If you're wondering how subsequent testing went: everything felt *much* smoother than when I received this 1571 a few months ago. The drive passed all diagnostics with flying colours, spinning at a sweet 299.8 RPM (within 0.07% of spec)! -- JC
You should get your hands on a Mini Chief drive which is a modified 1571 with a MFM 20 or 40MB hard drive inside. The floppy function worked 100% but when you flipped a switch you had access to the 20 or 40MB hard drive inside either as x number of 664 block drives or one large drive. Someone I knew had one but I haven't seen them around in the retro market, my guess is they didn't sell very many.
@@andrewenglish3810 Thank you for letting me know about yet another piece of retro tech that I had no idea existed until now! I just found the Mini Chief manual on the Internet Archive, and it seems wild. At this juncture I'm not seeking to actually run old HDDs with my Commodore setup due to age & reliability concerns -- but it's the sort of thing that if I stumbled upon, I would certainly dive into it (and possibly make a video). :-) -- JC
@@andrewenglish3810 Makes perfect sense though, if you can hook up an old MFM hard disk to the correct pins it's just a question of software to use the HD. Must have been quite a hack. I never heard of it though, but jamming one in a 128D might be fun!
I was able to buy one off of eBay that was basically new old stock (box was intact but open, but everything inside was still in the plastic bags from the factory) and while I prefer my 1541's for the C64's, I love this for my 128. It is a great little drive.
Nice! The 1571 truly shines with the 128 (and when nibbling disk images with a ZoomFloppy). I agree that putting one on a 64 is largely just a waste of a rarer disk drive. -- JC
The source code for the -05 version of the rom has some pretty funny comments, for example wondering how the reset code in the previous versions could have worked at all! A huge deal for keeping your 1571 working is to never leave the drive with the lever in the open position for any longer than needed, and especially, never store it with the lever in the open position. Leaving it in the open position will eventually bend the head assembly, which can turn into a really nasty repair.
I've since had an 05 ROM made for this drive, but never bothered with the source code. Mental note made to download a copy and take a look! Indeed, I've read in multiple places that leaving the drive open will cause the upper head spring to deform over time. My 1571 always has a transit card in it when I'm not using it. -- JC
Idk eprom burners aren't too expensive and super useful. Great for making kernal roms, kick start roms, tos for the atari st, utility roms for the empty socket on the c128, game roms for arcade boards and so on. I don't think you'll regret the purchase of an eprom burner.
That's a fair point about the falling cost of burners! It's more that I'm generally averse to buying things that I'll have on a shelf forever and almost never use. :) I'm strictly a Commodore guy and stick with the stock ROMs. The 1571 upgrade seems to be a rare case where there aren't too many originals floating around. Happily, I found a service here in Canada called HobbyRoms that will make the odd chip I need at a very reasonable price. -- JC
@@user-wj9xq7ig2v I'm generally happy to pay a reasonable price for a good service, but that's extremely kind of you. Thank you! I will keep you bookmarked in case anything comes up. :) -- JC
In my opinion this is the finest 5.25" drive made for the 64/128. At least by Commodore. In my limited experience, the 1541-compatible drives made by third parties were not very good, either unreliable or not compatible. Although the Indus GT and the MSD-2 were apparently quite good.
"Finest" could be sliced a few different ways, but I would certainly vote it the "most capable"! My own limited understanding of 3rd party drives is that Commodore would sue those who too closely replicated their code, thus rendering 3rd party drives incompatible with commercial software using 1541-specific routines (e.g.- for copy protection) and making it mostly irrelevant how reliable the mechanism was. ;-) -- JC
No the 1571 is the WORST drive actually. All of the Mitsumi drive mechs will eventually fail due to open heads and there is no fix, whereas the Alps mechs are still working fine. There is almost no reason to need a 1571 as the C128 has virtually no 128-specific software except a handful of programs. The only thing you may want to run is GEOS but it can be loaded from a Pi1541 or SD2IEC or whatever.
@@drpc98014: What you just said doesn't make sense, because you just tried comparing a zed against itself. But if you meant "zed" and "zee" instead, then this is my reply: Nope, not the same thing. This is a branding thing. These companies don't say "mark..." as part of their branding. Plus, it's pointless extra work. Potato/tire.
"Use Commodore diskettes." Yeah, right! Even if they blanks of those actually do/did exist, those are probably just rebadged other brands of disks like their monitors are rebadged. I've seen the few out there that already have the OEM stuff on them. But where have I ever seen a box of _blank_ Commodore disks?
