Периферия Commodore 64: Datasette и быстрая загрузка с кассеты.

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The Commodore 64 home computer used various external peripherals. Due to the backwards compatibility of the Commodore 128, most peripherals would also work on that system. There is also some compatibility with the VIC 20 and Commodore PET.

In the United States, the 1541 floppy disk drive was widespread. By contrast, in Europe, the C64 was often used with cassette tape drives (Datasette), which were much cheaper, but also much slower than floppy drives. The Datasette plugged into a proprietary edge connector on the Commodore 64's motherboard. Standard blank audio cassettes could be used in this drive. Data tapes could be write protected in the same way as audio cassettes, by punching out a tab on the cassette's top edge. An adapter for the proprietary connector was available from CARDCO

It was assigned as device 1 (default). The Datasette's speed was very slow (about 300 baud). Loading a large program at normal speed could take up to 30 minutes in extreme cases. Many European software developers wrote their own fast tape loaders which replaced the internal KERNAL code in the C64 and offered loading times more comparable to disk drive speeds. Novaload was perhaps the most popular tape loader used by British and American software developers. Early versions of Novaload had the ability to play music while a program loaded into memory, and was easily recognizable by its black border and digital bleeping sounds on loading. Other fast loaders included load screens, displaying computer artwork while the program loaded. More advanced fast loaders included minigames for the user to play while the program loaded from cassette. One such minigame fastloader is Invade a Load. Users also had to contend with interference from magnetic fields. Also, not too dissimilar to floppy drive users, the Datasette's read head could become dirty or slip out of alignment. A small screwdriver could be used to align the tape heads, and a few companies capitalized by selling various commercial kits for Datasette head alignment tuning. As the Datasette lacked any random read write access, users had to either wait while the tape ran its length, while the computer printed messages like "SEARCHING FOR ALIEN BOXING FOUND AFO FOUND SPACE INVADERS FOUND PAC MAN FOUND ALIEN BOXING LOADING " or else rely on a tape counter number to find the starting location of programs on cassette. Tape counter speeds varied over different datasette units making recorded counter numbers unreliable on different hardware. An optional streaming tape drive, based upon the QIC 02 format, was available for the Xetec Lt. Kernal hard drive subsystem (see below). They were expensive and few were ever sold. A similar concept to the ZX Microdrive (85 kB) was the extremely fast "Phonemark 8500 Quick Data Drive" which has 16 128 kB capacity using a micro cassette storage unit and used the C2N Datasette. The concept eventually succumbed to floppy drives. The Quick Data Drive (QDD) connected to the datassette port of the Commodore 64 and could load data at 1.3 kB/s which is 3 times faster than the C1541 floppy drive. It needed a small program code to be loaded in the memory at It could also be daisy chained and worked with the VIC 20 computer as well. The QDD could hold 255 files per "disc". The Rotronics Wafadrive used same drive mechanism, manufactured by BSR. Backup to VHS tapes were offered by DC Electronics with their cartridge WHIZZARD in 1988. Which could handle 5.8 kB/s and included "freezer" capabilities.

