CMD RAMlink hardware questions

[Crazyeights]

With the prices that all of the C64 CMD products are commanding these days have their been any discussions about reproducing some of them? Is the original CMD designer/owner still around?

Looking at the current online auction pictures of a CMD RAMlink it seems that the device is made up from mostly off the shelf parts, except the case of course. It looks like there are two GALs. Are these protected or can they be analyzed somehow?

[intric8]

Lots of great questions there, Crazyeights.

With the prices that all of the C64 CMD products are commanding these days have their been any discussions about reproducing some of them?

Yes, there is a German forum where this has been discussed across a few years. Supposedly one of the members of the site claimed to have reverse engineered some of the devices but due to © fears made them only for himself and never released any of his work.

Is the original CMD designer/owner still around?

Mark Fellows is indeed still around and has zero interest at all in trying to recreate anything, share any past knowledge nor attempt to see if his old PC with the original source files still works or not. Jim Brain has asked.

Looking at the current online auction pictures of a CMD RAMlink it seems that the device is made up from mostly off the shelf parts, except the case of course.

That is very true.

It looks like there are two GALs. Are these protected or can they be analyzed somehow?

Yes, all of the CMD devices have special read-protected chips. Folks have been able to reverse everything up to the final chips themselves. And, of course, the CMD IP is murky waters. The only piece that has ever been handed off is JiffyDOS.

[Crazyeights]

Thank you for the great informed reply.

[intric8]

@crazyeights, here are the links to the reverse engineering projects on the German forum forum64.de. You have to be logged in to view images, and these are all by the same guy who goes by the moniker "toms01".

SuperCPU128 (thread started 2021)

C128 MMU Adapter (for SCPU)

FWIW, if you ever find an MMU, Corei64 has a modernized MMU adapter to move the chips onto which is SUPER cool. Which reminds me, I should post some of the little CMD artifacts I've picked up in the past couple of months...

RAMLink

He even shows it to be in fully working order, which is astounding.

CMD HD

CMD FD-2000/4000

The challenge with all of this stuff - like you mentioned in the beginning - is they are all sans cases. But in today's 3D printed world that is probably a slowly diminishing problem. The metal is going to look and feel SO much better, but the printing capabilities of some high-end printers is getting really, really good. Just look at the FNX 1591 drives, for example.

Jim Brain on the project in 2022 on Lemon64:

The reverse engineering wizard that put in the hours in the project has been keeping me informed. It's quite the accomplishment.

Yes, I'd not bother contacting CMD now, as they departed this business long ago. They sold the remaining stock and test equipment to Maurice Randall (I'll not rehash all that, look it up here and elsewhere for details).

The copyrights were given back to Mark Fellows, who I have some contact with at times. I've been working to get rights to the HDL (the current reverse engineering work acquired the original bitstreams, but those are still copyrighted by Mark.

But, I get the impression the effort is primarily to support existing units, where licensing is not an issue.

Lots of very talented people involved in recreating those devices. Where they stand in terms of ever seeing the light of day beyond personal use or helping folks with original hardware is indeed still murky at the moment.