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Commodore 128D Restoration - Floppy Drive Trials
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- čas přidán 13. 08. 2024
- Restoring a Commodore 128D Computer with the factory warranty seal intact. This machine needs some help as do the many floppy disks I picked up from the Stone collection.
This video was a huge challenge for me to edit. I had some technical issues that left me without sound or the 2nd video angle and the goal changed mid shoot as it became obvious that the internal floppy had problems. I hope the narration segments tie it all together but its time to just let it go and move on to the next videos.
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CONTENTS
00:00 Introduction
00:45 First Look at the C128D
03:53 Floppy Issues
04:30 C128 System Disks
06:42 Opening the Case (The Pain)
09:00 Floppy Head Continuity Checks
10:18 Replacing Drive with Donor from a 1571
11:51 More Floppy Issues and Solutions
13:20 Cosmetics and Cleaning
15:44 Testing - Moon Patrol, Wasteland, & Ultima IV
18:09 Lamenting Bad Gold Box D&D and Elite Game Disks
20:39 Conclusion
ABOUT RAVENWOLF RETRO TECH
RavenWolf Retro Tech brings you new vintage tech videos regularly. We currently have about half a dozen videos in various states of completion, including Amiga 2000 and 4000 restorations, A Pet-4032 in desperate need of a full restoration, an IBM 5150 for DOScember, an SX-64, and much more!
At RavenWolf Retro Tech we restore and explore vintage technology from Back in the Day!
Now that we are moved into the new shop, the frequency of videos is increasing. I’ll keep putting out videos as I can, but I promise to focus on higher quality videos that don’t waste your time over frequent, low effort projects.
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#Commodore #128D #floppydisk
@RavenWolfRetroTech Thanks for the video!
I doubt you will see this message this since this video has been out for over a year, but I wanted to congratulate you on getting your hands on a nice Commodore 128D-CR. Like many following this channel, I had a C64 in my teens, and then upgraded directly to the Amigas afterwards (had a 500, 1000, 2000, and 3000 in the end). Then I gave them all away to a friend.
Although I did play around with my Amigas, I actually enjoyed my C64 much more. Since the C128 is the one that follows (and also has a C64 in it), I've been looking into finding one *to keep **-no matter what-* and have discovered only recently that the 128DCR existed (2 years ago). I had never seen any here (In Qc Canada) and trying to find one like yours in this video seem impossible to find at this point because either they are in bad shape, or they cost tooo much.
Anyway, congrats on your 128D-CR. It's really a nice one!
Thank you. I try to keep an eye on new messages like this one. Sadly CZcams is really bad at tracking replies but it does surface the new ones.
I am very much enjoying the 128DCR and it has been pimped out a bit with new (Old) gear to use in testing the game I am working on. I plan to have a video on that in the next few months. In the meantime I wish you luck in your search. If you don't find a 128D then a flat 128 with a 1571 is functionally the same!
@@RavenWolfRetroTech I agree that the flat one is functionally the same, but I do appreciate the form factor of the case more. It was also one of the reasons why I liked the A2000 more than my A500 even if I didn't upgrade it.
I subscribed to your channel and will be looking forward to your new videos with the 128DCR 🙂
Really cool!
I feel your pain with diskettes! I now mostly use a cartridge to load my programs and games. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Rudy! I do like the Easy Flash 3 for that but there is something about the old experience on some things that I enjoy.
@@RavenWolfRetroTech I fully understand that
Bad disks are a real thing, but I had similar squeaking symptoms with a different cause. I bought a lot of 1571 drives and one of them squeaked and had trouble reading disks. After a bit of troubleshooting, I realized the top head was not sitting flat and causing extra drag. The mechanism only lifts on one side of the head when the disk lever is open. After many years left open, the spring steel "hinge" no longer held head straight. I was able to tweak it back flat and the drive works fine. Since that discovery, I now keep a cardboard head protector in all of my drives and keep the lever down when in storage.
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!
(Long winded comment warning) Oh man I have had a lot of 5.25 disks go bad. Not everyone stores their disks properly. My entire collection was in a storage unit for years and most of the time it was climate controlled but for several years my friend had it in a storage building that was not. When I finally picked up my collection to use it again I found that most disks were fine, with a few exceptions. Most of my 3M disks that were the older SSDD did not survive, while the DSDD were fine. I was able to rescue them but they had formed spots that were not mold.
Over the years I have seen a trend with certain brands being less resilient than others. One model of 3M, most disks made by Syncom, Legecy, Opus and a few others. Brands that seemed to fair good in my bunch of disks were Polaroid, Verbatim, Later 3M, Maxell, Athana, Elephant, Centech, Fuji, Sony, BASF, and a few others including some generics that were great. It is a major bummer to find that disks have gone bad especially originals. I have a lot of loadstar disks that did not survive, which makes sense since they were supplied by Opus. In some cases I had to remove the disks from the jacket, wash them in the sink with dish soap and alcohol, rinse them with distilled water and then finally dry them and put them into a new jacket just to rescue the contents. Ugh.
I agree completely Racer X! The brand seems to make a huge difference. The few disks I still have from back in the day were Bonus and Fred Meyer brand and they seemed to survive quite well despite being in an attic for part of the time.
The blank disks from the stone collection are mainly generic, unbranded ones in sealed plastic bags. These seem to be entirely bad but a few that were of different manufacture were OK even though they were stored together with the bad ones.