Late in 1984, Fiscal Information Inc., of Florida, demonstrated the Lt. Kernal hard drive subsystem for the C64. The Lt. Kernal mated a 10 megabyte Seagate ST 412 hard drive to an OMTI SASI intelligent controller, creating a high speed bus interface to the C64's expansion port. Connection of the SASI bus to the C64 was accomplished with a custom designed host adapter. The Lt. Kernal shipped with a disk operation system (DOS) that, among other things, allowed execution of a program by simply typing its name and pressing the Return key. The DOS also included a keyed random access feature that made it possible for a skilled programmer to implement ISAM style databases. By 1987, the manufacturing and distribution of the Lt. Kernal had been turned over to Xetec, Inc., who also introduced C128 compatibility (including support for CP/M). Standard drive size had been increased to 20 MB, with 40 MB available as an option, and the system bus was now the industry standard small computer system interface, better known as SCSI (the direct descendant of SASI). The Lt. Kernal was capable of a data transfer rate of over 38 [[kilobyte per second (65 kB per second in C128 fast mode). An optional multiplexer allowed one Lt. Kernal drive to be shared by as many as sixteen C64s or C128s (in any combination), using a round robin scheduling algorithm that took advantage of the SCSI bus protocol's ability to handle multiple initiators and targets. Thus the Lt. Kernal could be conveniently used in a multi computer setup, something that was not possible with other C64 compatible hard drives. Production of the Lt. Kernal ceased in 1991. Fortunately, most of the components used in the original design were industry standard parts, making it possible to make limited repairs to the units. In 2010, a re creation of the Lt. Kernal was produced by MyTec Electronics. It was called the Rear Admiral HyperDrive and used an upgraded DOS called RA DOS. The Rear Admiral parts could be used to upgrade the older Lt. Kernal, e. g. chips from the Rear Admiral host adapter could be used to upgrade the chips in the Lt. Kernal host adapter; or if the Lt. Kernal is missing its host adapter, the Rear Admiral host adapter could be used in its place. Also available for the Commodore 64 was the Creative Micro Designs CMD HD Series. Much like the Commodore 1541 floppy drive, the CMD HD could connect to the Commodore 64's serial bus, and could operate independently of the computer with the help of its on board hardware. A CMD HD series drive included its own SCSI controller to operate its hard drive mechanism, in addition to hosting a battery powered real time clock module for the time stamping of files. The stock operating speeds of the CMD HD Series units were not very much faster than the stock speeds of a 1541 floppy drive, but the units were fully JiffyDOS compatible. Faster parallel transfers were possible with the addition of another CMD product, the CMD RAMLink and a special parallel transfer cable. With this arrangement, the performance of the system doubled that of the Lt. Kernal. One advantage the CMD products had was software compatibility, especially with GEOS, that prior solutions lacked. CMD ultimately missed opportunities to develop any features for the drive's auxiliary port (such as a printer spooler feature promised in the CMD HD user manual). However, external SCSI devices (such as the Iomega Zip 100 drive) could be connected to a CMD HD series drive's external SCSI port. Using the same utility software diskette shipped with all CMD HD series drives, the external storage could then be easily added to CMD HD series drive's existing partition table. This configuration could add, for example, 100 additional megabytes of external storage to even the 20 megabyte version of a CMD HD series drive. After partitioning and formatting of the added storage, the CMD HD series drive presented the total storage seamlessly to the user, regardless if the data was stored internally or externally. The ICT DataChief included a 20 MB hard drive, along with an Indus GT floppy drive, along with a 135 watt power supply in a case designed to house an IBM PC Compatible computer. User operation of these hard drive subsystems was similar to that of Commodore's floppy drives, with the inclusion of special DOS features to make best use of the drive's capabilities and to effectively manage the vast increase in storage capacity (up to a maximum of 4 GB). An unavoidable problem was that total 1541 compatibility could not be achieved, which often prevented the use of copy protected software, software fastloaders, or any software whose operation depended on exact 1541 emulation. The enthusiast built "IDE64 interface" was designed late in the 1990s, attaching itself in the Commodore 64's expansion port, and allowing users to attach common IDE hard drives, CD ROM and DVD drives, ZiP and LS 120 floppy drives to their Commodore 64s. Later revisions of the interface board provided an extra compact flash socket. The IDE interface's performance is comparable to the RAMLink in speed, but lacks the intelligence of SCSI. Its main advantage lies in being able to use inexpensive commodity hard drives instead of the more costly SCSI units. 1541 compatibility is not as good as commercially developed hard drive subsystems, but continues to improve with time. In late 2011, MyTec Electronics developed and sold the Rear Admiral Thunderdrive, a clone of the CMD HD. Though using more modern components and a smaller form factor in comparison to the CMD HD, the Thunderdrive maintained full compatibility with the CMD HD.

A number of printers were released for the Commodore 64, both by Commodore themselves and by third party manufacturers. Commodore specific printers were attached to the C64 via the serial port and were capable of being daisy chained to the system with other serial port devices such as floppy drives. By convention, printers were addressed as device #4 5 on the CBM 488 serial bus.

A series of dot matrix printers were sold by Commodore, including the MPS 801 (OEM Seikosha GP 500 VC) and the MPS 803, although many other third party printers like the Okimate 10 and Okidata 120 were popular too some having more advanced printing features than any of Commodore's models. Most Commodore branded printers were rebranded C. Itoh or Epson models with Commodore serial interface. Also Star Micronics AR 40 has a C64 compatible serial port.

