My follow-up video on how to convert a PC drive for use without an adapter and issues you should consider before purchasing an 'enhanced' replica PCB for your own 1581 build project: th-cam.com/video/-mKsMX0BG1Y/w-d-xo.html
Great job on the build and the video! The 1581 is also my favorite Commodore drive. I've thought about building one of these replicas before, but was afraid I'd spend as much as an original drive. Your price estimates at the end more or less confirm that.
Don't forget Simon Owen's SAMDisk. With this PC application and a 1581 drive, it becomes incredibly easy and quick to transfer large amounts of data between a PC and any Commodore 8 bit computers. No need for SD2IEC or any special hardware.
Great job. Like you said, it's amazing what can be done nowadays between 3d printers and small-run PCB manufacturing. And it's funny how "crazy eBay prices" actually seem fairly reasonable when you look at trying to build it yourself, especially when factoring in the shipping costs and all the work.
Thanks! Yea, when I stop and think about it, the tools we have access to today really are amazing. At an inflation-adjusted $900 MSRP, they haven't yet crossed that threshold of appreciation where they're more expensive now. Not that they were sold for the full $400 for long... I guess my takeaway is that one should build this project for the sake of building the project, not specifically for cost savings (unless you're the corner case that has most of the parts on-hand already).
@8-Bit Show And Tell It actually costs about $80 (total) to build a 1581 board and the drive can be sourced from an Amiga 500. I reversed the 1581 and built 10 several years ago.
I recall buying it back in the day for around 300. I found it worth the price. Now we can get it for an amazing price! What a great time to get back into the hobby.
As stated already, this is a great time for retro computing. Projects like this are great demonstrations of what can be done with new and re-purposed hardware
TH-cam is actually the place where I learned about the 1581 to begin with. Honestly, I like its looks and how it fits the C64-C/C128-C and how fast it really is when paired with JiffyDOS compared to a stock 1541.
Thank you for this video! With the shocking prices of 1581 drives on eBay (and prices are only going to continue going up), it's a comfort to know that an existing drive can be refurbished. As long as the needed chips and things are readily available, that is. :)
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This video shows many cool things which is great in our modern era: community designed/built electronics, home 3D printing, retro computing still going strong, and talented content creators covering stuff which otherwise would never make into a TV documentary. There's so much bad going on in the world right now, but it would be dumb not to value the good things sometimes. Thanks for this!
Thank you for your comments! The retro community really is a great place with great people making interesting things and I'm really glad to be a part of it.
I regret selling my original 1581from back in the day but have managed to replace most of that stuff by now. Finding a replacement for my old Lt. Kernel drive though, now that's another story...
Nice work. IPA is fine for removal of rosin-based flux so long as the concentration is 91% or better. The 91% stuff is available in a small spray bottle that is really handy, or in bulk bottles for refilling your sprayer. Shoot it down with the IPA, scrub with your brush, then use an absorbent paper towel or cloth to soak up the mess. I've made the mistake of getting resistor packs in backward, and, yeah it can lead to unpleasant consequences if not detected before power is applied.
I built one of these boards and I use a regular USB charger as a power supply as my floppy drive (Sony MPF920) only require 5V. So I just soldered a DIN4 male connector to the other end of the USB cable. Cheap and simple!
This is why Europe was almost exclusively cassette based for C64 software. In 1987 you could buy a C64 for half the cost of a floppy drive. And even if you found the cash spare to buy one, most stores didn't sell disk versions of games...
Yea, it seems that things were a bit different over here. By '87 the 64C was about $125 US and the 1541-II would have been another $100 on top of that. Most software came on disk and piracy was absolutely rampant.
@@retrobitstv Yes that sounds about right. In the UK it wasn't till the Amiga that disks became standard and then many of the people who I knew who had Amigas had mostly pirate copies of games...Piracy wasn't such a thing on tape with the C64 as they were often so cheap. You wouldn't go to the trouble of copying a cassette game you could buy for a few £ :)
Great video! I'll be honest, Im unlikely to ever want to build one of these, but I very much enjoyed watching you build one. And well done for leaving the mistakes in, always a sign of a good channel.
Great video. I wish I saved all my Commodore items back in the day. I ended up selling it all. I remember having a 1541 and 1581 as well as the ram expansion.
Fantastic video Matt, thanks for making this video. As mentioned on Twitter this has been on my radar for a while now but I’ve never put the effort in to figure out everything. Great that you’ve done that for all for us. 🙌
Drench an old towel with IPA and lay it over the PCB, use your current brush and brush the towel over the PCB, that should remove most of the flux, I learned that from Noall's Retro Lab.
I've always wanted one of these back in the day and this is pretty cool but other than as a novelty I still can't justify it. The video was very enjoyable to watch and I'm glad there continues to be alternatives to recreate or keep these things going.
To clean up the flux, use a lot of IPA and scrub with the nylon brush like before, then take a clean cloth (like from an old t-shirt) or one of those blue Scott's Shop papertowels and lay it over the back and then rub the nylon brush over the paper towel, this should absorb most of the flux/IPA waste without issue and leave very little in the way of tearing since you are just using the brush to make contact with the board to absorb the liquid and not running it over the legs on the underside.
I only had a 1541 (still better than datasette) but i always wanted a 1581. Guess I won't need it today but hell yes do i love the sound of working floppy drives. For real, i still have a external 3.5" floppy drive with an usb adapter for my gaming pc just for shits and giggles :D
Heh, that's actually why I still keep my ATX case from the Skylake era that too has a 3.5" slot bay. If I ever want to go back from miniITX to ATX, it receives a floppy drive connected via internal USB. Just for the lulz.
