PET Loader patched for NTSC (40-column VIC)

[oracle_jedi]

I was checking out some VIC20 related sites earlier, and stumbled across a recent summary of VIC 40-column options at a site called Tech Tinkering

The summary included an entry for PET Loader - what it seems was once a cartridge based 40-column solution that perhaps tried to position itself as a way to run PET code on the VIC. Since PET Loader doesn't implement CBM BASIC 4, nor it seems make any effort to translate screen memory locations, one must assume that only the simplest PET software would have run on a VIC with this cartridge.

Tech Tinkering also made reference to a discussion here on the Denial forum back in 2006, where @carlsson offered up some POKEs to get the cartridge to operate on NTSC machines.

Anyway I took the suggested screen position values, and patched the code to detect if the VIC is PAL or NTSC, and then set the screen accordingly.

There is a PRG and a .A0 version in the zipfile.

Since I have a few spare TFW8B 2764 ROM cartridge boards, I might burn this to a PROM and experience powering up my VIC to beautiful 40-column mode. If you don't want to put it on a real cartridge, the .PRG will load into BLK5. Start it with SYS64802.

Enjoy.

Graham