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Review (Ahoy, Sep 1986)

1. f E Dis 6 Fal opt x j cards installed The 1541 shows the custom DOS card installed F Top inside the fi Spartan with 4 the CPU and Apple drive Bottom bird s eye view of inte rior To the left is the power sup ply The main circuit board or BUSS Card dis plays its array of Apple peripheral slots at the back top and three C 64 internal ex pansion ports at the front bot tom right The large chip with the yellow dot gt center right is the custom com munication chip tly ram the Spartan into nearly ev ery orifice in the back of the C 64 The BUSS Card itself has rigidly positioned mating connectors for the C 64 s user cassette and expansion ports Flexible hookup cables are provided for the serial and video ports The only port left unmolested is the television connector for which you optionally install the cable orig inally supplied with the C 64 Once mated the various and sundry connections seem to create a remark ably firm union The top lid of the main enclosure is easily removed to reveal a very Ap plelike environment The most obvi ous feature of the enclosed BUSS Card is a row of nine edge card con nectors known as slots in the Apple world suitable for standard Apple peripheral cards As the Apple ex perts in our audience know Apples are normally equipped with only AHOY 63 PHOTOS BY MORTON KEVELSON PEAS HA 1A A 1A IA 3 bs i 1 f
2. include settings for track increment 0 5 to 2 5 number of sync bytes size of the header gap length of the sector gap and length of the header block These are all pretty hefty parameters well beyond the comprehension of most neophyte archivists In any event it s nice to AHOY 69
3. 25 39 CVC Online 247 48 Designware ER 208 48 Electronic Arts ESSES A A 53 Electronic Arts NN 29 Electronic One SS RBI 60 Emerald Component Tat 244 022 N A sss oa 50 Epyx 2u 22 Firstline Software Inc 228 83 Floppy House Software 229 SS Free Spirit Software Inc 248 9 Howard W Sams amp Co 253 5 IntraCorp SS AE S263 ed ason Ranheim EA ee LR i7 Ketek o a 58 59 Eyco Computer 241 C 3 Mastertronic Int l Inc 218 56 Micro W Distributing Inc 258 47 Mindscape 206 S1 Mindscape 213 54 Mindscape 222 7 Ohio Computer Services Inc 245 4 Prism Software SS 263 45 Prof Handicapping Systems 243 57 Pro Tech Tronics 238 31 35 Protecto Enterprizes 240 SA R J Brachman 235 9 Roger Wagner Publishing Inc 246 28 SoftPace Software So SALA 25 Software Discounters 216 62 Software Link 262 46 Solutions Unlimited 226 il Springboard Se SOs 8 Star Micronics ae 252 4 Strategic Simulations 221 14 Superior Micro Systems Inc 251 W TC Electronics 28 19 Time Life Books SSS 239 5 ValueSot 230 65 VG Data Shack See ROU 28 Wedgwood Rental SAU 233 82 West Coast Commodore Assn 261 68 Xetec Inc 242 10 Ahoy Disk Magazine 38 Ahoy Disk Ne 42 Ahoy Back Issues ST 44 Ahoy Subscription S 61 Ahoy Access Club The publisher cannot assume oe for errors in the above listing AHOY 67 arrow key and the right cursor key takes the place of the right arrow The shifted CLR HOME cl
4. 99 Bldg A Suite I Lynn wood WA 98037 phone 1 800 663 8527 Canada 1609B Fort Street Victor ia BC V8R 1H8 Canada phone l 800 663 8527 Morton Kevelson SUPER KIT 1541 Prism Software Commodore 64 Disk 29 95 After word processors spread sheets and of course games we find that disk copy utilities flourish where other software fails to survive The reasons for the popularity of these reproductive entities are numer ous not the least of which is the primitive state of the duplicative soft ware provided by Commodore with the 1541 disk drive Although better than they used to be the disk utilities on the 1541 are primitive at best and inadequate at worst Commercial copy programs as a minimum promise to give back to the user his congressionally granted right to at least one archival copy of his essential software In fact it is commercial copy protection s inter ference with the pursuit of everlast ing redundancy that provides the very fertilizer nourishing the growth of the copy utilities Super Kit I54 is supplied on a double sided flippy disk The work horse utilities are on the first side with some of the more specialized material on the second Most of the programs are accessed through a graphically impressive set of menus These include graphic screens which fade into selection lists accompanied by some animated effects When you tire of the flashy displays you may access the prog
