Today I want to talk to you about the Datel Action Replay, ultimo ritrovato della tecnologia... del 1988!
Datel è un’azienda inglese, tuttora attiva, che produce interfacce e accessori per migliorare l'esperienza di gioco.
The Datel Action Replay allows you to freeze a game at any time and to be able to save it on disk, and then reload it later, from the level in which we left it.
Datel Action Replay, la prova
For the Action Replay cartridge test, I used the legendary Commodore 64, the floppy disc drive 1541 and the datassette, with which I loaded a video game.
The Datel Action Replay is installed in the Commodore 64 expansion port.
For the test, I saved the game on both floppy disc and SD card, using an SD2IEC emulator. Saving the game on an SD card is useful for keeping it on a PC and for sharing it.
To reload the game from the SD faster, I used an Epyx Fastload interface compatible with the emulator.
Starting the Commodore 64 and loading the game
At startup, the Commodore 64 shows up with the Action Replay screen.
To start the computer normally, I pressed F3 (normal reset), then I loaded the game with the datassette.
In reality, as I show in the video attached below this article, it is also possible to start the Commodore by pressing F1 (configure memory): this allows you to save the games, obtaining smaller files.
Il caricamento del gioco con il datassette ha impiegato parecchi minuti: l'attesa è stata estenuante! Dopo aver caricato il gioco, ho premuto quindi il pulsante rosso che si trova dietro la Action Replay.
Datel Action Replay menu, save to SD
Nel menu dell’Action Replay sono presenti varie funzioni. Per creare una copia del gioco (nello stato iniziale), bisogna premere F1 - backup.
The interface freezes the Commodore's memory, then shows the menu to save.
The first part of the test consists in saving the game on the SD memory card, so I connected the SD2IEC emulator on the serial port.
Dal menu backup della Action Replay, ho premuto F1 per selezionare l’indirizzo dell’emulatore, che nel mio caso è 9. Poi ho salvato il gioco con il comando C - salvataggio standard. Nome del file: DIZZY.
While saving, I noticed that Action Replay changed the file name to 1DIZZY.
Saving the video game on floppy
The second test consists in saving the game on floppy disk, but changing the scene. I then moved the video game character, up to change the level.
I then pressed the red Action Replay button again and started the backup with F1. To save the game with the floppy disc drive, which I have on address 8, I have to make sure that the disk device is set up correctly.
I then removed the emulator, and then connected the floppy disc drive 1541 to the Commodore serial port.
As the filename, I indicated DIZZY2. When we go to load this file, we should therefore be in the second screen, not at the beginning of the game.
Also in this case the name of the file has been changed and it has become 1DIZZY2, so then we will go to upload that.
Loading the game from floppy
After saving, I turned the computer off and on again, installed the Datel fastload with F7 and started loading the file we just saved on the floppy disc.
With fastload, loading from floppy discs is very fast, taking just over 10 seconds.
And here the game started from the scene where we left it.
Loading the game from SD memory
To continue the experiments, I reassembled the SD card reader and also a modern Epyx Fastload interface, which is compatible with the emulator. This is because the Action Replay fastload is not compatible with the emulator, but only with the floppy disc drive 1541. I had already done a test and, with the Action Replay fastload, the SD card is read at standard speed.
Con l'Epyx Fastload moderno, è possibile caricare velocemente, dall’SD card, il gioco che abbiamo salvato prima, indicando l’indirizzo 9, dove si trova l’emulatore.
The reading speed is impressive compared to the datassette! Charging takes only 6 seconds.
And here the game is loaded in the blink of an eye, from the opening scene.
Datel Action Replay: avviare il Commodore 64 con l'opzione F1 oppure F3
Tramite la Datel Action Replay, avviando il Commodore 64 con l'opzione F1 (configure memory) al posto di F3 (normal reset), è possibile ottenere file di dimensioni inferiori. Ecco la video prova: