Thank you for watching my first video for my new channel, Sean's Retroverse! Coming up, I have a couple of videos to post soon, including a magical restoration trick I found out for welding broken off plastic pieces inside a joystick with acetone, and fixing up a dodgy cartridge port on an Atari XEGS game system! Those videos should be up in the next couple of days. In the future are plans of finishing up my Asteroids Deluxe machine, hopefully repairing a couple of Commodore 64 computers suffering from the black screen of death, and starting some restorations on a couple of Atari computers (a 1200XL and 130XE) I also have a TI99/4a to dig into as well, so I hope to bring some good content to this channel over the next couple of months! Hope to see you there! -Sean
Hi, You mentioned another video about converting your old floppies over to the USB drive. I would really really like to see how this is done. I have been waiting for a product I felt comfortable doing that with and would love to see how the set up changes especially the connections to your 1541 or 1571 drive and how you use the software to do the copying. I noticed that you said at the time of your two videos that the built in ultra copy was not working; Has that changed? And also I noticed you had Fast Hackem (lol) ah so many memories.... Anyway VERY EAGER to see (even a quick video of how to set it up and copy). I am guessing like you I have a variety of discs (some that have many many games on a single side while I have others that are multi-sided games and would be grateful to see how it works. I believe I still have a working C128 + 1571 dual drives and possibly 1 or 2 - 1541 drives. I always used fans which helped prolong the lives on my equipment but i lost my C64 to a bad power supply. P.S. In case all my disks (I have at least 8 different 50-100ct cases of games) turn out to be F.U.B.A.R. and really so I can limit the wear and tear on my original equipment --> I also noticed you using what seemed to be a nice emulator (VICE?) on a windows 10 pc. I would be eternally grateful for your list of what you think are the best Commodore 64 emulators to use on a modern day PC (windows). I could create a linux box as well if there is a particularly good or better version for that. And also the best places to download games and program files. I have spent the last couple of days researching the current state of commodore replacement parts, add-on cards etc. but it is a lot to catch up on and I'm feeling overwhelmed. - HUGE TIA for any and all help
Really nice. Glad to see the homebrew for these old machines is alive and well. I don't see people making items like this for current computers in 30 years.
I'm encouraged to see so many C64 fans in the USA. In Australia, we only had British Commodore magazines back in the day and all of the US magazines were IBM & Apple so I assumed it wasn't a thing over there. Looking at the 1541UII+ web site, most of the visitors are from Germany and the USA though.
How about a Kelsey REACT video, see her play a few C=64 classics, or would she scoff? (Fine Bros joke) -not sure I would use the Epyx fastloader - MULE took ages to load with it
Thanks for the review! I have one of these on my radar, after I am done paying for all the other retro stuff I have been buying. Geez. Expensive hobby!
Great Job Sean! You should come by and visit the folks on AtariAge. We love all things retro and modern, computers and gaming. I ordered this device (and still waiting for it!) and was hard pressed to find some really solid information on it. I like to watch reviews and such for items I have coming. You did all of that including a tear down. Much appreciated and subscribed!
I actually am already a member at AtariAge, but admittedly I haven't been as active there for a while. I suppose I could go drop an invite to visit my new channel in their forum now. :) I am working on editing a video of a repair of a dodgy cartridge slot on an Atari XEGS that might be of interest to Atari fans, along with a clean up and restoration on a 130XE with an unknown mod switch on the back (Maybe a Pill mod?) So, yeah, I think AtariAge members might be interested in some things I am working on! ;)
As I recall, that was an unintended noise, but functionally not a problem. I do believe Gideon fixed on the next revision, so ones purchased now should not do that.
Can that IEC cable go to a real 1541 and daisy chain? If not, when this cart is plugged in you have no access to a real 1541 or 1581 or printer or anything else, right?
tarstarkusz Yes, you can daisy chain with a real 1541 drive and copy disks between a real 1541 and the ultimate. I actually am planning a video to demo this.
Thanks, I emailed him and I’m waiting to hear back. If you happen to know anyone who has a spare, please let me know. I’m really kicking myself for not ordering it along with the rest of the kit!
I was a major pirate of c64 stuff and this seems like the ultimate of ultimate tools if you want to relive your old massive collection that, in my case, I gave away when i went over to Amiga... nice video.
About the issue with the Roland disk image appearing blank: is that just a bug, or is there a good reason for it? I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that you can still see the files in it, but it requires going in a different way.
