as a fan, user and developer of commodore 8bit computers, I can for surely say the 1581 was one of the best add-ons I've ever purchased. I like to use CRT and flopppy drives. I have SD2IEC and IDE64 too but 1581+JiffyDos is simply the best authentic experience you can have. It is very satisfying. Very good speed. You should also get a ZoomFloppy too. It's a perfect add-on. Definitely recommended.
Thanks. It's a device for connecting a Commodore disk drive to a PC or Mac to copy files from or to archive disks. I have a variant of this called XUM1541. I will show that in the next episode (I think)
@@miked4377 The awesome thing about ZoomFloppy is that you can use it to both read and write floppy images on both Commodore IEEE-488 and IEC floppy drives. Even cooler is that if you have parallel modded your IEC floppy drive, it can use parallel connection too to work in very fast speed. If you like to use any real floppy drive with your 8bit Commodore device, it is a definite buy. Very cool device.
@@Arcticretro I even went the middle way in terms of retro. I didn't want to copy all disks onto an xD Card to still have the DJ feeling. So I bought an FNX1591 (now they even have a FNX1592). In the beginning of your video you say that money was an issue to build your own. I say building is fun but I also think sourcing all the material almost comes to a similar price. Don't take me wrong, nothing beats soldering your own. I sure will watch the upcoming parts and of course I'm also interested on the future of your C128. And yes, please show us your version of the XUM1541, I still have a very basic x1541 which goes to my retro PC's parallel port. ;)
Sadly, the 1581 was probably my worst Commodore purchase. I got one of the early ones with a faulty chip that caused my drive to randomly destroy disks. I never saw any information about this issue back when I owned the drive and didn't know what the problem was. It was so infrequent, that I didn't realize it was an issue until after I could return it. I only found out what the issue was around a year ago (bad wd1772 chip). I think I restarted Ultima 5 four times before I gave up because the drive kept eating one of the disks fairly far into the game. Commodore really dropped the ball on this one...I'm still a bit salty because it kinda ruined my enthusiasm for the platform towards the end of its life.
I don’t know if you are already finished with the project but have a a look at retrobits recent videos. He did a similar project building a 1581 replica using one of the replica PCBs and a floppy drive adapter and he (and a few others) had some issues with the replica PCBs. They even accidentally destroyed some of the 3.5 inch drives due to layout bugs in some of the PCBs and faulty/mislabelled adapter PCBs (12V and 5V were swapped)
I saw that. He actually made me aware of the wrong voltage to the drive issue, and I would probably have made the same mistake if I haven't seen that first :) I can reveal that the drive is finished and working now.
This is a great video. I'd like to see you use it with some games when it was done. One good game that requires too much disk swapping is Pool of Radiance. I always wondered what it'd be like to play it on a 1581.
@@Arcticretro It stands for Single-Board Computer. In other words, no plugin cards required. The first pre-built home computers were mostly SBCs because that made them cheaper to manufacture (and sell) than having multiple circuit boards. Edit to add, those SBCs usually were cassette-only systems with no disk drive support on-board. In general, adding support for disk drives meant adding a new circuit board, which meant that it was no longer a Single-Board Computer. 😀
![The Last Gladiator [C64]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/aaMU_JRZ7a4/mqdefault.jpg)
This is shaping up nicely! We'll see you again in Part 2!
Thanks again!
as a fan, user and developer of commodore 8bit computers, I can for surely say the 1581 was one of the best add-ons I've ever purchased. I like to use CRT and flopppy drives. I have SD2IEC and IDE64 too but 1581+JiffyDos is simply the best authentic experience you can have. It is very satisfying. Very good speed. You should also get a ZoomFloppy too. It's a perfect add-on. Definitely recommended.
very interesting....what is zoom floppy
Thanks. It's a device for connecting a Commodore disk drive to a PC or Mac to copy files from or to archive disks. I have a variant of this called XUM1541. I will show that in the next episode (I think)
@@miked4377 The awesome thing about ZoomFloppy is that you can use it to both read and write floppy images on both Commodore IEEE-488 and IEC floppy drives. Even cooler is that if you have parallel modded your IEC floppy drive, it can use parallel connection too to work in very fast speed. If you like to use any real floppy drive with your 8bit Commodore device, it is a definite buy. Very cool device.
@@Arcticretro I even went the middle way in terms of retro. I didn't want to copy all disks onto an xD Card to still have the DJ feeling. So I bought an FNX1591 (now they even have a FNX1592). In the beginning of your video you say that money was an issue to build your own. I say building is fun but I also think sourcing all the material almost comes to a similar price. Don't take me wrong, nothing beats soldering your own. I sure will watch the upcoming parts and of course I'm also interested on the future of your C128. And yes, please show us your version of the XUM1541, I still have a very basic x1541 which goes to my retro PC's parallel port. ;)
Sadly, the 1581 was probably my worst Commodore purchase. I got one of the early ones with a faulty chip that caused my drive to randomly destroy disks. I never saw any information about this issue back when I owned the drive and didn't know what the problem was. It was so infrequent, that I didn't realize it was an issue until after I could return it. I only found out what the issue was around a year ago (bad wd1772 chip). I think I restarted Ultima 5 four times before I gave up because the drive kept eating one of the disks fairly far into the game.
Commodore really dropped the ball on this one...I'm still a bit salty because it kinda ruined my enthusiasm for the platform towards the end of its life.
Hi Tommy, Nice build and great stuff on your work bench. I love your videos. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
The angled dip switches are called piano dip switches and Digikey and Mouser have several variants of them.
Thanks. I just could not find the correct one
pcbway does so much cool things for the retro community :)
Yes, they do :)
Nice job! I enjoy watching your videos and I learn a lot! Thank you :)
look at that! coming together nicely Herr tommy
Glad you like them!
Thank you :)
I don’t know if you are already finished with the project but have a a look at retrobits recent videos. He did a similar project building a 1581 replica using one of the replica PCBs and a floppy drive adapter and he (and a few others) had some issues with the replica PCBs.
They even accidentally destroyed some of the 3.5 inch drives due to layout bugs in some of the PCBs and faulty/mislabelled adapter PCBs (12V and 5V were swapped)
I watched it, too, but I think he used another type of board. The one in Arctic Retro's video might not have any bugs.
I saw that. He actually made me aware of the wrong voltage to the drive issue, and I would probably have made the same mistake if I haven't seen that first :) I can reveal that the drive is finished and working now.
Nice video, enjoyed watching it.
Thank you :)
It's coming along. But I predict that tiny heatsink on the regulator is going to be glowing from the heat... that thing runs HOT!
Yes, I tested it in the next episode. Not gonna use it
This is a great video. I'd like to see you use it with some games when it was done.
One good game that requires too much disk swapping is Pool of Radiance. I always wondered what it'd be like to play it on a 1581.
Thanks for the tip!
I have a hard time to finding some way to copy whole disks from D81 images. My Pi1541 stopped working
Hmm, I wouldn't mind putting a SBC in that enclosure and have a little C= themed computer.
Now I feel stupid for not knowing what a SBC is :)
@@Arcticretro It stands for Single-Board Computer. In other words, no plugin cards required. The first pre-built home computers were mostly SBCs because that made them cheaper to manufacture (and sell) than having multiple circuit boards.
Edit to add, those SBCs usually were cassette-only systems with no disk drive support on-board. In general, adding support for disk drives meant adding a new circuit board, which meant that it was no longer a Single-Board Computer. 😀
Great video! What diameter solder do you use?
0.5 mm