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commodore hard drive on ebay

Considering a new 1 GB CMD hard drive (without JiffyDOS?) costs approximaltely 385 Canadian, it probably shouldn't go beyond 100? Maybe I'm down-scaling the value of having a hard drive at all.
 
The hard drive is a SCSI device, and it is put into an interfacing box which has C= IEC plugs as well as SCSI through. It is natively JiffyDOS compatible (but of course you need to have JiffyDOS in your computer to utilize it), so that is not something extra.

http://www.cmdrkey.com/cbm/prodinfo/cmdhd.html

Hmm... 249 USD for the mechanism without a drive, 289 USD if you want it equipped with a 1 GB drive, 349 USD if you want a Jaz 1 GB instead of a hard drive - so maybe the value of the eBay item is higher than I proposed, in particular if it is possible to replace the hard drive and install the DOS onto a fresh disk.
 
Thanks for the link Anders.

It sounds to me like it could be connected to a vic 20, as the page states that the drive recognizes all drive device commands etc., and is fully compatible with 1541 etc..

crazy avatar you have by the way :)

Chris
 
How useful would this item be with a stock C64? Do you need some super expanded machine (super cpu, ram upgrades, GEOS/Wheels) to use it?
 
No, it supposedly works with a stock machine. You will however achieve better transfer speeds if you have JiffyDOS, a RAMlink, maybe even a SuperCPU, but those are enhancements, not requirements.

Disclaimer: I have not used a CMD HD myself, so I rely on what the manufacturer/reseller claims to their customers.
 
Hard Drive Usefulness

Hard Drive Usefulness

I have two CMD HDs, they are pretty slick. one is used for my BBS and the other is on my 64 workstation. If you run a BBS it is near essential. If you program it is great (you can have all your tools on one partition, development on others and setup disk formats on yet others), if you use GEOS/Wheels it is close to essential - especially with JiffyDOS to help with speed on disk access - GEOS is a very disk intensive program/environment.

If you play just games on it you probably will be disappointed, as many commercial games are written specifically for the 1541 (random, access of data, copy protection and all that. For gamers I suggest stick to the 1541 or better yet the 1541-II.

Are they worth the price? (I think the first I got for like $425 for a 20meg unit back around 92 - it now has a 160MD drive in it). If you are a serious Commodore fan then I would say so, they are much more compact then using the 64 HDD setup (using a PC as a disk drive for the C64) and are way more compatible then IDE 64 and the Lieutenant Kernel. Conversion for IEC serial to SCSI is no small feat as well as providing emulation partitions for 1541, 1581, and CP/M partitions (as well as massive 'native mode' partitions).

All the 64 Hard Drives I know of work with a stock 64, here is a general rundown:

Commodore 9060/9090 Drive
IEEE-488 designed for the PET/CBM computers, can be used on the 64/VIC with an IEEE-488 adapter (just as hard to find if not harder then the 90x0 seried HDs) uses a pre-SCSI drive (SASI?) lots of custom chips and hardwired to 7 or 9 meg capacities. All in a heavy case with a honkin' big drive and PSU.

DataChief
Commodore VIC/64/128/etc IEC serial (no extra driver software needed on 64 end), housed in a PC Jr Case normally. Uses I believe RLL drives, not very common and has some strange DOS modes, partitions emulate 1541s or can be chained together (???) A friend of mine ran a BBS with his but he had to do some serious hacking to get it to function well.

LT. Kernel
SCSI drive PCJr Case normally. Uses special interface cartridge that plugs into 64's expansion port (thus uses 64's memory, and can conflict with other hardware (i.e. Super CPU). One cool feature of the LTK is that it can use a 'multiplex' adapter and have several users simultaneously(!!!) accessing the drive - the famed multi-line Commodore 64 BBSs were ran off of LTKs. Besides that if you do get a LTK swapping hard drives may be problematic as the drivers were written only for a handful of specific drives. Make sure you can locate the utilities and are comfortable using them.

CMD-HD
SCSI drive in compact case with external PSU (similar to the A-500 PSU IIRC) uses VIC/64/128 etc IEC serial - access speed can be enhanced with JiffyDOS and parallel connection to RAMLink expander. Many modes, very drive friendly standard DOS can access IIRC 4GB of drive space max (254 160MB partitions) a new DOS is or has been developed to break that barrier. Compatible with GEOS and 128 CP/M.