Very well done. Love the details and bug report. I would love to see you do a video about the the Ethernet and getting it online in some fashion. 2 Thumbs up!!
Are most programs compatible with breaking into the UII+ menu? I would think that would be problematic for programs written for a single-tasking OS. I'm also wondering: does the freeze button's actual function depend on whether you have e.g. Retro Replay loaded in there or some other cartridge image? Or does it invoke a freeze function in the UII+ itself?
I am not up on the current compatibility with JiffyDos. I seem to recall there was some incompatibility, but I can't say for sure. You might want to post that question to the Facebook page, as that's the most active community there.
That is an excellent question! It is so the Ultimate II+ can receive supplemental power. Why would you need this? Simple, it is so you can run it as a stand alone drive without using up the cartridge port on your 64. If you control it over Ethernet, it can work without being plugged into the cartridge port. This also means you can actually use the II+ with other Commodore computers, like the VIC-20, for instance. The main thing to remember is to use the UII+ this way, is you must control it via Ethernet.
Can it pretend to be a CMD hard drive? Is it C128 & or CP/M modes friendly? Will it run a WiFi usb stick for networking? Can it hold a Turbo rom? JiffyDos etc.
Lots of questions! I believe the answer to most of these is currently no*: CMD hard drive: I don't think so c128 or CP/M friendly: not really per se. It can be used without being plugged into the cartridge port as a stand alone 1541 drive, but I think you will not get the 1571 double sided drive support, so yea, it's pretty limited as a C128 device. I believe if you put it in the cartridge port on a 128, it will boot into 64 mode. wifi stick: I know this was not originally supported, but I know some people were I think working on support for it. I do not know the current status for wifi support. Turbo/JiffyDOS: maybe. I know soft kernal replacements can be done via cartridges, but I have not personally tried this. would suggest researching Gideon's site and forums for the true answers to most of these questions. My take is this is really intended primarily as a virtual 1541 disk drive, tape drive, cartridge, and REU. I otherwise do not have a quick answer for you on this one, as I currently have my c64 in storage. Sorry I can't be of more use on this question - these are all great questions.
Allow me to refer you to a recent video posted by retrobits. This video is very well done and covers many of the advanced and more recently developed features that my video here does not cover! th-cam.com/video/L3JwAmPUIIw/w-d-xo.html
That is a fair question. The short answer is no (I think?) As I recall, I do not think it has any type of instant save state like you have in an emulator (I could be wrong). That being said, it does support freezer cartridges such as super snapshot. While you could use this for saving a state during gameplay, you still have to dump it to disk and reload it from disk. This was mostly used for beaking copy protection, i.e. freeze right when the game finished loading and save that to disk. Where I could be wrong here is I think it is likely to technically be somewhat possible, as the Ultimate II Plus supports a lot of RAM expansion options, so I think utilities could be written to swap the main system memory in and out. Where the problems occur is some of the hardware like the SID and maybe the VIC-II cannot be save stated perfectly, so it would probably be glitchy.
Yeah, at the time, that was what was readily available, and it held up reasonable well. Still, nowadays I might be tempted to build something out of arcade joystick parts. Just out of curiosity, what joystick do you recommend, 8penguin?
I use this:www.richardlagendijk.nl/foto/cip/joystick_elite_2002_01.jpg I had one of those back in the days and bought it again two years ago. My problem is that I need the stick in the right hand and nearly all arcade sticks which you can buy have the stick on the left hand. The only one I found is the qamba q2 (static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/271672/20592804/1349933153583/q2_standard_large1.jpg?token=g9%2FXidxi9pYtnaXJH7FVLxXWH3Q%3D) I love it for mame games but it is not good enough for C64 jump&runs. The buttons trigger to easily and as you know old school games are unforgiving and they need a perfect timing. So I guess building one by myself might also be a good idea. Make a video when you create your arcade stick! I enjoyed the style of this video.
Nice Video. I have the older 1541U2. BTW I really recommend JiffyDos as fastload option. As you said in your Vid, for one-filers, you don't need a fastloader at all. For multi-file games the fastloader of these cartridges usually don't work anymore. JD, however, still works most of the time. Check it out. The only thing I really miss on the 1541U is write-support for EasyFlash. Maybe we'll get this one day via firmware update.
