Using Two Disk Drives With a C-64

[ApolloBoy]

Are those "Suncom Starfighter" joysticks? Did you put the red balls on there yourself?

Those are Slik Stiks, not Starfighters. They are made by the same company though.

[Tempest]

Found a better place for my C-64 and got a working drive off craigslist (from an AA member surprisingly). The monitor is no longer on the drive. I do have a non-working one now that I need to either fix or junk. No idea what's wrong with it other than it just never loads the disk. I think the drive continually spins and never stops as well.

 

Tempest

[Dave Farquhar]

Regarding the 128, the only game I ever had a compatibility issue with was Archon II. I'm sure there are incompatibilities, but not many. Well-behaved software should run. The main issue is if software gets crazy with I/O space that's defined as unused in the 64, it didn't always behave quite the same on the 128.

 

And the drive settings... Later Commodore drives (1571, 81, 1541-II) had device switches. Probably the reason Commodore left it out of the original 1541 was the doubt that users would even buy one drive, let alone multiples. The 1541's popularity caught Commodore off guard and they had difficulty keeping up with demand early on.

[marcfrick2112]

Hey Tempest, as for your sick 1541, there is a pretty good troubleshooting page out there. Just Google '1541 drive troubleshooting' Sorry, I can't remember the link, the old brain isn't quite right tonight If you can afford one, I'd recommend getting a 128. Game incompatabilities are rather few and far between, IMHO. As luck would have it, I don't have archon II to test, but I have several hundred 64 games, and I have yet to have a problem running any on my C128's. If you are lucky, and have any resale shops near you, that might be a good start. A few years ago, my local Salvation Army had a mostly complete C128 system (with 80-column monitor) for $20. Then, 10 days later, a second C128 system, plus Flexidraw + lightpen, mouse, modem, originals of all sorts of word processors, spreadsheets, etc. , again for $20. I bought both

 

And yeah, about a 2nd drive, everyone else summed it up well. Since I have so many originals, and some that I've never found on the net, 2 drives are important to me, for copying. One of my 64's also has 2 drives. For just gaming, well, you can get by on 1.

[Herbarius]

Regarding the 128, the only game I ever had a compatibility issue with was Archon II. I'm sure there are incompatibilities, but not many. Well-behaved software should run.

Uh-oh... From my knowledge and experience with the C64 there is no such thing as "well-behaved software" That concept doesn't really make sense with computers of that generation in general...

 

The main issue is if software gets crazy with I/O space that's defined as unused in the 64, it didn't always behave quite the same on the 128.

But isn't it the C128 that's "not behaving well" in that case, not the software? "Unused" for me means, "unused" - as in "you can do whatever you want with it"

 

 

But maybe I'm on the wrong track here.

 

 

Back to the topic, I believe GEOS already has been mentioned in passing, but let me post this quote from a website about GEOS:

I hope you have more than one disk drive that you can use in GEOS. If not then you will get thoroughly disgusted with GEOS, so you might as well just quit right now.

Edited May 23, 2010 by Herbarius

[bohoki]

copying seems to be the only real use

 

i use 2 drives when i make my pictures and want to compress or convert i use a program called autograph and copy compress images to drive 9

 

like here

 

http://www.cbm8bit.com/public/KOL1.D64

 

i use a couple excelerator plus drives 2 make a good base for my 64c

 

[Herbarius]

Copying is the only use? Well, you immediately contradict yourself demonstrating a pretty neat use of a second drive.

 

Then, as already stated, if you want to use GEOS, two drives are a must have.

 

Then it may say you from swapping disks all the time. Like when you have one disk with a bunch of utilities, and then some other disk you're currently working with, or which has games you want to play, and you do not want to swap them, but just have the utilities in drive 9, that's pretty neat, isn't it?

Edited June 25, 2010 by Herbarius

[Rockin' Kat]

I have two 1581's, two 1541's and two 1541-II's... when I had the 64 out I had the two 1581's with the two 1541's... now with the 128, I'm using the 1541-II's instead of the 1541's simply because they match the 128 better....

 

When I first got the 64 I used all four disk drives when I was moving files...

 

I had software for reading MS DOS format 720k floppies as well as software for decompressing d64 images to disk on a floppy in Drive 8, a 1541.. I put blank CBM format floppies in one 1581, and MS DOS format floppies with d64 images on them in the other 1581... and I put blank floppies in drive 9, the second 1541. I'd copy four images at a time between the 1581s and then decompress them to disks in drive 9. It was tedious and slow... I'm really glad I have a 1541 ultimate now.

[Herbarius]

I had software for reading MS DOS format 720k floppies as well

 

Wow, I didn't know that was even possible. After all, the reverse (reading any CBM formatted disks on a MS-DOS machine) is completely impossible (unless you're connecting an actual Commodore drive to your PC using the appropiate cables). More power to the C64 I guess

Edited June 27, 2010 by Herbarius

[SoulBlazer]

I had software for reading MS DOS format 720k floppies as well

 

Wow, I didn't know that was even possible. After all, the reverse (reading any CBM formatted disks on a MS-DOS machine) is completely impossible (unless you're connecting an actual Commodore drive to your PC using the appropiate cables). More power to the C64 I guess

 

Yeah, not only do I remember a cable being sold back in the day for interfacing your C64 and a PC, but they sold hard drives for the C64 also.

[Herbarius]

they sold hard drives for the C64 also

 

However, if I'm not mistaken, they weren't really affordable.

[SoulBlazer]

they sold hard drives for the C64 also

 

However, if I'm not mistaken, they weren't really affordable.

 

I'd have to look through my back issues of Loadstar (a great monthly magazine on disc) to see what they originaly sold for. I want to say about $300. And they were called something different -- a hard storage unit or something.

[bohoki]

Copying is the only use? Well, you immediately contradict yourself demonstrating a pretty neat use of a second drive.

 

 

 

well technically that use is copying too

[Ze_ro]

"Unused" for me means, "unused" - as in "you can do whatever you want with it"

In the computer industry, it's common practice to leave things unused in case future redesigns need the space. You'll even see this in the design of microprocessors when there are flags that used to be marked as "unused", but were later used for newer features like virtualization or memory protection or whatever. Trying to kludge in something like that later on gets incredibly complicated if you haven't left space for it. I've also seen electrical connectors were certain pins were left unused, but in later revisions they put a +5V power supply on that line... hope you didn't hook that pin to ground on your cable!

 

Long story short, if something is "unused", then don't use it! (especially since most of the problems in this respect are actually "write only" memory that was written over carelessly)

 

Holy hell, that's quite a wall of disks you have there... I sure hope you put them there for the picture, and don't leave them blocking access to the computer the whole time! You really might want to look into getting a 1541 Ultimate... it would save you a ton of space.

 

--Zero

[bohoki]

i was writing up a disk list at the time i have them all stacked on the entertainment system 4 columns of 6 boxes high one column is just loadstar disks if there is ever a significant earthquake there is gonna be a mess

 

funny thing is i'm now up to 3 excelerator plus drives you can have 4 of them 8,9,10,11

 

in the lower cabinet i have 2 printers a commodore 803(device 5) and a okimate 10 (device 4)

Edited June 28, 2010 by bohoki