Kung Fu Flash from Future Was 8-bit

t first the name filled me with fear because it made me think of flashing your own ROM cartridges, which is a voodoo I'm not at one with.

It turns out that products like the Easyflash are less scary than they sound. I believe EF had 8 ROM slots that you could flash from the C64 itself and then it operated as a cartridge containing the ROM you selected.

If I have that wrong, forgive me, but it just demonstrates that KFF is easy enough for a numpty like me to use. Creator Kim Jorgensen has taken that Easyflash idea and run with it.

Kung Fu Flash takes a micro SD card, on which you put as many program files, disk or cartridge images as you like. (If you buy one from Future Was 8-bit, it comes with a micro-SD which already has a lot of stuff copied to it.) The Menu button on the KFF menu gives you a file browser.

You simply select one of your .prg files to run it. In that respect it's a credible alternative to the SD2IEC.

If you select a .crt file, KFF will flash that image and then behave as a cartridge containing that image, instantly starting up with that game whenever you switch the machine on. So you can use it for games which are .crt-only, such as Panic Analogue here, which I couldn't use before:

With that in mind, the KFF seems a more attractive option than the SD2IEC.

There are some considerations. At present it doesn't support NSTC machines, and doesn't do disk swopping. Having said that, the firmware is actively being developed, and can be updated on the KFF via the SD card. So there are likely to be improvements to come.

Also bear in mind that it's C64 and C128-only. The SD2IEC (if you have the right version or can give it 5v externally) will work happily with Vic20, C16, Plus/4 as well as the C64 and 128.

Comments

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