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15,556 Views • Jan 18, 2024 • Click to toggle off description
Like millions of other kids, I had a Commodore 64 with a 1541 disk drive when I was growing up. For all the great memories I have of that system, I don't fondly remember how slow the disk drive was. All I wanted to do was play a game of Racing Destruction Set, but I'd have to wait seemingly forever for it to load. I preferred the instant option of playing games from cartridge, but all the great games were on disk. Fast loader solutions worked, so why didn't Commodore just make the 1541 faster in the first place?
This video explores Commodore's history in the disk drive market and explains the intentional cost-cutting and incredible bad luck that resulted in the 1541's dismal performance.
I worked on the technical parts of this video in collaboration with Andrè Fachat, and he did his own video on the technical details of the 6522 shift register bug where he gets deep in the weeds. Please take a look at his video if you enjoyed this one: • 8bit-times Ep.24: The VIA Shift Regis...
Views : 15,556
Genre: Gaming
Date of upload: Jan 18, 2024 ^^
Rating : 4.964 (8/886 LTDR)
RYD date created : 2024-05-16T01:50:15.154481Z
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YouTube Comments - 234 Comments
Top Comments of this video!! :3
Please don't give up posting these videos, they are well researched and very well put together with quality narration. I was aware that the via chip had a bug but you have clarified and demonstrated that bug so that I now fully understand it. Thank you, please keep these videos coming 👍
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Very informative. It is a real pity that Commodore didn't issue a fix for the 1541 speed issue. The 1541 Flash certainly showed it was possible.
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"State permits nude bathing!"
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i remember that gcr encoding deal; i think it was a scheme to handle sync marks to be written on the disk, as opposed to the synchronization being done with a physical hole on the disk using a photo transistor creating sync pulses. the gcr was some crazy scheme that took 8-bit data and converted that into 10-bit data so that the binary value would not be able to have enough consecutive 1's - which might be misinterpreted as a 'sync mark' by - i think it was a hardware sync detector. this crazy scheme had to convert all the 8-bit 'normal data' into 10-bit gcr code which was then written to the disk, then the process was reversed when reading the data. not really sure why they didn't just use the hole punched on disks, which was there for this very reason.
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Welp this dispels the myth that CBM Marketing demanded the 1541 be compatible with the 1540, and that's why the 1541 was slow. I didn't know about VIA bugs...
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I wrote an entire course of lecture handouts using C64 Easy Script and the 1541. As you can see, I lived to tell the tale, but it was touch and go at times. Here in the UK at least there was a book on programming the 1541, I worked my way through it, The author dedicated it to "My 1541 drive, may it rot in Hell."
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That was a fantastic deep dive, really appreciated it. I feel like 10 year old me just learned why I was so frustrated 30+ years ago. Amazing story.
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That is why very important to leave a warning notes right in the design documents to avoid any "production optimisers" involved in the defects adding
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Great videos lately, Dave! Keep them coming :)
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Fascinating video. Honestly I'm surprised the 1541 Flash! wasn't a little faster than it turned out to be. It would be interesting to see it compared to a more common and much simpler accelerator, like an Epyx Fastload.
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The 1541 by default had a very slow data rate for it's serial bus interface.
There were quite a few add-in cards, and at least one software method, that would increase that data rate to 10-25 times faster - at the cost of some compatability at times.
And no, I didn't have one as a kid - I'd already served a tour in the Navy and gotten out by the time the 1541 and the C64 were created.
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Just found you. Here to stay! Please keep going. You have a good voice for this. Soothing but engaging.
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I had one of the flash kits. It was kinda scary for me as a kid to go in and bend pins on that super expensive 1541. lol Alas most of my commodore stuff didn't survive the decades and multiple moves. Thanks for the video and memories!
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Cool! Never seen that particular disk drive speed improvement before.
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Wow that brings back memories. One of my first computers was a C64 with the 1541 drive. I used to say, you start a game loading then go make lunch, after eating lunch it might be done loading the game. lol
I used to mod my 1541 with a chip socket, flat ribbon cable and a connector to the cartridge port. I know I dont have the mod instructions any more but it would speed up loading and saving so you could copy a game in 4 disk swaps.
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I loved the hammering copy protected software used to try to destroy the drive.
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The sound at 8:41 scared me to death LOL.
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Amazing video! so informative! ❤funny how it ends! 😅 many kudos to you Dave! it really takes a lot of work, time, dedication and rehearsal to make a good video like you did. 💪💪💪👏👏👏
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Wow, the memories. Back when the 1541 came out I bought a calibration disk from the back ads in COMPUTE! Magazine for $10. The local Commodore shop hated Disk Drives because they went out of calibration regularly due to the way copy protection on the Commodore would beat up the drive heads. They paid me $15 each for the calibration and I did 5 to 10 a week. Put some nice change in my pocket.
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@StarsManny
3 months ago
Videos like yours are the main reason why I don't watch tv any more. Seriously, the production quality and entertainment value are top notch. 5 stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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