The location they were stored in the room also seemed to make a huge difference. Many of the bad disks were in areas near leaks or directly on, or near, the concrete floor that would bring in moisture in the wet Oregon winters.
These are fine machines indeed.
Thanks Bob!
I've also got an original C128DCR and have found it to be quite sensitive to dirty disks. You see them for sale on Ebay all the time, but they're mostly not worth it because of their age and condition. I actually took my disks from 30 years ago and copied them all onto new disks and they haven't given me any trouble at all. You are probably better off downloading the games from the net onto an SD Card or new disks than using the originals - which as you have mentioned, if they haven't been stored in the right environment, will have deteriorated. Great video.
Thank you! I am looking at getting a 1541 or two connected externally for testing disks/
@@RavenWolfRetroTech PS With their external PSU, I've found the 1541 IIs to be a lot more reliable than my original 1541s.
I do have a 1541-II on my shelf waiting to be restored so I will try that out. Thanks for the advice.
My personal experience with 5.25" C64 disks has been quite different so far. I haven't enountered any delamination yet. Many are moldy, some are totaly frozen in the sleeve. But the vast majority of them just works. I enjoy browsing the content of old random floppy piles a lot. In my experience, 5.25 C64 floppies had a substantially higher survival rate than 3.5" Amiga floppies. Maybe its related to climate conditions?
I had pretty good luck with my old floppies and some that came from Alaska. I think the Stone Collection conditions were just really bad for them. I have been able to get some working though. Most notably was a working copy of Wasteland cobbled from 3 that were there.
Crazy that they put all of the drive electronics on the main PCB.
I think that was the biggest change made in the CR (Cost Reduced) version (Which this is). I am in the USA where the original version was never sold as far as I can tell.
So what's the best option to recover this floppy disc?
I am planning a video but there is a lot of research and testing to be done first. As it stands I have been unable to recover disks that cleaning did not fix.
You mention being a Commodore hardware developer. What hardware did you make back in the day? It's too bad the disks have gone bad. I have my collection of floppies still that i started in 1982 and the majority are still working today,but they were stored cool and dry all this time.
I never sold any commercial products but had plans to. I made an A500 MIDI interface that is covered in an old video (czcams.com/video/fam7G3hi0bU/video.html). I was working on a HP/GL interface card for the A2000 in college and was unable to get it to work with the information I had (It was wire wrapped). The project still got an A because the professor couldn't figure out why it would not run. Later, when I found out about the certified hardware developer program I signed up and got access to the Tech ref. All that project had needed was to tie DATAC to ground instead of handling it myself like you would on most M68000 projects. Sadly it was already disassembled since many parts were not mine. In the end I ended up with my Office Equipment Company taking off and that ended the hardware path I wish I had followed.
our local ice cream truck makes similar noises
Ectype floppy disks,i don't think i have ever came across that brand before.
I have since been told that they were the worst of the worst. The oxide layer wipes of easily with a swab and alcohol.
The disk issues seem very similar to what the audio community calls "Sticky-shed Syndrome". Perhaps baking the disks would do the trick?
Brian, I will look into that now that I know what to search for. I do remember a couple weeks ago, while I was doing some research, I found a post talking about baking disks to reform the layer but it was vague and said that it had to be done in a special oven.
Does this oxide issue also impact 3.5” disks?
Very nice machine to work on. I’m a long time Mac user but I’ve always had a soft spot for commodores, especially the C64 and C128. I wish Apple had used metal enclosures instead of damn plastic for everything.
Also Curse of the Azure bonds is one of my favourite games. I’d love to play it again but I’d need the book and code wheel.
Unfortunately yes, it does. The 3.5" disks tend to be newer and I have had less problems but they still go bad. A couple hundred disks from a buddy that were kept in a closet are about 95% good while the TV station Amiga disks that were in an unheated mountain shed seem to be running around 50%.
@@RavenWolfRetroTech 50% is still really good!
For sure Jodie! I'm lucky if 10% of the Stone collection disks are good. They are 5.25" stored in really bad conditions. At least I was able to cobble together a good copy of Wasteland 🤓
@@RavenWolfRetroTech Even back in the late 90s when I was using floppies to take word documents into Uni to print, I had make multiple copies of a document across multiple disks just to make sure one of them worked.
What are the chances you could have just used a heat gun and lifted that warranty seal off?
I discussed this with a friend but my feeling was that removing and replacing the seal in a manner that made the machine look like it had never been worked on would be deceptive. While this machine is my daily driver at the moment, someday (Hopefully a long time from now) it will go to others and they deserve to know the true state of the machine.
Jam in a TRS-1 2450.
Great video! I need a 3d printed floppy cleaner! Are they online somewhere? Or would you be interested in printing and selling one?
I see one on e-Bay but it is different. I will look into printing a couple...
@@RavenWolfRetroTech we can get in touch and I can pay you.
Send me an email please? its in the about tab.
@@RavenWolfRetroTech will do soon!
I sent an email to your you tube email address, Let me know if you can't find it. It has "Floppy Disk cleaning tray" in the subject line
Yesterday I opened A500 with warranty seals on. It was not easy decision.
I am sorry to hear that Adam. What was wrong with it?
Wow that is a lot of bad disks.
Yeah, but I am hopeful that a lot of the others are ok since they were stored in a different area!