Nice video! One hint: if you mount a disk while something else is running on the machine, you can as well just reset with the button; the newly chosen image should still be mounted, so you can use it right away. At least that's how it works on my Mark I, but I guess that hasn't changed. Good luck with the transfer of your disks, please share them when you're done. :-)
Yeah, I could just have used the reset button, but I also got used to unloading cart images using the Reboot option because when you hit reset with a cart image, it just restarts the cart.
Any trick to actually buy one of these? It has been a week since I ordered one (I think) and paid (via PayPal), but I have received zero response. No confirmation of order, no confirmation of payment. I emailed him a couple days ago asking him to at least confirm my payment, and still no response. I may need to cancel payment while I still can.
SGT Dave Just keep in mind that Gideon is just one guy, and you probably waiting for the next time he ships another batch of them. I know he's been busy on the new C64 Utlimate boards (a full modern board replacement for the C64 itself). When you order from Gideon directly, it requires a bit of patience because he does shipping batches every 2 or 3 months, when he has enough orders to fulfill in one shot. If you want a unit a bit quicker, then you may want to check eBay. You may pay a little mark up, but you will get it in short order. Don't worry though, it's not just you, everyone has to wait to get theirs.
Also, your best bet for communications on when he's doing orders is Facebook. Look for the "1541 Ultimate" page there, as that tends to be where the most active group is for these.
Great Video. :) I got one question. Is it easy/possible to copy files between different .d64 Files? And is it possible to connect a real 1541 to the Ultimate II+ and copy files from and to a real disc/.d64? Would be really nice if you could answer this question!
Es wird Morgen Webradio Absolutely, its a fairly easy process to copy back and forth with a real 1541. In fact, I am planning to review the newest firmware and also cover copying as well. Stay tuned!
if you use the most recent firmware available for the ultimateII+ it has a new rewritten sid player so it might have more features than the sid player in this video (i havn't tried it yet as i havn;t ordered ultimateII+ yet but about to :)
Oh geez...the first time i was "upgraded" by a commodore product in my adult lite. Yep. I feel fine. I have the 1541u2, with tape adapter, of course. I still think the 1541u2 was the best investment i ever made in the c 64. Of course, the addition of ethernet was a logical addition...and i lack that...so ya. Worth upgrading for sure! Barring that ill build a NIC card. Its actually not that much more stuff...and my user port is very naked.
If you must have microSD there are tiny USB card adapters that works very well. Your "expansion" connector is most likely the programming connector for the FPGA. Four pin connector position might be a debug connector, to hook up a serial connection and get all debug outputs. Hate the default cartridge setting, there should be no cartridge at all for default... If you load original games from TAP over the datassette interface - you may need to disable drive as some games are protected and won't load with drive active. Still no save on Easyflash carts tough. You don't have to "powercycle" - reset with simultaneous pressing and hold for a second all three buttons of the cart. You need a 1571 or a parallel cable to write G64 to a Zoomfloppy connected drive IIRC, would surprise me if the Ultimate II+ could write a G64 to real 1541 over just plain IEC cable.
Thanks for the clarification, e5frog! They make sense. I also thought maybe the 4 unpopulated solder pads might be more for debug use as well, and it does make sense that the internal connector is probably for programming the FPGA. As far as the G64 issue goes, I tested it to great length, and if you insert a blank unlinked disk image and copy the floppy disk to it over IEC, the image loads just fine from the Ultimate II+. When you write that image to D64 format, the D64 image no longer works, but that is expected because the D64 only allows for standard format disks. When you try to write it to a G64 image (keep in mind there is no IEC access during that write), it still hangs up when flushing out that in-memory image to the USB stick, so I am pretty convinced that the issue is between the UII+ and the USB stick, and not the 1541 drive to the UII+. I will go into a little more detail about it in an upcoming floppy copy demonstration video. Also, thanks for the simultaneous button press tip! That's great! :)
Awesome video, really helpful, thanks. That direct loading of PRG files has sold me. Still hate that I can't use a micro-sd just like flash carts for every other system.
Very nice review - I wish could You demonstrate the ethernet capabilities especially the file transfer method, maybe in a follow up video - that would be great! The ending cracked me up hehe :) I'm off to watch Your plastic-fix video now, have a good day!
The lack of a good fast loading option for disk images is a real drag. Even with an Epyx fastloader, I have games that take well over a minute to load. I have pretty shitty fast loader for my 1581, but that can load a 205 Block game in about 8 seconds. It takes longer to load the fast loader than it does to load the biggest game I have. I'm not quite sure why they didn't give you a fast option other than those crt images. From what I understand, the really fast ones don't work with a large % of games. I think the AR changes the interleaving and can achieve 15x speed, which isn't bad. So they should have a PC based utility to change the d64 images to match the AR interleave system.
