New user with a few noob questions.

[thesmiler37]

Hey all, finally got my first (working) 464 the other day and have had a ton of fun trying games and type in programs, the tape deck was pretty beat up but a new belt and a good clean out has got it working perfectly although i still get load errors on some games, i've got a few questions mainly about expansions which i'll list below.


A) What's the best "flash cart" for the 464? I've heard of a couple such devices like the Dandanator and those Gotek floppy emulators but i don't know much about either and a quick google search hasn't shown me a lot, other than ebay listings for them.


B) I want a printer to use with my 464 what should i look for? I only want one for the novelty really so if they're really expensive to buy and run (paper, ink) then i'm not interested but i find obsolete tech like that is usually quite cheap because there isn't much demand for it.


C) Whats the best way to do the audio in mod? I'm currently using a tape to aux adapter to load games into my 464 (and the 40 odd tapes i got with it) but it seems to be very unreliable and games that use a fast loader have a high chance of not working at all, so i want to do the audio in mod but i've seen that there is a couple ways to go about it, one method is to solder the aux input straight onto the + and - of the play head and the other method is to solder to a few different points on the cassette deck PCB, i'm not sure of the advantages or disadvantages of each method so if someone could shed some light on it that would be great.

Those are all my questions for now, sorry if they are asked every 5 mins but i did try to search them online and couldn't find any answers, thanks in advance! 

[eto]

A) What's the best "flash cart" for the 464? I've heard of a couple such devices like the Dandanator and those Gotek floppy emulators but i don't know much about either and a quick google search hasn't shown me a lot, other than ebay listings for them.


B) I want a printer to use with my 464 what should i look for? I only want one for the novelty really so if they're really expensive to buy and run (paper, ink) then i'm not interested but i find obsolete tech like that is usually quite cheap because there isn't much demand for it.

A) For the 464 a Gotek does not help as you also need a floppy controller. There are basically two(three) options:

1) DDI5 from Piotr and every now and then available on Sellmyretro. This gives you a Floppy controller, Gotek compatible USB drive and 512K of RAM
2) The Usifac 2 from our user iconsgr which gives you a USB drive
(3) The Ulifac - which is the big brother of the Usifac and also works as a ROM board and RAM expansion (256/512K)


1 is quite expensive and will be the right choice if you plan to add a floppy and any point. It also comes in a nice case.
2 is the cheapest solution and gives you fast and easy access to your games and apps library
3 is in the mid - and quite powerful as you can also add software in ROM to your 464 which (if you need it) can be very powerful and convenient. 

B) the "natural" printer for a CPC is a dot matrix printer with Centronics port and Epson emulation. If thatÄs the case it should work with the CPC. However make sure you still get ink ribbons. E.g. for the native dot matrix printers like the DMP2000 you no longer get ink ribbons. I bought a Citizen 120D where it's still easy to get ink ribbons. 

C) sorry, no idea

[thesmiler37]

Cheers for the info! I think i'll go with the ULIfAC, it looks very good for the price.

[Blank_Reg]

It does not seem that you can get a DDI5 anymore - banned in the UK due to Brexit costs?