5. Bumeuuoz onewony SAGNIONI SSIJJOYd NOILVOINIdNnG sjeulbuo wou uononpoida 331 10115 AG YWITSH dny9eq ajajdwiod sapiaoid yons y uO JTIdANIS SPUODAS Z u Sa axSIP Sajealidng LSVd l t NOISHSA microprocessor in the computer By comparison the Commodore disk drives have their DOS in ROM and their own 6502 microprocessor The drive which then takes virtually in The second most obvious piece of territory on the BUSS Card is the col lection of no fewer than three C 64 cartridge connectors at the front right corner of the board A close look re veals a fourth cartridge connector ex tending through the right side of the case The Spartan lets you install up to four C 64 cartridges at once Any one of these may be selected and ini tialized directly from the C 64 s key board C 64 merely issues instructions to the dependent action Pe gt a N S Mi k we Ny gt gt w W Wi 4 4 a a Af UH i La N 4 AY Ns NAA A NA N W i N WY NN i Ny mf i Q U 4 Top Spartan display of the kaleidoscope program included on the Apple DOS 3 3 disk not included Bottom the Apple II1 s seven colors a la Spartan Right above these slots is an empty integrated circuit socket This is in tended for a custom ROM chip to act as a replacement for the Spartan s built in 8K Phantom C 64 startup ROM In effect this represents a fifth or
6. CALES KIPA 4 Mor EO tR Y Hp eye ety okt z NA gt 5 Pr A WI Soo AA i PR a VOSA J F A S VELL F 7 a a ni 7 tuehehe op Pa 2 m gt t pt bt WONG A A f Sa a ear PRR sd ef at A ae PA d A WPA PRR FRESE OF is se wa if Pra oo Mt EEE x 7 hhh SP PARRA SD BF Pr 5 I kd j PPA sa PREP A 4 P SALES y PA A fo Ao a OF p LIA Sha ves yy My Ye SSSA r PAF is ri MP P LILI a Ly CIE ALY ee OM ty ty 4 NS Top the heart of the Spartan is its CPU card The large rectangular chip is the 6502 microprocessor running at one megahertz The eight kilobyte ROM is identi fied by the green dot The two multipin square 1 chips are custom LSIs The upper performs the Spartan s video management The lower han dles memory management Eight socketed 64 kilobit dy namic RAM chips comprise the Spartan s memory The empty socket is for expansion ROM a p PAPA f PPP a l PRRD N Pit ee fy As a Sf My Fa Ci SM A ha 4 Abe YY Mbp H Sa PAS Sd At SF Ps f A P PIF LFK FED a 7 eo POLLS LS AP ae y A A Ae Oy me 7 ae f oy Ae lt Igi P SIPS HA ee eee eo p eight slots The leftmost connector designated as Slot A is reserved for the Spar tans CPU card The CPU card con tains its own 6502 microprocessor running at 1 megahertz 64 kilo bytes of RAM 8 k
7. THE SPARTAN Mimic Systems Inc Commodore 64 Price 299 After being heavily advertised for over two years the Spartan from Mimic Systems seemed destined to become the longest recorded case of vaporware in microcomputing his tory It lost its chance at this dubi ous distinction in May when to our surprise a prototype of the Spartan arrived in our New York offices for review What turned out to be an even greater surprise was that the darned thing actually worked This was no mean feat considering the number of distinct pieces of hardware which had to be fitted together However we seem to be getting ahead of ourselves For those of you who may have just come on board the ship of Commodore computing or for those individuals who missed Mimic Systems full page color ads in nearly every issue of Ahoy through last November we state the follow ing The Spartan is a hardware de vice which bestows upon your Com modore 64 the ability to emulate an Apple II microcomputer Note that we said II and not Ile or IIc The Spartan is not designed to provide the extended features of these later models So what s this we hear you say Why should anyone running a C 64 be interested in an itinerant fruit ma chine Don t we C 64 users already enjoy access to possibly the largest library of quality software available for any microcomputer To these skeptics in our audience we simply say that it is not our in tent to indulge in phi
8. aker by comparison to the sonor ous overtones of the C 64 s SID chip Then again the Apple is basically a holdover from 1977 or thereabouts By comparison the C 64 is a starry eyed newcomer Perhaps the key question on many of our minds is just how compatible is the Spartan with Apple II soft ware According to Mimic Systems the Spartan is compatible with more than 90 of general applications but JOLT features Micro Buffer Graphics Normal Quality Printing Correspondence Quality 8 Active Switches with Changes Constantly Monitored 10 Printing Modes Centronics Compatible Suggested list 59 95 68 AHOY Super Graphix High Performance Low Cost NOW CORRESPONDENCE QUALITY and GRAPHICS are available for the Commodore Computers in one cost effective interface with the following jr Supports All Major Printers 100 Compatible with Software for 1525 User s Manual with Software Examples Compact Design Plugs Directly into Printer Includes Lifetime Warranty only 75 of the educational pro grams An upgrade to the Spartan which was on the way to our offices as we wrote this should improve upon these figures Our own experience seemed to confirm these quantities Most pro grams we tried ran without any prob lems These included a collection of Apple games and the Graphics Ma gician and The Illustrator graphics programs We did have considerabl
