3 ms·

The 1541 was slow also because of the firmware. There was this kit that I bought sometime in the 80s which, if memory serves, consisted of EPROMs and a small bo

The 1541 was slow also because of the firmware. There was this kit that I bought sometime in the 80s which, if memory serves, consisted of EPROMs and a small board to be swapped into the C64 and the disk drive in place of their original firmware, then a parallel cable to connect the drive to the C64 via the user port. The firmware also added a much more advanced BASIC interpreter and some utilities. Curiously, by using the parallel cable disk operations became dramatically faster than with the original DIN connector as expected, but if I removed the parallel cable say because I needed the user port, it continued to work, clearly not at the same speed, but still a lot faster than when using the original ROM, so there probably was some room for optimization in the original firmware too. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of that kit, it was one of the many "turbo" this or that on the market at that time, and by today standards looked definitely homemade.

selcuka 5y ago
Even using the stock serial cable you can make the disk drive much faster (up to 19kB/sec) with software: https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Transwarp https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Transwarp
OneLeggedCat 5y ago
There was a cartridge you could buy and shove in the back that made everything load about 5x. I wish I could remember the name of it. --edit-- ah here it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyx_Fast_Load https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyx_Fast_Load
- fistynuts 5y ago
  I recently bought a C64 and was recommended this modern replacement, it works with the vast majority of games https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/shop/commodore/eflr.html https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/shop/commodore/eflr.html
orionblastar 5y ago
Some of the modern clones of the C64 use JIffyDOS built into the Kernel for faster loading from 1541 drives. The 1541 drive has a 6502 CPU and built in DOS (Commodore DOS not MS-DOS) firmware. It is like getting a whole different computer in the floppy drive which is why it was so expensive.

selcuka 5y ago

Even using the stock serial cable you can make the disk drive much faster (up to 19kB/sec) with software: https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Transwarp https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/Transwarp

OneLeggedCat 5y ago

There was a cartridge you could buy and shove in the back that made everything load about 5x. I wish I could remember the name of it. --edit-- ah here it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyx_Fast_Load https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epyx_Fast_Load

fistynuts 5y ago
I recently bought a C64 and was recommended this modern replacement, it works with the vast majority of games https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/shop/commodore/eflr.html https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/shop/commodore/eflr.html

orionblastar 5y ago

Some of the modern clones of the C64 use JIffyDOS built into the Kernel for faster loading from 1541 drives. The 1541 drive has a 6502 CPU and built in DOS (Commodore DOS not MS-DOS) firmware. It is like getting a whole different computer in the floppy drive which is why it was so expensive.