That's so cool, Matt! Didn't know this PCB existed... and you really pulled together a lot of collected components plus talents. I was smiling when it worked, first try. :)
You need to clip off the PC floppy's green LED. A better idea for a power connector would be the actual Berg Floppy connector from a junked PC power supply with the molex crimped on the end. The Berg connector is keyed so it would cut down on accidental power reversals, assuming you plug the board side in properly. Nice video! I'm jealous.
Thanks! I've already desoldered the green LED and adjusted the front panel LEDs to sit better in the case! I will have to order the proper connectors. Both sides are keyed so it should be fine once done :)
I find it hilarious that I pull up this video to find all the resources to build myself a 1581 only to have pull the same Samsung SFD-321B drive out of a box of parts 5 min before hand. Time for some clear PETG to go in the printer, got to make the 1581 match my clean C64C case :P
Oh man if I had any need whatsoever then this would be such a fun build project. The cost of the thing though! Since I have literally, no practical use for it .... relegates it to the "cool ideas I will never use" category. But this is super awesome, a real showcase for you as well.
A good source of these parts is a dead 1571 as it has almost the same board, just in a different form factor and some additional glue logic. Both use WD1770 floppy controllers which then talk to the 6502-based host. And 1571 drives are very common.
@@retrobitstv The original uses all off-the-shelf parts, and the MOS8520 can be found easily since they are used in all the early Amiga models. Sourcing parts from a 1571 is not required and if you do, you will likely be lynched at high noon. I reversed the 1581 5 years ago and built several of them and there were no problems sourcing parts.
@@johnbos4637 I wouldn't be concerned about cannibalizing a 1571 that's already dead, too many of them have already just ended up in the bin because of that. But pulling a drive apart that can be restored to working order, is a bit of a waste.
I wish I had this drive back when GEOS was my main OS. That would have rocked. But I was just the son of an enlisted man... Spending $400 for a CBM drive when the computer was practically free was just not an option in the mid 1980's.
Just found your channel, good stuff! I used to do component level board repair and rework. On cleaning your flux you want to flood the board with IPA. Don't spare it like its precious holy water, use it. Then scrub with a brush and flood again. Then use compressed air to blow it dry. You will be happy with the results. Also for a more professional look you can reflow the solder joints after trimming the leads to give a nice little clean peak.
Just discovered your channel via this and it’s full of everything that encompassed my early days in computing. Subscribed and looking forward to bingeing your previous videos 👍
This is cool. I bought a 1581 when it came out, or a few years later, who knows anymore, but I also got a 1351 and 1764. I feel this combination added some new life to the 64 in the waning years.
@@MrGoatflakes Think of the REU as a solid state drive made with RAM instead of flash memory, so you lose contents when you turn off the power. GEOS shows you the REU as RAM 1541 or a RAM 1571, a very fast drive. It makes GEOS almost instantly responsive, but every time you power it up, you have to copy all your files back to the REU. That's all the REU is, a bunch of external RAM the 64's CPU can only "see" by swapping memory in and out of the REU, but the REU has the hardware to do the actual transfers at something like 1 megabyte per second. Much faster than a CPU could.
Yeah, I like that. I never had a 1581 in my C64 time but I owned one 1540 and one 1541. I sold everything in 2001 and I never played again even on emulator. However I'm still amazed by you guys maintaining those old great machines alive
Another recommendation (based on experience) on floppy power connectors: don't offset them. The two centre pins are ground and probably linked internally in the drive (I couldn't see any reason why drive designers wouldn't). That means if you get the connector offset by one pin, you're shorting either your 5 or 12 V supply to GND and that can let the magic smoke out. In my case I was lucky that the smoke came from the connector or wires and the AT power supply was robust enough not to care. Both the drive and power supply still worked perfectly fine after the mishap.
@@retrobitstv since 3d printing and hdd replacement and diy parts people looks like a good deal for recycling, having real hw and having a old retro gaming machine. Also great video
A very generous amount of IPA and a cheap toothbrush, then brush. Next, lay a sheet of paper towel damp with IPA over the PCB and run the toothbrush around soldered areas, this will help pick up that sticky/tacky feeling on the PCB surface.
Great video! When you install those chips, better use an anti-static mat and wristband , if these are CMOS-chips, they may get damaged from electrostatic discharges ;)
One thing to take into account is head wear on the drive. EBay 2nd hand drives may have a lot of mileage, whereas you may be able to get something fresher if buying new from a reputable dealer.
Cool video! I was lucky enough to have one of these for my BBS in the late 80s. Sad it ended up in a landfill with all the rest of my c64 stuff after I abandoned it at my parents in the mid 90s.
Great video, specially the price comparison table at the end; it's easy for most people to think they are paying overpriced items on ebay and amazon, but when you really dissect the components in retroitems like these, you can see some prices are about the same you'll spend on your own building from separate components ($300 to $350 seems about right if you don't have any parts available to salvage from old equipment); you know that having the top of the line floppy drive from the 80s nowadays is not going to be cheap...
On the topic of "gooey mess". I had used a very same looking brush with IPA to try to clean boards. It may have worked before (don't remember) but it certainly became gooey whenever it came into contact with IPA. Instead of cleaning, it made things worse. It *may* have been because I used it for other things in between, I don't remember. But it was really horrible. You could try just spraying IPA on the brush, waiting a few seconds and then touch it to see if it sticks. I started using a normal toothbrush and thrown the other brush away. (toothbrush may not be antistatic, use at own risk).