9. e difficulty with most Apple disk copy programs For example the COPYA utility on the Apple DOS 3 3 system disk does not work We also encoun tered some bugs in the BASIC inter preter In particular the GET com mand returns a type mismatch error whenever it is used with a numeric variable Mimic Systems is diligent ly logging in all user reported Spar tan quirks If enough of these surface an upgrade ROM will be issued Disk Operations Mimic Systems strongly recom mends a full disk drive alignment of any 1541s to be used with the Spar tan The primary purpose of this is to get the stepper motor pulley pinned to its shaft The occasional disk drive head chatter brought about by disk formatting and early C 64 copy pro tection is a way of life for Apple disk drives Every time the system is pow ered up the disk drive head is pulled back for some tentative raps Apple disk errors result in a vigorous work out of the head mechanism This sort of treatment is not likely to be toler ated by early versions of the 1541 When running in Spartan mode the disk drive is powered from the Spartan s own power supply In fact the 1541 s own power cable may be left off if you will not be accessing C 64 mode If you plug in the drive s power and hook up its serial bus ca ble the same drive may be used for either Spartan or C 64 operation Switching between the two systems is fully automatic Just make sure the proper disk is in t
10. e ef fect when the amp START command is issued or when the C 64 reset but ton is pressed The only ways to change the selection are to reissue the amp SELECT command or power down the system The default cartridge on power up is always the Spartan s Phantom ROM Finally if you would like to know who designed the Spartan you may read the information molded on the inside of the Spartan s cover or issue the amp CREDITS command from C 64 mode Spartan Mode Operation in Spartan mode is virtu ally indistinguishable from the classic II fruit machine The most notable difference is some minor adjustments to accommodate the keyboard discrepancies between the C 64 and the Apple The left arrow key serves as the ESCape key The DEL and left cursor keys duplicate the Apple s left Page READER SERVICE INDEX Company Sve No 6 Abacus Software 215 SCA Access Software SNo oy 47 Activision SS 205 51 Activision S 244 53 Activiston o 2 8 Alsot SSA 249 2 Alsoft 250 13 American Int Computer 224 12 Bantam Ss lee 266 0 BlueBox Interfaces 254 7 Berkeley Softworks 265 48 Broderbund Soar ASS 50 Broderbund Software 22 18 Central Point Software 259 82 Cheatsheet Products Inc 9 Comal Users Group USA ti Comal Users Group UA 5 C 0 M B Direct Mktg Corp 7h C O M B Direct Mktg Corp 7 Commodore International 264 S C 2 CompuServe 236 40 Computer Centers of cane 2
11. ears the screen as does the Apple s ESC sequence The Spartan provides several en hancements to basic Apple mode The most notable is the inclusion of both upper and lower case characters The Commodore Z keystroke toggles between upper case only and the full character set In fact nearly every letter key has assigned to it a Com modore logo key function Most of these are BASIC keywords which start with the corresponding letter We will leave the description of most Apple type functions to the var ious Apple books on the market The Spartan is packaged with a copy of The Elementary Apple by William B Sanders published by Datamost This book presents a thorough intro duction to the Apple environment and the Applesoft BASIC programming language The package also includes a copy of The Flier from Central Point Software Inc a general pur Super Graphix jr pose Apple disk and copy utility pro gram If you are totally unfamiliar with the Apple operating environment you will be in for some surprises For example the Apple s modified line editor is decidedly primitive when compared to the C 64s full screen ed itor Bit mapped graphics are read ily available from Applesoft BASIC However the C 64 bit mapped hi res and multicolor modes with sprites is a bit more versatile Apple sound ef fects are for the most part limited to a series of grunts squeals and whis tles from the Spartan s built in loud spe