Sorry for my blasphemia, but I need a 5,25 inch floppy drive for another computer, and these C64 ones seem to be the cheapest. Is it acceptable to trash the controllerboard and hook it up to another computer's NEC D765 controller?
remove the top spindle section cover by removing the circlip, clean and polish the metal parts and apply a tiny amount of lithium grease to the spindle parts that touch the top section and reassemble. This problem is well documented so just search and you will find more info about this than you can handle ;-)
So... technically... you can build your own 1571-II... gut a 1541-II, keep the power connectors, place the internals of the 1571, and shift the board around a bit so it fits... and voilá!
I'd love to see anyone build their own concept of a 1571-II. I've never seen anything definitive on what direction Commodore was going to go with it (other than the fact that it would be powered by the standard 1541-II brick). Unfortunately, due to the width of the PCB, you wouldn't get the existing internals into a 1541-II shell unless you designed a new mainboard and moved all the chips over. I've always personally envisioned the 1571-II having a typical 1571 faceplate, but with the body shells reduced to 1541-II length -- and the newest ROM, of course! -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA In the German Forum64 a 1571-II was presented, in the housing of a 1541-II. I made this replica myself with 2 modes 1571-II mode and 1541-II mode.
I used cotton swabs for a few times but I would find pieces of cotton inside so I started using the soft flatter swabs and for me that worked. Just sayin'.
also I just got a 1571 that powers up and acts like it's working but after initial use the activity light flashes continuously. One tech note I found says the 1772 controller ic has failed. can you comment further?
Flashing continually means a lot of things. Highly unlikely the wdc chip is bad. More likely you have a bad rom or bad ram or bad 6502 or bad 6522 (or 6526/8520). I've repaired hundreds of drives and those chips are the most common faults. I suggest you read Ray Carlsen's '1571 fix' document to better understand what those parts do and how they affect the drive operation and what the LED does when any of those parts fail.
@@g4z-kb7ct I already read Ray Carlsen's '1571 fix' document. For the symptoms observed it suggests the wd1772 fdc chip has failed. i have an unknwn spare from an atari st that i'll try.
@@drpc98014 Did you do the proper test to determine if it's doing EXACTLY the same thing? "Normal looking startup (LEDs and motors) but when computer boots, drive can't read disk and stepper moves head to track zero. Subsequent disk access shows 74 DRIVE NOT READY error and green LED flashes rapidly." So move the head away from track 0, power on and see if it does the same thing and the same Drive Not Ready error. If yes then it may be the 1770. If it's not the same it can literally be anything else. I'm not sure what you expect people to tell you when you've already got all the relevant info out there from Ray's site. Follow his advice first and if that's not it change some other stuff starting with what I already told you... 6502, 6522, 6526/8520, ROM, RAM etc. There's only a handful of chips and it isn't that complicated.
Just to add this my last reply, if the green led flashes once per second it might be the ram. If the green led flashes rapidly then it might be the WD1770/72, as per Ray's document. You should ascertain which type of flashing your led is doing first before moving forward as neither of those chips are in a socket.
@@g4z-kb7ct yes rapid flashing, perhaps 3 times a second. However by removing the 1772 fdc chip in prep of trying out a fdc from an atari st, my desoldering tool damaged the pcb so now I have to find an accurate schematic and insure all the connections to the 1772 are still valid. So far I found about 5 pins that should connect but don't connect to the rest of the components.
23:30 Not true. All of the Commodore drives have a fabric belt that does NOT stretch and should never be touched or replaced with a rubber belt. I have many drives and I've never seen one break or wear out. Of course it can happen but so far they appear to be still like new.
@@allan.n.7227 I typed it in directly from the Retro Isle link in the description, but the site seems to be (temporarily?) down as I write this reply. Here's a copy I saved to a TXT file: 10 open1,8,15 20 print#1,"m-r"chr$(0)chr$(192)chr$(2):get#1,a$ 30 close1 40 a=asc(a$+chr$(0)) 50 ifa=56thenprint"1571 with new rom chip":end 60 ifa=66thenprint"1571 with old rom chip":end 70 ifa=132thenprint"1571cr" Note that the lowercase ASCII types in as uppercase PETSCII in the standard graphical character set. -- JC
Unlike electrolytics, ceramics don't have a finite shelf life -- so unless one has failed or been damaged, replacing those is just a make-work project (and I've already got too much work)! 🤣 That said, I actually *did* replace the ceramics around the VIC-II & VDC in my video about fixing Commodore 128 80-column video, in order to make it easier to manoeuvre tools inside that little metal box. In that instance, I cracked at least one of the old-school ones while pulling chips. -- JC
Would be nice if they would make a copy of the 1571 board like they did with the 1581 right now im making a 1581 i had a 1571 back in the day.. a lot of my old PC hardware was junked in a basement flood at my moms house after i moved out.