NP! It wasn't that long ago I can be seen pushing little PCBs around the desk with my soldering iron or stacking components precariously under them to keep things level 😜
Thanks! Yea, I always try to order at least 2 of everything. In this case, the parts kit from the vendor had exactly 1 of each component required and I ruined one of them by breaking off a leg :(
14:25 So you FIRST connected the power and THEN checked for shorts? I would recommend checking for shorts between power and ground before you connect this, since you could either fry the power supply or damage the board, you would not want that.
Wow! That is awesome. I knew about the cases being available way back when but had no idea people had recreated everything else. I am glad I kept my original 1581 bought from Toys R Us back when it came out. Like you, it was a purchase for BBS use only in my case it was Color64. Thanks for sharing your build. You have provided a ton of great content. Keep up the good work PS: About that flux removal. I hate it and is my least favorite part of any build. LOL. I used to do the same method as you and it seemed like no matter how much IPA you used the end result was a sticky mess. I learned a great tip from Jim Drew when I was building the ICS64S motherboard he sells. I used the same IPA and brush but then I used a microfiber cloth with another spray of IPA. I did it after every component/component group was soldered. It is amazing how well it works and the board came out with almost zero residue. Of course, the microfiber can catch on the pins too but if you blot it and then dry it after it works wonders. The downside is it takes longer to do it this way. I have tried the dedicated flux removers and a few other chemicals and they all left me feeling meh as they weren't great. Hopefully this helps.
What IPA do you use? I found that using anything except 99.9% pure caused crud to be spread all over the board, but the really pure stuff worked really well.
@@Doug_in_NC I typically use 99.9 or 91%. If there is a lot of flux I didn't notice a difference. Especially for large boards like motherboards. But with 91% and a microfiber it is not an issue. No more sticky mess.
I've been looking for a 1581 ever since I realised they existed but never had the opportunity to buy one cheaply. So this option is a good one for me. The only problem is that the only parts I have myself right now is the PC drive (a few HD drives which are old enough that they should work fine as DD drives) and the PSU from a 1541-II which I however would like to keep using on my 1541-II. So now the question is: used 1581 or this kit? At least there are options. :) Great video and thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Tough call. How good are you with electronics vs. just waiting for a good deal? Although the prices I see now for 1581s are easily 2-3x what I saw just one year ago.
@@8BitNaptime I'd have to wait for a good deal. If I do go down the self-building route, I'd need to do some soldering practice first on some beginner's kits or something.
Looks great dude. Staggered it worked first time! I don't know a thing about 3D printing but can you sand and polish the button you printed? The surface and the witness marks look pretty gnarly.
Thanks! Yea, a lot of that comes down to how well put together the kit and PCB were. The silkscreen left nothing to chance! Yea, I agree - the plan is to finish the eject button with a sandable primer and then a color matched paint. There was a site that had created a Commodore Beige spray paint but they don't seem to have it in stock at the moment.
In your video, you suggested that were living in the golden of retro computing? Do you honestly feel this to be true? If so, then that is the happiest thing I heard in a long, long time.
Absolutely! The sheer number of high quality software releases coming out alone is telling, and then we see limits continually pushed and broken like with the new Sonic port on the 64. And then there's all the new hardware being created: reproductions, enhancements, FPGA versions of chips that are no longer available, upgrades... In my humble opinion, there's never been a better time to be a retro enthusiast than right now!
Commodore 1581 was my favourite 3.5" disk drive... So much storage space compared to C-1541 or C-1571... How'd you get 80 columns to display on that Sony monitor? I wish I didnt sell my C-1902 monitor back in the days when I was a kid.. alas, it seems too complicated to get 80 column cable/adaptor for my C-128 to hook up to modern day monitors...
My favorite drive too. Looks and performance to match! That particular Sony has digital RGBi input so it works out-of-the-box with the C128! I did a short video on it that you can find here: th-cam.com/video/4aaRi_yN0ds/w-d-xo.html There are some pretty inexpensive C128-to-composite adapters these days, and they work well albeit without faithfully reproducing the one "dark yellow" (brown) color.
I FINALLY finished putting mine together, and everything "looks fine." Unfortunately upon power up BOTH LED'S "STAY SOLID" which appears to be a serial bus lockup of some type. I will change the serial cable tomorrow and see if that fixes it. If not, I did something wrong. 😢
Man that could be difficult to diagnose if it's not an obvious problem with a bridged solder joint or a component in backwards. It would certainly help to have a working 1581 on hand so you could test out all the chips and the EPROM, etc. just to verify the problem isn't one of those. Good luck in getting it going!
I've checked all the soldering and connections, swapped the psu, swapped the 6502 and the 7406 and still have the same problem. So next I will purchase another WD1770 and see what that does If nothing, I will have to acquire another 8520. After that I'm effin clueless. Thanks so much
I have always wanted a 1581 but not sure the investment is worth it considering the disks are becoming hard to come buy and will never be manufactured again. It is good to know it is possible to build one though.
It'd be fun to own a 1581 again, shame the casings are hard to come by now. It'd be neat if it could be modified to use HD capacity though I'd guess the reproduction logic isn't fast enough for that
There were HD drives available from CMD, and there are clones available for purchase (Rear Admiral Firedrive) from time to time but I'm not aware of any open source projects, yet!
It would be awsome if some one made a "1591" that reads and writes 1.44/1.76MB HD floppies. Maybe a replica of the CMD FD2000 or FD4000 instead. Only way to make this better.
I'm not sure what the story is with the ownership of the IP rights, but there is a guy who makes and sells reproduction CMD FD2000s called the Rear Admiral Firedrive-2k.
12:05 .. your mistake wasn't damaging the part. It happened way earlier when you did order the exact amount you need and no spares. My basic rule is one additional one for every started 5 pieces. So 3 when I need 2, 9 when I need 7, 15 when I need 12 ... If they are cheap and common, I get 50 or 100 and store them for later.