Commodore also produced the DPS 1101 daisy wheel printer, which produced letter quality print similar to a typewriter based on a Juki mechanism, and which typically cost more than the computer and floppy disk drive together. The DPS 1101 was large enough to accept A4 size paper in landscape orientation as well as A3 size paper in portrait orientation. The MPS 1000 dot matrix printer was introduced along with the C 128. Commodore 1526 is a rebranded MPS 802.

A mini plotter device, the Commodore 1520, could plot graphics and print text in four colors by using tiny ballpoint pens. The 1520 was based upon the Alps Electric DPG1302, a mechanism which also formed the basis of numerous other inexpensive plotters for home computers of the time (e. g. the Atari 1020).

Since there were severe shortcomings of early Commodore printers, CARDCO released the Card Print A (C/?A) printer interface that emulated Commodore printers by converting the Commodore style CBM bus IEEE 488 serial interface to a Centronics printer port to allow numerous 3rd party printers to be connected to a Commodore 64, such as Epson, Okidata, C. Itoh. A second model, a version that supported printer graphics was released called the Card Print +G (C/?+G), supported printing Commodore graphic characters using ESC/P escape codes. CARDCO released additional enhancements, including a model with RS 232 output, and shipped a total over 2 million printer interfaces. Xetec also released a series of printer interfaces. With a parallel interface, the QMS KISS laser printer, the most inexpensive available in 1986, at , could be used. Later, CMD created the GeoCable which allowed PS2 type ink jet and laser printers to work under GEOS with a special device driver. Printer buffer with 64 kB RAM for the CBM bus IEC IEEE 488 derative serial bus existed too, like the "Brachman Associates Serial Box Print Buffer".

The Commodore 64 has two Atari joystick ports. Commodore produced joystick controllers for the Commodore 64, largely compatible with Atari joysticks, as well as paddles (which were not Atari compatible). Commodore's paddles were originally intended for the VIC 20, and few C64 games could take advantage of them. The "Atari CX85 Numerical Keypad" consists of a numeric keypad featuring the 17 keys [escape], [no], [delete], [yes], 0–9, [. ], [ ] and [+/enter]. It connects to the C64 joystick port using the Atari 2600 style interface with a DB9F plug.

Test technicians at CGAD Productions operations developed and installed the CarPilot Computerized Automotive Relative Performance Indicator and Location of Transit, one of the first car navigation systems to be tested, circa 1984. It utilized a Commodore 64, 12V DC to 5V DC converter, video player/recorder, datasette, and a TV monitor.

With computing, robot trainer, and plotter scanner, Fischertechnik rose as the first manufacturer of modular building blocks into the computer age. Interfaces for all popular home computers at the time were made, including Apple II, Commodore 64 and Acorn, and later for Schneider, Atari ST and IBM PC. Programming languages to drive the models included GW BASIC, Turbo Pascal and in the later kits (1991) an in house programming tool Lucky Logic. The "Commocoffee 64" is an espresso maker controlled by the C64 in 1985.

The Handic "VIC REL" controller provides protected input and output using 6 relay outputs and 2 optocoupler inputs. The output relays are capable of 24 / 10 and the inputs respond to 5 DC. The device also provides (+5) and ( 5) at 50 to activate inputs. The device is programmed on the VIC 20 with and I/O at 37136. And on C64 with and I/O at 56577. The intended applications were burglar alarms, garage doors, door locks, heating elements, lamps, transmitters, remote controllers, valves, pumps, telephones, accumulators, irrigation systems, electrical tools, stop watches, ventilators, humidifiers, etc.

There are audio Analog to digital converters (A/D) like the "A/D Wandler (DELA 87393)" based on 8 bit ADC0809 chip for the C64/128 and the Sound Ultimate Xpander 6400 (SUX 6400) based on the 8 bit ADC0804 chip with a maximum sampling frequency of 11 kHz. Plain sound digitizers like "Sound Digitizer (REX 9614)" that converts analog sound into 2 bit samples.

