commodore floppy disk question

[JDT]

I have many disk images that I've used with a C64 emulator, what would be the best/easiest method to write those images to a floppy disk readable by a 1541 drive?
I have all manor of hardware at my disposal,
my current notion is to use my 486 box, a 360k drive and some (yet to discover) software that will read the image file and write it to the disk... I don't suppose its going to be that easy, is it?

Or can someone recomend a better (if not just a working) solution?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Why not hook your PC up to a 1541?

Some ideas here.

 

[dabone]

Zoom floppy..

http://store.go4retro.com/products/ZoomFloppy.html

Works great, and works on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

my current notion is to use my 486 box, a 360k drive and some (yet to discover) software that will read the image file and write it to the disk... I don't suppose its going to be that easy, is it?

Commodore Floppies are GCR encoded so NO PC floppy will write them without a special controller. (Catweasel) These controllers are very expensive and cranky about drivers. The zoom floppy works with opencbm to interface to the original drives and supports reading/writing disk images and also if you add a parallel cable to your commodore drive, it supports writing out alot of
copy protected disks also.


Later,
dabone

 

[sjgray]

I have many disk images that I've used with a C64 emulator, what would be the best/easiest method to write those images to a floppy disk readable by a 1541 drive?
I have all manor of hardware at my disposal,
my current notion is to use my 486 box, a 360k drive and some (yet to discover) software that will read the image file and write it to the disk... I don't suppose its going to be that easy, is it?

Or can someone recomend a better (if not just a working) solution?

Thanks in advance.

If your images are of protected disks (G64, NIB) then the easiest solution with modern PCs is to use a Zoom Floppy adapter ($35) and OpenCBM. It connects to the USB port on your PC and the 1541 IEC (serial) port. The OpenCBM software runs on PC, Mac and Linux. If you have a parallel interface on your 1541 then you can write protected disks back to floppy using NibTools. My CBMXfer is a GUI to make all this a little easier, but is not required if you are comfortable with command-line utilities.

On the other hand, if your disk images are standard D64 type (non-protected) then why bother with a 1541 at all? Pick up a uIEC ($50) or similar device and store all your images on a memory card. It connects to the IEC port and is very small. The uIEC is not a true 1541 but it does support most common fast-loaders.

If you want the ultimate.... get the 1541Ultimate cartridge (~$200) . It will emulate the 1541 completely, and again uses memory card for image storage. It can also emulate various other cartridges, or can even work on it's own (not plugged into the cartridge port) as a 1541 drive for other commodore machines (like Plus/4 or VIC-20).

Steve

edit: oops, looks like while I was replying I got beat out...

 

[JDT]

Thanks guys, anyone reccomend a guide / advice on doing a complete maintanance on a 1541? The one I just got sounds like its on death's doorstep, it does seem to work... but sounds like it could use some considerable love...