I'm also looking for an SX64 keyboard w/ cable. I'm mega upset I didn't get one on he last ebay auction

You might want to consider upgrading an SX64 intending to use the Chameleon with the SX64 version of JiffyDOS. Apparently, the JiffyDOS chips are faster than the original Kernal chips and the Chameleon is capable of reading them without hanging. Otherwise you have to switch the option to read the ROMs off in the Chameleon menu.

or just place the respective rom images in /CHAM64/ and enable booting from sd card
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If I hack an SX-64, I would want to hack a non-functional SX-64 with some usable parts because a part of me does not want to mess with a perfectly good SX-64 unless I replace a dead CRT with an LCD module that supports VGA/SVGA and TV inputs. Then the SX-64 guts would be used then. Of course, if it is a dead one or non-functional one, then maybe I take a different approach to the matters. Using the SX-64 makes (although a luggable portable), replacing certain parts would lighten it a little bit. Probably not much but still.

It might be the way I am. I think groepaz would understand. It is like tearing apart a perfectly good GTO and throwing in 90% something else. A part of me is looking for a hackable solution. It might be something that someone would part away with. I don't think may would part away a perfectly good SX-64 to be hacked.

I would want a good keyboard and good case and drive. I would probably want the cartridge port module piece so the Chameleon cart would sit in it.

Anyway, another topic in itself.

I like this cartridge. The VGA output alone is worth it, as I can finally junk my CBM monitors! (Well, okay, except for one; I still need a CBM monitor for my C128T computer.)

However, it wasn't immediately clear; if I use this cartridge as a standalone unit, i.e., unplugged from an actual C64, I can hook up a USB power source, a PS/2 keyboard and mouse, VGA cable and monitor, and viola... I have a C64? Or is there something I'm missing?

I would love for a complete replacement C64 unit in a small form factor, and this cartridge is very promising.
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Yes, you will have a working C64. The only thing missing are joystick ports - but they are coming very soon as a cheap add-on. I have this cartridge and it is superb!
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Just finished reverse-engineering Business Basic by Kingsoft. I've posted the schematics over at Forum64, but didn't write an extensive document like I did for Pagefox, because it's so simple. Just read the notes in the schematics for the two possible cartridge/memory configs.

We may or may not implement this in Chameleon - the current construction site is far away from cartridge emulations, so it will surely not be in the next updates.

If you have any other cartridge emulation requests, let us know!

Jens

http://youtu.be/J_W_XbklmIY
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Well, as I have discovered the Chameleon keyboard and joystick ports will quite happily let you use a PS2 keyboard and mouse instead of the SX64 keyboard (or C64 keyboard) and 1351 mouse if you prefer.

I had a stint of trying this combination out in GEOS on my SX64.
The numeric keypad will let you emulate a joystick (num lock swaps ports)
Also, there are a few nice options on a PS2 keyboard. F11 will get you the Chameleon menu and PrintScreen/SysRq will reset the computer.

I'm a bit confused with the Chameleon PS2 keyboard layout however. I was expecting Tab to map to CTRL, and Ctrl to map to the C= key. Also F9 and F10 are used for the pound sign and plus sign respectively.

Of course nothing is as good as the original hardware, but even without a working commodore keyboard, the Chameleon will give the hardware a new lease of life.

The new Chameleon core version "beta-6d" is now available from http://beta.icomp.de
Installation goes as you may already know it from the previous cores. I haven't updated the CHOICE.EXE file, so it's still only compatible with 32-bit Windows. However, I have included a download link for a 64-bit compatible Microsoft version of CHOICE.EXE for your convenience.

Changes on the core:

- Turbo slows down for a short time period if IEC accesses happen. This makes the turbo function compatible with pretty much every loader, including GEOS.
- The PS2 keys "page up" and "page down" are now mapped to F1 (page up) and F7 (page down), which makes it nicer to navigate through the filebrowser.
- new cartridge: Business Basic and S'More cartridges (the Basic extension with over 61k Basic Bytes free)
- new cartridge: Prophet-64 (the music cartridge, also benefits from PS2 mouse, remember to set PS2 mouse to port 2)
- new cartridge: Capture (the "second-ever-freezer" by Jason-Ranheim)
- new cartridge: MACH-5
- new cartridge: Westermann Learning
- new cartridge: Epxy Fastload
- new cartridge: Easyflash
- new cartridge: PageFox (the DTP-cart with extra 32k memory)
- Turbo Speedup: Eliminated one clock cycle from critical path
- Turbo Speedup: Write to memory now happens simultaneously with the next read from memory on cache-hit
- Turbo Speedup: MMU Cache now remembers last used CPU slot, even if it has been pushed out of cache

Changes to the menu:

- added support for all the new cartridges
- fixed scrolling in the menu
- fixed g64 loading of tracks without syncs and unformatted tracks
- fixed a bug in SD-card handling over 8GB. Now the new limit is 2TB
- corrected a typo ("drive 21")
....and surely more menu changes that I haven't found myself (got to check the SVN...).

