References: <199706200702.AAA08312_at_lists.u.washington.edu>
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Sorry to burst your bubbles, but the Commodore drives ARE 300 RPM like
most of the others, many 1541 flywheels have the speed-calibaration
diagram on them (use fluorecent light to determine correct RPM).
154s and the lot have software&hardware to adjust the density on
tracks so more data can be stuffed in inner tracks and allow the outer
ones to spread out. No special speed involved here.
It is because of this that many computers with dumb drives can't read
the 1541 format (including Amiga!) the controller cards seem to be
limited in this fasion. Thus there is quite a demand for 1541 drivess
and (pre-converted) .d64 files in the 64 emulator community. ;)
I think all the 5.25" Commodore drives were based on the variable
density initiated in the 2040 DOS. My Complete Commodore Inner Space
Anthology has differing sector counts on tracks on all the models (4040,
2031, 1541, 8050, 8250/SFD-1001) The hard drives (9060 & 9090) seem to
be uniform thoough.
Things changed with the 1581 disk (3.5") which uses a variation of the
MFM format, and can be readable with PC/Amiga computers (with the proper
software, of course.)
--
Taking quotes from that LA article on collecting:
> Most of these early machines and programs, which didn't work very
>well when they were new [IBM PC,MS/DOS], are even more troublesome to maintain now
>[Windows 95]--and have been rendered obsolete by wave after wave of new equipment.
>[Macintosh, Amiga, NeXT, etc., etc.]
Yep, translates to modern-day very well.
> Greelish, a computer repairman, has spent about $2,600 in recent
>years building a collection of 35 computers, mostly by trolling for
>bargains on the Internet.
$2,600 for only 35 machines???? Anyone have his address, I have some
64s for him!
--
"Altairless" Larry Anderson
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Received on Fri Jun 20 1997 - 22:37:55 BST