In 1987 there was a cartridge port device to measure EEG directly for use in exercise programs, called "BodyLink" produced by the company Bodylog in New York City, USA. Schippers Medizintechnik in Germany produced a user port attached EMG device to allow a physician to analyze such things as stress level, and assisting in finding a better position for work.

The "Scanntronik Handyscanner 64" is a hand held scanner that uses the C64 user port.

Frame grabbers like the "PAL Colour Digitizer" that connect via the user port, will turn an analog composite video frame into a digital picture on the C64.

To download pages and software transmitted via the teletext broadcast system. The UK company "Microtext" provided their "Teletext adaptor" and tuner that interfaced with the TV aerial and the C64/128 user port. Software was provided on a C 10 tape. These were priced at 114.80 GBP inc. p/p in 1987.

As Commodore offered a number of inexpensive modems for the C64, such as the 1650, 1660, 1670, the machine also helped popularize the use of modems for telecommunications. The 1650 and 1660 were 300 Baud, and the 1670 was 1200 baud. The 1650 could only dial Pulse. The 1660 had no sound chip of its own to generate Touch Tones, so a cable from the monitor /audio out was required to be connected to the 1660 so it could use the C64 sound chip to generate Touch Tones. The 1670 used a modified set of Hayes AT commands. This modem is required for Medical Manager for EDI operations. The Commodore 1650 shipped with a rudimentary piece of terminal software called Common Sense. It provided basic Xmodem functionality and contained a 700 line scrollback feature. In the United States, Commodore offered the Commodore Information Network, a CompuServe SIG devoted to its products and users. Later, Quantum Computer Services (which became America Online) offered an online service called Quantum Link for the C64 that featured chat, downloads, and online games. In the UK, Compunet was a very popular online service for C64 users (requiring special Compunet modems) from 1984 to the early 1990s. In Australia, Telecom (now Telstra) ran an online service called Viatel and sold modems for the C64 for use with the service. In Germany the very restrictive rules of the state owned telephone system prevented widespread use of inexpensive, non telco licensed modems, prompting the use of inferior acoustic couplers instead. Access to Bildschirmtext, the state owned telco's own dial up online service, was possible via special add on hardware like the Commodore "BTX Decoder Modul" or the Commodore "BTX Decoder Modul II".

"Microlog AIR 1 Radio Interface Cartridge" that use the C64 cartridge port with builtin ROM software for RTTY and morse code communications. "RTTY CW Interface C 64" uses the User port for RTTY communications.

Like the VIC 20, the C64 lacked a real UART chip such as the 6551 and used software emulation. This limited the maximum speed to an error prone 2400 bit/s. Third party cartridges with UART chips offered better performance. Later in the Commodore 64's life, CMD developed two serial communications cartridges for Commodore Computers, the "Swiftlink" (1990 38 400 bit/s) and the "Turbo 232" (1997 230 400 bit/s). The latter was capable of handling a 56k Hayes modem reliably at full speed on a Commodore 64, enabling reasonable dial up internet access speeds. The Retro Replay expansion cartridge enabled the addition of the Silver Surfer add on serial board, which also enabled 56k modem connections, and the RR Net add on serial board, which allows for broadband internet access, as well as LAN. Also, on November 5, 2005 Quantum Link Reloaded was launched enabling C64 enthusiasts to experience all the features of the original Quantum Link service in present day with some enhancements for free.

