Video

Sadly, because I moved to the Amiga in 1988, Most of my disks were lost (I was in the Army at the time). Fortunately one box of about 10 disks was saved including my DDM source code and they all read fine. Funny enough if you saw my earlier video (2020?) where I thought the back sides were bad on a couple, I later realized that they were written on my C128/1571 using a little KERNAL hack I had created (called Duo-Drive) that let me use side one as device 8 and side 2 as device 9 in 64 mode, so they cannot be flipped in a 1541 as they are spinning backwards.

@@RavenWolfRetroTech that's a shame. I wish I still had all my shoeboxes of disks

Thank you!

William, I have been trying to reach you on your order. can you reach out through the email on the order please?

@@RavenWolfRetroTech thanks! I just replied to your email.

I will look into cyclomethicone as I was wondering if there was a good way to lubricate the jacket sleeve😅😎🤓 This is a well worded Compliment sandwich! Many internet users could learn a lot from this post on how to correct someone without trolling! Seriously, Thank you for the corrections.

@@RavenWolfRetroTech Occupational hazard of having a minor amount of OCD ;⁠-⁠) but also understanding the work that goes into this kind of experiment, and also the production of a CZcams video. Thanks for being understanding :⁠-⁠) and I truly am looking forward to your next videos, and I am subscribed.

Remember that in a list of questions, every other one is odd! Even if the speed is similar, I really love the abbreviated syntax for DOS commands in JiffyDOS. Besides that I have the HD-20 and RAMLink that support JiffyDOS and I don't think I would do well using different command syntaxes for some drives. Then there is the elephant in the room! We all know that most 128s spend the majority of their lives in 64 mode. Back in the day I used 128 mode for 80-column text editing (With Word Writer 128) and Assembly coding (With the LADS assembler). Even then the code I was writing would only run in 64 mode as would most of the software and games I owned,

March-in-tosh is an annual event each March, focusing on Macs much like DoScember

@@RavenWolfRetroTech ah, I see, apologies, apologies 👍

Wow I am surprised that worked. I had to look up that drive and I see that it is the same as the Excelerator+. Oceanic was right here in Springfield, just a few mile from my home!

Thanks Frank!

Thanks RacerX. I have not tried the 1571 with my ZoomFloppy, just a 1541. I'll give it a try. I have noticed that magazine disks are usually very low quality and have had terrible recovery rates with them

@@RavenWolfRetroTech Yes I have found the same. Though I have some exceptions it seems the disks they used were not great. Especially true for the Loadstar disks in the newer issues of the early to late 90s. I can usually tell by looking at the jacket what kind of disk it is. The ones with circular rivet marks seem to be better and the ones with no rivet marks on the back seem to be Athana. Their early first 2 years or so they used Opus disks (they actually were a reseller too) and I found these did not hold up. If you open the disk you will see the liner has turned mostly brown. To me this is the liner going bad either from excessive heat or chemicals I am not sure. But I do have duplicates of some issues from collections that were stored at room temperature and some of them are fine. The liner is saturated with some kind of lubricant. So perhaps that lubricant on some brands turns bad after time? Also I have found that the 1571 in particular is very sensitive about junk on the disk. The squeal sound you showed I have heard all too many times and usually like you,I find the disk now has grooves on it. Using a 1541 though I have really not found that to be an issue. I am guessing since the 1571 has 2 heads there is more touching the disk vs the 1541 that has a felt pad on the top that actually seems to clean the disk a tad bit. I have noticed that if I image a disk that shows errors then do the backside often it is fine. Then if I flip the disk again to do the front it comes out fine. I guess it has to do with the felt pad sweeping away some minor crud. The 1571 just collects it in the grooves of the heads. Anyway if you ever need someone to test something or bounce ideas off for this stuff, please feel free to contact me.

And they would want to know why they are cleaning save icons :-)

I have passed a few boxes of user disks, along with some MECC disks and magazine disks, on to members of PDX Retro Forest and am going to have a way for Patrons to get them for the cost of shipping... With DDM taking a ton of time over the last year I have been feeling like I need to get them to people that will enjoy them more. Right now they take a ton of space in my storage shed and, while dry, are still deteriorating as time passes.

