Jim Brain Easyflash 3

ggizmotigger · Groupie Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 223 Location: uk

Well i hope nothing goes wrong with anything or it would be expensive trying to get replacement on items if getting charged import charges at that amount money

ggizmotigger

mistermsk · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:17 pm Post subject:

enthusi wrote:

Well, it _IS_ no gift. And the charge is your country's law.
I dont see how Jim did anything wrong there.
Sending as gift might be nice and I always appreciate it, but it would be plain wrong and might cause potential trouble in the end.

I totally agree. That is a 'tax' your country put on the item for importing. If you go to a store and they charge you a tax, do you ask them to pay for it? Also, most items in the U.S. exclude sales tax in the price. if he had a store in a strip mall and his state charged sales tax on an item. Then it would be Jim's price + the sales tax.
_________________

lukasSid · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:07 pm Post subject:

But delivery companies add tax let's say £2 and handling fee of £12.
Sellers from hong kong sending small stuff as a commercial sample and there is zero to pay.
_________________

c64midi.com
total-kontrol.webs.com

mistermsk · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 6:31 pm Post subject:

lukasSid wrote:

But delivery companies add tax let's say £2 and handling fee of £12.
Sellers from hong kong sending small stuff as a commercial sample and there is zero to pay.

But it was not an an additional shipping charge (with the company delivering the item). It was an import tax/fee.

Hypothetical, let say I bought liquor outside of my country. I paid for the item and also to have it shipped. The country I am in has a liquor tax on anything over 1.5 liters or so. When I pick it up at the port. I would need to pay that tax. The shipper did not have to pay it. I had to pay it in addition to what I payed for the item and for the shipping charges I had to pay.

To me, it is not Jim's fault for you not knowing your import taxes/fees to your country when ordering items outside your country to have them brought in.
_________________

e5frog · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:02 pm Post subject:

hurminator wrote:

Forgive me if this has already been addressed: Do you program it via PC or from the C64? How hard is it to program/update/add kernals or easy flash crt's?

Last time I checked the USB connection to PC and programming interface that way wasn't ready yet.

@ggizmotigger
Stop it, it's up to Jim if he wants to break the law and send it as a gift or not or set a false lower value - yes break the law...
If you plan on buying other things perhaps you can have it sent to a friend in the US and then have him send it to you in a private package - as a gift, then the law breaking is between you two friends instead. Not that it matters that it's sent as a gift as it's the declared value that decides if there's import taxes or not.
Remember it might actually be cheaper to buy stuff one at the time so you don't get the import tax/toll added. You should always prepare to pay the import tax when buying stuff from outside of E.C. - you can get lucky sometimes though and not have to pay it.
I don't think Jim should add any sales tax when exporting goods though, not sure if the prices on his web page include sales tax or not.

Regarding Retro-Donald, he is in Germany, which is within the European Community as is the UK so no import taxes. There might be an upper limit of how much is allowed but probably nothing we'll have to worry about though.

lukasSid · Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2012 9:46 pm Post subject:

Let's say you buyig somethig from outside the EU for £20 you will pay VAT £4 and Royal Mail handling fee of £8.
Some companies charge more for slaping sticker on your parcel up to £15.
Anyway it's not sellers fault, is it?
Ebay sellers lie on declaration to not anger western customers for sake of good feedback. But it's illegal and why you expect Jim to do that?
I think Jim Brain pricing is very atractive anyway, I have no problem buyig from him, even if I'm so unlucky and got custom charge everytime.
_________________

c64midi.com
total-kontrol.webs.com

ceratophyllum · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 3:51 pm Post subject:

Quote:

I'd caution against thinking that all developers and designers have a mentality that the C128 is not worth supporting.

I want to support it. But, there are marked differences (at the electrical level) between the C64 and the C128.

I'm not a big fan of custom kernels. Except for JiffyDOS, which I already have. Maybe most enthusiasts feel differently? The main thing I would want an EF3 for is that it holds 7 EF images. That's pretty convenient. Maybe there could be a C128-friendly EF2.5?

I did not wish to cast any blame or negativity on you and the other makers of fun new Commodore toys. I'm just guessing that there ARE way more C64s out there, so it only makes sense to target that hardware first. The trade-offs, inconsistencies, hidden "features" and kludges keep the hobby interesting. What a Frankenstein, 8-bit Swiss army knife machine the C128 is! I never even considered buying one in the 80s due to the high price and the fairly obvious writing on the wall that it would be all x86 PCs, and maybe a few Macs, from the 90s on.

