NORDIC POWER V2.0

To those of you who still don't know the Nordic Power:
The Nordic Power is a cartridge for the Amiga.
There are two versions,the 2000 and the 500/1000 version.
I tested the 500 version.

The cartridge fits into the expansion port on the left side of your
Amiga.The cartridge has an extra bus on the left of it,so you won't
have to remove your harddisk,eprom programmers,etc.

The cartridge contains two buttons:
One push-button to enter the menu and one that slows down the processor
step by step when you turn it.

The slow down function is easy when playing games,but the joystick/mouse
responce is also slowed down.Since the blitter is not slowed down,the
screen build up is usualy at normal speed,just the intervals between the
screen build ups are slowed down.This means that the screen will stay
normal most of the time.

When you press the other button (the freeze button) the cartridge is
initialised,which means that when you press that other button any
time,you get in the menu.
After pressing the freeze button again,you are in the menu.The first thing
that I noticed was the color,the 1.5SC version which I had,had a gray
screen with white text.The 2.0 version has a red background with
white text.
The menu has the following options:

F1...Freezer	This allowes you to store your memory (fast+chip or chip)
		and reload it later,only with the cartridge.
		There are 3 ways to store:  512K,1Meg,Packed
		(this is the 'backup' option from the 64 cartridges)
F2...Graphics	This rips every picture (99.999%...),Interlace,Hires,
		Lores,Overscan,Dual playfield,Halfbrite,H.A.M.,etc.
		There was only one thing it couldn't rip:
		The Overscan-Hires CLI on my workdisk...
		The ripper is very good,reset protections won't help
		the graphic artists here,the cartridge always works,
		reset protection or not...And because the Nordic Power
		has got its own (fast!) filesystem,you can save pics (etc.)
		anytime...
		The cartridge has its own picture is in memory
		too,this can give some disturbance sometimes,but this can
		be solved by using the keys on the keypad to move the
		part that the cartridge uses in memory.
		The colors are nearly always o.k.,since these are obtained
		from the color registers when the cartridge is started up,
		this is also one of those things in which this cartridge
		differs from the other rippers.
		The ripper can also print on 9-needle printers...
F3...Sound	This is 'just' a basic sample ripper,whith the change
		that this can rip (like the graphics ripper) anything
		in that is in chip memory when you push the button.
		You can also play samples backwards.
F4...Disktools	Dir,Format (quick and normal,with verify offcourse)
		Copy (2 drives only),Makedir,Path and Remove/Scratch
		(delete).These commands can only be used when you are
		in the menu.It's not like the C64 cartridges.You
		haven't got an extended 'basic' or cli with the Nordic
		Power.
F5...Monitor	Now here is the part I liked most...The monitor.
		This are the functions:
		Memory Hex dump (read/write)
		Assemble/Disassemble
		Registers
		Custom chip registers ($DFFXXX)
		8520 registers
		Ascii dump
		Hunt
		Save from absolute adress
		Load to absolute adress
		Print (only on 9-needle matrix printers)
F6...Preferences
		Here you can select if you want to get into the monitor
		,the graphics ripper etc. directly or first select the
		options using the menu.

		Another options in the preferences menu is the game
		cheater,this option doesn't work with many games.
		The cheater asks you how many lives you have got know,
		then it asks you to lose one live (in the game offcourse),
		and then restart the cheater.Then it should work.
		Unfortunately,the cheater is not perfect.Often you'll
		get strange guru's ($0000002F -ever heard of that one?)
		or it just won't find the cheat.Anyway,the option is
		available,so no bad language about the cheater,just
		subject for future improvement.

		There is also a slideshow creator in this menu,which
		makes a slideshow on a disk.Nice if you have just
		ripped a disk full of pictures and you want to see them...

		And there is the keyboard option,which selects a standard
		USA keyboard,German keyboard or French...

F7...Restart	Continues after a freeze,or after the loading of a backup.

F8...Reset and Clear	(Hard reset)

F9...Reboot	initialises the cartridge.


In general you could say that the Nordic Power V2.0 (mind that V2.0!)
is worth the ±279 Dutch Guilders you get to pay for it.
This cartridge allows you to get past any reset protection,it allows
you to backup anything (even Rattlecopy 2 -sorry Peter,try harder),

You can rip almost anything,and using the monitor you can see how some
routines work,you can change copperlists (the adress of the current
copperlist is in $DFF080),remove intro's from no-dos disks
(the adress of the current bootblock is in A4 when a bootblock is
'executed',just save it to disk and install it) .

The cartridge is completely keyboard controlled,the mouse is not used.
The copy and format functions are good,both use verify.The filesystem
that the cartridge uses can load 512K in 30 seconds,it is faster then
Amigados.Again: backups made with the cartridge cannot be loaded without
the cartridge (fortunately;protecting your programs is still possible). 


You can order the cartridge or the two roms,for those of you who already
got one,from:

Data & Electronics
Postbus 3119
NL-5902 RC   VENLO
(NETHERLANDS)


Review by Roger Heykoop