I was thinking I would start by just putting some bad ones in my attic for a while. It is very dry and the attic fan keeps the temp below about 120 in the summer. I don't have a food dehydrator so my options are limited.

Wow, thanks!

That is awesome, Pirates is such an Amazing game!

User programs are usually not protected so a file copier or something like a greaseweazle or ZoomFloppy will work. On my own old disks I used a ZoomFloppy on my PC and read them into D64s using CBM Command in VICE

Awesome, i will look in to this. thanks again!

My pleasure!

Thanks Rudy, I am hoping it helps people. I am finding this can be a very panful process!

I agree that would have been an improvement but I have 1000s of disks and that is a very slow process. I have used the Greaseweazle and zoom floppy but usually if the disk is clean and runs smoothly then, if it can boot or read a directory, then the failure rate is pretty low.

I am not understanding :)

Love it! Those are amazing games. Defender of the Crown is the game that I ordered along with my Amiga 500 back in the day! I am not sure if it made it into the video but there were 2 copies of Bards Tale III and none of the disks work :-(

I know what you mean Eric. I find that any drive that was stored with the mechanism open has the heads drooping on one side. I worry that bending them back is not a permanent solution but so far so good. Fortunately Karl had shipping inserts in a lot of drives!

Thanks Frank. I find myself going back to the old way and reading the manual instead of searching the internet. This has bitten me once though with the RAMLinks updated manual and addendum having critical information.

I am not an expert by any stretch on HP calculators but it sounds like something is failing short. I have had this happen once with a defective battery but it is more often a component in the device. Sometimes with old computers a capacitor (Usually a tantalum cap) will fail short and get really hot until it burns through and then opens. The device will then suddenly start working again after the short circuit is gone. I would install fresh batteries and look for anything getting hot inside. I hope it was just a battery but I would be reluctant to leave it with batteries installed unattended until the problem is resolved.

My opinion based on the way these things usually go: SD came out around 2000 and I think M.2 was at least 10 years later so by the time M.2 was an option SD was already a solution. Now that M.2 has come down in cost maybe it will catch on in retro circles but that had to happen first.

That sounds like a perfect solution. I only did this because I had the gear from the Stone collection and thought it would be fun to put together a Retro Battlestation that is beyond my dreams back in the day. It will be very useful for testing and I want to make a single disk version of my game that runs off the 1581 for people with the hardware or running in an emulator.

If changing the JiffyDoS switch on the RAMLink to disabled did not reenable the cassette port then you could just unplug it. I too used a Datasette for a year before I could scrape up enough to buy a disk drive - and I was 19. It sounds like you have a nice collection!

@@RavenWolfRetroTech I think the key thing to keep in mind with C64s and cassettes in England, is game consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Master System didn't arrive until 1988, so until then if you wanted to play video games, it was either an Atari 2600 or a computer. Being parents(oftentimes low income, as anyone with more cash would've got an Atari ST or Amiga) looking for cheap toys for their kids, cheap computers like the C64, Sinclair Spectrum and Amstrad CPC started shifting in large numbers, but sans floppy drive to keep cost down. The advantage of cassette, was that the games were ridiculously cheap(and a lot more readily available in shops than disk games) and could go for as little as £1.99(approx. $3). They'd bring out new games in big boxes and sell them for £9.99(about $15), then after they sold, I think 250k copies, they'd put 'em out in regular jewel cases and move them to the £1.99 section. That, combined with how computer magazines would always have a tape stuck to the front cover, meant I could pretty much get at least a new game every week and ended up with a kinda accidental collection.

I had a flat 128 back in the day with an external 1571. I do really love the form factor of the 128D but could not justify/afford the extra expense back then. Expect to see the 128D in most, if not all, DDM dev blog posts in the future!

Thanks Dan! I really hate to ask but it is fun to hide it as little easter eggs.