Chameleon and the other European gadgets are fun, but I still find myself coming back to uIEC/SD and jiffyDOS on my C64. It's just the funnest, cheapest, most versatile, way to get files in and out of a C64/128. A lot of IDE64 singular stuff (multi-disk games shuffled, patched, massaged to run out of a single directory), including the Ultima games, works on uIEC/SD. And JiffyDOS feels more retro to me than freezer menus.

btw, I'm not knocking Chameleon either. According to the mailing list, it will probably will not support the C128 anytime soon. They say it still needs work, but the C64 VGA looks pretty good to me right now (beta7). While I don't care about the freezer menu file browser stuff, the standalone Amiga core totally blew me away: finally, it is possible to to play all those charmingly cheesy Amiga Sonic-knockoff games again, but on a USB-powered machine that fits in your pocket! Purists may complain that this is not like the real thing, but it is not like an emulator on a PC either.

ilesj · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:12 pm Post subject:

ceratophyllum wrote:

I'm not a big fan of custom kernels. Except for JiffyDOS, which I already have. Maybe most enthusiasts feel differently? The main thing I would want an EF3 for is that it holds 7 EF images. That's pretty convenient. Maybe there could be a C128-friendly EF2.5?

brain wrote:

The part that makes it incompatible with the C128 is the "KERNAL CART" portion of EF3.

Since you are not interested in the KERNAL part, you don't have to worry about it. Just have fun with the seven EasyFlash slots.

Hidron · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:26 pm Post subject:

ilesj wrote:

ceratophyllum wrote:

I'm not a big fan of custom kernels. Except for JiffyDOS, which I already have. Maybe most enthusiasts feel differently? The main thing I would want an EF3 for is that it holds 7 EF images. That's pretty convenient. Maybe there could be a C128-friendly EF2.5?

brain wrote:

The part that makes it incompatible with the C128 is the "KERNAL CART" portion of EF3.

Since you are not interested in the KERNAL part, you don't have to worry about it. Just have fun with the seven EasyFlash slots.

I am confused now. Will it actually work on a 128 if you don't try to use the Kernal portion?
_________________

Commodore will live forever!

Unseen · Über Groupie Joined: 26 Feb 2008 Posts: 361

ceratophyllum wrote:

Maybe there could be a C128-friendly EF2.5?

Why should there be? The EF3 can most likely be made C128-compatible just by reprogramming the CPLD on the board and by design the only additional hardware you need for that is a PC and a USB cable.

skoe mentioned that he plans to release a CPLD update that adds C128-compatibility at some point, but I think he's working on USB support in the EF3 menu right now.
_________________

Code:

10 a=rnd(-1294):fori=1to52:a=rnd(1):next
20 fori=1to5:printchr$(rnd(1)*11+69);:next
30 printint(rnd(1)*4711)-3590

sd2iec homepage

skoe · Groupie in Training Joined: 03 Sep 2009 Posts: 121

Oh, I didn't read this for a few days. There are quite a few questions, I'll try to answer them.

First of all: Yes, I plan to write better documentation on the easyflash website. But there's still much development work to be done, that's why I didn't find time to write much of it. It's just a hobby project for me and my time is limited. Hopefully you are patient enough to wait until the documentation is there. Or if you can't wait for the documentation and want to have an EF3 nevertheless, I hope people in the forums can help each other with it Smile

Quote:

So, is the 128 not supported at all or is it supported in C64 mode? From what I'm seeing, I'm guessing not at all.

At the moment I wouldn't recommend C128 users to buy an EF3. Some things may work already, but it's not tested nor officially tested. Some differences where explained by Jim already, additionally there must be some logic when to enter the C128 mode and when to go to the C64 mode, which is controlled by the GAME and EXROM lines. Also the 2 MHz mode which is used by some programs in C64 mode, needs special care. It is used by PoP.

Quote:

skoe mentioned that he plans to release a CPLD update that adds C128-compatibility at some point, but I think he's working on USB support in the EF3 menu right now.

I plan to do this, yes. Fortunately I own a C128 so I can make the measurements and changes needed. I can't promise that all features will work, but in the next months I'll try to implement it as well as possible.

To update the CPLD one needs a Windows or Linux PC and an USB cable. No special equipment is needed.

Quote:

C64 KERNAL CART... now with added EasyFlash functionality.

I know that this is the most important part for you, Jim Wink

But from my point of view it's the other way around. My vision behind an EasyFlash successor was an EasyFlash with several slots (virtual EasyFlash 1 partitions) plus an old-school freezer cartridge. The reason: I used to use Final Cartridge III or Action Replay and didn't want to swap my EasyFlash and FC-III too often. Here in this forum one or two years ago we talked about an USB port too. This all was implemented in an EasyFlash 2 prototype which was the base for the EasyFlash 3 like it looks now. The EasyFlash 2 was never sold to public by anybody, it was just for "research". In the meantime Stingray made his Alien Flash, which came quite close to what I expected from an EasyFlash successor.