The Commodore 1701 and 1702 were color monitors for the C64 which accepted as input either composite video or separate chrominance and luminance signals, similar to the S Video standard, for superior performance with the C64 (or other devices capable of outputting a separated signal). Other monitors available included the 1802 and 1902. Introduced in 1986, the 1802 featured separate chroma and luma signals, as well as a composite green screen mode suitable for the C 128's 80 column screen. The 1902 had a true RGBI 80 column mode compatible with IBM PCs. Early in the Commodore 64's life, Commodore released several niche hardware enhancements for sound manipulation. These included the "Sound Expander", "Sound Sampler", "Music Maker" overlay, and External music keyboard. The Sound Expander and Sound Sampler were both expansion cartridges, but had limited use. The Sound Sampler in particular could only record close to two seconds of audio, rendering it largely useless. The Music Maker was a plastic overlay for the Commodore 64 "breadbox" keyboard, which included plastic piano keys corresponding to keys on the keyboard. The External keyboard was an add on that plugged into the Sound Expander. These hardware devices did not sell well, perhaps due to their cost, lack of adequate software, marketing as home consumer devices, and a result that turned many serious musicians off. Possibly the most complex C64 peripheral was the Mimic Systems Spartan, which added an entire new computer architecture to the C64, with its own 6502 CPU and expansion bus, for software and hardware compatibility with the Apple II series. Announced shortly after the Commodore 64 itself at a time when little software was available for the machine, the Spartan did not begin shipping until 1986, by which time the C64 had acquired an extensive software library of its own. Essentially an Apple II+ compatible computer that used the 64's keyboard, video output, joysticks, and cassette recorder, the Spartan included 64kB RAM, a motherboard with a 6502 CPU on a card, 8 Apple compatible expansion slots, an Apple compatible disk controller card, and a DOS board to add to your 1541 disk drive. The DOS board was optional, but if it was not installed an Apple Disk II or compatible drive would be required to load software. The long delay between announcement and availability, along with heavy promotion including full page ads running monthly in the Commodore press, made the Spartan an infamous example of vaporware. Gamesware produced a gaming peripheral for the Commodore 64 in 1988, where a target board was attached to the computer using the RS 232 port to enable use of its Gamma Strike suite of games. CMD produced a SID symphony cartridge later in the Commodore's life. A reworking of the original Dr. T's SID Symphony cartridge, this cartridge gave the Commodore another SID chip for use to play stereo SID music. This saved Commodore 64 users from needing to modify their computer motherboards to enable it with dual SID chips. Creative Micro Designs (CMD) was the longest running third party hardware vendor for the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128, hailed by some enthusiasts as being better at supporting the Commodore 64 than Commodore themselves. Their first commercial product for the C64 was a KERNAL based fast loader and utility chip called JiffyDOS. It was not the first KERNAL based enhancement for the C64 (SpeedDOS and DolphinDOS also existed), but was perhaps the best implemented. The benefits of a KERNAL upgrade meant that the cartridge port was free for use (which would have normally been taken up by an Epyx FastLoad cartridge or an Action Replay), however the downside meant that one had to manually remove computer chips from the C64's motherboard and associated floppy drives to install it. Aside from the usual 1541 fast load routines, JiffyDOS contained an easy to use DOS and a few other useful utilities.