12. elow The Spartan even adapts Atari or C 64 type joysticks for use with Ap ple software The Apple and Atari style joysticks are fundamentally dif ferent beasts The former are of an analog design bearing a strong resem blance to a pair of mechanically cross linked paddles The latter are of a digital design composed of four normally open contacts which may be closed singly or in pairs by mov ing the stick diagonally Thus Apple joysticks may be used to impart quan titative as well as qualitative informa tion In practice most games utilize only the directional information imparted by the Apple joystick For these ap plications the Atari style joystick may be successfully substituted The only limitation is that Atari style joysticks have only one fire button to the Ap ple s two The Spartan s BUSS Card is equipped with a standard nine pin game connector This connector is activated by installing a short jump er between the CPU and the BUSS Card Aside from the on off switch the only external controls on the Spar tan other than the C 64 keyboard it self are a set of not one not two but three red reset pushbuttons all in a row on the right side The rearmost of these is functionally equivalent to the RESET key on the Apple s key board The middle button resets both the Spartan and the C 64 when it is running a cartridge based program The front button resets only the C 64 What It All Means The designers of t
13. he Spartan have exercised their ingenuity above and beyond the call of duty in designing the Spartan to 64 interface Numer ous contingencies have been consid ered and accounted for A closer look at the operation of the system is in structive The Spartan is a complete micro computer lacking only a dedicated keyboard which the C 64 provides In fact the concept of using the C 64 as a keyboard is fairly easy to imple ment The C 64s keyboard is nor mally scanned 60 times a second by the Commodore operating system It does not require much effort to change the destination of any collect ed keystrokes This means that for the most part neither the C 64 nor the Spartan need be terribly concerned about each other s presence As a result the two computers op erate independently of each other It is entirely possible to boot up and run an application on the Spartan switch to C 64 mode and load and run a Commodore program The operation of the system is guided by an 8 kilobyte C 64 Phan tom ROM in the 8000 block of the C 64 s memory space As with any other C 64 cartridge the Phantom ROM takes control of the computer on power up The power up screen may be either the Spartan or C 64 display as selected by setting a jump er on the Spartan s BUSS Card Re gardless of the initial display both computers go through their initializ ing routines when the power is turned on Thus the Spartan s disk drive will whi
14. he drive corre sponding to the current operating mode Apple and Commodore will not tolerate each other s disk for mats If you wish an Apple compatible disk drive may be substituted for a modified 1541 If you have an Apple drive you can save 50 by ordering the Spartan without the 1541 DOS card The Apple drive card will still be supplied Conclusions Overall we were very favorably im pressed by what the Spartan had to offer The hardware certainly seemed well designed with enough googaws and gadgetry to gladden the hearts of many a hacker The system is clear ly designed with a totally open archi tecture In this regard we are eager ly awaiting the final version manual so we can find out what all of the var ious little dingbats are all about The 299 price tag is reasonable enough in view of all that is being of fered It is certainly the least expen sive way to get into Apple computing as of this writing Compatibility with Apple hardware peripherals should be quite good the only exceptions being those cards which connect up to points inside the Apple s circuit ry Software compatibility should also be good However we do recom mend that you arrange to try before you buy any Apple programs for use on the Spartan In spite of its late introduction we expect the Spartan to be well received by the Commodore community We just wonder what Apple will make of all this US Mimic Systems Inc 18027 Highway
