This was the result of collaboration over on the VIC-20 Denial forums. It started with user Boray's excellent X-Menu program for the VIC, a very handy utility for making it easier to load programs, as well as file operations like renaming, scratching, printing. In fact, this program was so useful that I thought it would be handy to have on a cartridge, always available at the press of a button.
I had no idea how to make a cartridge for the VIC20, but over the course of a few months we tackled all the problems one-by one. Plus, even in a 4K cartridge there was some left over space to put in a few extra goodies, so I included the DOS Wedge from the VIC-1541 Demo Disk and a couple of other things. We learned lots of useful programming tricks for the VIC in the process, such as how to move BASIC programs around in memory and relink them.
The first two files are binary images for loading into an
EPROM,
or as a Cartridge image in VICE in either
Block 3 or Block 5.
| Version 1.7a with XMENU16 |
Normal version. |
| Version 1.7a with XMENU20 | This version works with subdirectories in 64HDD and (should work, but not tested) the uIEC, but can't print directories. |
| Loadable version (Block 3) | To use on a real VIC. Put RAM in Block 3 ($6000), load this file ,8,1 , and type SYS25000. |
Instruction
Manual (PDF)
Source Code (developed with DASM)
Once the code was complete, I made several of the cartridges and sold them (with proceeds to charity). I hacked up some old, yellowed game cartridges, and repainted them blue with some leftover paint from my blue 64C. Sorry, they're all gone! But the schematics are above if you want to make your own.
