RAM card, giving users a way to add 16Mb of
memory to their machines. The card fitted internally into the SuperCPU. Later in the same year, the SuperCPU 128 was finally released.

Rumours also started that CMD was working on a "home computer" itself, with Commodore 64 compatibility and a collection of hardware already developed.
Many people speculated on a "super C64" with JiffyDOS, a SuperCPU and a hard disk. It is believed the design was shown to a number of potential backers, however no money was secured to make the project a reality. With dwindling sales to the Commodore community and smaller runs of the hardware, the cost of production increased and prices were raised. CMD stopped selling its products in 2001. Maurice Randall purchased the rights to produce new CMD hardware and software through his company Click Here Software, buying up the company's remaining inventory.

Sadly Maurice seems to be dragging his heels on these orders, and is best avoided at the moment as a supplier of CMD hardware. For example, I know users who have been waiting 7 or more years for Maurice to produce hardware for
them. Maurice seems to have now lost interest or is too busy to work on these products, and has gone quiet. Thankfully, Commodore Free did receive a full refund for its produces placed with Maurice. So for the moment, Ebay is the only place to acquire these devices, although alternatives are appearing, and various people have been in talks and working on items like the SCPU replacement. In any case, the availability of SD card readers has diminished the demand for items like the CMD hard disk.

Next month, all being well, we will look in detail at some of the CMD products and what they could do for you, the readers of Commodore Free.

Jiffy dos is available to buy legally from Jim Brain. Jim also sells a number of useful hardware items

store.go4retro.com/

REFERENCES USED IN THIS TEXT

Kernal

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_(computing)

Kernal is also a common misspelling of kernel.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KERNAL

About the misspelling

The KERNAL was originally known as the kernel inside of Commodores since the PET days, but in 1980, Robert Russell misspelled the word in his notebooks as KERNAL. When Commodore technical writers Neil Harris and Andy Finkel collected Russell's notes and used them as the basis for the VIC-20 programmer's manual, the misspelling followed them along and stuck.

According to early Commodore myth, and reported by writer/programmer Jim Butterfield among others, the "word" KERNAL is an acronym (or maybe more likely, a backronym) standing for Keyboard Entry Read, Network, And Link,
which in fact makes good sense considering its role. Its original purpose was to provide software compatibility across machines by having a standard series of calls to built-in routines. Berkeley Softworks later used it when naming
the core routines of its GUI OS for 8-bit home computers: the GEOS KERNAL.

Commodore 64

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64

DOS

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS

DOS Wedge

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Wedge

Commodore DOS

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_DOS

GEOS (8-bit operating system)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system)

The Commodore GEOS F.A.Q. v1.4.1

www.landley.net/history/mirror/8bits/geos/GEOSFAQ.html

The Unofficial CMD Homepage

www.cmdweb.de/

This article was written by Commodore Free with substantial help from Andrew Fisher. Commodore Free would like to thank Andrew for his help, and hopes
he'll get well soon.

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