Final Cartridge

Final Cartridge Screenshots
Technical Info
ROM	TFC/FC2: 16 kbyte FC+: 24 kbyte FC3: 64 kbyte
RAM	None
Hardware features	TFC/FC2/FC+: 1 Button Reset 1 Switch On/Off FC3: 1 Button Freeze 1 Button Reset
Manual	PDF: XX pages PDF: XX pages PDF: XX pages PDF: XX pages PDF: XX pages PDF: XX pages
CRT ID	TFC/FC2/FC+: 13 FC3: 35
Programming	See Tech Section

Work is still in progress here!

The Final Cartridge and its successor, the very popular Final Cartridge III,

• FC1: has fast loader, freezer, monitor, fkeys, dos wedge stuff - freezer works WITHOUT the cart ?
• FC2: has fast loader, freezer, monitor, fkeys, dos wedge stuff - looks like just a few drive handling and timing things got changed - about 300 hexbytes change - no apparent change on functionality - the dump has a string "noddy 260788" - which seems like someone modded into it?

Cart ROMs use $8000 - $BFFF and no more.

• FC+: "(C) SJATON80 FC3" on the _unused_ eprom bank - most of the rest pretty much looks like an enhanced FC2. One of the two version we found also has "EPROMMER II" on some unused area - A hint to the used eprom programmer software. The two versions found of FCplus contain a few changed routines but again no major function was added it seems. FLOAD and TLOAD were introduced after FC2.

Cart ROMs use $8000 - $BFFF _AND_ $E000-$FFFF at apparently the same time.

• FC3: Major overhaul - many things were added and the hardware was changed to allow banking - a freeze button was added.

fuck, this is going to be long ...

Wonder where this is coming from: vice?

- here is another doc: http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/documents/chipdata/Final%20Cartridge%20III%20Internals.txt (equally wrong)

   The Final Cartridge 1 + 2

   - any access to IO1 turns cartridge ROM off
   - any access to IO2 turns cartridge ROM on

   The Final Cartridge 3

   - 4 16K ROM Banks at $8000/$a000 (=64K)

        Bank 0:  BASIC, Monitor, Disk-Turbo
        Bank 1:  Notepad, BASIC (Menu Bar)
        Bank 2:  Desktop, Freezer/Print
        Bank 3:  Freezer, Compression

   - the cartridges uses the entire io1 and io2 range

   - one register at $DFFF:

    7      Hide this register (1 = hidden)
    6      NMI line   (0 = low = active) *1)
    5      GAME line  (0 = low = active) *2)
    4      EXROM line (0 = low = active)
    2-3    unassigned (usually set to 0)
    0-1    number of bank to show at $8000

    1) if either the freezer button is pressed, or bit 6 is 0, then
       an NMI is generated

    2) if the freezer button is pressed, GAME is also forced low

    - the rest of io1/io2 contain a mirror of the last 2 pages of the
      currently selected rom bank (also at $dfff, contrary to what some
      other documents say)

Weblinks

• http://www.richardlagendijk.nl/cip/category/cartridge/final_cartridge
• http://www.richardlagendijk.nl/cip/category/cartridge/final_cartridge_3
• http://www.richardlagendijk.nl/cip/category/cartridge/final_cartridge_internal
• http://home.datacomm.ch/fmeyer/c64/fc3.html
• http://web.tiscali.it/c64commodore/ clone images
• http://www.c64-online.com/phpbb/downloads.php?df_id=282&view=detail another german fc3 manual
• http://www.c64-wiki.de/index.php/Final_Cartridge_3 german
• http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Final_Cartridge_3 english
• http://everything2.com/title/The+Final+Cartridge+III
• http://www.nightfallcrew.com/?p=1338
• http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Cartridge_3 german wikipedia
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Cartridge_III english wikipedia