Hypra Load

Hypra Load was a floppy fast-loading program for the home computer Commodore 64 (C64). Programs from the VC1541 floppy disk drive could be loaded into the C64's memory up to five to six times as fast. It was written by Boris Schneider and Karsten Schramm and published as a listing in October 1984 by the computer magazine 64'er (issue 10/84; pages 67, 77-79). It was then “Listing of the Month”, an award for the best program of the month.

Hypra Load was written in machine language and was partially stored and executed in the memory of the VC1541. The loading speed of the floppy disk drive has been increased by five to six times. This is made possible by the fact that the program stores modified bus routines in the memory of the floppy disk drive and the computer and thus increases the slow transfer rate.

Until Hypra Load was released, only hardware solutions for this problem were available that used a parallel version of this bus instead of the serial CBM bus. Thus the software solution was a much more elegant and free variant. The program does not run on the Commodore SX-64 because it is not 100% compatible with the C64.

Web links

• Interview with Boris Schneider-Johne
• Screenshot of the program
• Information on Boris Schneider-Johne, Karsten Schramm and Hypra Load ( Memento from July 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) on Videospielgeschichten.de
• Listing of the month in the 64 magazine