IDE-64
IDE drive based - uses expansion cartridge like Lt. Kernel, unsure of compatibility with 64 operation (from what I gather it isn't near as compatible as the CMD, and possibly the LTK). This is a project of a group of people, don't expect to find polished DTP'ed manuals and plastic enclosures.

64-HDD
Consists of PC running DOS/Windows 64-HDD program and a easy to make transfer cable (i.e. XE1541 cable) linking the PC's Parallel port to the 64's serial port. 64 sees it as a serial drive. Beyond that I don't know the specs or compatibility, though I believe some telnet 64 BBSs use 64HDD as storage. Software and cable plans freely available on the internet.

There ya go. My recommendations is if you are a collector and occasional user stick to a 1541 and get an XE1541 cable to transfer stuff (via 64HDD and/or Star Commander). If you are a serious 64 fan a dedicated Commodore HD is a blessing.
 
Ok, so it ended at C$315, or C$70 less than an unused unit in theory should cost (if you can get it delivered - Maurice has unfortunately been busy with other things so some orders have been quite delayed). Not sure if it is a bargain, but as Joe wrote, you probably are a serious user or another welthy collector for whom money is not an issue.
 
Re: Hard Drive Usefulness

Re: Hard Drive Usefulness

joecommodore said:
If you play just games on it you probably will be disappointed, as many commercial games are written specifically for the 1541 (random, access of data, copy protection and all that. For gamers I suggest stick to the 1541 or better yet the 1541-II.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I have an IDE64 on a C-64 just for fun (with a 1.3" 20MB HP Kittyhawk drive). The only games I play these days on a C-64 are Infocom text adventures (and that only for compatibility testing). The two do not mix. I have to play Zork, etc., from a real floppy drive (or more often, under VICE).

joecommodore said:
All the 64 Hard Drives I know of work with a stock 64, here is a general rundown:

Commodore 9060/9090 Drive
IEEE-488 designed for the PET/CBM computers, can be used on the 64/VIC with an IEEE-488 adapter (just as hard to find if not harder then the 90x0 seried HDs) uses a pre-SCSI drive (SASI?) lots of custom chips and hardwired to 7 or 9 meg capacities. All in a heavy case with a honkin' big drive and PSU.
Click to expand...

Yep. I have a couple of these. One nice thing is that you can "convert" a D9060 to a D9090 by changing out the hard drive and moving one jumper. ST225s make acceptable replacement D9060 discs; ST251s make acceptable D9090 discs.

The internal intermediate interface _is_ SASI. There's a Tandon board inside that's a SASI to ST506 interface, and either a Tandon TM602S or TM603S (4 heads @ 5MB or 6 heads @ 7.5MB). A while back, there was some ROM experimentation going on, but no matter what, I think the max capacity supported by DOS 3.x is around 20MB.

The good news is that if you can _find_ an IEEE-488 interface for your C-64 or VIC-20, it's faster than the native IEC bus. Just add a 4040 or 2031 and you are back in business, but faster.


joecommodore said:
IDE-64
IDE drive based - uses expansion cartridge like Lt. Kernel, unsure of compatibility with 64 operation (from what I gather it isn't near as compatible as the CMD, and possibly the LTK). This is a project of a group of people, don't expect to find polished DTP'ed manuals and plastic enclosures.
Click to expand...

It's certainly not flashy, but I like mine. I especially like the tiny HD I've got.

-ethan
 
LT. Kernel
SCSI drive PCJr Case normally. Uses special interface cartridge that plugs into 64's expansion port (thus uses 64's memory, and can conflict with other hardware (i.e. Super CPU). One cool feature of the LTK is that it can use a 'multiplex' adapter and have several users simultaneously(!!!) accessing the drive - the famed multi-line Commodore 64 BBSs were ran off of LTKs. Besides that if you do get a LTK swapping hard drives may be problematic as the drivers were written only for a handful of specific drives. Make sure you can locate the utilities and are comfortable using them.
Click to expand...

Another nice feature, was the ICEQUB button on the host controller. It would allow you to make an image of the comercial game in memory, and save a working copy to the HD.
Something else, you CAN install drives beyond those known to the LTK...IF you know how. What you have to do is find all the technical specs on the drive you want to put in, and know where to put that information(via sector editor) on the working copy(never use the original) of the SysGen disk.
 
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