Of course the KERNAL implementation is also an important part of the EF3, some people may find it more useful and some less.

ilesj answered most of the following questions correctly already, thanks! Please take my duplicated answers as a confirmation Smile

Please check his excellent EF3 introduction on his blog: http://ilesj.wordpress.com/201...-hands-on/
It's much better than the (non-existing) official documentation Smile

Quote:

2) Can you bypass the Easyflash? Basically just use it as a kernal replacement?

Yes, when you switch on the C64 you are thrown into a menu screen. You can press a button there (or keep it held down when you switch on your C64) to enter one of the modes. You can see the menu in the blog too:
http://ilesj.files.wordpress.c...3-menu.jpg

Each of these mode does _only_ do what is written there. If you select an EasyFlash slot you have no KERNAL, if you select a KERNAL you have no EasyFlash slot (cartridge) attached. Currently there's no mixture of different modes. USB is active in EasyFlash mode only at the moment, but I think about to enable it in other modes too. I'll write more about this below.

"Kill" deactivates the cartridge completely.

Quote:

4) By using the Easyflash 3 as a Kernal replacement, can you in turn use a cartridge expander and use it with a 1541Ultimate II?

Never use current cartridges like 1541U, Chameleon or EasyFlash 3 on a cartridge expander. Best case would be that it behaves strange, worst case it that something gets damaged.

Quote:

using the Easyflash 3 as a Kernal replacement with a freeze cartridge?

Jim forgot to mention some features on his page which I consider as quite important: The EasyFlash 3 can run Action Replay, Retro Replay, Nordic Power and Super Snapshot 5 firmware images. You can write it to flash with EasyProg. They do not occupy one of the 7 EasyFlash slots. The EF3 implements these cartridges with a working freeze button (the button called "Special" acts as freeze button in these modes). Jim told me that he'll add this information soon.

But, as already mentioned: These freezer cartridges can't be started from the menu at the same time as a KERNAL.

The author of the Retro Replay firmware, Count Zero agreed to ship the EF3 with his software on it. Super Snapshot 5 software is not on the flash memory because of legal reasons.

Quote:

Do you program it via PC or from the C64? How hard is it to program/update/add kernals or easy flash crt's? For instance, the first version of Easy Flash requires loading the images from floppy (or uIEC)

It's the same as with EasyFlash. In addition you can flash CRT images over USB as soon as I completed the software for it. USB is quite handy especially for large CRT files.

KERNALs and freezer cartridge images can be flashed as BIN files from disk using EasyProg.

Quote:

Also, if once you have it set up the way you like, does it remember your preferences or do you have to select them every time you turn on the C64?

What do you mean with preference? What you started last? No, the menu pops up each time you switch on the C64. You can hold down a key to enter a certain mode. Maybe muuuuch later I can add something to the software like a default mode.

About the philosophy of the buttons: There are 3 of them:

"Menu" => Reset into the main menu, like cold boot.

"Reset" => Reset but do not change the mode. e.g. let the current KERNAL or EasyFlash slot active, but reset it

"Special" => Depends from the mode:

In EasyFlash mode and in the main menu it's like the tiny switch on the EF, it keeps the EF mode active but doesn't start the software, so you enter BASIC.

When a freezer cartridge is active, it acts as freeze button.

When a KERNAL is active, it does nothing.

Quote:

Chameleon and the other European gadgets are fun, but I still find myself coming back to uIEC/SD and jiffyDOS on my C64.

Sounds like EF/EF3 is the right thing for you: It's still 100% C64 but with some additions like old-school game cartridges (similar to Ocean cartridges, which was the initial idea behind EF) and traditional freezer cartridges. Well, the USB port is not old-school, but that's only to support data transfer Smile

btw. EF/EF3 are developed in Europe Smile

Last word: The USB software works like this: Currently it runs on Linux and Windows. You switch on the C64 (EF3 shows the menu), click on a button of the PC software GUI called EasyTransfer (or use the command line) to start a PRG file. 1 second later it's running on your C64. Or you send a CRT file which causes the menu to start EasyProg automatically and to ask you on which slot you want to write it. You can also send a d64 file which is written to a real disk on your 1541 in about 33 seconds. This all is not released yet, but I hope I can do this soon.

And don't forget: Have fun!
_________________

---
skoe.de/easyflash

hurminator · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:40 pm Post subject:

Quote:

What do you mean with preference? What you started last? No, the menu pops up each time you switch on the C64. You can hold down a key to enter a certain mode. Maybe muuuuch later I can add something to the software like a default mode.

