My future setup

[orion70]

Hi all. As you probably know (it's my frequent rant), I don't have much time and space for my VIC stuff. Hopefully, things are going to change in late spring / summer, when we'll finally move to a bigger house. I already imagined how my future VIC setup is going to be. See if you like it:



It includes all the devices I can access (and have in the garage), including the recently found parallel interface, to be connected to an Epson printer, the Mega-Cart, a real 1541, the SD2IEC, and of course a Datassette. All this will work with a VIC powered with an heavy-duty home-made PSU. Four plugs are needed, hope my wife will allow them to my hobby in our guests room .

[akator]

I like it

My setup is somewhat similar except I'm still waiting for my spot in the queue to get a Mega Cart. I don't have a printer, either, but that's because I haven't figured out a reason to have one. Then again, I still have a 1541 hooked up even though I use the SD for everything, so maybe I need a printer just for the sake of it

[rhurst]

Nice, for you, but I don't miss that wiring any.

Space for this stuff (where it is constantly accessible) is always at a premium, good luck with that. Even my man-cave is not enough for all of it. And I don't have any retro-printer (the bulkiest and most useless peripheral of them all) to speak of any longer, since I made the switch to laser in 1990 on Amiga.

[orion70]

Thank you guys. Robert - rational wiring and reducing the huge footprint are part of the fun, and so is successfully printing useless documents

[rhurst]

Rational? You mean something like this:



... or having fun making it all go small like this (click to reveal)?

[orion70]

I'm definitely stuck on the first two pics (and drooling). The bulkier, the better.. if my wife and one y.o. daughter agree
Congrats on your man-cave dude!

[Boray]

I would rather have the SD2IEC as device 8 and the diskdrive as 9.

[orion70]

Interesting.. why? And how can I permanently change the 1541 device #?

[Boray]

Well, my Vic Menu is hard coded at device 8 ... besides that, I think you will have more software on your SD card than on floppy, and more people than me has probably put in an 8 in their code, so...

The 1541-II has switches on the back to set the device number, but with the 1541 I think you have to open it up and alter it or something.

[orion70]

Thank you Boray. As for permanently changing the device number in a disk drive, I have just found this doc: you have either to remove a chip and bend a pin, or cut a trace. Quite a delicate operation

[Mike]

This doc is for a 1001 drive - the old 1541 has an entirely different mainboard.

IIRC the positions for the trace cuts look very similar to those on the +3K RAM expander, two pairs of half-circular solder pads connected by a thin trace each, for 4 possible combinations in total, addresses 8..11. That trace is easily opened with a sharp knife, and also easily re-connected with a solder blob. Much less invasive than removing a chip and bending one of its pins - and possibly breaking it off.

and more people than me has probably put in an 8 in their code, so ...

Shame on those.

My type-in collection also happily runs from device numbers other than 8, and MINIPAINT allows to select device numbers in the aforementioned range 8..11 (and 1 for tape), and defaults to the device number it was loaded from. PEEK(186) FTW.

[orion70]

Thank you Mike, happy you dropped a line here, as you'll probably sleep with my VIC this autumn
I have found the correct information in the 1541 manual:

Code: Select all

9.2 HARDWARE METHOD

It's an easy job to permanently change the device number of your drive
for use in multiple drive systems.  The tools needed are a phillips-
head screwdriver and a knife.

STEPS TO CHANGING DEVICE NUMBER ON HARDWARE:

  1. Disconnect all cables from drive, including power.
  2. Turn drive upside down on a flat, steady surface.
  3. Remove 4 screws holding drive box together.
  4. Carefully turn drive right side up, and remove case top.
  5. Remove 2 screws on side of metal housing.
  6. Remove housing.
  7. Locate device number jumpers. If facing the front of the
     drive, it's on the left edge in the middle of the board.
  8. Cut either or both of jumpers 1 and 2 for Model 1541.
     Cut either or both of jumpers A and B for Model 1541CR.
     (see chart below)
  9. Replace housing and 2 screws, and case top and 4 screws.
 10. Re-connect cables and power up.

      DEVICE#     |      JUMPER A/1    |     JUMPER B/2
 -----------------+--------------------+-------------------
           8      |      DON'T CUT     |     DON'T CUT
 -----------------+--------------------+-------------------
           9      |         CUT        |     DON'T CUT
 -----------------+--------------------+-------------------
          10      |      DON'T CUT     |       CUT
 -----------------+--------------------+-------------------
          11      |         CUT        |       CUT

So if people go on hard coding for device 8, I'll cut jumper #1 .

[orion70]

Update about another component of my future setup, i.e. the printer (continuation from this thread).
To my surprise, when I opened the rotten, wet, badly stinking box, I did not found an Epson Styles Color C460, but an older dirty and yellowed Epson Stylus 800 .

While waiting for the (rare) ink from Ebay, of course expired years ago, I cleaned the whole printer internals and dried them. I was happy to see that the printer powered on correctly.

Ink tanks arrived yesterday, but disappointingly the printer keeps showing the "out of ink" error. I don't know if this is due to the old cartridges, or clogged printing noozles, but repeated attempts failed. But then again, I was standing in a messy kitchen, with my daughter crying while holding my leg, and wife screaming that she couldn't understand why I had to do it at dinner time (no time in the morning, then 10 hours at work, then dinner time, then time for the baby to sleep, then my eyes close, so I'm wondering when I'll try again ).

[rhurst]

Oh, you poor tormented soul. Your depiction here almost made me cry for you, man. Now I'm pulling for you to get your printer working, good luck!

[orion70]

In the worst case, I hope there are cheap parallel printers for sale in Ebay or something. Will check.