> > > I just picked up a Commodore 8050M dual 5 1/4" disk drive with a HP-IB
> > > interface in a surplus place. Can anyone tell me what system(s) it's made
> > > to work with?
> >
> > PETs, of course! And any Commodore with an IEEE-488 interface, even the 64
> > if you happen to have an IEEE interface cartridge.
>
> Do you call all the CBM computers "PET"? I started my computing carreer
> on a PET, it had a built-in cassette recorder and a really bad keyboard.
> I never used a floppy with a PET.
That sounds suspiciously like a 2001, and yes, all the original CBM series
computers are PETs (2000, 3000, 4000 and 8000 series). The CBM-II machines
aren't, strictly speaking, PETs even though they were intended as successors.
> I have a 1541 floppy drive and a C=64 that doesn't work any more. Where
> could one get a C=64?
Goodness, you must live in a cave. :-) I see them in thrifts around here
at an alarming rate. eBay has trillions.
> I even read something about connecting a 1541 to the PC.
http://sta.c64.org/
> The
> problem with those emulators is they want a BASIC and KERNEL ROM image.
You must be using a very old version of the emulator in question. Virtually
all current versions, even oldies-but-goodies like C64S, come with ROM
images. For X your best choice is VICE (second choice, Frodo).
> Will my 20 years old diskettes still
> work? I once wrote a program to backup floppies to cassette tape using
> turbo tape. My first macro-assembler project. Did it for a friend, worked
> like a charm. Unfortunately I didn't back up anything myself :-(
It depends on how well they have been stored. Most of my disks still work
but there is a rumour that 'bitrot' will start kicking in about 15 years or
so after original writing. I have briefly toyed with writing a utility that
goes through the tracks on a Commodore disk, reads the track off, formats
the track (to ensure that the GCR headers are rewritten as well), and writes
the data back on. This will not work for custom formats like V-Max! or
Rapidlok, or for tracks/sectors with deliberate soft errors, but only for
standard Commodore DOS 2.6 35-track GCR.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser_at_stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- If G. B. Shaw were a surrealist, he'd be writing plays about ghoti. --------
Received on Tue Apr 24 2001 - 12:08:46 BST