Heh! Funny you should mention that. As well as re-producing the 1581 controller board in 2018 I've just completed re-producing the 1571 board. Actually I did both the board inside the C128D (plastic version) and the external 1571 drive. However as far as NEEDING it if yours is not working, it's definitely not needed. Just fix it. The boards use all off-the-shelf parts or other common parts that can be found easily. The only exception is the hybrid ceramic upright module but they are not known to fail. However since I like to reverse things just because I can, I'm currently working on reversing that one too....
_"Front_ faceplate"? As opposed to the "side faceplate" or "rear faceplate"? Doesn't just the fact that it's a FACEplate automatically _mean_ it belongs in front? * the faceplate
@@g4z-kb7ct: Ha, no, looking sideways while facing forward would still have your face in the front. But yeah, I double-checked, and you're right about the definition. I never really double-checked the definition before, since I always thought it was so obvious, based on just what "face" by itself means.
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If you're wondering how subsequent testing went: everything felt *much* smoother than when I received this 1571 a few months ago. The drive passed all diagnostics with flying colours, spinning at a sweet 299.8 RPM (within 0.07% of spec)! -- JC
You should get your hands on a Mini Chief drive which is a modified 1571 with a MFM 20 or 40MB hard drive inside. The floppy function worked 100% but when you flipped a switch you had access to the 20 or 40MB hard drive inside either as x number of 664 block drives or one large drive. Someone I knew had one but I haven't seen them around in the retro market, my guess is they didn't sell very many.
@@andrewenglish3810 Thank you for letting me know about yet another piece of retro tech that I had no idea existed until now! I just found the Mini Chief manual on the Internet Archive, and it seems wild. At this juncture I'm not seeking to actually run old HDDs with my Commodore setup due to age & reliability concerns -- but it's the sort of thing that if I stumbled upon, I would certainly dive into it (and possibly make a video). :-) -- JC
@@andrewenglish3810 Makes perfect sense though, if you can hook up an old MFM hard disk to the correct pins it's just a question of software to use the HD. Must have been quite a hack. I never heard of it though, but jamming one in a 128D might be fun!
@@andrewenglish3810 probably too spendy
I was able to buy one off of eBay that was basically new old stock (box was intact but open, but everything inside was still in the plastic bags from the factory) and while I prefer my 1541's for the C64's, I love this for my 128. It is a great little drive.
Nice! The 1571 truly shines with the 128 (and when nibbling disk images with a ZoomFloppy). I agree that putting one on a 64 is largely just a waste of a rarer disk drive. -- JC
thanks for the lead on the molycoat. I'm surprised that while you had the drive out of the case you didn't soak the covers in peroxide.
There also exist synthetic 'oil' lubricants specifically made for glide bearings, and safe for use on both metal and plastic.
The source code for the -05 version of the rom has some pretty funny comments, for example wondering how the reset code in the previous versions could have worked at all!
A huge deal for keeping your 1571 working is to never leave the drive with the lever in the open position for any longer than needed, and especially, never store it with the lever in the open position. Leaving it in the open position will eventually bend the head assembly, which can turn into a really nasty repair.
I've since had an 05 ROM made for this drive, but never bothered with the source code. Mental note made to download a copy and take a look! Indeed, I've read in multiple places that leaving the drive open will cause the upper head spring to deform over time. My 1571 always has a transit card in it when I'm not using it. -- JC
Great video. Do you think that I can use CRX 2-26 lubricant? Regards
With a small hardware mod and updated load-routine the C64 can use a 1571 disk drive in fast mode.
Idk eprom burners aren't too expensive and super useful. Great for making kernal roms, kick start roms, tos for the atari st, utility roms for the empty socket on the c128, game roms for arcade boards and so on. I don't think you'll regret the purchase of an eprom burner.
That's a fair point about the falling cost of burners! It's more that I'm generally averse to buying things that I'll have on a shelf forever and almost never use. :) I'm strictly a Commodore guy and stick with the stock ROMs. The 1571 upgrade seems to be a rare case where there aren't too many originals floating around. Happily, I found a service here in Canada called HobbyRoms that will make the odd chip I need at a very reasonable price. -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA I'm in Canada too near Toronto. If you need the odd thing let me know. My email can be found on alfiesgames.ca
@@user-wj9xq7ig2v Thank you! I will check out your website. 😎 -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA I can burn the odd rom for you for free. Mostly I sell video game stuff.
