MMC64 pros and cons
MMC64. Should you buy it? Here I have listed pros and cons of this cartridge after using it for longer than a year:
Pros
- Inexpensive storage
SD cards are really cheap nowadays and they are easy to find. A 1gb sandisk that costs about 15$ holds all the HVSC archive and all my games and still have 500mb free space.
- Really fast loading times
Faster than 1581, 64hdd and ide64. Actually the only thing it cannot beat must be a cartridge =)
- Cheap, cheap, cheap
Considering the other options, this is the most cost effective modern storage solution for c64. Shipping is also cheap because of its:
- Small size
It fits in a standart C= cartridge case. It just needs to be slightly modified to make an sd card slot. It is pretty light so you dont have to put something underneath the cartridge for the fear of breaking the edge connector.
Cons
- Closed source and slow moving firmware
Documentation is scarce. The firmware is being developed by a single guy, Oliver Achten. While it is a big feat of programming it slows down the process.
- Mostly readonly access
The only tool that can write to sdcard is a floppy reader. It reads the inserted disk and converts it to a d64 format file. There are no other software i know of that can write on sdcard.
- No 1541 emulation
And this means no fastloaders, no multipart demos. This is really a big downside.
Last Words
MMC64 from Individual Computers surely is a big step forward on the way to eliminating long loading times from increasingly hard to find media. Even though the hardware is working really well, I believe the available firmware is far from complete and an opensource model should be considered for firmware development. All in all MMC64 was a great buy for me.
If you also happen to have a Retro Replay cartridge "MMC64+RR disk image mounter" allows you to mount d64 images from your SD card. Many games are known to work with this setup:
MMC64+RR Disk Image Mounter @ SymbolEngine
MMC64+RR Disk Image Mounter @ CSDB
If don't happen to have one fear not! For there is "Sasq's alternative BIOS" that can load some ide64 fixed games.It's not as compatible as the former but what can you say?
Sasq's alternative BIOS for MMC64 @ SymbolEngine
Sasq's alternative BIOS for MMC64 @ NightMode
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I have been looking for days about pros/cons for MMC64 and RR, because i could not decide which to buy. And i had actually no idea that you couldn’t write to the SD card from the C64?! :p
I’m looking for a perfect setup for developing ON the C64 (not cross-asm on the pc). The RR with TASS in the ROM looks neat, but i still need an easy way for storing and managing my source/gfx files.. Any suggestions?
May 8th, 2007 | #
If you are going to do development on your C64 you definitely need a RR. I have used one on a demo party. It is a breeze to just run tass by typing tass. RR also has a good turbo loader and F key mappings so working on a 5.25 disk drive is not that bad. (If you can find working floppy disks, that is).
If you have an old PC lying around 64hdd may be a nice alternative. It supports basic I/O and uses the pc’s harddisk as a storage. Bu you will have to run DOS on it (FreeDOS will do). But if you will be working with trackloaders your only option is a real floppy drive.
Why don’t you consider cross development? It is a pretty good alternative. Even with a cardridge you can use all the memory available on your c64 if you dont crossdevelop, because you will be using ram for TASS and your program source.
May 8th, 2007 | #