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Silver Label Commodore 64

P

Pet Rescue

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2010
Messages
484
Location
Staffordshire, England
Really pleased today as my latest arrival landed on the doorstep.

A WGB serial numbered silver label C64 with an ASSY 326298 Rev A board.

The board has ceramic RAM chips and a ceramic Vic II.

IMG_2094.jpg

Another rarity arrived with it a Vic 1540 disk drive.

All in all I'm well pleased!!
 
I have just bitten the bullet and powered up the C64 with the Vic 1540.

I'm pleased to say they both functioned perfectly(well as you can with the sparkles).

I loaded a game called jawbreaker and it loaded and ran perfectly.

One thing I noticed was the SID sounded softer and not as harsh as my later C64 strangely!

Also when the screen had "x's" or "Y's" on the screen they seemed to have little flickers on the edges.

I've read somewhere about incompatibility with the Vic 1540, why is that?
 
There's a bug in one of the CIA chips the C-64 uses. The 1540 can transfer data faster than the C-64 can handle due to this bug. That's why the 1541 is so horrifyingly slow.

g.
 
I strongly suspect you've got a 1540 that someone has "upgraded" to a 1541 by changing out the ROM.
Run the following program and report what you get back:

10 open 15,8,15:input#15,e,e$,t,s:print e,e$,t,s:close 15

tnx.

g.
 
I _think_ it will work fine with a VIC-20 as-is. AFAIK, 1541 drives do, so this should as well.

It's highly unlikely that the drive left the factory that way.

In my opinion as a use-it type collector, I would keep the drive and enjoy it. However, the upgraded status of the drive really crushes its value to someone that's trying to collect a "real" 1540. The value of the drive comes in two parts - the 1540 case badges and the 1540 ROM code (on a factory, masked ROM). It's similar to how someone would feel about a much newer rev mainboard inside a C-64 case that had the original silver badge on it.

I'd avoid copy protected disks and formatting disks with it. You don't want to knock those heads around if you can avoid it. :)

g.
 
Thanks for the info geneb! I like to collect commodore computers and peripherals so it was a bonus when I picked up the silver label with the 1540 too.

I like to use the computers too when I get the time, I prefer to do that than just put them in a box and let them gather dust!

To be honest I wanted the 1540 to match my Pet style Vic 20 as I already have a couple of 1541's and a couple of 1570's and a 1581 is my next objective.

It's nice though to own a rare item even though I have not bought them with the intentions of selling them, it's the priveledge of getting to use a rare piece of history!

I'll watch out for the protected disks to save the heads though! and I get what you mean about having a rare case with the wrong board in as that's not how it left the factory.
 
geneb said:
You're quite welcome!

1570 is a rare find. You'll be lucky to get your hands on one of those.

g.
Click to expand...

geneb I was lucky enough to pick up the 1570's as they aren't as rare over here as they are in the states.

Now the 1581 is another matter they are few and far between and fetch a good price when they surface!
 
Doesn't a 1540 work with a C64 if you POKE 53265,0 to close the screen before loading? There is a command UJ- you can send to the 1541 to put it in 1540 mode. Officially it said to be 25% faster, actual testing that I did once pointed more to like 10-15% faster, the more increase the longer file you load.

The 1540 also has some kind of autobooting feature looking for an USR file named "&" or so, but I've never studied it more in detail. I don't think a 1541 even in 1540 mode supports this.
 
carlsson said:
Doesn't a 1540 work with a C64 if you POKE 53265,0 to close the screen before loading? There is a command UJ- you can send to the 1541 to put it in 1540 mode. Officially it said to be 25% faster, actual testing that I did once pointed more to like 10-15% faster, the more increase the longer file you load.
Click to expand...

Yes, if you disable the screen an unmodified 1540 will work with a 64. As for the speed increase over a 1541, 10-15 percent sounds about right. Several magazines here in the States published that as a "free fastloader" tip. It didn't help with commercial software since you had no way to re-enable the screen after the program loaded, but with programs you had to run manually, you could blindly type the command to re-enable the screen after the drive light went out.
 
One can wonder though if the 10% faster loading time will save you more time than what it takes to close and re-open the screen again... :) Perhaps if you had some utility cartridge with hotkeys to set a 1541 in 1540 mode, close screen and open it. Then again you might have an Epyx Fastload or something even better, which would outdo the 1540 speed increase.
 
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