Commander X16

I saw this Youtube today (though it was obviously posted almost a year ago), and it got me thinking: Building a NEW Commodore 1581 Disk Drive in 2021!

Back in the day, I used some of my Peace Corps readjustment allowance on a C128D system, replacing the C128 that I donated to the high school I was teaching at in Grenada in the mid 1980's. In addition to the built in 1571, I got an external 1571 and 1581, as well as a daisywheel printer. After I fried the processor in the 128D, my bank account said I was fully re-adjusted (and working as a temporary industrial worker to bridge the gap before starting grad school in the Fall), so the system I took to Grad School was my original C64, a portable color TV (with massive ghosting of one of the colors), a 1571, 1581, and daisywheel printer. I had also picked up WarpSpeed for the C128, which had a small slide switch to toggle between C128 and C64 use, so my old C64 finally got a drive accelerator cartridge.

My use of the 1571 was primarily for sharing text files and internet downloads between the IBM XT's in the grad student computer lab (because Profs had been upgraded to ATs or better) and my set-up at home, copying files over using Big Blue Reader. My working drive was almost always my 1581. I didn't have a big stockpile of retail games, but I did have a pile of disks from before I left for Grenada, so the 1571 was also for digging into my legacy disks.

With my WarpSpeed cartridge, I would type up papers with my Busy Bee "TheWriteStuff" word processor, stored on my 1581 ... and I normally just copied TheWriteStuff onto the 1581 disk, since there was plenty of room on the disk alongside the program.

So I, unfortunately, have a lot more nostalgia for my 1581 than for my 1571 or 1541. For the X16, the 1581 is an appealing option for the IEC port. Compatibility with C64 game copy protection is the number one appeal of the 1541/1571, but that is not an issue for the X16. And by 2022, 3.5" disks are just about as retro as 5.25" inch disks, while still having all of the benefits of better storage and better storage capacity.



I say "unfortunately" because if you go to eBay, a 1581 is going to run you $300-$500.

However, it turns out that thanks to the magic of retro projects to replace this and that part of a 1581, you can put together a replacement for a 1581 system, as explained in the video.

Now, according to his budget tally on the end, the total cost will vary widely depending on how much your can get used or even recycled, and if you buy all new, it can cost upward of $300, which is similar to the eBay cost of a new working version. However, if you get lucky with parts and/or you have a 3D printer and are OK with a 3D printed case, you might be able to get one made for $150-$200. Plus, you would have the satisfaction of having soldered the controller board yourself!

A 1581 on ebay quickly sets you off to 800€ ... I would love to have a working 1581, even in house made. It's just, I don't have the skills to solder and put it all together. I do have some old computer cases with some old 3 1/2 " drives in it. But how to build a new one is a whole other league. 

On 9/16/2022 at 1:01 PM, svenvandevelde said:

A 1581 on ebay quickly sets you off to 800€ ... I would love to have a working 1581, even in house made. It's just, I don't have the skills to solder and put it all together. I do have some old computer cases with some old 3 1/2 " drives in it. But how to build a new one is a whole other league. 

Yeah, I expect if someone could make a 3-D printed case with a driver board set up for a PC 3.5" drive, they might be able to sell a "install your own drive in this case" kit in the $200 price range ... the quantity you would expect to sell and whether you figure you need a 3d printer anyway for something else would be big drivers on whether that would be a viable market price. Also, the video says people are working on cost reduced and size reduced versions of the boards, which might help with that.

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For the X16, the 1581 is an appealing option for the IEC port.

Very true.  Now, $300 still sounds like a lot of money for the project, and I'm always looking for the cheap angle.  I'm still thinking about that Raspberry Pi 1581 emulator.

 

 

 

On 9/17/2022 at 8:42 AM, rje said:

Very true.  Now, $300 still sounds like a lot of money for the project, and I'm always looking for the cheap angle.  I'm still thinking about that Raspberry Pi 1581 emulator.

A real big chunk of that is the electronics (IIRC it was ~$100 of the cost in his budget), and its a controller board very much like the original 1581 controller board: you have a CPU, socketted ROM, RAM, I/O chips ... it seems like with a Raspberry Pi Pico, you might be able to do all of that in the MCU, possibly with a GPIO expanders, and have a 1581-alike that can work on the IEC bus but also work as a USB drive on a PC to work with a C64 or X16 emulator.

At least a few of the people over on the Foenix Discord have built this or are in the process of doing so (for use with the "F256 Jr."; prod board just announced) and yes, 3D printed cases seems to be the move.

I had 1541, 1571, SFD-1001, and an MSD Superdrive but never the 3.5" variety.  I'm somewhat tempted.  Peter wrote the floppy access code for the A2560K (the 68K keyboard model) so I feel I owe him.

Steve Jobs hated floppy drives : ) but eventually gave in and allowed them on his NeXT; later, he sought and gained revenge against the device on the original iMac platform in the 90s but I do believe that on many of these minus-Ethernet platforms, there is a place even if you just like to hear that occasional clickity-click.

 

I can get 800 euros for my 1581? ?  I'll have to let my kids know for when I 'check out'. With prices for retro gear being so inflated now, I won't get rid of any more of my retro gear. 

Sadly, I didn't realize that I would live to see the day when this stuff would be collectible! Best I recollect, I...got rid of my original 1581 last century some time, then bought a drive-less case and popped in a compatible floppy in it when I went retro in the early oughts.  As a matter of fact, I just dug it out to hook up to my modded Hummer-DTV today; still works!

On 9/19/2022 at 6:18 PM, yock1960 said:

I can get 800 euros for my 1581? ?  I'll have to let my kids know for when I 'check out'. With prices for retro gear being so inflated now, I won't get rid of any more of my retro gear. 



Sadly, I didn't realize that I would live to see the day when this stuff would be collectible! Best I recollect, I...got rid of my original 1581 last century some time, then bought a drive-less case and popped in a compatible floppy in it when I went retro in the early oughts.  As a matter of fact, I just dug it out to hook up to my modded Hummer-DTV today; still works!

Until a few years ago, you could buy the empty 1581 cases left when Commodore stripped them of their drives to put into Amigas ... those were bought up by a reseller, but sadly they finally sold the last of their new-old stock.

In the video, he mentions that he picked up one of the last (if not the last) of those kits, which is one reason his build came in at around $150 altogether. He was building that board because the reseller only had bare cases at that time, having sold out of the controller/case combinations already.