Thank you for this great video, I enjoyed it very much. Can you please shove me in the right direction as where I can get the "drive bay" thingy, the thing you printed at 08.20? I have a drive which is missing just that thing. Thx.
I got the 3D model for that from the forum64.de thread that's linked in the video description, but you will need to register an account to be able to download the attached files! Here is a direct link to the post with the file: www.forum64.de/index.php?thread/102472-1581replica-gotek1581-1581-pc-drive-adapter/&postID=1722477#post1722477
"1581 speeds with JiffyDOS are blisteringly fast!" 10x faster than a stock 1541, but still something like half the speed of an Apple II floppy drive, though, isn't it? (I don't have testing data on real-world speed)
Yea I haven't benchmarked an Apple II disk either, but out of the box the Apple, Atari, etc. were all much faster. Hrm, that'd make an interesting comparison video maybe?
Really nice thing. Very cool that it's mostly new parts. But as always with these videos I feel like there's always a delayed hit where it sounds like it's gonna be all new parts, and then oh it turns out you need a CIA chip which has to be new old stock or sourced from another thing. Also would be cool if you could use a modern power supply without needing an original one?
Yea, there are modern equivalents for the CPU, EEPROM, and RAM, but not for the CIA so far as I know. Probably because right now they're not hard to source, as they were used in plenty of FDDs and Amigas. Once they become difficult to find, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone create a modern replacement like we've seen with the PLAs, SIDs, soon the VIC-II, etc. There are a few modern power supply options available, including from Ray Carlsen portcommodore.com/rcarlsen/customPS.html polyplay www.polyplay.xyz/Power-Supply-for-Commodore-1541-II-1581 or electroware ebay.us/Xk5UPS
Haha yea what appears blatantly obvious on the camera can be hard to see when you have to sit way far back from the thing you're working on in order to not block the lens!
@ Timemark 14 Minutes you claim the messy flux residue. Just use a cloth to cover the pcb. then rinse with the flux remover of your choice, you can of course scrub with the brush. The plan is, the flux residue should be sucked into the fabric of the cloth. And your pcb should get all nice and clean!
That's really cool, but I can't help but think that this entire board could be emulated using a raspberry pi or similar board. There is already the Pi1541 project, but it would be cool if there were a Pi1581 type project that used a real floppy disk drive instead of just reading from a file. It's less original than what this project is aiming for, but a lot cheaper and more practical.
Not exactly what you're talking about, but check this out: www.amibay.com/forum/want-to-sell/hardware-for-sale/commodore/2408302-1581-replica-board-smd
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My follow-up video on how to convert a PC drive for use without an adapter and issues you should consider before purchasing an 'enhanced' replica PCB for your own 1581 build project: th-cam.com/video/-mKsMX0BG1Y/w-d-xo.html
Great job on the build and the video! The 1581 is also my favorite Commodore drive. I've thought about building one of these replicas before, but was afraid I'd spend as much as an original drive. Your price estimates at the end more or less confirm that.
Original parts / devices get more and more expensive. In a year or two this replica will be a bargain compared to the original drive price.
Don't forget Simon Owen's SAMDisk. With this PC application and a 1581 drive, it becomes incredibly easy and quick to transfer large amounts of data between a PC and any Commodore 8 bit computers. No need for SD2IEC or any special hardware.
@@francoisleveille409What is this?
Great job. Like you said, it's amazing what can be done nowadays between 3d printers and small-run PCB manufacturing. And it's funny how "crazy eBay prices" actually seem fairly reasonable when you look at trying to build it yourself, especially when factoring in the shipping costs and all the work.
Thanks! Yea, when I stop and think about it, the tools we have access to today really are amazing. At an inflation-adjusted $900 MSRP, they haven't yet crossed that threshold of appreciation where they're more expensive now. Not that they were sold for the full $400 for long... I guess my takeaway is that one should build this project for the sake of building the project, not specifically for cost savings (unless you're the corner case that has most of the parts on-hand already).
@8-Bit Show And Tell It actually costs about $80 (total) to build a 1581 board and the drive can be sourced from an Amiga 500. I reversed the 1581 and built 10 several years ago.
I recall buying it back in the day for around 300. I found it worth the price. Now we can get it for an amazing price! What a great time to get back into the hobby.
As stated already, this is a great time for retro computing. Projects like this are great demonstrations of what can be done with new and re-purposed hardware
TH-cam is actually the place where I learned about the 1581 to begin with.
Honestly, I like its looks and how it fits the C64-C/C128-C and how fast it really is when paired with JiffyDOS compared to a stock 1541.
Thank you for this video! With the shocking prices of 1581 drives on eBay (and prices are only going to continue going up), it's a comfort to know that an existing drive can be refurbished. As long as the needed chips and things are readily available, that is. :)
This video shows many cool things which is great in our modern era: community designed/built electronics, home 3D printing, retro computing still going strong, and talented content creators covering stuff which otherwise would never make into a TV documentary. There's so much bad going on in the world right now, but it would be dumb not to value the good things sometimes. Thanks for this!
Thank you for your comments! The retro community really is a great place with great people making interesting things and I'm really glad to be a part of it.
Well put, István!
I feel so lucky that I found a original 1581 drive. I use it on my VIC-20 all the way up to my C128D. Cool stuff!
I regret selling my original 1581from back in the day but have managed to replace most of that stuff by now. Finding a replacement for my old Lt. Kernel drive though, now that's another story...
I’ve been lusting after a 1581 for years. This might be a really fun build! Great vid!
