1581
Being born in the UK in 1981, my articles about home computers are biased towards that time and place. This is due to both my own personal experience, and also a conscious attempt to provide an alternative UK bias to the predominant US bias amongst English-speaking people my age reminiscing about home computers.
1581 tech specs
The 1581 was a 3½″ floppy disk drive made by Commodore. It's technically compatible with the VIC 20, C64, Plus/4, C16, and C128,[4] although its beige colour scheme complements just the C128 and C64C.
It can format each disk to a whopping 3,160 blocks (790 KB). In 1541 terms, that's equivalent to over four 5¼″ disk sides, without even having to turn over the disk. In more practical terms, it can comfortably fit about thirty-five typically sized single loader games on a single disk.[5] You'd fit even more of your own BASIC programs, Boulder Dash levels, and SEUCK data onto a single disk.
This is to say that, being a 16-bit generation drive for 8-bit generation home computers, it would have been quite opulent. I've never heard of anyone actually having one (or even having heard of one) back in the twentieth century, although I've since seen YouTube videos by collectors.
Naturally, I also haven't heard of any C64 software actually being sold on a 3½″ disk. That would scarcely have been a problem for someone who had amassed a small collection of single loader budget tapes, and wanted to format shift them onto disk with the aid of an Action Replay cartridge, for quicker loading... The problem would be trying to find, much less afford, a 1581 drive in the first place.
References
- "'Commodore discontinued their little-known 3½″ experiment 18 months ago.'" "Zzap! Wrap!" Lloyd Mangram, Zzap!64, Mar 1991, pp. 19—22
- "Technical Developments" Technical Developments (Vendor), Zzap!64, Jun 1988, p. 78
- "Megaland" Megaland (Vendor), Zzap!64, Oct 1988, p. PC Showcase page 11
- "1581 manual" Commodore, 1987, pp. 1, 125
- Note: Looking at One Load V5's "Crunched" directory as a whole, it contains 48,970,527 bytes across 2,145 files. 48,970,527 ÷ 2,145 ≈ 22,830 bytes per file. 22,830 ÷ 1,024 ≈ 22.3 KB each, rounding up to 90 blocks. I think we can safely say that single loader games average about 90 blocks (90 blocks × 256 bytes per block = 22.5 KB) each. As a typical example, at 21,633 bytes or 85 blocks, you could fit seven copies of Spore on a single 1541-formatted disk side. As a less typical example, at 9,146 bytes or 36 blocks, you could fit eighteen copies of Zolyx. In comparison, a 1581-formatted disk could fit a whopping thirty-five typically sized games!
Downloads
Documentation
- "1581 manual" Commodore, 1987
Commodore 64: 1530 | 1541 | 1581 | Pro-16
Commodore 128: 1571 | 1581