Awesome I want to see more now. LOL I didn't even now of this. I will be looking into it. I am here in the USA, Michigan. Looking forward to more videos. I would like to see something like the Newsroom software pack that used the modem to share news report ported over to a net work with this kind setup. or even Outrageous Pages, Geos ( all we can, Right! ) Hey later and thank you for taking the time to do and post the video. Great. New Follower now. Keep up the work. :D
Cool review. Regarding the USB stick size, try to partition it with smaller partitions. Try 8GB partitions, it should work. I've ordered my 1541U2+ with 32GB stick, I guess it will be pre-partitioned into 4x8GB or 2x16GB. Not sure what the actual limit is. Some people say 16GB, some say 8GB.
James Valvis I had preordered it a month or two ahead. But when it shipped, I think it was about a week to receive it. I think others here may be able to tell more. Might check with the guys on the Facebook page for the Ultimate II.
Thanks, Sean. I'm trying to decide between getting the Ultimate II and the SD2IEC and am a little scared off by the Ultimate II saying it might take "months" to get it. I realize he's just a one-man gig, but I don't want to wait that long, especially when paying over twice as much. By the way, were the games pre-loaded on the stick provided or did you need to download them? Pretty cool to get a Metal Jesus comment on your first vid. Score! Subscribing...
James Valvis Yeah, I guess it all depends on how backlogged he is. It is just a one man operation. No games come preloaded, so you do need to provide your own roms, same as the SD2IEC. I haven't used the SD2IEC, but I think it does not have quite as many features as the ultimate. For instance, no cartridge support I believe.
Well, I guess I'll need to learn how to do that then. I'm just getting back into it after not using my C64 since about 1987-- life intervened. The learning curve on some of this stuff is greater than I expected. Minus a few Basic commands, I've forgotten pretty much everything I knew, and there's a bunch of new stuff to learn. But I'm having fun with it and videos like yours are really helping. Thanks, Sean.
America is a crazy place. NTSC, driving on the wrong side of the road, 110VAC, imperial measurements, BLM, and let's not forget - the right to be gun nuts. 😹
Yea we roll 20% faster, sing in higher pitches, drive on the wrong side of the road for miles and not kilometers LOL! Oh and none of the cool PAL demos! (I tried, trust me!) Cheers!
Holy Crap!! that version of Prince of Persia was amazing!! I played it on the Amiga and PC.. But that version was shockingly good for a C64, (my first computer was of course a C64... godlike to say the least!).
Thank you for watching my first video for my new channel, Sean's Retroverse! Coming up, I have a couple of videos to post soon, including a magical restoration trick I found out for welding broken off plastic pieces inside a joystick with acetone, and fixing up a dodgy cartridge port on an Atari XEGS game system! Those videos should be up in the next couple of days. In the future are plans of finishing up my Asteroids Deluxe machine, hopefully repairing a couple of Commodore 64 computers suffering from the black screen of death, and starting some restorations on a couple of Atari computers (a 1200XL and 130XE) I also have a TI99/4a to dig into as well, so I hope to bring some good content to this channel over the next couple of months! Hope to see you there! -Sean
Hi,
You mentioned another video about converting your old floppies over to the USB drive. I would really really like to see how this is done. I have been waiting for a product I felt comfortable doing that with and would love to see how the set up changes especially the connections to your 1541 or 1571 drive and how you use the software to do the copying. I noticed that you said at the time of your two videos that the built in ultra copy was not working; Has that changed?
And also I noticed you had Fast Hackem (lol) ah so many memories.... Anyway VERY EAGER to see (even a quick video of how to set it up and copy). I am guessing like you I have a variety of discs (some that have many many games on a single side while I have others that are multi-sided games and would be grateful to see how it works. I believe I still have a working C128 + 1571 dual drives and possibly 1 or 2 - 1541 drives. I always used fans which helped prolong the lives on my equipment but i lost my C64 to a bad power supply.
P.S. In case all my disks (I have at least 8 different 50-100ct cases of games) turn out to be F.U.B.A.R. and really so I can limit the wear and tear on my original equipment --> I also noticed you using what seemed to be a nice emulator (VICE?) on a windows 10 pc.
