JiffyDOS which I have never heard of back in the days.
So it was significantly slower than the Action Replay, but first of all, the Action Replay wasn't available in 1986 and the above mentioned features really outweighted the speed difference for me.
Nowadays I mostly use an Action Replay Mk 6 which I emulate with a Kung-Fu Flash Cart since I don't own a physical copy of the AR6, yet. They are sort of expensive.
I do own an AR Mk.5 but that is with a hacked ROM by Cyberpunx.
Haven't quite figured out what the difference to a normal AR5 is.
BTW... do you know what this C64/C128 switch actually does?
Will this cartridge work in C128 mode or does the switch only prevent the C128 from starting in C64 mode as those cartridges usually do?
Nice work, this is a cartridge I didn't know much about. It does seem to be the top of the heap for the non-freeze models. By the way, if you put the timestamps at the left of the text in the description then TH-cam will automatically populate the playbar with chapters.
Ah, thanks for the tip. I've updated the description.
I too remember seeing the ads for the Warp Speed in magazines. I had an Epyx Fastload that served me well in the old days. There seems to have been better fast loading cartridges out later on. Being a kid at the time, I couldn't afford to spend $40 on another fast loader.
Warpspeed is the cart I had as a kid. I loved it. I eventually got an epyx fastload but still like the warpspeed better. Now I use action replay the most. I wish I would have had one of those when I was a kid.
Excellent video and I am happy to see another channel covering the C64 so keep up the good work. I have a WarpSpeed V1 cart and do like the features of it. I really need to upgrade the ROM to V2. It is funny how they scrambled the ROM around but I think programming in a programmer won't matter much if I use the RAW BIN.
But I agree 100% on the color changes and it is the main reason I don't use it as much. If it has the stock colors like the EPYX FL or the Super Snapshot it would be used more. The colors are not what I like either. I guess the code could be changed so that the colors are different and then a new EPROM burned?
If you own the cartridge easy flash 3 or kung fu flash cartridge for c64, you can use "Warp Speed V.2".
It is contained in the file Multi-Easy.crt. ;-)
Fantastic video, never seen that cart before, great run through. Looking forward to more on this channel.
Glad you enjoyed! Thanks!
Thanks for the comprehensive "tutorial". :)
Warp Speed V2.0 supports the 1581 very well. It might be the only fast loader that did.
I never had one of these... always swore by my Fastload cart - but where it always failed me was copying or loading from a 1581 drive. I'd be very curious how the warp speed works (or doesn't) with the 1581... I suppose I could try this myself, I just never thought the Warp Speed was worth a darn. :) Guess I was wrong!
NICE VIDEO
IMO The Super Snapshot was the best cart. Gave you fast loading with other utilities.
Get a 1581 with jiffy dos. Even with a compute's gazette type in program, I could load a 200 plus block game in less than 10 seconds. The Jiffy Dos is probably even faster. Plus you get 800k of storage per disk.
Great review; for the developers out there, wouldn't it be great to combine the fastest load routine with the fastest save one into a "final" final cartridge to get the absolute top performance from disk I/O?
Great video! I read somewhere that there was a version 2.0 of the Warpspeed cart - do you know anything about that & what the differences are?
The version I use here is 2.0, as shown on the boot screen. I did not do any research to see what the differences are, sorry.
Support for 1581 FD
fantastic!
That’s nuts!
"A very bold color scheme for the Commodore 64" says the guy with a red C64 😂
I don't even know what I am witnessing
V-MAX is evil. I cannot tell you how many times I had to reallign my drive because of that stupid copy protection. All copy protection ever did was harm legit users. I eventually just started downloading everything from BBS.