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Post by dynamiccomputing on Nov 7, 2018 4:59:15 GMT
Hello all, I just got my shiny new C128 last month, and finally got the power supply for it this last weekend! I love it! I have been using my 1541 with it without any problems, but I really would like a 1571 and/or a 1581.
There are some reasonably priced drives on eBay, but I thought I would give the money to someone here first. Let me know if you have anything available for sale!
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Post by jmpff3d on Nov 7, 2018 8:29:58 GMT
If you find a 1581, make sure it has the WD1772 chip instead of the WD1770 !
Some (all?) 1581s with WD1770 were unreliable.
Cheers !
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Post by bjonte on Nov 8, 2018 6:27:28 GMT
If you find a 1581, make sure it has the WD1772 chip instead of the WD1770 ! I didn’t know that. Is it detectable from software? |
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Post by jmpff3d on Nov 8, 2018 14:46:39 GMT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1581The WD1770 controller chip, however, was the seat of some early problems with 1581 drives when the first production runs were recalled due to a high failure rate; the problem was quickly corrected.
from google groups (link1)Mike Cochrane wrote ... Yes, there was a hardware bug with the 1581's.
Early drives had an open jumper (J1) which should have been closed, and the
WD1770 controller could be a bit flaky, causing intermittent read/write fails.
Commodore had a deal where you could have the controller upgraded to a WD1772,
and J1 would be closed.
There may be some places that'll upgrade for you (check Commodore World ads).
There was a program that would tell you what controller you had, and the status
of J1.
It was written by Fred Bowen, called WDCK.from google groups (link2)Larry Anderson wrote ... One of the Commodore paid 'bug fixes' was to replace the 1770 with a 1772,
besides a jumper between two pins of some chip. Without these corrections,
there were problems with the 1581 (I don't recall what excactly, maybe corrupt
disks after time?). I had both my drives fixed free (years ago).Nicolas Welte wrote ... AFAIK the 1770 as such is not a bad chip, but Commodore purchased
one bad batch of 1770 chips and they just didn't know which drives had
the bad chip, so all of the drives had to be upgraded.
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Post by dynamiccomputing on Nov 12, 2018 14:41:31 GMT
Nevermind. I just won two of them on eBay. One comes with a C128, which I already have, so I will likely be selling that soon, if it works.
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Post by nikoniko on Nov 13, 2018 11:37:05 GMT
Nevermind. I just won two of them on eBay. One comes with a C128, which I already have, so I will likely be selling that soon, if it works. NTSC by any chance? I'll be looking to buy a C128 soon. If it turns out to be non-working, that may be okay for me depending on the issue(s). |
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Post by dynamiccomputing on Nov 20, 2018 6:20:11 GMT
Yes. NTSC. It has some issues - occasionally boots to a garbled screen, other times seems to work ok. I think it is a RAM chip. I opened it up today and one of the RAM chips is socketed and replaced with a different one. I suspect it or another chip is bad.
I am cleaning it up and reseating the chips too see if that changes anything. The only other issue is a broken F5 key. I am going to see if an old C64 keyboard plunger will replace the broken part.
I will keep you informed on the progress and I will probably document the repair on my YouTube channel.
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