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Ankh
Posts: 23266
Location: Trelleborg
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 Posted: Mon, 16th Jun 2014 17:02 Post subject: 1541 Ultimate |
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Anyone tried/got one of these? I plan on buying it this year unless he decide to stop manufacture it.
| Quote: | Introduction to the 1541 Ultimate Project
What is it?
The '1541 Ultimate' is a storage solution for your Commodore home computer, such as the C64, C128, C plus4, C16, etc. This piece of hardware implements a 'real' 1541 diskdrive for Commodore computers. There are two versions of this board; the 1541 Ultimate-I and the 1541 Ultimate-II. The 1541 Ultimate-I uses an SD-card or MMC-card to store the floppy disks, while the 1541 Ultimate-II uses MicroSD and USB pen-drives. Both the 1541 Ultimate-I and the 1541 Ultimate-II contain a replica of all the necessary hardware to be fully compatible with a real drive.
The '1541 Ultimate-I' can be used as a cartridge in the C64/C128, or as a stand-alone unit for use with other Commodore models with a serial bus. In cartridge mode, the user can view the SD-card content with just a simple push on one of the buttons, and 'mount' .d64 images into the floppy drive. In stand-alone mode, the user can use the buttons to navigate through the directories, or send IEC commands to a secondary device on the bus. This secondary device also allows saving and loading files to the FAT file system directly, but is not as compatible as the 1541 drive.
Currently, the stand-alone mode is not yet supported on the 1541 Ultimate-II, and can therefore only be used as cartridge on the C64/C128. This will be a matter of time; stand alone mode is planned for the 1541 Ultimate-II as well.
Context
The '1541 Ultimate' once started as a personal hobby project, that has grown into a mature device that can be very useful for current Commodore users. It enables the user to copy real 5.25" floppy disks onto a flash storage device, and run them from there, without the C64 knowing that it is not a real drive it is talking to. Floppy disks are prone to aging, and many floppies are on the verge of getting unreadable. So in the context of the greater "Preservation Project" that is carried out by Commodore enthousiasts, the '1541 Ultimate' can do a lot of useful work.
In January 2009, Gideon's Logic Architectures was founded; a single-person company officially registered with the chamber of commerce in the Netherlands. This was necessary to correctly handle tax issues. Since this date, hundreds of 1541 Ultimates have been produced and shipped.
I would like to make the '1541 Ultimate' hardware available for all Commodore enthousiasts, especially because this piece of hardware is very powerful and can potentially do a lot more than 'just' implementing a replacement for the 1541 drive. I hope that people can understand that although this board has been made with a lot of care and enthusiasm, it is still a hobby project and not an official retail product. Being a one-person company means that it is sometimes hard to attend to all E-mails and questions at the forum.
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| Quote: | 1541 Ultimate-II
Features:
Full, cycle accurate emulation of two real Commodore 1541 diskdrives.
Uses .D64 and .G64 files stored on MicroSD card or USB stick
Supports .G64 files as well (Read/Write)
Configurable IDs
Configurable ROM (1541/1541C/1541II or custom)
RAMBOard memory expansion (up to 40K)
MicroSD or USB storage device (stick, card reader, and even HD)
FAT/FAT32 support, with sub-directories and long filenames
ISO9660 support with Joliet, for reading .ISO files and access external CD/DVD drives through USB
Supports SD V1.1 cards as well as SD V2.0 in High Capacity mode (SDHC)
Battery backed up Real Time Clock
Command Interface module with UltimateDOS
Accessible module through I/O space that allows direct commands to Ultimate-II
Ultimate-DOS, I/O space driven direct file access to SD/USB
Dual SID implementation, optionally 8 voices each
Ultimate Audio module
Up to 7 voices of sampled audio simultaneously
Accessible through I/O space
8- or 16-bit samples
up to 48 kHz sample rate
Built-in SID player; plays SID files on either 'real' SID or emulated SID.
C64 cartridge emulation:
Final Cartridge III
Action Replay
Retro Replay
Super Snapshot
Turbo Assembler w/ Codenet
Epyx Fastloader
Custom 8K/16K carts
Custom Ocean / System3 carts (up to 512K)
Commodore 1750/1764 REU
REU Compatible
Size selectable from 128K up to 16 MB
Can be combined with Retro Replay and SuperSnapshot compatible roms
Flexible freezer menu
select, mount, create D64 images, browse disk images
create new directories, delete files
Ultra fast DMA load of single file programs (.PRG files on SD/USB, inside .D64 or .T64)
Configuration screen, with resident settings
Tape emulation, through 6-pin header on the bottom of the board*
Load .TAP files to C64
Capture tape data from C64 to .TAP file
Capture tape data from a datasette and store it as .TAP file
Write .TAP files back to tape, using a Commodore tape deck
Totally rewritten firmware, for easier expansion and maintenance
* Tape emulator cable is an accessory, which is needed to work with tap files.
Specifications:
- Board size: 62 x 84 mm
- Sturdy plastic case, enforced with glass fiber
- 700k-gate FPGA
- Full size 6-pin DIN connector (IEC)
- 2 MB Flash ROM
- 32 MB SDRAM
- MicroSD card compatible slot
- USB host port (supports Mass storage class only)
- Stereo audio output
- 6-pin expansion pin-header for connection to tape port (for C2N emulation), or other future features.
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Source:
http://www.1541ultimate.net/content/index.php
shitloads of new stuff in my pc. Cant keep track of it all.
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Ankh
Posts: 23266
Location: Trelleborg
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| Posted: Mon, 16th Jun 2014 17:32 Post subject: |
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But no, in the interest of staying in topic, no. I don't have this nor will I get one as this is definitely a hobby for those truly into the hardware scene and preserving - and improving! - the classic hardware. For myself, I'm content with emulation but I can certainly observe from a distance and drool <3
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