C64 - XE1541 and 64HDD?

[joeybastard]

Recently hooked up my Atari 800Xl to my PC with the SIO2PC cable and it works great! That got me interested in doing the same for my C64. From poking around the web, I see the program 64HDD and the XE1541 cables seems to be the way to do this. Has anybody built their own XE1541 cable? I'm not completely clueless with a soldering iron but I'm no expert either. Can I do this or should I just give in and buy a premade one?

 

I have an extra C64 seriel cable so I was just going to pick up a parrallel plug and the diodes from Rat Shack. I'm wondering what is the actual skill level needed to build this thing and is 64HDD any good?

 

Thanks!

[Paul Slocum]

The cable is easy to build, but I've had a very difficult time getting Star Commander working. Hopefully 64HDD is better.

 

Somebody needs to build a similar USB device that has hardware to handle the timing issues associated with the C64's serial port.

 

-paul

[Susuwatari]

What a great idea but I think it may require extra chips to handle USB communication and not everyone has the expertise to build custom chip. Serial remains popular form for any DIY project because it often needs no extra circuitry as serial was built to be "dumb"

[Paul Slocum]

Considering Joe was able to build and sell the Stelladaptor for $30, I think it's doable. I'll mention it to him, although I don't think he's much of a Commodore guy.

 

-paul

[Goochman]

I looked into this a few years ago and the only cable I could get for a C64 was through Europe - I couldnt find someone in the US tha built SIO2PC type cables for the C64 - bummer since the drives suck - I have 3 that dont work.

[Flack]

I've picked up three working drives (under $2 each) over the past month. You need to hit more thrifts!

 

There are XE1541 cables on eBay right now. You can usually find them for $30 or so which to me wouldn't be worth the frustration and time spent making one. People's skills differ, so YMMV of course.

 

Star Commander works great for me ... in DOS. I've still got an old dual boot Win98 machine around for just these types of old projects. The same machine has my old Snazzi Dazzle that they refuse to release Win2k drivers for. 64DD works great in DOS mode as well. I just wish they would hurry up and finish that C=VGA box, so I could add my 64 to my KVM system.

[Famicoman]

30 Bucks! For a cable!?!

That doesn't seem like a good deal.

[Flack]

30  Bucks! For a cable!?!

That doesn't seem like a good deal.

 

I was at Staples earlier and they had an entire row of $30 cables (including the firewire cable I needed). If $30 sounds really high, I'd get into the business of making and selling cables!

[Paul Slocum]

I've tried it on a couple of older dedicated DOS machines and it didn't work. And even on the DOS machine that it did used to work on, only a specific old beta version worked. It's very finicky.

 

-paul

[oesii]

I got my XE1541 cable from a C64 shop in Canada. If you check out the main page at: http://sta.c64.org/ and http://sta.c64.org/x1541shop.html

 

You'll see there's a US/Canada reseller who sells them for around $15, I think I paid less for mine back in the day, easier than building it

 

http://www.nishtek.com/cbits/shop.html#Cables

[Flack]

I've tried it on a couple of older dedicated DOS machines and it didn't work.  And even on the DOS machine that it did used to work on, only a specific old beta version worked.  It's very finicky.

 

-paul

 

Were you using an older X1541 cable, or a newer XE1541 one? I had an older one and had similar problems. My XE1541 cable has worked on pretty much every machine I've tried except for my laptop.

[Paul Slocum]

XE1541. I guess they work for some and not for others. Some of my friends haven't been able to get their cable to work at all.

 

-paul

[AncillaryDrone]

I've made a cable and I've bought a cable - the X one I believe. It's been a while since I've used them.

 

I've tried these cables on many, many computers. I couldnt get either one to work on any computer that was newer than a 386, good thing I have old computers laying around. I'll have to try an XE one sometime.

[Mayhem]

How was your parallel port set up Paul? It's known that anything apart from EPP or ECP is rather hit or miss regarding transfer in StarCom.

 

Having said that, never had a problem. Using a 486 with DOS 6.21 and StarCom runs smooth. And incredibly quickly as my 1541 has been modded for parallel support (it transfers an entire disc in under 25 seconds!).

 

XE is recommended for anything Pentium or newer. You should be able to get the regular X1541 to work on a 486 but as said, entirely dependent on the chipset and actual board being used.

[Paul Slocum]

I've tried all different port settings. I've got a 386 laptop, maybe I'll try that. I was trying mostly Pentium 1s. The other annoying thing is that if it doesn't work, often it locks up. So you have to reboot to try again. And it should have tools that automatically try different delay and communication settings to talk to the drive. Poorly written software IMHO.

 

At least I got my own old programs off my disks onto my PC for more permanent storage. That was the main reason I built the cable.

 

It'd be nice to hook up the PC to the C64 through the C64's joystick port, and have a C64 cartridge that contains software to control the disk drive through that interface. Then the C64 could handle the timing issues with the disk drive so the timing on the PC interface would be relaxed, making it easy to create a nice Windows app to drive it. Although you probably wouldn't be able to do a C64HDD setup this way, which is why a USB->C64 Serial adapter would be the best.

 

-paul

[Mayhem]

Were you running it from DOS or through Windows? If the latter, you need to set "async" to on to help. StarCom is a DOS program and really due to the timings needed, only works 100% in DOS. And that's booting to DOS, not DOS as part of any Windows OS.

[Paul Slocum]

I was running straight DOS. I have several DOS-only or dual-boot machines.

[MacbthPSW]

A few other Star Commander tips:

 

Make sure you're using the latest beta, not the latest proper release. Kind of weird the way that is - I think at one point there were 3 years of "beta" releases with no proper update!

 

If Star Commander seems to have frozen, try just holding down Esc for a couple seconds, it often comes back to life.

 

Every time you make a transfer settings change, go back and hit enter on recalibrate.

 

FWIW, I've always managed to get it to work on each of my machines since I got back into 64 stuff in '96, from my 386sx laptop through my K6/233, Duron 700 (then upgraded to 1200) and now my Athlon 2200+. Typically, I boot to DOS off a floppy I always keep handy and it's very reliable there, but I even get it working from time to time in WinME in a DOS window. This is with an XE1541 cable I bought a few years ago from the X1541 shop in .hu, I believe.

 

At the same time, I know some very smart/talented C64 guys who either can't get Star Commander working, or just hate it with a passion.

[carlsson]

There is a new software, cbm4win under development. It is supposed to run on Windows NT/2000/XP but requires a XM, XA, XMP or XAP cable rather than the X or XE cable. I haven't had the opportunity to try it.

 

http://www.trikaliotis.net/cbm4win.shtml

[Kroko]

The cable is easy to build, but I've had a very difficult time getting Star Commander working.  Hopefully 64HDD is better.  

 

Somebody needs to build a similar USB device that has hardware to handle the timing issues associated with the C64's serial port.

 

-paul

 

I have made a prototype of such a device. But I don't think its worth the effort. cbm4win will do the job in the future. And there is cbm4linux ...

If you want to have a look at the prototype:

 

http://www.bitcity.de/1541%20Serial%20Interface.htm

 

I would just have to replace the max232 with and USB chip and the serial connector with a usb connector ...