Borat wrote:
I thought I would start a new thread to prevent the other one becoming too cluttered.
I am not aware of the full potential of this device and was wondering if someone (or Gideon who is very busy making my unit

) could explain.
Ok Borat, here it goes!
Borat wrote:
Would I be able to "swap-out" the C64s memory? For example, if I was writing an assembly program and decided suddenly that I would like to play a game. Could I "freeze" what I was doing and swap-in a game?
This is currently not a feature of the 1541 Ultimate. However, the cart also implements Action Replay, or The Final Cartridge III. I believe that these cartridges have the ability to save the C64 state to a disk, for which you can use the virtual 1541 of the cart.
Borat wrote:
Is loading from the device done at turbo / warp speed or is it at the standard 1541 speed?
This depends on the loader that you use. It is a 1541, so it behaves exactly like one. You could use the warp loader of the Action Replay or FC-III in combination with the 1541 Ultimate as well.
Borat wrote:
Will I be able to load multi-load games from a .d64 file? Will the various load stages be done a turbo / standard speed?
Yes, you can. You can just select a .D64 file, and mount it in the 'drive'. Then you can just load the multiloader game as you are used to with a normal drive. Any particular loader-program that is part of the game will also work.
Borat wrote:
Will this unit be able to completely replace a 1541 or are still some things that the 1541 could do that this can't?
Basically all functions of the 1541 also work on the 1541 Ultimate, even including some programs that make "drive music".

However, when it comes to saving data back from the floppy onto the SD-card, there are some limitations, because the software is currently only able to understand "standard" tracks. Similarly, only standard .D64 images can be loaded. Currently, the cart does not support .G64 (GCR encoded) files, but when I have the time, I'll see what I can do to implement this.
Borat wrote:
If someone could give some more examples of what this unit can do I would appreciate it. From what I have picked-up in various places, this unit seems to be what most people have been looking for. I, myself am looking to be able to store my existing floppies on this device and perhaps retire my existing 1541s.
Excellent! I am sure that the 1541 Ultimate does a lot of what you're looking for. I am not sure on how to describe all features, but these are a few:
1. complete 1541 virtualization
2. cartridge emulation: Action Replay + FC-III
3. user friendly disk-selection menu
4. FAT/FAT32 SD-cards (up to 2GB, no SDHC support yet)
5. Long filenames
6. Browsing inside .D64 and .T64 files
7. DMA-load (ultra fast!) of single files from SD / .D64 / .T64
8. emulated drive sounds (tracking and motor hum)
9. 'direct' access to the SD-card by means of a second device on the IEC bus (try load"$",12 [or whatever address you configured for it] hehe..)
and for the plus version... REU (up to 16 MB).
...what else?
Gideon