Nice work. IPA is fine for removal of rosin-based flux so long as the concentration is 91% or better. The 91% stuff is available in a small spray bottle that is really handy, or in bulk bottles for refilling your sprayer. Shoot it down with the IPA, scrub with your brush, then use an absorbent paper towel or cloth to soak up the mess.
I've made the mistake of getting resistor packs in backward, and, yeah it can lead to unpleasant consequences if not detected before power is applied.
I built one of these boards and I use a regular USB charger as a power supply as my floppy drive (Sony MPF920) only require 5V. So I just soldered a DIN4 male connector to the other end of the USB cable. Cheap and simple!
Great details on the build!
I’m lucky, I have two 1581’s but cool to know this is an option for replacements.
This is why Europe was almost exclusively cassette based for C64 software. In 1987 you could buy a C64 for half the cost of a floppy drive. And even if you found the cash spare to buy one, most stores didn't sell disk versions of games...
Yea, it seems that things were a bit different over here. By '87 the 64C was about $125 US and the 1541-II would have been another $100 on top of that. Most software came on disk and piracy was absolutely rampant.
@@retrobitstv Yes that sounds about right. In the UK it wasn't till the Amiga that disks became standard and then many of the people who I knew who had Amigas had mostly pirate copies of games...Piracy wasn't such a thing on tape with the C64 as they were often so cheap. You wouldn't go to the trouble of copying a cassette game you could buy for a few £ :)
Great video!
I'll be honest, Im unlikely to ever want to build one of these, but I very much enjoyed watching you build one. And well done for leaving the mistakes in, always a sign of a good channel.
Thanks, glad you enjoyed it! I hope that others can learn from my mistakes and avoid making the same ones :)
Great video. I wish I saved all my Commodore items back in the day. I ended up selling it all. I remember having a 1541 and 1581 as well as the ram expansion.
Same here, I sold it all to buy a 386 PC. Wish I had kept it as well :/
Fantastic video Matt, thanks for making this video. As mentioned on Twitter this has been on my radar for a while now but I’ve never put the effort in to figure out everything. Great that you’ve done that for all for us. 🙌
Drench an old towel with IPA and lay it over the PCB, use your current brush and brush the towel over the PCB, that should remove most of the flux, I learned that from Noall's Retro Lab.
Cool, thanks. Will give it a try next time I open the drive back up!
I've always wanted one of these back in the day and this is pretty cool but other than as a novelty I still can't justify it. The video was very enjoyable to watch and I'm glad there continues to be alternatives to recreate or keep these things going.
To clean up the flux, use a lot of IPA and scrub with the nylon brush like before, then take a clean cloth (like from an old t-shirt) or one of those blue Scott's Shop papertowels and lay it over the back and then rub the nylon brush over the paper towel, this should absorb most of the flux/IPA waste without issue and leave very little in the way of tearing since you are just using the brush to make contact with the board to absorb the liquid and not running it over the legs on the underside.
I will have to give that a try, thanks for sharing!
I only had a 1541 (still better than datasette) but i always wanted a 1581. Guess I won't need it today but hell yes do i love the sound of working floppy drives.
For real, i still have a external 3.5" floppy drive with an usb adapter for my gaming pc just for shits and giggles :D
Heh, that's actually why I still keep my ATX case from the Skylake era that too has a 3.5" slot bay.
If I ever want to go back from miniITX to ATX, it receives a floppy drive connected via internal USB.
Just for the lulz.
That's so cool, Matt! Didn't know this PCB existed... and you really pulled together a lot of collected components plus talents.
I was smiling when it worked, first try. :)
I was totally prepared for hours and hours of tedious debugging. You can imagine how relieved I was when it just worked!
"It just worked" was never a sentence I had attributes to any Commodore machine ever :D Kudos to you sir!
You need to clip off the PC floppy's green LED. A better idea for a power connector would be the actual Berg Floppy connector from a junked PC power supply with the molex crimped on the end. The Berg connector is keyed so it would cut down on accidental power reversals, assuming you plug the board side in properly.
Nice video! I'm jealous.
Thanks! I've already desoldered the green LED and adjusted the front panel LEDs to sit better in the case! I will have to order the proper connectors. Both sides are keyed so it should be fine once done :)
I find it hilarious that I pull up this video to find all the resources to build myself a 1581 only to have pull the same Samsung SFD-321B drive out of a box of parts 5 min before hand. Time for some clear PETG to go in the printer, got to make the 1581 match my clean C64C case :P
All I can say is that I'm a little jealous. :) VERY NICE BUILT!
Greetings, Doc64!
Thanks!
Oh man if I had any need whatsoever then this would be such a fun build project. The cost of the thing though! Since I have literally, no practical use for it .... relegates it to the "cool ideas I will never use" category.
But this is super awesome, a real showcase for you as well.
A good source of these parts is a dead 1571 as it has almost the same board, just in a different form factor and some additional glue logic. Both use WD1770 floppy controllers which then talk to the 6502-based host. And 1571 drives are very common.
Good info, thanks for sharing!
@@retrobitstv The original uses all off-the-shelf parts, and the MOS8520 can be found easily since they are used in all the early Amiga models. Sourcing parts from a 1571 is not required and if you do, you will likely be lynched at high noon. I reversed the 1581 5 years ago and built several of them and there were no problems sourcing parts.
@@johnbos4637 I wouldn't be concerned about cannibalizing a 1571 that's already dead, too many of them have already just ended up in the bin because of that. But pulling a drive apart that can be restored to working order, is a bit of a waste.
Nice to know that the 1581 can fetch so much on Ebay.
I still have mine from the 80s. Will hold on to it for a while more though.
