A Great Find on Aminet: The Tool for Managing Your C64 from an Amiga
As a proud owner of a 1541 Ultimate II+, I came across an excellent tool on Aminet today. Titled "Ultimate64/Ultimate-II library and tools" (or u64ctl for short), this program allows me to control my Commodore 64, which is connected to my Ultimate II+, through my Amiga.
Saying it like that makes it sound too simple. By "control," I don't just mean being able to reset the device or access its memory; with this program, I can remotely mount disks, run programs, and even play MOD or SID music. By the way, the program works almost flawlessly if you can overlook a few minor issues.
Enough with the praise, if you're asking what the flaws are:
If you enter the wrong IP address, the program freezes. It doesn't crash the whole system, but you have to use Scout to kill the window.
Why is there no textbox in the settings window? It took me a while to realize that the IP address was editable. :)
When you mount a disk, it gives an error (which you could see in the screenshot), but it actually mounts the disk successfully. This might be because the program officially supports the Ultimate64 and Ultimate-II, and my cartridge is an Ultimate-II+. Frankly, I didn't worry about it too much.
- The menu button and the "keyboard input" feature didn't work for me. This could, again, be due to device incompatibility. I need to experiment a bit more to get these working.
If you're asking, "What is a 1541 Ultimate-II+?", there's a great review of it here. I will also be sharing my own experiences with this magnificent device from time to time.
You can download the program from Aminet at this address.
Since it is open-source software, you can also access its GitHub page from here.