Freeze Frame
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Work is still in progress here!
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 Freeze Frame Screenshots | |
| Technical Info | |
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| ROM | FF1-FF3: 8 kbyte Lazer/FM: 32 kbyte |
| RAM | None |
| Hardware features | FF1-FF3: 1 Button Freeze Lazer/FM: 1 Button Freeze |
| Manual | PDF: XX pages PDF: XX pages |
| CRT ID | FF1-FF3: ?? Lazer/FM: ?? |
| Programming | See Tech Section |
The Freeze Frame (FF) was written by Angus Ager and the hardware produced and distributed by the UK based company Evesham Micros (fomerly known as Micro Centre). There were several versions of the Freeze Frame from MK.I to MK.V (which for better readability will go by MK1 to MK4 here to avoid roman numbers). The Frame series was later joined with the Lazer utility cartridge (released as MK4 and Freeze Frame Lazer) but quickly went to become Freeze Machine practically being MK5 and Lazer 2 as the packaging subtitles.
A different Freeze Frame cartridge is described and pictured on a lemon64 forum thread. The cartridge shown there is a hardcopy cartridge to dump the screen to an attached printer. From the same thread it reads that until Freeze Frame MK3B the cartridge came without reset button and only the Freeze button was present.
The sole purpose of the cartridge is to aid in creating backups of software. The backups are saved to disk or tape whereas disk saving allows to choose on wether reloading shall happen fastload supported or not. The Freeze Frame series came up with a few files on the disk an autostarting boot up program included. Later versions (starting likely with Freeze Machine) allowed single file saving of the backups. We can not exactly tell currently when the fast loading capabilities were introduced into the basic extension but FF4 may be a good guess. Up until then the cartridge only served as backup device with few added functions to clear the ram, format and directory disks and transfer files from tape to disk.
Freeze Machine is a quite obscure cartridge. It has two modes which can be toggled by pressing reset on the power up screen (the manual and screens suggest so) and toggles between FASTLOAD UTILITIES and LAZER UTILITIES. The lower and upper 16kb of the cartridge consist of much of the same code (as this website has found before us) and while a quick glance revealed there is a Fast Format and a Converter on the Lazer side while no apparent changes are seen on the Fastload side. To the defense of the cartridge one could say that there are some unusual routines implemented such as patching routines to patch tape games to disk but such things cannot be taken into account. (The implementation of this feature as well as of the Game Killer feature appears odd - nobody should attempt to patch a packed program automatically even on a high success rate.) On the release of MK4 the makers decided to largely enhance their cartridge and in the end even joined "functionality" of another series but at no point thought about extending the C64 functionality the way the competition went. Apart from the most basic things frozen programs cannot be instantly restarted, a monitor was not included and not even simple basic utilities are provided. Quite a disappointment for an overall 32kb ROM.
We cannot currently judge the F.F. Utility Disk contents but there is doubt they make up with what the cartridge lacks - RAM and functionality.
Notes
Though there were quite a few versions of this cartridge it appears that it became not too popular and therefore our Wantlist is pretty excessive on this item. A memory dumper will be provided soon to easen the task of submitting ROMs to us. :) The Freeze Frame category contains a few more adverts and reviews but they did not contain exciting things so they are left out here.
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Tech
The VICE project page has on freezeframe.c:
Evesham Micros "Freeze Frame"
- 8k ROM
- reading io1 (the software uses de00 only it seems)
- switches to 8k game mode
- ROM is mapped to 8000
- reading io2 (the software uses df00 only it seems)
- disables cartridge ROM
- reset
- enables 8K game mode
- ROM bank is mapped to 8000
- freeze
- enables ultimax mode
- ROM is mapped to 8000
- ROM is mapped to E000
The VICE project page also has freezemachine.c but emulation seems borked so far.
Missing
- FF MK1 more ROM dump versions
- FF MK2 ROM dumps
- FF MK3 ROM dumps
- FF MK3B ROM dumps
- FF MK4 ROM dumps
- FM ROM dumps
- PDF Manual Scans of any of the cartridges
- F.F. Utility Disk V1.0 - V3.0
- Freeze Frame and Freeze Machine schematics
Binaries
Freeze_Frame_binaries_rr.c64.org_2010-05.rar contains just the C64 binaries:
- Freeze Frame MK1 1986 two slightly different .bin files
- Freeze Machine 1987 two more slightly different .bin files
- Freeze Frame Compactor by Les Allen (filename says V2 - program does not, but program says "Try and write your own software & not rip mine off EVESHAM MICROS")
Freeze_Frame_all_rr.c64.org_2010-05.rar contains:
- all of the above
- Freeze Frame MK2 manual sheet from retroport.de
- Freeze_Frame_MK3B_Instructions.txt
- Freeze_Machine_V1.0_Manual_Project64.txt
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Weblinks
- Lemon64 Museum entry for Freeze Machine
- FAIME(?) Retro Computing Page has infos on the Lazer Cartridge (meaning Freeze Machine)
- COMMODORE C-64 Cartridge Rarity List lists Freeze Frame und H&P Computer - whatever -x means. By no means this cart should be rare.
- Freeze Frame Screen Dumper at the Lemon64 Forums is not a freezer really.