I would be eternally grateful for your list of what you think are the best Commodore 64 emulators to use on a modern day PC (windows). I could create a linux box as well if there is a particularly good or better version for that.
And also the best places to download games and program files. I have spent the last couple of days researching the current state of commodore replacement parts, add-on cards etc. but it is a lot to catch up on and I'm feeling overwhelmed. - HUGE TIA for any and all help
Thank you sir. I am waiting for mine.
Really nice. Glad to see the homebrew for these old machines is alive and well. I don't see people making items like this for current computers in 30 years.
I'm encouraged to see so many C64 fans in the USA. In Australia, we only had British Commodore magazines back in the day and all of the US magazines were IBM & Apple so I assumed it wasn't a thing over there. Looking at the 1541UII+ web site, most of the visitors are from Germany and the USA though.
I have MMC Replay I bought years back. Considering going to 1541 Ultimate, but haven't pulled the trigger on it yet.
I didn't realize there was a Bruce Lee II?! MIND BLOWN
MetalJesusRocks Hey Metal Jesus! Thanks for stopping by! I enjoy your channel quite a bit!
How about a Kelsey REACT video, see her play a few C=64 classics, or would she scoff? (Fine Bros joke)
-not sure I would use the Epyx fastloader - MULE took ages to load with it
Thanks for the review! I have one of these on my radar, after I am done paying for all the other retro stuff I have been buying. Geez. Expensive hobby!
Missing a sd card slot is Dissapointing. I wonder if a small micro sd usb adapter would work.
Great Job Sean! You should come by and visit the folks on AtariAge. We love all things retro and modern, computers and gaming. I ordered this device (and still waiting for it!) and was hard pressed to find some really solid information on it. I like to watch reviews and such for items I have coming. You did all of that including a tear down. Much appreciated and subscribed!
I actually am already a member at AtariAge, but admittedly I haven't been as active there for a while. I suppose I could go drop an invite to visit my new channel in their forum now. :) I am working on editing a video of a repair of a dodgy cartridge slot on an Atari XEGS that might be of interest to Atari fans, along with a clean up and restoration on a 130XE with an unknown mod switch on the back (Maybe a Pill mod?) So, yeah, I think AtariAge members might be interested in some things I am working on! ;)
I'd guess one port is a JTAG (used to do the original firmware installation at fabrication and for debugging) and the unsoldered port is UART (serial)
What are those clicks though when first switched on ? mine does this , my Ultimate 2 and Ultimate 1 never made this double click sound ?
As I recall, that was an unintended noise, but functionally not a problem. I do believe Gideon fixed on the next revision, so ones purchased now should not do that.
@@seansretroverse9082 Cheers , Now I know the cause , It will not bother me as much.
I would guess the "internal expansion port" is for flashing the firmware for the first time.
Can that IEC cable go to a real 1541 and daisy chain? If not, when this cart is plugged in you have no access to a real 1541 or 1581 or printer or anything else, right?
tarstarkusz Yes, you can daisy chain with a real 1541 drive and copy disks between a real 1541 and the ultimate. I actually am planning a video to demo this.
Just wanted to say this is a great video. As an Apple II enthusiast looking to get into the C64 scene, it's all here in this vid. Well done.
8:57 its port for burning that eprom or what ever chip is that.i think
My Ultimate II+ didn’t come with the data cassette adapter - is that available from any seller or is Gideon’s shop the only reseller?
You have to order it from Gideon. It's worth a mention that you need to explicitly order the cassette adapter if you want it.
Thanks, I emailed him and I’m waiting to hear back. If you happen to know anyone who has a spare, please let me know. I’m really kicking myself for not ordering it along with the rest of the kit!
I was a major pirate of c64 stuff and this seems like the ultimate of ultimate tools if you want to relive your old massive collection that, in my case, I gave away when i went over to Amiga... nice video.
i keep seeing videos for Ultimate II Plus and i still have not gotten mine lol there on mad Backorder..
About the issue with the Roland disk image appearing blank: is that just a bug, or is there a good reason for it? I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that you can still see the files in it, but it requires going in a different way.
That internal 10 pin port is likely JTAG for programming the FPGA.
Very well done. Love the details and bug report. I would love to see you do a video about the the Ethernet and getting it online in some fashion. 2 Thumbs up!!
Are most programs compatible with breaking into the UII+ menu? I would think that would be problematic for programs written for a single-tasking OS.
