Epyx Fast Load

Epyx released Fast Load in 1984, a plug-in cartridge that loaded programs from the 1541 drive about five times faster. The stock load was notoriously sluggish — a bottleneck Commodore introduced for VIC-20 compatibility — and third-party fast loaders became a whole product category.

Beyond speed, a DOS wedge sat in ROM: shortcuts for the directory, LOAD"*", disk copying and a simple machine-code monitor. The cartridge stayed in the port the whole time and became one of the best-selling C64 accessories. Later freezer cartridges like Action Replay took the same idea further.