@@user-wj9xq7ig2v I'm generally happy to pay a reasonable price for a good service, but that's extremely kind of you. Thank you! I will keep you bookmarked in case anything comes up. :) -- JC
The motor isn't driven by a belt in the 1541s; the motor _drives_ a belt, and is driven by electricity.
I'll bet we can download the manual even if we _do_ have a physical copy of it.
In my opinion this is the finest 5.25" drive made for the 64/128. At least by Commodore. In my limited experience, the 1541-compatible drives made by third parties were not very good, either unreliable or not compatible. Although the Indus GT and the MSD-2 were apparently quite good.
"Finest" could be sliced a few different ways, but I would certainly vote it the "most capable"! My own limited understanding of 3rd party drives is that Commodore would sue those who too closely replicated their code, thus rendering 3rd party drives incompatible with commercial software using 1541-specific routines (e.g.- for copy protection) and making it mostly irrelevant how reliable the mechanism was. ;-) -- JC
No the 1571 is the WORST drive actually. All of the Mitsumi drive mechs will eventually fail due to open heads and there is no fix, whereas the Alps mechs are still working fine. There is almost no reason to need a 1571 as the C128 has virtually no 128-specific software except a handful of programs. The only thing you may want to run is GEOS but it can be loaded from a Pi1541 or SD2IEC or whatever.
@@g4z-kb7ct you failed to mention that the 1541 has 1/2 the capacity of a 1571
@@drpc98014 So? Everyone knows that all software was made to fit on a 1541 floppy disk. You don't need more capacity.
@@g4z-kb7ct Yes, the Mechs on the 1571 sucked!!! I think the mechs in the 128DCR were even worse if possible!
"1541 _Mark_ II"? Does it say "mark" anywhere on the name badge, or isn't it just the 1541-II? Do you call Apple IIs "Apple Mark Ii" instead, too?
yup pretty much, same for why many call Zed instead of just Z. potato pertato
@@drpc98014: What you just said doesn't make sense, because you just tried comparing a zed against itself. But if you meant "zed" and "zee" instead, then this is my reply: Nope, not the same thing. This is a branding thing. These companies don't say "mark..." as part of their branding. Plus, it's pointless extra work. Potato/tire.
"Use Commodore diskettes." Yeah, right! Even if they blanks of those actually do/did exist, those are probably just rebadged other brands of disks like their monitors are rebadged. I've seen the few out there that already have the OEM stuff on them. But where have I ever seen a box of _blank_ Commodore disks?
Sorry for my blasphemia, but I need a 5,25 inch floppy drive for another computer, and these C64 ones seem to be the cheapest. Is it acceptable to trash the controllerboard and hook it up to another computer's NEC D765 controller?
How do you fix a squeaky noise when the drive is spinning?
remove the top spindle section cover by removing the circlip, clean and polish the metal parts and apply a tiny amount of lithium grease to the spindle parts that touch the top section and reassemble. This problem is well documented so just search and you will find more info about this than you can handle ;-)
So... technically... you can build your own 1571-II... gut a 1541-II, keep the power connectors, place the internals of the 1571, and shift the board around a bit so it fits... and voilá!
I'd love to see anyone build their own concept of a 1571-II. I've never seen anything definitive on what direction Commodore was going to go with it (other than the fact that it would be powered by the standard 1541-II brick). Unfortunately, due to the width of the PCB, you wouldn't get the existing internals into a 1541-II shell unless you designed a new mainboard and moved all the chips over. I've always personally envisioned the 1571-II having a typical 1571 faceplate, but with the body shells reduced to 1541-II length -- and the newest ROM, of course! -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA In the German Forum64 a 1571-II was presented, in the housing of a 1541-II. I made this replica myself with 2 modes 1571-II mode and 1541-II mode.
I used cotton swabs for a few times but I would find pieces of cotton inside so I started using the soft flatter swabs and for me that worked. Just sayin'.
also I just got a 1571 that powers up and acts like it's working but after initial use the activity light flashes continuously.
One tech note I found says the 1772 controller ic has failed. can you comment further?
Flashing continually means a lot of things. Highly unlikely the wdc chip is bad. More likely you have a bad rom or bad ram or bad 6502 or bad 6522 (or 6526/8520). I've repaired hundreds of drives and those chips are the most common faults. I suggest you read Ray Carlsen's '1571 fix' document to better understand what those parts do and how they affect the drive operation and what the LED does when any of those parts fail.
