Commodore 1541
1541
<storage> The best known {floppy disk} drive for the
{Commodore 64}. The 1541 was a single-sided 160 Kb drive but
converting to {flippy disks} would give another 160 Kb.
The disk drive used {Group Code Recording} and contained a
{6502} processor as a {disk controller}. Some people wrote
code for it to vibrate the head at different frequencies to
play tunes.
The transfer rate was about 300 bytes per second. The 1541
used a {bit-serial} version of the {IEEE 488} parallel
protocol. Some third-party speed-ups could transfer about 4
kilobytes per second over the interface, and some "fast
loaders" managed up to 10 kbps.
The {Commodore 1570} was an upgraded 1541 for use with the
{Commodore 128}.
(2000-03-07)