"Partner 128" by Timeworks Inc.

Hello fellow hackers!

In the past days i have started to fix and enhance the cartridge emulation in
the C128 emulator of VICE. Related to that, i am looking for more info on one
of the cartridges:

"Partner 128" by Timeworks Inc.

This one is rather obscure, as there is a cable going from the cartridge to
joystick port 2. There is also a button at the cartridge. It appears to have a
simple "freezer" functionality, and that cable appears to play a role in that.

Now if you google for this cartridge a bit, you can actually find pictures,
some related d64, a pdf of the manual, and even a ROM dump. So far so good.

Unfortunately the dump "out there" appears to be broken - so the first request
is for a dump that has NOT the following checksum:

$ crc32 partner128.bin
e165bdb6

Another big question is: What is this mysterious cable really doing?
Interesting things would be:

- Pictures of the inside of the cartridge (that hopefully show where the cable
is connected to.)
- If the cable is not connected, how does this actually affect it's operation?

Obviously having a schematic of the cartridge would be ideal - that is a
request for someone who not only owns the cartridge, but is also able to open
it and desolder some components eventually. Besides having too much time :)

Additionally, since the manual is kindof vague at times, there are more
questions:

- how exactly do you bring up the "partner menu"?
- what exactly is the button for?
- the manual mentions ESCAPE but not exactly when to press/hold it, whats that
about?
- the manual mentions holding CTRL when the cable is in port 1 (?). what does
that do?

If you own the cartridge please speak up, we can help with dumping and further
inspection. Let's preserve this obscure thing :)

--

http://hitmen.eu                 http://ar.pokefinder.org
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net  http://magicdisk.untergrund.net

Wir leben alle unter dem gleichen Himmel, aber wir haben nicht alle den
gleichen Horizont.
<Konrad Adenauer, CDU>