I’ve been talking about everything Commodore on here lately and I got a serious Jones to get my old C64 going again. So, tonight, took it out & got it all set up. Stuck a disk in the drive. Load.
Error light flashes.
Ok, guess that disk is toast. Pop next one in. Load. Error light.
Next one. Same thing. And the next, and the next…:eek:
By this time I’m freaking out a little. Then I finally pop one in and the menu comes up. Yeah! So I play a game for a bit, then decide to turn off and load another from the same disk. This time, the menu doesn’t come up. Just the error light, like the others.
I’ve always kept all my games closed in a plastic disk case, away from light, heat, moisture, and magnetic fields. I last used my C64 about 5 years ago and everything worked fine. Could the disks have ALL deteriorated in that time?? I mean, NONE of them are loading. It’s like trying to view a blank disk. Or could it be something’s not right in my 1541 drive? I tried cleaning the drive heads but that didn’t make a difference. Anyone have any troubleshooting options? I just can’t see how 200+ games I handled carefully could ALL be toast all of a sudden. Please tell me it’s the drive…
IIRC, I believe that floppies have a useful life of around 10 years. My cousin still has his C64 and the last time we fired it up (several years ago) about half the disks had gone.
If it was any other computer, I’d confidently say it was the drive. And if it was any other computer, I could also tell you to go find another computer whose drive you knew to be good and test them on that. However since both the drive and the disks are fairly old, and presumably past their use by date, I can only say that the drive is bad with about 90% confidence. The good news is, from the ebay completed listings it looks like you can get a working drive for around $10-$20, average to test on. Good luck!
I think there is something wrong with your drive, but I also doubt that most of your games are playable after all this time. Floppies are only good for about 10 years. I would expect you to be able to read something off of them though, even though most of the games probably won’t work. Can you get a directory of any of the disks? (LOAD “$”,8 if you forgot the command) I would expect to see a partial directory with a lot of corruption and funny characters all over the place, not a completely blank disk for every disk. If the directories are all completely blank then you’ve probably got a hardware problem. If you can hear the head moving back and forth (it’s not quiet) then it’s most likely in the read amplifier for the disk head.
You can try some of the c64 emulator sites if you really have an itching to play those old games.
I’m also betting on the drive. The last problem I had with my 1541 was actually tied to the latch, of all things. I wouldn’t give up just yet - you might be able to find a cheapo functioning 1541 on ebay. If it’s cheap enough it might be worth buying, just so that you know where the problem lies.
Yes, I tried to pull up the directory on every one - it acted as if it were a blank disk.
The disk that came up fine the first time also loaded and played just fine as well, but as I mentioned, the next time I put it in the drive, it appeared as a blank disk as well, which makes no sense considering I had just used it 5 minutes before.
The 1541 was always a noisy drive, but mine was making more noise than I remembered. New ones, too; some squeaking at times.
I have an emulator on my Mac but I can’t find the emulations for 90% of the games I have. Plus I can’t play many of them because I can’t find a joystick that’s compatible with the iMac.
A couple of weeks ago, I bought one of those joysticks with an integrated processor and all, with video/audio cables coming out - you’ve seen them before. Except this one was only $10, and it had 30 of the old classic C64 games in it.
I plugged it in and was a little surprised that when it started, I saw the same exact blue screen that the original C64 had, right down to the lines at the top that said “COMMODORE BASIC 2.00 ------ 39184 BYTES FREE” (or whatever), then you see as if someone’s typing, “LOAD “*”,8,1” “RUN” then the launcher comes up to select which of the 30 games you want to play. They just took the C64 architecture and ROM, and stuck it into a joystick package - it’s great.
From what I’ve read of those things, those things are indeed fully functioning - there are hacks available to turn it into a functional C 64. Pretty cool… I think I may add it to my birthday wish list.
My 1541 drive had a lever/latch that you turned down verically over the slot after you slid a disc in. This kept anyone from pulling out the disc but it also lowered the read/write head down to the disc surface for use. After some use my drive quit reading anything and acted like there was no disc installed. I tried a few things without success before opening the case to check things out. I found the problem right away. The rear end of the rod that held the lever and mechanism to push the R/W head down had slipped out of its hole and instead of the R/W head going down when I turned the lever, the rod went up.
The hole was in a small tab of metal on the frame and after I put the rod back into the hole I just bent the tab a tiny bit toward the front so the rod couldn’t slip out again. I never had any more trouble with it.
I believe that was exactly the problem I had with my mine, but it was so long ago that I didn’t have enough confidence that I was remembering it correctly - I could only remember for sure that the latch did more than just prevent removal of the disk.
Hmm, well maybe it is a drive issue. BUT, the 1541 will make funny noises (like rat-a-tat-tatting) when it encounters unformatted or corrupted disks as well. I’m not familiar with squeaking on a healthy 1541, though.
It is a bit suspicious that all of your disks would be damaged, though. So maybe it would be worth your while to pick up a cheap 1541 on eBay.
Hmm…I remember the front of mine looking like the VIC-1541 in the pic next to the 1541-II in your link, but with a latch. I could be wrong though; it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. I still have it somewhere but couldn’t quickly find it and didn’t want to start digging for it to confirm the model. Now that my curiosity is piqued, I’ll probably search for it later.
What latch are we talking about again? All C= disk drives had a latch of some type. I thought we were talking about the type that your rotated down, like the 1571 and the 1541-II. Consider my memories, and tell me whether I’m crazy or not:
First the PET uses a 4040 drive, of which I only have vague memories. The thing had two 5.25" floppy drives, and weighed a ton. It was bigger than most desktop CPU’s today. Okay, not relevant, but only wanted to point that out.
The C= VIC-20 used a VIC-1541 drive, and when the C=64 came out, it continued to use the 1541. The 1541 had a spring in the back of it. When you put in a disk, you had to fight the spring, otherwise the disk wouldn’t stay completely inside the disk drive. Of course there was a latch; you kind of pushed it slightly inboard and then down, securing the disk all the way in the drive and engaging the drive heads. When you pushed in on the closed latch, it would pop up and the disk would pop out very slightly so that you could grab it and flip it over to use on the second side (for which a hole punch was useful).
When the 1571 came out, it was a double-side drive. It head read-write heads on both sides of the disk. The same drive mechanism wouldn’t work to place both the top and bottom heads against the disk, so they used the rotating mechanism to do so. Additionally, there was no longer the spring to pop the disk back out when you open the drive. That’s why on the 1571 and the you can see the fascia is “notched out” to give your fingers room to grab the disk.
Of course, C= was the style king before Apple ever thought about it, and when the white C=128 and white 1571 and 1581 drives started making the C=64 and the 1541 look dated, the 1541-II came out, the C=64 ::mumble something:: came out, and C= were no longer brownish-beiges boxes but sleek white marvels.
The 1541 I’m thinking of did not have a spring. It’s this one.
But further research shows you are correct–there do seem to be regular 1541s that had the spring-loaded system. I am not familiar with this model (I myself had an Enhancer 2000 disk drive, which was springloaded, and my friends all had the swinging latch-type 1541s)