15. ilobytes of ROM and a collection of support compo nents Among these chips are a pair of Mimic Systems proprietary LSIs These handle the video and memory management of the system The remaining slots 0 through 7 are for use with various and sundry Apple peripheral cards One of these 64 AHOY Middle The 1541 disk drive s custom DOS card which turns the 1541 into an Apple compatible drive Bottom The 1541 with the custom DOS card installed slots will be immediately filled by an Apple disk controller card This card included with the Spartan package is needed to control the Apple disk drives The one provided with our unit was made by Micro Sci a well known supplier of Apple peripherals As arule Apple disk controller cards can each handle up to two disk drives As with the C 64 the bulk of Ap ple software is disk based If you haven t guessed it by now the Apple disk format is as unique as the Com modore disk format in the microcom puting world This means that Com modore disk drives and Apple disk drives cannot read disks which were formatted for each other s system right Wrong Mimic Systems was not about to let trivial obstacles of this sort stand in their way An essential part of the Spartan package is a specialized DOS card which installs in the 1541 disk drive The installation is somewhat cumber some The drive s cover and internal RFI shield are removed The DOS card is i
16. losophical dis course nor will we attempt to influ ence anyone s religious beliefs We will merely present the facts as they are After all our ears still ring from those plaintive cries of fledgling C 64ers Is there any way to run Apple software on my computer We have occasionally heard the opposite motif emanating from many a fruity source SEPTEMBER 1986 lt 7 Y i OW j Ane rer s T IF tts i r IHP I re ee f 4 hy IEIS Y g i w HRA TPU MNAR ie f 5x3 Besides at the new price of 299 the Spartan sure offers a lot of fancy hardware The Hardware When it comes to hardware the Spartan definitely sports some unique features among its several compo nents The heart of the system is a boxy looking affair styled very much like the C 64 In fact once installed the Spartan seems to fit naturally in place This 12 deep by nearly 5 high C 64 gray plastic container is exact ly the same width as the 64 The top surface of the box which is easily re movable to allow for internal access is the right size and of sufficient structural strength to support a 1702 color monitor Inside the box is the system s main circuit board or BUSS Card and a 60 watt peak switching power supply Mating the Spartan to the C 64 is straightforward just gen a ve in oe rea F A P 7 Vey 7 T fs a LE itd t SFr p n E ff SP K 7 we Y 7 r o r m F o
17. nstalled in the top of the drive cover where it is held in place by four sticky feet Next the 1541 s con nectors to the drive s motors and write protect sensing circuits are transferred to the DOS card A supplemental set of jumper cables are then used to re connect the 1541 s connectors to an al ternative set of pins on the DOS card After all this the drive cover is sup posed to be remounted on the disk drive We decided not to take a chance on this last operation The wires making up the jumpers on our sample were of a heavier gauge than what is usu ally employed for this application This was apparently due to a mixup in the hardware specification of the early units We decided to operate the drive with its cover standing to the side Getting back to the Spartan s BUSS Card we noticed numerous jumpers connectors and test points scattered about Unfortunately the preliminary manual with our system did not con tain the information needed to prop erly identify these parts A far more detailed technical manual for the Spartan is in the works We did manage to locate the Spar tan s firmware in ROM The biggest chunk consists of a 16 kilobyte sys tem ROM which contains a clone version of Apple floating point BASIC monitor and autoboot rou tines This package was written for the Spartan by Central Point Soft ware a major developer of Apple programs Alongside is an eight kilo byte Spartan Phantom ROM which p