Over the years, a number of RAM expansion cartridges were developed for the Commodore 64 and 128. Commodore officially produced several models of RAM expansion cartridges, referred to collectively as the 17xx series Commodore REUs. While these devices came in 128, 256, or 512 kB sizes, third party modifications were quickly developed that could extend these devices to 2 MB, although some such modifications could be unstable. Some companies also offered services to professionally upgrade these devices. Typically, most Commodore 64 users did not require a RAM expansion. Very little of the available software was programmed to make use of expansion memory. The cost of the units (and the requirement to add a heavy duty power supply) also was a factor in the limited usage of RAM expansion cartridges. The volatility of DRAM was also a factor in the limited usage, as the RAM expansion cartridges were normally used for fast RAM disk storage, data stored on them would be lost at any power failure. Aside from power supply problems, the other main downfall of the RAM expansions were their limited usability due to their technical implementation. The RAM in the expansion cartridges was only accessible via a handful of hardware registers, rather than being CPU addressable memory. This meant that users could not access this RAM without complicated programming techniques. Furthermore, simply adding the RAM expansion did not provide any kind of on board RAM disk functionality (though a utility disk was supplied with some REUs, which provided a loadable RAM disk driver). One popular exception to the disuse of the REUs was GEOS. As GEOS made heavy use of a primitive, software controlled form of swap space, it tended to be slow when used exclusively with floppy disks or hard drives. With the addition of an REU, along with a small software driver, GEOS would use the expanded memory in place of its usual swap space, increasing GEOS' operating speed. Due to the lack of available 17xx series Commodore REUs, and then their later discontinuation, Berkeley Softworks, the publishers of GEOS, developed their own 512 kB RAM expansion cartridge the GeoRAM. This device was purposely designed for use with GEOS, although some REU aware programs were later adapted to be able to use it. Some time later, the GeoRAM was cloned by another company to form the BBGRAM device (which also sported a battery backup unit). The GeoRAM used a banked memory design where portions of the external DRAM were banked into the Commodore 64's CPU address space. This method provided substantially slower transfer speeds than the single cycle per byte transfer speeds of the Commodore REUs. The GeoRAM utilized four 1 Mbit density DRAM chips arranged as two banks of two 256Kx4 DRAM ICs. A benefit of using denser DRAM was lower power consumption, and so the GeoRAM did not require upgrading the Commodore 64's power supply, in contrast with the 17xx series REU memory expansion cartridges. Eventually the Super 1750 Clone, a third party clone of Commodore's RAM expansions was developed, designed in such a way as to eliminate the need for a heavy duty power supply. PPI devised their own externally powered 1 or 2 MB RAM expansion, marketed as the PPI/CMD RAMDrive, which was explicitly designed to be used as a RAM disk. Its primary feature was that the external power supply kept the formatting and contents of the RAM safe and valid while the computer was turned off, in addition to powering the device in any case. A driver was provided on the included utilities disk to allow GEOS to use the RAMdrive as a regular 'disk' drive. CMD later followed up with the RAMLink. This device operated similar to the RAMDrive, but could address up to 16 MB of RAM in the form of a 17xx series REU, GeoRAM, and/or an internal memory card, which also provided a battery backed realtime clock for file time/date stamping of files saved to it. It also features a battery backup, thus preserving the RAM's contents. Drivers were provided with the RAMLink to allow GEOS to use its memory as either a replacement for swap space, or as a regular 'disk' drive. CMD's Super CPU Accelerator came after this and could house up to 16 MB of direct, CPU addressable RAM. Unfortunately, there was no on board or disk based RAM disk functionality offered, nor could any existing software make use of the directly addressable nature of the RAM. The exception is that drivers were included with the unit to explicitly allow GEOS to use that RAM as a replacement for swap space, or as a regular 'disk' drive, as well as to make use of the acceleration offered by the unit.

Programmers for EPROMs like 2716 27256 using common programming voltages (Vpp) of 12.5, 21, and 25 V were available by connecting a device to the user port of the C64. These devices could cost 100 USD in 1985. The device often included a zero insertion force (ZIF) socket and a LED indicating when the EPROM chip was being programmed. The cartridge port was also used by some programmer devices.

Probably the most well known hacker and development tools for the Commodore 64 included "Reset" and "Freezer" cartridges. As the C64 had no built in soft reset switch, reset cartridges were popular for entering game "POKEs" (codes which changed parts of a game's code in order to cheat) from popular Commodore computer magazines. Freezer cartridges had the capability to not only manually reset the machine, but also to dump the contents of the computer's memory and send the output to disk or tape. In addition, these cartridges had tools for editing game sprites, machine language monitors, floppy fast loaders, and other development tools. Freezer cartridges were not without controversy however. Despite containing many powerful tools for the programmer, they were also accused of aiding unauthorized distributors to defeat software copy protections. Perhaps the best known freezer cartridges were the Datel "Action Replay", Evesham Micros Freeze Frame MK III B, Trilogic "Expert", "The Final Cartridge III", Super Snapshot and ISEPIC cartridges. The Lt. Kernal hard drive subsystem included a push button on the host adapter called ICQUB (pronounced "ice cube"), which could be used to halt a running program and capture a RAM image to disk. This would work with most copy protected software that did not do disk overlays and/or bypass the KERNAL ROM jump table. The RAM image was runnable only on the Lt. Kernal system on which it was captured, thus preventing the process from being used to distribute unlicensed software.