I'm also wondering: does the freeze button's actual function depend on whether you have e.g. Retro Replay loaded in there or some other cartridge image? Or does it invoke a freeze function in the UII+ itself?
Great review! I wanted to know if the final cart II works ok with the C=128D with installed jiffydos and the servant rom. thanks
I am not up on the current compatibility with JiffyDos. I seem to recall there was some incompatibility, but I can't say for sure. You might want to post that question to the Facebook page, as that's the most active community there.
I just got my UII+ today, question the microSD for external power, is that to provide power or receive power?
That is an excellent question! It is so the Ultimate II+ can receive supplemental power. Why would you need this? Simple, it is so you can run it as a stand alone drive without using up the cartridge port on your 64. If you control it over Ethernet, it can work without being plugged into the cartridge port. This also means you can actually use the II+ with other Commodore computers, like the VIC-20, for instance. The main thing to remember is to use the UII+ this way, is you must control it via Ethernet.
Can it pretend to be a CMD hard drive? Is it C128 & or CP/M modes friendly? Will it run a WiFi usb stick for networking? Can it hold a Turbo rom? JiffyDos etc.
Lots of questions! I believe the answer to most of these is currently no*:
CMD hard drive: I don't think so
c128 or CP/M friendly: not really per se. It can be used without being plugged into the cartridge port as a stand alone 1541 drive, but I think you will not get the 1571 double sided drive support, so yea, it's pretty limited as a C128 device. I believe if you put it in the cartridge port on a 128, it will boot into 64 mode.
wifi stick: I know this was not originally supported, but I know some people were I think working on support for it. I do not know the current status for wifi support.
Turbo/JiffyDOS: maybe. I know soft kernal replacements can be done via cartridges, but I have not personally tried this.
would suggest researching Gideon's site and forums for the true answers to most of these questions. My take is this is really intended primarily as a virtual 1541 disk drive, tape drive, cartridge, and REU. I otherwise do not have a quick answer for you on this one, as I currently have my c64 in storage. Sorry I can't be of more use on this question - these are all great questions.
Allow me to refer you to a recent video posted by retrobits. This video is very well done and covers many of the advanced and more recently developed features that my video here does not cover!
th-cam.com/video/L3JwAmPUIIw/w-d-xo.html
Do the freeze functions allow you to save your place in a game?
That is a fair question. The short answer is no (I think?) As I recall, I do not think it has any type of instant save state like you have in an emulator (I could be wrong). That being said, it does support freezer cartridges such as super snapshot. While you could use this for saving a state during gameplay, you still have to dump it to disk and reload it from disk. This was mostly used for beaking copy protection, i.e. freeze right when the game finished loading and save that to disk. Where I could be wrong here is I think it is likely to technically be somewhat possible, as the Ultimate II Plus supports a lot of RAM expansion options, so I think utilities could be written to swap the main system memory in and out. Where the problems occur is some of the hardware like the SID and maybe the VIC-II cannot be save stated perfectly, so it would probably be glitchy.
9:14 serial console for debigging. i think
Nice!! Where can i buy this cartridge?
Can't get the tape sampler to work but other than that, it's a great device.
Very good video! But seriously a Quickshot II+ is the joystick of your choice?
Yeah, at the time, that was what was readily available, and it held up reasonable well. Still, nowadays I might be tempted to build something out of arcade joystick parts. Just out of curiosity, what joystick do you recommend, 8penguin?
I use this:www.richardlagendijk.nl/foto/cip/joystick_elite_2002_01.jpg
I had one of those back in the days and bought it again two years ago. My problem is that I need the stick in the right hand and nearly all arcade sticks which you can buy have the stick on the left hand. The only one I found is the qamba q2 (static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/271672/20592804/1349933153583/q2_standard_large1.jpg?token=g9%2FXidxi9pYtnaXJH7FVLxXWH3Q%3D) I love it for mame games but it is not good enough for C64 jump&runs. The buttons trigger to easily and as you know old school games are unforgiving and they need a perfect timing.
So I guess building one by myself might also be a good idea. Make a video when you create your arcade stick! I enjoyed the style of this video.
Love the Joystick. I think my favorite joystick for the c64 is the Slickstick for most games, and a Wico boss for Gunship / F14 / Top Gun.
Nice Video. I have the older 1541U2. BTW I really recommend JiffyDos as fastload option. As you said in your Vid, for one-filers, you don't need a fastloader at all. For multi-file games the fastloader of these cartridges usually don't work anymore. JD, however, still works most of the time. Check it out.