18. pect an unadorned C 64 will probably not run since the Phantom ROM appears as a C 64 cartridge Any programs which need to access the 8K of RAM starting at 8000 will probably not work In general C 64 programs written in BASIC should have no problems as long as they make no demands on the aforemen REVIEWS tioned memory The Phantom ROM adds several commands to the C 64 s BASIC All of these are preceded by the amper sand or SHIFTed 6 keyboard charac ter A list of these commands along with a brief description may be ob tained by entering amp HELP Most of the commands deal with the mutual hardware configuration between the two machines In particular functions regarding keyboard and video display setup are provided It is also possi ble to divert data sent to a peripher al of one computer to the memory of the other computer For example the output of a Spartan word processor may be diverted to C 64 RAM in stead of to an Apple printer You will need a good command of both ma chines to properly implement these features Extensions specific to the C 64 in clude a built in machine language monitor and control of the Spartan s built in four slot C 64 cartridge BUSS As we mentioned above up to three C 64 cartridges may be in stalled inside the Spartan A fourth cartridge may be plugged into the ex ternal slot on the right side of the ma chine The amp SELECT command chooses which cartridge will tak
19. r and chatter and accept and run an Apple application even while the C 64 is busy displaying its opening message The primary function of the Phan tom ROM is to determine which computer will receive the keyboard s Output at any given time The user selection controls are built into the C 64 s function keys which remain active in all modes The most fre quently used keys will be f2 and f4 The f2 key brings up the C 64 dis play and transfers the keyboard data to the Commodore 64 In this mode all C 64 functions may be performed The f4 key returns the machine to Spartan mode where the Apple takes over The f6 key executes a C 64 re set leaving the Phantom ROM mapped in The f8 key resets the C 64 to its power up state without the Phantom ROM This last function does not terminate the execution of any programs which may be running in the Spartan at this time Finally the fl key disables all the function key functions for one keypress This lets you access the function keys for C 64 programs which use them If you use the Spartan s mixed vid eo port then the display will auto matically switch between modes It is also possible to obtain a perman ent Commodore display by hooking up a second monitor to the C 64 vid eo port on the rear panel If you do intend to multitask the Spartan by simultaneously running C 64 and Apple programs keep in mind the following limitations on the C 64 side Commercial programs which ex
20. rams directly through a special loading sequence The first pair of selections are sin gle and dual drive versions of a high speed disk copier Super Kit refers to to these as the Normal copiers In this case normalcy has been extended to include the reproduction of some of the older copy protection schemes which rely on simple DOS errors For the tougher stuff single and dual fast nibble copiers are also pro vided The Super Kit manual de scribes these as applicable to light to medium duplication of DOS pro tected disks It further goes on to de scribe these as state of the art copi ers comparable to most nibble cop iers available to date While we are accustomed to products which de scribe themselves in superlatives we found ourselves a bit puzzled as to what we were dealing with Our confusion was only furthered by the description of the Super Nib bler which is found on the second side of the disk In this case we were presented with THE state of art full disk copier for those impossible du plications Our confusion knew no bounds REVIEWS when Super Kit informed us that there was copy protection which was so difficult it was beyond impossible For this purpose the Disk Surgeon or parameter copier is supplied on side two of Super Kit There was some additional confusion on the part of the manual which frequently re ferred to this utility as a Sector Sur geon The Disk Su
21. resumably handles the C 64 com munications on the Apple side of the setup There is also a corresponding eight kilobytes of C 64 ROM for the 1d399V JM 2S68 9S9 LS 86S6 Spp bLS 996 Spp bis auoud CDE Zr epeueg 29q9NH psessoig s 207 PAIS lly Bpuesy Sz9S AHOVHS Viva JA 70 49p10 uow puss AVGOL Y3GHO Suiddiys Aep owes s emjy XB Sojes 6 PPe SjUuapiIsa SeqanH A2U911N9D S N Ul Seoud jiy suesnsu pue Buyjpuey Buiddiys 00 ZS ppy 66 61s AETA 66 61s aij se sodns Ajuo 4s1p dnyseq puosas z Ayinn dnyseq aij ysey sodns dnyoeq puosas 1z 66 6Es Kinn dny ea 66 6 s 66 GGs aij se sadns ssempsey yum dnyseq Pae T A 7 ae rP eo OAS oo at Png gh ht qx ot A ws Je d s REVIEWS SPUOISS S U S NY YSIP pav oud uou amu sazesdng dnyova GNoodas si Siild BuimaiA Aiojyoauip uaaios yids spuo2 S 04 TEDES EESTI UERS AITOA seanase ylim Saji S epIleA N ys p zu Soja sisAjeue ysig Sojlj SiBjSues pue Sajajap sdems S G pue soweu HSIp sajlj SoweusyY FOEL ER sppe pue s 140 331 p S IPPOWN puosas ied 46 sy201q 9g s ido sayy Adoa SOAMP LPS Z 40 L Sasn dnyoeq puov s Z Se sIeMpiey swes AGNTONI SAUNLVAS ALITILN dNWOVvad J714 EER ECUN K KK Kx KKK KK XxX 13NdOYd 1349 4 dSHLONY 4 Libs ee rj UA ad P PPL i Pa WER ZE