@@g4z-kb7ct I already read Ray Carlsen's '1571 fix' document. For the symptoms observed it suggests the wd1772 fdc chip has failed. i have an unknwn spare from an atari st that i'll try.
@@drpc98014 Did you do the proper test to determine if it's doing EXACTLY the same thing?
"Normal looking startup (LEDs and motors) but when computer boots, drive can't read disk and stepper moves head to track zero. Subsequent disk access shows 74 DRIVE NOT READY error and green LED flashes rapidly."
So move the head away from track 0, power on and see if it does the same thing and the same Drive Not Ready error. If yes then it may be the 1770. If it's not the same it can literally be anything else. I'm not sure what you expect people to tell you when you've already got all the relevant info out there from Ray's site. Follow his advice first and if that's not it change some other stuff starting with what I already told you... 6502, 6522, 6526/8520, ROM, RAM etc. There's only a handful of chips and it isn't that complicated.
Just to add this my last reply, if the green led flashes once per second it might be the ram. If the green led flashes rapidly then it might be the WD1770/72, as per Ray's document. You should ascertain which type of flashing your led is doing first before moving forward as neither of those chips are in a socket.
@@g4z-kb7ct yes rapid flashing, perhaps 3 times a second. However by removing the 1772 fdc chip in prep of trying out a fdc from an atari st, my desoldering tool damaged the pcb so now I have to find an accurate schematic and insure all the connections to the 1772 are still valid. So far I found about 5 pins that should connect but don't connect to the rest of the components.
23:30 Not true. All of the Commodore drives have a fabric belt that does NOT stretch and should never be touched or replaced with a rubber belt. I have many drives and I've never seen one break or wear out. Of course it can happen but so far they appear to be still like new.
28:00 How do I check if my drive is still under warranty ;D ??
Contact your local Commodore Service Centre, of course! 😜 -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA 😂🤣🕹 have to check my Rom version soner than later. The program you show is that available for dl anywhere ?
@@allan.n.7227 I typed it in directly from the Retro Isle link in the description, but the site seems to be (temporarily?) down as I write this reply.
Here's a copy I saved to a TXT file:
10 open1,8,15
20 print#1,"m-r"chr$(0)chr$(192)chr$(2):get#1,a$
30 close1
40 a=asc(a$+chr$(0))
50 ifa=56thenprint"1571 with new rom chip":end
60 ifa=66thenprint"1571 with old rom chip":end
70 ifa=132thenprint"1571cr"
Note that the lowercase ASCII types in as uppercase PETSCII in the standard graphical character set. -- JC
@@BasicBitesCA WOW. Thank you!!
I have one of these i bought non working. I have not tried to fix it.
Jam in all new micro ceramics too.
Unlike electrolytics, ceramics don't have a finite shelf life -- so unless one has failed or been damaged, replacing those is just a make-work project (and I've already got too much work)! 🤣 That said, I actually *did* replace the ceramics around the VIC-II & VDC in my video about fixing Commodore 128 80-column video, in order to make it easier to manoeuvre tools inside that little metal box. In that instance, I cracked at least one of the old-school ones while pulling chips. -- JC
Would be nice if they would make a copy of the 1571 board like they did with the 1581 right now im making a 1581
i had a 1571 back in the day.. a lot of my old PC hardware was junked in a basement flood at my moms house after i moved out.
Heh! Funny you should mention that. As well as re-producing the 1581 controller board in 2018 I've just completed re-producing the 1571 board. Actually I did both the board inside the C128D (plastic version) and the external 1571 drive. However as far as NEEDING it if yours is not working, it's definitely not needed. Just fix it. The boards use all off-the-shelf parts or other common parts that can be found easily. The only exception is the hybrid ceramic upright module but they are not known to fail. However since I like to reverse things just because I can, I'm currently working on reversing that one too....
_"Front_ faceplate"? As opposed to the "side faceplate" or "rear faceplate"? Doesn't just the fact that it's a FACEplate automatically _mean_ it belongs in front?
* the faceplate
Not if you are two-faced or look sideways while facing forward lol. Anyway, a faceplate does not mean front. A faceplate can be on the rear or side.
@@g4z-kb7ct: Ha, no, looking sideways while facing forward would still have your face in the front. But yeah, I double-checked, and you're right about the definition. I never really double-checked the definition before, since I always thought it was so obvious, based on just what "face" by itself means.
5:16 Tell me about it.
LOL
"Lift... up"?
Oh, don't "lift it down," eh?