The only thing I really miss on the 1541U is write-support for EasyFlash. Maybe we'll get this one day via firmware update.
Nice video! One hint: if you mount a disk while something else is running on the machine, you can as well just reset with the button; the newly chosen image should still be mounted, so you can use it right away. At least that's how it works on my Mark I, but I guess that hasn't changed. Good luck with the transfer of your disks, please share them when you're done. :-)
Yeah, I could just have used the reset button, but I also got used to unloading cart images using the Reboot option because when you hit reset with a cart image, it just restarts the cart.
That's true - which is also what you want if you have a fastload cartridge attached. Of course not so much if it is a game cartridge. ;-)
Very nice review thank you! Can I load C64 Cassettes with Ultimate+ ?
mr. Markus Yes, if you have the optional cassette adapter. It's and additional purchase when you order.
Any trick to actually buy one of these? It has been a week since I ordered one (I think) and paid (via PayPal), but I have received zero response. No confirmation of order, no confirmation of payment. I emailed him a couple days ago asking him to at least confirm my payment, and still no response. I may need to cancel payment while I still can.
SGT Dave Just keep in mind that Gideon is just one guy, and you probably waiting for the next time he ships another batch of them. I know he's been busy on the new C64 Utlimate boards (a full modern board replacement for the C64 itself). When you order from Gideon directly, it requires a bit of patience because he does shipping batches every 2 or 3 months, when he has enough orders to fulfill in one shot. If you want a unit a bit quicker, then you may want to check eBay. You may pay a little mark up, but you will get it in short order. Don't worry though, it's not just you, everyone has to wait to get theirs.
Also, your best bet for communications on when he's doing orders is Facebook. Look for the "1541 Ultimate" page there, as that tends to be where the most active group is for these.
Great Video. :) I got one question. Is it easy/possible to copy files between different .d64 Files? And is it possible to connect a real 1541 to the Ultimate II+ and copy files from and to a real disc/.d64? Would be really nice if you could answer this question!
Es wird Morgen Webradio Absolutely, its a fairly easy process to copy back and forth with a real 1541. In fact, I am planning to review the newest firmware and also cover copying as well. Stay tuned!
Great, thank you for this information :-)
if you use the most recent firmware available for the ultimateII+ it has a new rewritten sid player so it might have more features than the sid player in this video (i havn't tried it yet as i havn;t ordered ultimateII+ yet but about to :)
This has probably been asked a lot of times, but still I must ask it again. Is this 128 compatable in 64 mode or does it require a dedicated c64?
Oh geez...the first time i was "upgraded" by a commodore product in my adult lite. Yep. I feel fine. I have the 1541u2, with tape adapter, of course. I still think the 1541u2 was the best investment i ever made in the c 64. Of course, the addition of ethernet was a logical addition...and i lack that...so ya. Worth upgrading for sure! Barring that ill build a NIC card. Its actually not that much more stuff...and my user port is very naked.
Sean, I appreciate this video. I am definitely getting myself one!
If you must have microSD there are tiny USB card adapters that works very well.
Your "expansion" connector is most likely the programming connector for the FPGA.
Four pin connector position might be a debug connector, to hook up a serial connection and get all debug outputs.
Hate the default cartridge setting, there should be no cartridge at all for default...
If you load original games from TAP over the datassette interface - you may need to disable drive as some games are protected and won't load with drive active.
Still no save on Easyflash carts tough.
You don't have to "powercycle" - reset with simultaneous pressing and hold for a second all three buttons of the cart.
You need a 1571 or a parallel cable to write G64 to a Zoomfloppy connected drive IIRC, would surprise me if the Ultimate II+ could write a G64 to real 1541 over just plain IEC cable.
Thanks for the clarification, e5frog! They make sense. I also thought maybe the 4 unpopulated solder pads might be more for debug use as well, and it does make sense that the internal connector is probably for programming the FPGA. As far as the G64 issue goes, I tested it to great length, and if you insert a blank unlinked disk image and copy the floppy disk to it over IEC, the image loads just fine from the Ultimate II+. When you write that image to D64 format, the D64 image no longer works, but that is expected because the D64 only allows for standard format disks. When you try to write it to a G64 image (keep in mind there is no IEC access during that write), it still hangs up when flushing out that in-memory image to the USB stick, so I am pretty convinced that the issue is between the UII+ and the USB stick, and not the 1541 drive to the UII+. I will go into a little more detail about it in an upcoming floppy copy demonstration video.