I wish I had this drive back when GEOS was my main OS. That would have rocked. But I was just the son of an enlisted man... Spending $400 for a CBM drive when the computer was practically free was just not an option in the mid 1980's.
Just found your channel, good stuff! I used to do component level board repair and rework. On cleaning your flux you want to flood the board with IPA. Don't spare it like its precious holy water, use it. Then scrub with a brush and flood again. Then use compressed air to blow it dry. You will be happy with the results. Also for a more professional look you can reflow the solder joints after trimming the leads to give a nice little clean peak.
Thanks for the tips!
Just discovered your channel via this and it’s full of everything that encompassed my early days in computing. Subscribed and looking forward to bingeing your previous videos 👍
Welcome and I hope you enjoy what you find!
This is cool. I bought a 1581 when it came out, or a few years later, who knows anymore, but I also got a 1351 and 1764. I feel this combination added some new life to the 64 in the waning years.
What's the 1351 and 1764?
@@MrGoatflakes Proportional mouse and 256K Ram expander.
@@8BitNaptime nice. I have seen Robin use an REU, but I don't quite get what he's doing apart from obviously blatting many pages back and fourth 🤔
@@8BitNaptime Robin from 8-bit show and tell that is...
@@MrGoatflakes Think of the REU as a solid state drive made with RAM instead of flash memory, so you lose contents when you turn off the power. GEOS shows you the REU as RAM 1541 or a RAM 1571, a very fast drive. It makes GEOS almost instantly responsive, but every time you power it up, you have to copy all your files back to the REU.
That's all the REU is, a bunch of external RAM the 64's CPU can only "see" by swapping memory in and out of the REU, but the REU has the hardware to do the actual transfers at something like 1 megabyte per second. Much faster than a CPU could.
Yeah, I like that. I never had a 1581 in my C64 time but I owned one 1540 and one 1541. I sold everything in 2001 and I never played again even on emulator. However I'm still amazed by you guys maintaining those old great machines alive
What a time to be a retro geek. Such an entertaining video. Building or owning one of these drives is definitely on my bucket list.
It really is. There are so many great projects to choose from and new stuff coming out all the time!
Another recommendation (based on experience) on floppy power connectors: don't offset them. The two centre pins are ground and probably linked internally in the drive (I couldn't see any reason why drive designers wouldn't). That means if you get the connector offset by one pin, you're shorting either your 5 or 12 V supply to GND and that can let the magic smoke out. In my case I was lucky that the smoke came from the connector or wires and the AT power supply was robust enough not to care. Both the drive and power supply still worked perfectly fine after the mishap.
Good advice, thanks!
Nice build. Purchase yourself a hot air rework tool for components that are stubborn to remove.
Awesome job. I like how new project like this give live again to old computers
Thanks! It is truly amazing how many awesome projects are coming out for vintage machines these days!
@@retrobitstv since 3d printing and hdd replacement and diy parts people looks like a good deal for recycling, having real hw and having a old retro gaming machine. Also great video
A very generous amount of IPA and a cheap toothbrush, then brush. Next, lay a sheet of paper towel damp with IPA over the PCB and run the toothbrush around soldered areas, this will help pick up that sticky/tacky feeling on the PCB surface.
Great video!
When you install those chips, better use an anti-static mat and wristband , if these are CMOS-chips, they may get damaged from electrostatic discharges ;)
Good advice. I seem to have misplaced my anti-static wristband so I guess it's time to replace it :)
One thing to take into account is head wear on the drive. EBay 2nd hand drives may have a lot of mileage, whereas you may be able to get something fresher if buying new from a reputable dealer.
Cool video! I was lucky enough to have one of these for my BBS in the late 80s. Sad it ended up in a landfill with all the rest of my c64 stuff after I abandoned it at my parents in the mid 90s.
Bummer :( I sold my original Commodore stuff to buy a 386. Ah well.
Very nice build, going to give this a try myself. 1581 would by an awesome drive to have...
Great video, specially the price comparison table at the end; it's easy for most people to think they are paying overpriced items on ebay and amazon, but when you really dissect the components in retroitems like these, you can see some prices are about the same you'll spend on your own building from separate components ($300 to $350 seems about right if you don't have any parts available to salvage from old equipment); you know that having the top of the line floppy drive from the 80s nowadays is not going to be cheap...
This is a quality video, hope you continue the channel.
Great build and great video. Thanks! Really thinking about building one myself.
Thanks and good luck with your project if you decide to build one!
I'm not into Commodore systems, but I find this very neat.
This is very neat. Thanks for posting!
haha disk drive loading sound brought me back to my young days instantly! oeff :D
I have a feeling this channel is going to REALLY blow up soon.
Hey thanks! That wouldn't be so bad; I'd love to be able to make content full time but that's a long way off still :)
On the topic of "gooey mess". I had used a very same looking brush with IPA to try to clean boards. It may have worked before (don't remember) but it certainly became gooey whenever it came into contact with IPA. Instead of cleaning, it made things worse. It *may* have been because I used it for other things in between, I don't remember. But it was really horrible. You could try just spraying IPA on the brush, waiting a few seconds and then touch it to see if it sticks.
I started using a normal toothbrush and thrown the other brush away. (toothbrush may not be antistatic, use at own risk).
That clamp is sweet, thanks for providing the Amazon link!
NP! It wasn't that long ago I can be seen pushing little PCBs around the desk with my soldering iron or stacking components precariously under them to keep things level 😜
I always order a few more parts than I need. Guess why…
P.S.: Great videos, I enjoy them.
