BassGuitari Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 Does anyone else experience inconsistent cartridge compatibility between different C64 systems? For example, I have a Gorf cartridge that works fine in some systems and won't run at all in others (in such instances, the power LED is also dimmed). Likewise for my copy of Avenger--trouble is, they actually run in the opposite systems. The physical fit seems to vary from system to system as well. I never had a problem installing, running, or removing my Defender cartridge until my new* JiffyDOS-equipped C64 actually physically broke it last night--some internal bracing broke inside the shell and the PCB got shoved up inside the cart.** (*New to me; I've owned it for some time now but haven't really used it until I set it up in the living room a couple of weeks ago.) (**Coincidentally, the exact same thing happened with my VIC-20 copy of Defender. Fortunately I just did a shell swap with some other junk Atarisoft cart and took care of it; unfortunately, C64 Atarisoft carts can't be opened without destroying them.) What is it with Commodore cartridge ports and/or carts? Even my unmodded NES systems run carts more consistently than Commodore systems seem to! (Hopefully this will all be moot soon--I have an SD2IEC on my Christmas list. ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 (edited) Sometimes gravity tends to pull cartridges down which can cause not all pins to have contact. Have you tried holding the cartridge up a little, so it is perfectly linear to the port? You could try to put something underneath, a bit of a pencil eraser or whatever you have at hand that has the right height. I think the more loose the connector is, the more likely gravity will pull it. Edited December 11, 2018 by carlsson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted December 11, 2018 Author Share Posted December 11, 2018 Sometimes gravity tends to pull cartridges down which can cause not all pins to have contact. Have you tried holding the cartridge up a little, so it is perfectly linear to the port? You could try to put something underneath, a bit of a pencil eraser or whatever you have at hand that has the right height. I think the more loose the connector is, the more likely gravity will pull it. Yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 Not a great design, shoving a cartridge in the rear of a machine. Trying to line it up blindly, et al. And then there were the (fairly sloppy) manufacturing variances throughout the years, so there's that too. Vic-20 cartridge port has got to be the tightest. What a PITA that one was to change out carts. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassGuitari Posted December 11, 2018 Author Share Posted December 11, 2018 Not a great design, shoving a cartridge in the rear of a machine. I always wonder what Commodore was thinking with that. Such a head-scratchingly inconvenient design, making you pull the computer out away from your setup and dishevel all the cabling just to see what you are doing with a cartridge. Makes about as much sense as the Atari ST systems that stuck the controller ports in a recess on the bottom the unit. Couldn't have put the port on the top like Atari? Or on the front like Texas Instruments? Or on the side like Radio Shack? I agree that the VIC-20 might be the worst. The tightness is horrible, but it would at least be less horrible if the interface wasn't behind the computer. The huge cartridges are pretty awesome, though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted December 11, 2018 Share Posted December 11, 2018 The huge cartridges are pretty awesome, though. I had a 24K RAM expansion cart for mine, it made the rest of my VIC-20 cartridges look small. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motrucker Posted January 6, 2019 Share Posted January 6, 2019 This sort of problem is a great reason to use a cartridge expander! Save much wear and tear on the computer's cartridge port. Fortunately there is great expander still being made; https://store.go4retro.com/x-pander-3-slot-cartridge-port-expander/ This great device will save you all sorts of headaches! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpiguy9907 Posted January 7, 2019 Share Posted January 7, 2019 If your power supply is weak that can also cause flakiness. The power drawn by a ROM is minimal, but you have to remember what crap those C64 power supplies were... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
motrucker Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 The PSU issues were why Commodore created the special power supply unit for the 1764 REU. Great unit if you can still find one. This is a thread from Lemon64 mostly on the topic of Cartridge expanders, but it touches on other ideas too. https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59536 Cartridges were quite popular with the C-64 and C-128 machines. If the cartridge was used too much problems could surface, but unless you are unlucky enough to get a secondary school system, no problems should show up. There were hundreds of cartridges for the C-64 in many fields, not only games, but from music, to graphics, to various utilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 Yeah, when the floppy drive cost more than the computer itself, I could see why a lot of people would put that particular purchase off BITD. Gotta be the reason why cartridges were so popular on such a system. To this day, I still see a lot of C64's in the wild (consignment shops, thrift stores, garage sales, estate sales, flea markets, etc.) with no accompanying disk drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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