World of Commodore VII (Toronto, Nov 30 - Dec 3, 1989)
------------------------------------------------------

 Once again 8-bit owners were forced to face an overload of Amiga hardware and
software from dealers, manufacturers, and Commodore. However, there were a
couple of notable exceptions in the hardware arena.


GEORAM from Berkley Softworks
-----------------------------

 Berkley unveiled GEORAM, their 512K RAM expansion board for the C64/128.
This unit was "developped exclusively for GEOS-equipped Commodores" and
is used much in the same way a Commodore 1750 REU would be used with GEOS.

 Like the 1750, GEORAM isn't true RAM expansion. The RAM is NOT available
directly to the microprocessor. Code and data must be brought into computer
memory to be used.

 A disappointement is that GEORAM is *NOT* 1750 compatible, and so it can't
currently be used in place of a 1750 for non-GEOS applications. With the 1750
out of production, this leaves the SSI 1764 upgrade as the only source of 1750
compatible units.

 Berkley *IS* currently debating whether to release programmer's information
on the GEORAM unit, so non-GEOS applications can be developped.

 The suggested retail price for GEORAM is $124.95.



Creative Micro Designs Hard Drive and RAMLink Interface
-------------------------------------------------------

 The *BIG* news for C64/128 owners is CMD (the JiffyDOS people) unveiled their
hard drive, and RAMLink compatibility interface, and they are both
spectacular!!


CMD Hard Drive
--------------

 The hard drive is an intelligent external peripheral, which appears to
the computer as a normal Commodore disk drive. It contains its own
microprocessor, and uses no RAM inside the computer.

 A great feature is that the drive doesn't contain a DOS ROM. Instead,
it contains 64K of RAM, and the DOS is loaded off the drive into this RAM.
This will make DOS upgrades a snap (just run an installation utility).
Currently only about 32K of this RAM is used by the DOS, leaving plently
of room for future DOS expansion.

 All standard Commodore DOS commands are supported, plus many new ones.

 The drive can be interfaced with the C64/128 three ways:

 Standard serial: The standard disk serial cable between the hard drive and
the C64/128. Slow serial on the C64 or C64 mode, and fast serial on C128
(including burst mode support).

 JiffyDOS serial: CMD is well known for their JiffyDOS ROMs which provide
amazing serial speed improvements. Once again the standard serial cable is
used.

  RAMLink: A multi-purpose expansion device that plugs into the computer
provides a custom parallel interface to the drive (and much more. More
on RAMLink below).


Transfer speeds:

 Standard or JiffyDOS serial: 10-20% improvement over 1581 floppy speeds.

 RAMLink (hold your breath): 32K per second on the C64, and 64K per second
on the C128 (at 2 MHz). These speeds are available for all transfers, of
any filetype and any operation, unlike Xetec's Lt. Kernal which is DMA and
only fast for LOADs and SAVEs.

 Of course only machine language programs or subroutines will attain these
speeds.


 Visually the CMD hard drive is slightly taller than a 1581, with
about the same footprint, and in an attractive C128/C64c colour all-metal
case.

 The front panel has power, activity, and error lights as well as two
special SWAP buttons (SWAP 8 and SWAP 9) which interchange the drive's
device number with any device that currently has device 8 or 9. This
clearly maximizes software compatibility since the drive can be device
8 (or 9) whenever you need it to be.

 The rear of the unit has many connectors:

- The power connector to an external power supply (it looked identical
to the Amiga 500s power supply. How's that for ironic?!)

- Two standard Commodore serial ports.

- A third Commodore serial port for "future printer applications"
(eg. direct from drive to printer streaming).

- The custom parallel interface to RAMLink.

- An industry standard SCSI connector for hooking up other SCSI devices
(other hard drives, tape streamer, CD-ROM, etc.)


 The damage:

  Remember, these aren't cheap IBM hard drives, but quality SCSI units.
You'll be able to move these drives onto any future computer you get, so
they represent a good long term investment. Nevertheless, the prices are
excellent considering that no Amiga or Mac user could get a SCSI drive
of comparable quality for any less.

Standard configurations:

20 meg: $599.95
40 meg  $799.95

 Custom sizes are available all the way to 700 meg. At the show, several
BBS SysOps purchased 100 meg versions for $1200. Prices include shipping
and free DOS upgrades up to version 2.0

 First units will available for shipping in early January 1990.


RAMLink Interface
-----------------

 CMD also unveiled an exciting expansion device called RAMLink. It
stands as a valuable device on its own, and also happens to be the interface to
the CMD hard drive. It doesn't require the hard drive to use.

 It's main use is as a 1700/1764/1750 RAM expansion enhancement device that
offers you some amazing things:

 - Built in RAM disk software in ROM (tentatively named RLDOS). It supports
all standard Commodore disk commands, takes up no RAM inside the computer, and
provides all the standard Commodore DOS commands. Thus it's far more compatible
with software than Commodore's RAMDOS. In fact, any software that doesn't play
with the inside of a drive (fast loads, copy protection, etc.) should work
with RLDOS.

 Since RLDOS is in ROM, and doesn't need to be constantly swapped into
memory. RAM disk usage is up to 20 times faster than RAMDOS!

- Power, RLDOS activity, and RLDOS error lights (just like a real drive).

- SWAP 8 and SWAP 9 buttons, just like the hard drive.

- The CMD hard drive parallel interface

- Built in JiffyDOS (in case you want to upgrade your floppies)

- Two expansion connectors (one on top, one out the back). One is for the
REU, the other is a pass through connector for cartridges and other
expansion devices.

- Internal RAM expansion capability that allows up to 4 meg to be added
to the RAM disk (it's put in the RAMLink, not the REU).

- It's own external power supply that keeps the REU powered even after the
computer is turned off, and a battery backup that will maintain the memory
when the electricity goes out for short (day and less) periods.

  Expanded fully, the RAMLink brings up the tantalizing possibility of
being itself a 4.5 meg silicon hard drive, which would be faster than any
traditional hard drive on any computer.


Price (tentative): $100 for basic RAMLink unit. REU, and RAMdisk expansion
modules not included.

Projected release: March 1990

 No price, or release information is currently available for RAMLink
memory expansion option(s).



 If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave me a
message.

Gary Farmaner/SysOp 76703,3050