I kinda spent my wad on the Stone Collection which is where everything except the uIEC/SD came from. I already had the SD2IEC when I bough the Stone Collection. Before the SD2IEC I was using a ZoomFloppy to write real disks from Vice so I don't feel too inconvenienced.

Thanks! I added it to my notes to keep an eye out for it.

Yeah, I did look into that but I was unable to work out a trade for one that was available locally. I have little cash but much I can trade 🙄

Thank You! I was very fortunate to find these in the Stone collection. Otherwise this would never have been possible.

Thank you Paul! The iteration cycle using Kick Assembler, VS code and your extension is literally what is making this possible. I can get done in an hour what used to take 4

Lol, thanks ! I have to admit that spelling was never my strong point. Who decided it was worth my precious brain cells to keep track of which Capital is a building and which is a city?

Yes. The internal RAM is one partition and the REU is another. The one with 1984 blocks free is the REU. I do get a partition 2 with 3968 blocks free as well but it may not have made it into the video. After 2 days messing with the 128 mode issues I ended up with a mess of footage and it looks like it was lost in the sift...

If I recall correctly - after some 25 years... If you have 16MB RAM installed and plug, say, a 1750XL 2MB REU into the pass-thru port (I think)... you'll have 16MB RAM in the RAMLink + 2MB RAM in the REU as expected. They do not combine into a continuous total of 18MB, though. GEOS sees them as separate entities. On the other hand - and again, if I recall correctly - plugging the REU into the front cartridge port causes the 2MB RAM in the REU to overlap addresses with 2MB of the RAMLink RAM, effectively giving you 14MB + 2MB of RAM, again, as separate entities. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong about this. I just remember getting different results like that with my 1750XL REU whenever I'd plug it into the different ports. Better to go with the 16MB + 2MB, IMO.

I am in the process of finding the right SIMMs. Once I get them I will do some testing.

I did try that but I forgot to add the clip in the shuffle.

Where does one obtain the timer clips now? I still have my original RAMLink from 1997 and another one on its way to me right now... but with multiple machines I'd like to have more than 1 or 2. More like 5 or 6 because I'll probably own a few more as time goes on. Also, what are "the rules" about them? I've heard that they're only needed with later model RAMLinks with C64s and C128Ds... The "flat" C128s apparently don't need them. Is that correct?

It is simply a pin clip (Grabber) with a single wire to a pin connector. I am going to do a follow-up on this video once I get a few things and I will try to get good specs on it for you.

@@RavenWolfRetroTech Right. I just get confused as to which pin it needs to be clipped to. Having a close-up of that on video with some dialog added would be helpful. I have a C128 and I clipped it to that where I thought it needed to go... not realizing a flat C128 apparently doesn't need it... and now the clip won't let go so I can put it on my C64c where it *is* needed. It's the only one I have and I don't know if I'm going to break it and render it unusable if I get too rough with it while trying to remove it. Hardware's never been my thing and I don't know if there's a precaution I need to take while removing it. Simple stuff like that.

Sigh, Every once in a while when I respond in the CZcams app on my phone the reply disappears so sorry for the slow reply. On the 128D it is pin 41 on the PLA but I am not sure that it is even needed on a flat C128. I will try to show these in the follow-up which is waiting on some RAM SIMMs for the RAMLink. Hopefully I will find ones before too long. To remove the clip try releasing it, pushing it in a little bit so the hook clears the pins then rotate 90 degrees so it slides free.

Good thought, I can try it without any SIMM in it and just use the 1750

I don't have one but I don't mind dropping the files I want in dropbox and then grabbing them on an SD card when I am out in my shop.

Interesting. I don't actually have another SCSI2SD Device. I am pretty sure what happened was that I accidently put my Amiga SD card onto it because I was later unable to find it when I needed it. It had drive images on it that were formatted using WinUAE IIRC. This was all last year so I am pretty foggy on the detail at this point. Sigh...

True, I was an adult by then but that was the argument I used to get my Grandparents to subsidize the purchase in 1983 (I was 19)