The turbo really gained big time from the three changes that Peter has introduced. The "Synthmark64" program now reports a weighted rating of up to 8.4, whereas the SCPU is just under 5.5 (we're 52% faster than SCPU here). Bouldermark reaches 10586, where the SCPU only reaches 7430, so we're more than 42% faster on that benchmark. You can squeeze a little more out of the turbo if you switch off more options (VGA, drive emulation), but that's not exactly what you want to have from a true all-in-one-cartridge. Chameleon is the fastest accelerator anyway, there's no need for dishonest marketing tricks

Have fun, and keep those bugreports coming!

Jens

Darn it Wiesel, now I'm gonna have to buy one of these!

I am with Gabriel Angelos on this. You are really making it hard not to buy it. Wow. The EasyFlash and the ability to handle up to 2 TB. Wow! Yes, my 64 has 2 TBs. Awwww... Got one of those new C64x's? Nope old 1984 one.
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Jens, thumbs up for EasyFlash support!

Any update news? I see that the price has dropped to $267 so I am about ready to pull the trigger on one of these. I just want to know how it is working (bugs, save to d64, etc.)

http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm

Chameleon doesn't seem to support saving to .d64 yet.
Latest firmware still includes some sprite glitches on old booze designs demos, but it is getting better on every update.
On usability side its still bit clumsy, managing sd-card with big directories is slow, and it doesn't sort directory entries by default which might add more confusion at the start. Mounting d64's is also quite slow.

Other than that, very nice device I absolutely love the turbo option!
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Thanks for the honest review, grue. I am glad Wiesel is still working on it. I agree that turbo will be awesome... that is the main reason I want it. I will be able to scroll faster in word processing docs and decrunch files, etc fast, and hopefully redraw screens faster in adventure games.

Hi

I have already posted this question to the Chameleon mailing list but was recommended posting it to a C64 forum as it is more to do with Jiffy DOS than with the Chameleon.

I have never used Jiffy DOS before but have just bought the C64 ROM and the 1541 ROM to use with my Chameleon.

I have copied both to the cham64 folder and set the option to boot from SD card (renamed files to kernal.rom and drive1.rom)

When I start up (in cart mode) the C64 starts with the Jiffy DOS screen (so I guess kernal.rom is working) and I can press the Function keys to get the shortcuts to directory etc. but nothing works – it just hangs – and the red LED keeps blinking 3 times. If I remove drive1.rom from the cham64 folder then the JiffyDOS on the C64 side works but obviously at normal speed.

What am I doing wrong?

Someone suggested to look at this link, but I don't understand much of it.

As well as the 'legal' ROMs that I have bought I also found some 'floating around the net' but they give exactly the same problem.

Many thanks
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Well, if the ROM files are known to be good, and you're trying to something with Chameleon, then it squarely is a Chameleon question and not really a JD question. Not sure why they would pawn you off like that.

Anyway, just press @ RETURN after turning on the computer and see what it says (before doing any other disk access).

It should return the ROM version, and in your case, you want it to say that it's the JD rom and not CBM.

I'm not familiar with the Chameleon, but if it emulates JD, then you'll need to follow their directions. Hopefully someone on here comes along and has a better answer.
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Thanks for that.

I have already tried @ and it hangs the C64 with the red LED flashing 3 times - pausing - and then flashing again.

It is either a Chameleon problem or me being an idiot. I presume my ROMs are okay as I bought them from a legitimate source but as I say I have also tried with ROMs from 'other sources'.
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@rubikWizard
Here is what I suspect.

Drive1.rom is probably a ROM file which covers both the $C000-$DFFF and the $E000-$FFFF areas. This file should therefore be 16384 bytes in size as it replaces actual ROMs 325302-01 and 901229-05.

However, JiffyDOS in the 1541 only replaces the latter half ($E000-$FFFF) or only ROM 901229-05. It should therefore be 8192 bytes in size.

You CANNOT simply directly replace Drive1.rom with a JiffyDOS ROM as the JiffyDOS ROM should NOT contain the data from ROM 325302-01.

It is up to YOU to merge them in a single file using a byte editor such as WinHEX.
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Thanks Eslapion.

The file I purchased is 8192 bytes.

Could you describe exactly what I need to do to fix it? I am okay using hex editors.

Many thanks.
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Thankyou. I have got a 16KB ROM to work, although it is not the one I purchased

The C64 side says version 6.x but the @ command says Jiffy V5. Will that be an problem?
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