yarjr Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 So I picked up a CIB Commodore 64,CIB disk drive,and CIB printer at a yard sale today for a price that will make you angry. Anyway It all looks so new I thought it was never used but then I saw this thing sticking out of the cart slot. After some intense googling I am coming up with nothing. When its in the slot and I turn on the 64 it says Express ready.Could this be some kind of third party ram expansion or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 Not enough chips for it to be memory expansion. Probably a floppy accelerator or utility program of some kind. If you have trouble getting an answer here, try the Lemon64 forums... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarjr Posted June 13, 2014 Author Share Posted June 13, 2014 Makes sense. Thought it was something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uzumaki Posted June 15, 2014 Share Posted June 15, 2014 Definitly a standard ROM cart with EPROM support. You could probably burn some cart ROM onto EPROM and use it on a real C64. If you do have EPROM programmer, see if you can dump it and post it? The whiz could probably compare to known ROM list to see if it's a form of fast load, DOS wedges, or newer or custom BASIC or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed in SoDak Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 (edited) I did a search on Ball Brothers Express which brought a lot of varied results, but one was for a ball-drop game. Edited June 16, 2014 by Ed in SoDak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yarjr Posted June 16, 2014 Author Share Posted June 16, 2014 Seems to be as save2600 described it. I don't have an eprom programmer but I want one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted June 16, 2014 Share Posted June 16, 2014 There seems to exist a clone of Epyx Fast Load called Express Load, but based on the description it may not equal the cartridge you found. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markchm Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 (edited) That is an add-on to a copy protection software package from "Ball Brothers" that allowed direct control of the floppy controller to bypass the 1541 drive's controller to write to non-standard sectors. Quite useful, in it's day. Express Ready was the wording used to show it was recognized. It seems the Ball Brothers marketed it as a drive "accelerator", but those in the know, knew it meant so much more. Oddly, that Ball Brothers software, company, remnants of a company, have all disappeared but for the memory of a few. It was THE best copy utility, bar none. From manual parameter inclusion, non-standard sector writes/reads, and even simulating a non-readable sector (the original had a laser burnt area that could be written, but should not be correctly read, which Ball Brothers s/w h/w combo would simulate, while others (me) simply (well simply mixed with accuracy) poked with a pin. Having that s/w h/w combo meant owning ALL C64 software. I purchased that exact combo from the back pages of a Compute's Gazette so long ago, it's like trying to remember the names of my friends in kindergarten. Edited July 2, 2015 by markchm 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aquaman Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 That is an add-on to a copy protection software package from "Ball Brothers" that allowed direct control of the floppy controller to bypass the 1541 drive's controller to write to non-standard sectors. Quite useful, in it's day. Express Ready was the wording used to show it was recognized. It seems the Ball Brothers marketed it as a drive "accelerator", but those in the know, knew it meant so much more. Oddly, that Ball Brothers software, company, remnants of a company, have all disappeared but for the memory of a few. It was THE best copy utility, bar none. From manual parameter inclusion, non-standard sector writes/reads, and even simulating a non-readable sector (the original had a laser burnt area that could be written, but should not be correctly read, which Ball Brothers s/w h/w combo would simulate, while others (me) simply (well simply mixed with accuracy) poked with a pin. Having that s/w h/w combo meant owning ALL C64 software. I purchased that exact combo from the back pages of a Compute's Gazette so long ago, it's like trying to remember the names of my friends in kindergarten. Is this perhaps the software you are referring to? http://csdb.dk/release/?id=88453 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ltendayte Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 (edited) Makes sense. Thought it was something like that. Edited July 15, 2015 by ltendayte Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ltendayte Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Makes sense. Thought it was something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhomaios Posted July 15, 2015 Share Posted July 15, 2015 Do you still own it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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