As the Commodore 64 featured a digitally controlled semi analogue synthesizer as its sound processor, it was not surprising to discover an abundance of software and hardware designed to expand upon its capabilities. Various assemblers, notators, sequencers, MIDI editing and mixer automation software were created which allowed users and programmers to create or record musical pieces of impressive technical complexity. Some software of note has included the Kawasaki Synthesizer range, Music System notation and MIDI suite, the MIDI compatible Instant Music 'idiot proof' sequential composer, and the Steinberg Pro 16 MIDI sequencer, the precursor to Cubase. Notable hardware included various brands of MIDI cartridges, plug in keyboards (such as the Color Tone or the Sound Chaser 64), Commodore's own SFX range which included a sound sampler and Sound Expander plug in synthesizer and keyboard, the more recent Commodulator oscillator wheel and the Prophet 64 sequencer and synthesizer utility cartridge. The Passport Designs MIDI Interface is said to be one of the best designs and had the most software supported model available. It came with the "DOS Card" addition, an Apple II disk controller that was installed inside the Commodore 1541 disk drive, between the floppy logic board and the drive mechanism. In normal mode the circuit simply passed signals through but at the flick of a switch it could take over the mechanism and turn the drive into an Apple II drive. The potential for grave damage to both Apple II and 1541 floppies was enormous and often happened. The box had 24 jumpers to configure. Applesoft BASIC was included and very compatible, since it was created by disassembling the binary from the Applesoft ROM and reordering the assembly level instructions such that the binary image would be different. One could set up various debugging and use slave computing to enable fast 3D rendering etc. The box had functionality to switch video between C64 and Apple. The second advertisement was put into the COMPUTE! 's Gazette in 1986.

The Commodore C64 CP/M Cartridge uses the C1541 floppy drive which was incapable of reading any existing CP/M disk format. The cartridge were equipped with a Zilog Z80 CPU running at around 3 MHz.

Like the Apple II series, third party acceleration units providing a faster CPU appeared late in the C64's life. Due to timing issues with the VIC II video controller, CPU accelerators for the 64 were complex and expensive to implement. So while accelerators based upon the Western Design Center (WDC) 65C02—usually running at 4 MHz, and the WDC 65C816 16 bit microprocessor running at 4, 8 or 20 MHz, were produced, they appeared too late and were too expensive to gain widespread use. The first CPU accelerator seen was called the "Turbo Process" by a Bonn, Germany, based company called Roßmöller GmbH. It used the WDC 65C816 microprocessor running at 4.09 MHz. Code ran from faster static RAM on the accelerator expansion port cartridge. As the VIC video controller can only access the C 64's internal DRAM, writes had to be mirrored to the internal memory; write cycles would slow the operation of the processor to accomplish this. The Turbo Master CPU, produced by US based Schnedler Systems, was a hardware clone of the Roßmöller Turbo Process product with minor logic changes and a blue aluminum case. It was an expansion port device clocked at 4.09 MHz. It also had a JiffyDOS option. Early Turbo Process circuit boards shipped with PAL chips that did not have their security fuses blown, an oversight which made duplicating the PAL logic and hence the cartridge design trivial. No known litigation took place over the copying of the German company's design. The Turbo Master CPU had one beneficial modification, the bit to toggle the high speed mode on was "0" in memory location $00 as opposed to the "1" the Turbo Process. A lot of software would write zeros to this location turning off the high speed mode on the Turbo Process this was considered a design flaw that was fixed by the Turbo Master. The most well known accelerator for the C64 is probably Creative Micro Designs' SuperCPU, which was equipped with the WDC W65C816S (the static core version of the 65C816) clocked at 20 MHz, and with up to 16 MB of RAM if combined with CMD's SuperRamCard. Understandably, due to a very limited "market" and number of developers, there has not been much software tailored for the SuperCPU to date — however GEOS was supported. Among the few offerings available are the Wheels; a Wheels based web browser called "The Wave", a Unix/QNX like graphical OS called Wings, some demos, various classic games modified for use with the SuperCPU, and a shooter game in the old Katakis style called Metal Dust.