Thanks! Yea, I always try to order at least 2 of everything. In this case, the parts kit from the vendor had exactly 1 of each component required and I ruined one of them by breaking off a leg :(
This was a very fun video to watch, thank you!!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I like brake cleaner for flux cleanup. Nonchlorinated if you use it indoors.
Cool, thanks for the tip! I have brake cleaner out in the garage, will have to check if it's nonchlorinated or not.
Sometimes the TH-cam algorithm has got it right.
Subbed!
😃 Welcome and glad to have you here!
Great video. Building an entire 6502 computer for a floppy drive is awesome.
Great video; I am very glad to have found your channel!
14:25 So you FIRST connected the power and THEN checked for shorts? I would recommend checking for shorts between power and ground before you connect this, since you could either fry the power supply or damage the board, you would not want that.
Heh yea I was only thinking of not frying my chips at the time, but you're right, I should have tested without the power supply first. Next time :)
Back in 1992 I designed and built a 32kB RAM expansion with a 32kB ROM Emulator for the 1581. Good ole times.
Wish I still had mine as this board would bring it back from the dead.
That’s an cool little project!
I never had seen your channel before! Happy it popped up now. Aye you bend a pin... oh right you tell it now :)
always mount ic sockets and resistor packs first, its just easier
Wow! That is awesome. I knew about the cases being available way back when but had no idea people had recreated everything else. I am glad I kept my original 1581 bought from Toys R Us back when it came out. Like you, it was a purchase for BBS use only in my case it was Color64. Thanks for sharing your build. You have provided a ton of great content. Keep up the good work
PS: About that flux removal. I hate it and is my least favorite part of any build. LOL. I used to do the same method as you and it seemed like no matter how much IPA you used the end result was a sticky mess. I learned a great tip from Jim Drew when I was building the ICS64S motherboard he sells. I used the same IPA and brush but then I used a microfiber cloth with another spray of IPA. I did it after every component/component group was soldered. It is amazing how well it works and the board came out with almost zero residue. Of course, the microfiber can catch on the pins too but if you blot it and then dry it after it works wonders. The downside is it takes longer to do it this way. I have tried the dedicated flux removers and a few other chemicals and they all left me feeling meh as they weren't great. Hopefully this helps.
What IPA do you use? I found that using anything except 99.9% pure caused crud to be spread all over the board, but the really pure stuff worked really well.
@@Doug_in_NC I typically use 99.9 or 91%. If there is a lot of flux I didn't notice a difference. Especially for large boards like motherboards. But with 91% and a microfiber it is not an issue. No more sticky mess.
What a great project!!
I've been looking for a 1581 ever since I realised they existed but never had the opportunity to buy one cheaply. So this option is a good one for me. The only problem is that the only parts I have myself right now is the PC drive (a few HD drives which are old enough that they should work fine as DD drives) and the PSU from a 1541-II which I however would like to keep using on my 1541-II. So now the question is: used 1581 or this kit? At least there are options. :) Great video and thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Tough call. How good are you with electronics vs. just waiting for a good deal? Although the prices I see now for 1581s are easily 2-3x what I saw just one year ago.
@@8BitNaptime I'd have to wait for a good deal. If I do go down the self-building route, I'd need to do some soldering practice first on some beginner's kits or something.
Looks great dude. Staggered it worked first time! I don't know a thing about 3D printing but can you sand and polish the button you printed? The surface and the witness marks look pretty gnarly.
Thanks! Yea, a lot of that comes down to how well put together the kit and PCB were. The silkscreen left nothing to chance! Yea, I agree - the plan is to finish the eject button with a sandable primer and then a color matched paint. There was a site that had created a Commodore Beige spray paint but they don't seem to have it in stock at the moment.
Fantastic device and great video 👍🙂. Seems to be a nice addition to my atx64. Thanks for showing it 👍👍really interesting project 🙂
great video! your contents are always very interestintg and very fun! thank you
In your video, you suggested that were living in the golden of retro computing?
Do you honestly feel this to be true? If so, then that is the happiest thing I heard in a long, long time.
Absolutely! The sheer number of high quality software releases coming out alone is telling, and then we see limits continually pushed and broken like with the new Sonic port on the 64. And then there's all the new hardware being created: reproductions, enhancements, FPGA versions of chips that are no longer available, upgrades... In my humble opinion, there's never been a better time to be a retro enthusiast than right now!
Pretty cool kit! But I'll never understand why people use jumper pads. It's pennies for a full blown jumper that makes it so much easier.
Commodore 1581 was my favourite 3.5" disk drive... So much storage space compared to C-1541 or C-1571... How'd you get 80 columns to display on that Sony monitor? I wish I didnt sell my C-1902 monitor back in the days when I was a kid.. alas, it seems too complicated to get 80 column cable/adaptor for my C-128 to hook up to modern day monitors...
My favorite drive too. Looks and performance to match! That particular Sony has digital RGBi input so it works out-of-the-box with the C128! I did a short video on it that you can find here: th-cam.com/video/4aaRi_yN0ds/w-d-xo.html There are some pretty inexpensive C128-to-composite adapters these days, and they work well albeit without faithfully reproducing the one "dark yellow" (brown) color.
Do you have the pin spacer 3D part URL? That thing is awesome!
The one I used is www.thingiverse.com/thing:6703 but there are many variations of it available!
I wanted a 1581 so bad!
Awesome video. What is the blue chewing gum you're using to temporarily hold parts on PCB ?
Thanks! It goes by a few names: "Blu-Tack" or "Mounting Putty". The one I'm using is this: amzn.to/2ZATJ6T
Definitely a nice cool project🙏👍
just stunning !
"I am beyond nervous at this point." he said cool as a cucumber and showed his audience that he indeed has the right stuff. 👍 Awesome job dude!
