CMD RAMLink
-
The RAMLink is a large cartridge with two onboard cartridge slots. The first, “RAM Port”, provides provides battery backup for another RAM cartridge (typically a Commodore 17xx REU). The second, “Pass-Thru Port”, is not battery backed and is intended for another (non-RAM) cartridge. The RAMLink also includes a parallel port for faster communication with a CMD HD-series hard drive.
The RAMLink contains built-in JiffyDOS 6.01 KERNALs for both C64 and 128. When equipped with the optional “RAMCard”, the RAMLink can be expanded internally to 16MB of battery-backed RAM using 30-pin SIMMs. The RAMLink provides full CMD DOS support for this large RAM area. It can be partitioned and used much the same as a CMD HD.
RLDIRECT and Pass-Thru Port Modification
When the RAMLink is placed in “direct” mode, the $DExx page (IO1) chip select is disabled on the RAMLink’s pass-thru port. The reason for this is for compatibility with RAM cartridges like GEORAM, BBGRAM, and RAMDrive that use the IO1 page. A consequence of this for Commodore REU owners is that you cannot use a 17xx REU in its fast DMA mode while installed in the RAM port, and at the same time use a cartridge such as the SwiftLink/Turbo232 that uses the IO1 page.
This can be fixed, at the expense of compatibility with those other RAM cartridges, by installing a chip called RLDIRECT from CMD (no longer available) or by performing a small hardware modification described in Commodore World issue 8.