While CMD no longer produces Commodore hardware, new peripherals are still being developed and produced, mostly for mass storage or networking purposes. The MMC64 cartridge allows the C64 to access MMC and SD flash memory cards. And several revisions and add ons have been developed for it to take advantage of extra features. It features an Amiga clock port for connecting a RR Net Ethernet Interface, an MP3 player add on called 'mp3@c64' has even been produced for it. In February 2008, Individual Computers started shipping the MMC Replay. It unites the MMC64 and the Retro Replay in one cartridge, finally built with proper case fit in mind (even including the RRnet2 Ethernet add on). It contains many improvements, such as C128 compatibility, a built in d64 mounter (not speedloader compatible though, because the 1541 CPU is not emulated), 512 kB ROM for a total of eight cartridges, 512 kB RAM, a built in flash tool for cartridge images and wider support for various types of cartridges (not merely Action replay based). In April 2008, the first batch of 1541 Ultimate shipped, a project by the hobbyist VHDL developer Gideon Zweijtzer. This is a cartridge that carries an Action Replay and Final Cartridge (whatever the user prefers) and a very compatible FPGA emulated 1541 drive that is fed from a built in SD card slot (. d64, prg etc.). The difference to other SD based and d64 mounting cartridges like the MMC64, Super Snapshot 2007 or MMC Replay is, that the 6502 that powers the 1541 Floppy and the 1541's mechanical behavior (even sound) is fully emulated, making it theoretically compatible with almost anything. File selection and management is done via a third button on the cartridge that brings up a new menu on screen. The 1541 Ultimate also works in standalone mode without a c 64, functioning just like a normal Commodore 1541 would. Disk selection of d64s is then done via buttons on the cartridge, power is supplied via USB. There is a "Plus Version" available with an extra 32 Megabytes of RAM (as REU and for future use), the basic version has just enough RAM for the advertised functions to work. In October 2008, the second and third batch of 1541 Ultimates were produced to match the public demand for the device. The regular version without the 32MB RAM was dropped since there was no demand for it. Due to public demand, there is also a version with Ethernet now. In 2010 a completely new PCB and software has been developed by Gideon Zweijtzer to facilitate the new 1541 Ultimate II cartridge. The IDE64 interface cartridge provides access to parallel ATA drives like hard disks, CD/DVD drives, LS 120, Zip drives, and CompactFlash cards. It also supports network drives (PCLink) to directly access a host system over various connection methods including X1541, RS 232, Ethernet and USB. The operating system called IDEDOS provides CBM/CMD compatible interface to programs on all devices. The main filesystem is called CFS, but there's read only support for ISO 9660 and FAT12/16/32. Additional features include BASIC extension, DOS Wedge, file manager, machine code monitor, fast loader, BIOS setup screen. Today's computer mice can be attached via the Micromys interface that can process even optical mice and similar. There are also various interfaces for plugging the 64 to a PC keyboard. A board for converting Commodore 64 video signals to standard VGA monitor output is also currently under development. Also, a board to convert the Commodore 128's 80 column RGBI CGA compatible video signal to VGA format was developed in late 2011. The board, named the C128 Video DAC, had a limited production run and was used in conjunction with the more widespread GBS 8220 board. In September 2008, Individual Computers announced the Chameleon, a Cartridge for the Expansion Port that adds a lot of previously unseen functionality. It has a Retro Replay compatible Freezer and MMC/SD Slot, 16 MB REU and a PS/2 connector for a PC Keyboard. Support for a network adapter and battery backed real time clock exists. The cartridge does not even have to be plugged into a Commodore 64 and can be used as a standalone device using USB power. Since the cartridge essentially also includes a Commodore One it is possible to include a VGA Port that outputs the picture to a standard PC monitor. The Commodore One core also allows the cartridge to be used as a CPU accelerator, and a core to run a Amiga environment in standalone mode also exists. Unlike most other modern day C64 hardware, this cartridge ships with a bright yellow case. Shipping was announced for Q1/2009, and currently the cartridge is available, although the firmware is in a beta state. A standalone mode docking station is under development. Retro Innovations is shipping the uIEC device, which utilizes the core design of the SD2IEC project to provide a mass media solution for Commodore 8 bit systems that utilize the Commodore IEC Serial Bus. NKCElectronics of Florida is shipping SD2IEC hardware which uses the sd2iec firmware. Manosoft sells the C64SD Infinity, another SD card media solution which uses the sd2iec firmware. In Summer of 2013, another commercial variant of the SD2IEC Device appears on market, the SD2IEC evo2 from 16xEight. This device uses a bigger uC (ATmega1284P) and has some extras such as Battery backed up RTC, connector for LC Display, Multicolour Status LED, and so on already on board. 2014 sees the emergence of another commercial variant of SD2IEC hardware. thefuturewas8bit SD2IEC Versions are available packaged to resemble a miniature 1541 disk drive. It has illuminated disk change and reset buttons accessible from the top of the case.