Hah, thanks! I don't know what I would have done if it didn't work; I don't have the tools or know-how to properly debug it (yet) :P
I hope the next step will be to build new standard SATA 1.44MB floppy drive that will work natively on any new board.
I FINALLY finished putting mine together, and everything "looks fine." Unfortunately upon power up BOTH LED'S "STAY SOLID" which appears to be a serial bus lockup of some type. I will change the serial cable tomorrow and see if that fixes it. If not, I did something wrong. 😢
Man that could be difficult to diagnose if it's not an obvious problem with a bridged solder joint or a component in backwards. It would certainly help to have a working 1581 on hand so you could test out all the chips and the EPROM, etc. just to verify the problem isn't one of those. Good luck in getting it going!
I've checked all the soldering and connections, swapped the psu, swapped the 6502 and the 7406 and still have the same problem. So next I will purchase another WD1770 and see what that does If nothing, I will have to acquire another 8520. After that I'm effin clueless.
Thanks so much
I have always wanted a 1581 but not sure the investment is worth it considering the disks are becoming hard to come buy and will never be manufactured again. It is good to know it is possible to build one though.
It'd be fun to own a 1581 again, shame the casings are hard to come by now. It'd be neat if it could be modified to use HD capacity though I'd guess the reproduction logic isn't fast enough for that
There were HD drives available from CMD, and there are clones available for purchase (Rear Admiral Firedrive) from time to time but I'm not aware of any open source projects, yet!
thank you
It would be awsome if some one made a "1591" that reads and writes 1.44/1.76MB HD floppies. Maybe a replica of the CMD FD2000 or FD4000 instead. Only way to make this better.
I'm not sure what the story is with the ownership of the IP rights, but there is a guy who makes and sells reproduction CMD FD2000s called the Rear Admiral Firedrive-2k.
@@retrobitstv Sadly, Admiral Krang doesn't seem to do business on Ebay any more, and other means of contact seem to have eluded the internet,
12:05 .. your mistake wasn't damaging the part. It happened way earlier when you did order the exact amount you need and no spares.
My basic rule is one additional one for every started 5 pieces. So 3 when I need 2, 9 when I need 7, 15 when I need 12 ...
If they are cheap and common, I get 50 or 100 and store them for later.
Thank you for this great video, I enjoyed it very much. Can you please shove me in the right direction as where I can get the "drive bay" thingy, the thing you printed at 08.20? I have a drive which is missing just that thing. Thx.
I got the 3D model for that from the forum64.de thread that's linked in the video description, but you will need to register an account to be able to download the attached files! Here is a direct link to the post with the file: www.forum64.de/index.php?thread/102472-1581replica-gotek1581-1581-pc-drive-adapter/&postID=1722477#post1722477
@@retrobitstv Thanks.
"1581 speeds with JiffyDOS are blisteringly fast!"
10x faster than a stock 1541, but still something like half the speed of an Apple II floppy drive, though, isn't it? (I don't have testing data on real-world speed)
Yea I haven't benchmarked an Apple II disk either, but out of the box the Apple, Atari, etc. were all much faster. Hrm, that'd make an interesting comparison video maybe?
22:34 Nice setup, I don't hate it.
It's really amazing..... just really amazing...
Really nice thing. Very cool that it's mostly new parts. But as always with these videos I feel like there's always a delayed hit where it sounds like it's gonna be all new parts, and then oh it turns out you need a CIA chip which has to be new old stock or sourced from another thing. Also would be cool if you could use a modern power supply without needing an original one?
Yea, there are modern equivalents for the CPU, EEPROM, and RAM, but not for the CIA so far as I know. Probably because right now they're not hard to source, as they were used in plenty of FDDs and Amigas. Once they become difficult to find, I wouldn't be surprised to see someone create a modern replacement like we've seen with the PLAs, SIDs, soon the VIC-II, etc.
There are a few modern power supply options available, including from Ray Carlsen portcommodore.com/rcarlsen/customPS.html polyplay www.polyplay.xyz/Power-Supply-for-Commodore-1541-II-1581 or electroware ebay.us/Xk5UPS
Whats that blue blob you use to hold the parts in place? Regular play-doh?
Amazing project!
I love your monitor, which model is it?
Thanks! It's a Sony PVM 1342q and I reviewed it here! th-cam.com/video/4aaRi_yN0ds/w-d-xo.html
That was really cool!
Thanks very kind.
15:15 My body physically tensed up.
Haha yea what appears blatantly obvious on the camera can be hard to see when you have to sit way far back from the thing you're working on in order to not block the lens!
@ Timemark 14 Minutes you claim the messy flux residue.
Just use a cloth to cover the pcb.
then rinse with the flux remover of your choice, you can of course scrub with the brush.
The plan is, the flux residue should be sucked into the fabric of the cloth.
And your pcb should get all nice and clean!
Thanks for the tip! I will give it a try.
Oh yeah. Now this is what I had in mind.
Nice job with this build! Subscribed! Seems your content is similar to my channel so I will be watching more for sure.
Thanks and welcome! I will check yours out too :)
That's really cool, but I can't help but think that this entire board could be emulated using a raspberry pi or similar board. There is already the Pi1541 project, but it would be cool if there were a Pi1581 type project that used a real floppy disk drive instead of just reading from a file. It's less original than what this project is aiming for, but a lot cheaper and more practical.
Not exactly what you're talking about, but check this out: www.amibay.com/forum/want-to-sell/hardware-for-sale/commodore/2408302-1581-replica-board-smd
Nice work.
It will only get harder to find working old proprietary chips over time so let's hope people can somehow recreate