Also, thanks for the simultaneous button press tip! That's great! :)
Thanks for the review. That helped me a lot to decide if I risk spending that much money (which I do now ;-) )
Thanks for the review. I'll have to buy one of these.
Awesome video, really helpful, thanks. That direct loading of PRG files has sold me.
Still hate that I can't use a micro-sd just like flash carts for every other system.
Very nice review - I wish could You demonstrate the ethernet capabilities especially the file transfer method, maybe in a follow up video - that would be great! The ending cracked me up hehe :) I'm off to watch Your plastic-fix video now, have a good day!
The lack of a good fast loading option for disk images is a real drag. Even with an Epyx fastloader, I have games that take well over a minute to load. I have pretty shitty fast loader for my 1581, but that can load a 205 Block game in about 8 seconds. It takes longer to load the fast loader than it does to load the biggest game I have. I'm not quite sure why they didn't give you a fast option other than those crt images. From what I understand, the really fast ones don't work with a large % of games. I think the AR changes the interleaving and can achieve 15x speed, which isn't bad. So they should have a PC based utility to change the d64 images to match the AR interleave system.
High quality video 👍
Awesome I want to see more now. LOL I didn't even now of this. I will be looking into it. I am here in the USA, Michigan. Looking forward to more videos. I would like to see something like the Newsroom software pack that used the modem to share news report ported over to a net work with this kind setup. or even Outrageous Pages, Geos ( all we can, Right! )
Hey later and thank you for taking the time to do and post the video. Great. New Follower now. Keep up the work. :D
Great video and so helpful for a new user. Thanks!
Cool review. Regarding the USB stick size, try to partition it with smaller partitions. Try 8GB partitions, it should work. I've ordered my 1541U2+ with 32GB stick, I guess it will be pre-partitioned into 4x8GB or 2x16GB. Not sure what the actual limit is. Some people say 16GB, some say 8GB.
Superb video. Thanks for posting dude!
Fantastic review, top class effort. Thank you...
How long did it take you to get it?
James Valvis I had preordered it a month or two ahead. But when it shipped, I think it was about a week to receive it. I think others here may be able to tell more. Might check with the guys on the Facebook page for the Ultimate II.
Thanks, Sean. I'm trying to decide between getting the Ultimate II and the SD2IEC and am a little scared off by the Ultimate II saying it might take "months" to get it. I realize he's just a one-man gig, but I don't want to wait that long, especially when paying over twice as much. By the way, were the games pre-loaded on the stick provided or did you need to download them?
Pretty cool to get a Metal Jesus comment on your first vid. Score!
Subscribing...
James Valvis Yeah, I guess it all depends on how backlogged he is. It is just a one man operation. No games come preloaded, so you do need to provide your own roms, same as the SD2IEC. I haven't used the SD2IEC, but I think it does not have quite as many features as the ultimate. For instance, no cartridge support I believe.
Well, I guess I'll need to learn how to do that then. I'm just getting back into it after not using my C64 since about 1987-- life intervened. The learning curve on some of this stuff is greater than I expected. Minus a few Basic commands, I've forgotten pretty much everything I knew, and there's a bunch of new stuff to learn. But I'm having fun with it and videos like yours are really helping. Thanks, Sean.
Would love to see you get this connected to the internet and visit Borderline BBS. Oh my... I think i just got goose bumps.
America is a crazy place. NTSC, driving on the wrong side of the road, 110VAC, imperial measurements, BLM, and let's not forget - the right to be gun nuts. 😹
Yea we roll 20% faster, sing in higher pitches, drive on the wrong side of the road for miles and not kilometers LOL! Oh and none of the cool PAL demos! (I tried, trust me!) Cheers!
Holy Crap!! that version of Prince of Persia was amazing!! I played it on the Amiga and PC.. But that version was shockingly good for a C64, (my first computer was of course a C64... godlike to say the least!).
Good Review for an American ;)
Thanks, joerhorton! I know when dealing with the C64 a lot of my viewers are across the Atlantic, and so I appreciate the kind words! :) Cheers!
Ahhhhhhh M.U.L.E.
My favorite game of all time on the Atari/C64. :)
Great video, thanks!
Nice review.
Now, I want one :-)
Nice! Cheers
This was a great video, verry informative! Keep up the great work. +1 sub here
ciao amico,saluti dalla Sicilia