22. rgeon comes equipped with parameters for 271 or iginal programs Many of these are not in the beyond impossible cate gory or even in the impossible cate gory Instead these parameters are provided to let you clean up some of those old protection schemes This will generally enhance loading pre serve drive alignment and make sub sequent backups even easier Interestingly enough some of the beyond impossibly protected pro grams were not to be found on this list However our qualms were as suaged by James Domengeaux pro nounced very much like DiMaggio the person behind this massive col lection of program parameters We received the distinct impression that he would not rest till all the impos sible is totally mundane All confusion aside all four ver sions of the copiers on side one of the disk worked well The dual drive versions copied disks in well under one minute Exact times to copy an entire disk varied as the copiers in corporate intelligence to skip over blank sectors The copy time for the single drive versions depended more on the manual dexterity of the oper ator than on the speed of the software We found that most of the time was spent fumbling disks in and out of drives for the several pairs of swaps required to copy a full disk All the copiers provide user control of some of the parameters The nor mal copiers let you set the start and end track over the range of to 40 The nibblers also
23. sixth C 64 cartridge position Se lection between this socket and the Phantom ROM is via internal jump ers The Spartan s rear panel is quite busy territory There is the usual power connector and on off switch When will microcomputer manufac turers learn to locate power switches where we can reach them The C 64 cassette port is also brought out to the back panel along with the C 64 s us er port The Spartan may be set to use a Commodore cassette recorder to save and load Apple programs The standard audio jacks which are present on the Apple II for cassette use are not in the Spartan However there is a row of test pins on the BUSS Card which may be fitted with an audio adapter This accessory is available separately from Mimic Sys tems Off to the side is a row of four cir cular DIN jacks The outermost jack carries through the C 64 s audio and video signals This lets you hook up 66 AHOY a separate optional monitor dedica ted to what s on the C 64 display screen The next jack is the Commo dore serial port for disk drives print ers and other serial bus peripherals The C 64 power supply plugs into the next jack Only the nine volts AC from this supply is used as the C 64 s five volt power is supplied from the Spartan s built in supply The in nermost DIN jack outputs mixed au dio and video from both the C 64 and the Spartan The significance of this last feature will be described in de tail b
24. v s PPADS E ie ieee ite r lt iss Lf wey 5 SSA Cee fy N PAPAA EFI na G and front view of Spartan Middle showing four DIN connec back view Top tors extensions to the C 6fs cassette and user ports power connector Bottom right side sporting fourth cart on off switch Vertical slots are to permit exit of Apple peripheral card cables ridge slot and three reset pushbuttons JAYOCOWWOD YO NOILVOINdNG ASIQ OL NOILNTOS SUL anooas k ee It is worth noting that the Apple disk operating system DOS must be trolling the drives falls to the 6502 loaded from disk into 12 kilobytes of the system s RAM The task of con C 64 side of things 092 ON 99 AJ8S Jepeay SPUOI9S Sp WINWIXELW Bye IM SHSIP poa oajoid Ayiaeay x si91doo sajowesed uayyBuasjs jim dnyoeq spuoses LZ Suonsdejoid yealq JOU lim feulBu0 jo ajeoijdnp joexe ylim papiaoid sasp e eyep sodoud jo sajsues dunsua 0 uoNdo Ajyuaj aSN Ul JOU SI dnyoeq puoses 1Z uayM JUsIedsuel S sIeEMpIeH e SOALP LPSL Z 40 L UM BSN 10 pouBisep wesGolg e uoNeyjeysul asempiey uo deus e BIEMYOS UBAUP nuaw MO I O 0 Aseg SSYUNLVSA IVNOILIAGGYV uoNeadnp Y39814 jeunouqe pue y2 JIeEH UONEZJUOJ JU S YORI O YILIL s n su p pue Suq Y90193 syiewW SSoippe sa Aq 2u s swnsysa y sde sgi 10 9 S pue 49e2 s10 zo uoneadnga S S jeue ysi p pue

Review (Ahoy, Sep 1986)

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