Multimax cartridge

Hi all, and sorry the delay in blog posts but I have not been well including being in hospital, and also recently been dealing with another death in our family in Japan. Has been tough so far in 2017 to put it mildly.

That said, this week I was very pleased to take delivery of the very interesting Multimax cartridge, to try out on my Commodore 64!

The Multimax cartridge is a compilation of all the games ever released for the Japan only released rare Commodore Max computer in 1982. The cartridge is available from Ebay as a new cartridge package - that is where I got this one from.

Amazingly, the Commodore 64, SX-64 and 128 include a backwards compatibility mode that allows them to play Commodore Max cartridge games!

In all only 24 titles were released for the Commodore Max, as the system was a commercial failure in Japan and quickly discontinued. All these titles were released on cartridges. Here is a picture of the Commodore Max system:

Credit: Photo By William Ward - Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2809305

This Multimax compilation makes it possible for people like me who don't have the rare Commodore Max system to try out all the games released for it on the Commodore 64!

Here is the inside of the Multimax package I received, which shows the cartridge carefully surrounded with a protective foam packaging when not in use.

The cartridge has a reset button on the top to quickly reset the C64 without needing to power on/off each time you want to try another game from the cartridge - neat!

When firing up the cartridge on the Commodore 64 , you get the Multimax menu which shows all the titles available, with a scroller at the bottom that explains a bit about each title when you select the corresponding key:

Another nice feature is that when you select a game it displays the control methods required for the game, eg. paddle, joystick and keyboard before you launch the game.

Given the low specifications of the Commodore Max, I wasn't expecting a lot, but the games were quite interesting indeed - starting with Avenger Wars!

There is also Pinball, a variation of the Pinball Wizard (?) version on the Commodore 64:

Perhaps some Radar Rat Race?

Actually I remember playing this on the Commodore 64 as a kid - it was great fun to play it again!

Just to prove it is not all games, here is the Music composer software:

There is also the extremely memory limited Max Basic - can't imagine you can do much which this much ram available:

Or perhaps checking out the Visible Solar System is more your speed?

Moving back to the games I also had a go at Road Race:

It is a surprisingly frustrating difficult car game:

 I also had a go at Slalom, which was quite good fun actually:

Some of the other game titles to try out include Super Alien:

Wizard of Wor:

Kickman:

Bowling:

Billards:

There are other titles I haven't covered here, but there should be some surprises for you when you buy it that way! :-)

I thoroughly recommend trying out the Multimax cartridge - there is a lot there to muck around with and experience what the rare Commodore Max system offered, but on your Commodore 64!