Thanks for the answer. Yes, that is what I meant. I may just want to turn on the computer and have JiffyDOS start up without having to select anything. Sometimes, I may just want to have a game cart start up when I flip the switch. Hopefully, default mode is added one day. Either way, I am looking forward to getting one when Jim gets them produced. Smile

mistermsk · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 10:47 pm Post subject:

hurminator wrote:

Thanks for the answer. Yes, that is what I meant. I may just want to turn on the computer and have JiffyDOS start up without having to select anything. Sometimes, I may just want to have a game cart start up when I flip the switch. Hopefully, default mode is added one day. Either way, I am looking forward to getting one when Jim gets them produced. Smile

I totally agreed. I know a few people that are just buying the cartridge to use a different kernel since they do not want to open their 64s. They are more hard core and really will not use any other storage device. It would be nice if it had a default. If you hold the C= or another key down on boot-up, like the MMC Replay Cartridge, then you would enter the menu/configuration.

BTW, Skoe. Thank you for the hard work you put in designing this fine product and thank you Brain for making it a reality and affordable. Smile

_________________

dmackey828 · Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 11:02 pm Post subject:

mistermsk wrote:

BTW, Skoe. Thank you for the hard work you put in designing this fine product and thank you Brain for making it a reality and affordable. Smile

I'll 2nd that motion... Great stuff for sure. Another great device to add and use to the C= collection. Thanks Skoe and Jim.
_________________

A clean bench is a sign of a weak mind...
Website : http://www.commodoredungeon.com
BLOG : http://www.commodoredungeon.com/blog

e5frog · Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2012 2:00 am Post subject:

I wasn't able to save from Prince of Persia with my Alien Flash, apparently it checks the flash ID or something. How has this been solved in EF3, does it report a normal EF flashrom if asked?

Stingray made a patched version that skipped the check - haven't tried that yet though.

skoe · Groupie in Training Joined: 03 Sep 2009 Posts: 121

e5frog wrote:

I wasn't able to save from Prince of Persia with my Alien Flash, apparently it checks the flash ID or something. How has this been solved in EF3, does it report a normal EF flashrom if asked?

The EasyFlash project uses a driver infrastructure for flash write access. Every game which saves game states or high scores uses these drivers (called EAPI). When EasyProg writes a game to an EF3, it replaces the default (EF1) driver with a new one and writes it to flash together with the game. This all is transparent for the user. There is no EAPI driver for the AF (yet), that's why it doesn't work out of the box.

btw: The same is the problem with the EF implementation for 1541U and Chameleon. I offered help with this but the authors of these projects have other priorities, which is understandable.
_________________

---
skoe.de/easyflash

buzbard · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 3:44 am Post subject:

Got mine today, I've been playing around with it and it's awesome! Very Happy

I wasn't expecting it to be so much easier to program than the original EasyFlash.

Thanks to skoe for desinging it and thanks to Jim Brain for building it and finally making it available here in the US.

Awesome, just AWESOME! Very Happy

_________________

Ray...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's OK if you don't agree with me, I can't force you to be right.

hurminator · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 4:39 pm Post subject:

I guess he didn't update the web site yet...
http://store.go4retro.com/easyflash-3/

It says expected date available is March 31st (which usually means it is still not available).

Glad it is available and I will be getting one soon!

Hidron · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 5:01 pm Post subject:

hurminator wrote:

It says expected date available is March 31st (which usually means it is still not available).

Was the last I had heard too. At least if an announcement was made that it was now available, I missed it. I'm torn as I have been trying to get money together for the uIEC, and now this was made available. Just too many cool toys out there.
_________________

Commodore will live forever!

e5frog · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 6:30 pm Post subject:

Sounds like a good thing to me that he's shipping them instead of spending time updating the site.

SkydivinGirl · Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:48 pm Post subject:

I received mine yesterday! Can't wait to give it a go.

Heather

ggizmotigger · Groupie Joined: 18 Mar 2004 Posts: 223 Location: uk

but remember if you live in the uk you get a 15.65 import charge

so look out for donalds site which dosent get you import charges

hurminator · Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 12:11 pm Post subject:

Just got my Easy Flash 3 yesterday! Very excellent device. The uIEC works great to transfer stuff to it.

Question: Does anyone know how to get the USB cable to work with windows to transfer? I installed the windows drivers from SKOE's web site, but windows XP wouldn't see it.

Also, what does "Kill Cartridge" do? I am afraid to press it.

buzbard · Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 2:48 pm Post subject:

You're gonna need the EF3 utilities to use USB: http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/ef3utils17.zip
It requires running the utility on the PC and C64, instructions are included.

"Kill Cartridge" does look ominous doesn't it?
It just restarts the C64 as if the cart were unplugged, it won't do any damage.
_________________

Ray...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's OK if you don't agree with me, I can't force you to be right.

hurminator · Posted: Thu May 03, 2012 5:29 pm Post subject:

buzbard wrote:

You're gonna need the EF3 utilities to use USB: http://pc.sux.org/tomcat/ef3utils17.zip
It requires running the utility on the PC and C64, instructions are included.

"Kill Cartridge" does look ominous doesn't it?
It just restarts the C64 as if the cart were unplugged, it won't do any damage.

Thank you! That is just what I was looking for Very Happy