1581 Drive Kits

Schema · Post by **Schema** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:42 pm

Today I picked up of a large number of JPPBM's 1581 Drive Kits. These are real 1581s that Commodore removed the drive mechanisms from to use in Amiga drives. The case, logic board, instructions, and power supply are included. You supply the drive mech.

I am selling them for $75 Canadian each. This *includes* shipping to
anywhere in the world. One per customer.

I cannot provide any technical support for these kits. Please make sure you know what you're doing before ordering one. But if you have first-hand knowledge of which drives work and which don't, please post that information here for everyone's benefit. Amiga drives are most likely to work.

The process is simple:

1. Paypal $75 Canadian to paypal@leifbloomquist.net and include your mailing address.

2. I will then send the kit to you.

Please, no other direct correspondence. Post here if you have questions.

Customers in 220V-land will not receive a power supply (these are only
120V), but the price is the same because of the extra shipping. You can use 1541-II power supplies with these as well.

Just about everyone on this group knows me, but for the rest, I have 100% eBay feedback (userid, leifbloomquist) so you can at least see my track record in the eBay context.

(Just imagine how much VIC stuff you could store on a 1581 disk! 3,160 blocks per disk!)

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 1:25 am

Can you use the mechanism of an external Amiga 1010 floppy drive in these?

Schema · Post by **Schema** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:13 am

Yes, they are the same mechanism.

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Sat Jul 29, 2006 6:29 pm

I'm SOLD! I want one! You got my payment? (I do not need the power supply)

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:31 am

A few hundred years ago, after the french revolution, some newly elected french deputy said there are 2 things the people must never know: How laws are made and how sausages are made...

Well, Schema, you DON'T want to know what the mailman was willing to do to fit my 1581 kit into my mailbox... fortunately, I was there to stop this nonsense...

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:08 pm

It arrived to me on Thursday, as I told Leif by e-mail. That is freaking quick, three days from that he posted it in Toronto until it arrived here.

For testing purposes, first I removed the floppy from my Amiga 1200, only to find the eject button is bigger than it is on the Amiga 500. So I put it back into the case, and "borrowed" the floppy from my Amiga 500+ instead. I'll look around for either a half-dead 500 or some modern PC floppy.

It took a few tries before the drive properly answered to the serial bus, but eventually it did take off. It has the revision 1 ROM though, but I've been promised to get a revision 2 EPROM burned at a later time. Or I might still look for my own burner, probably on eBay since few stores in this country seem to sell them, and mighty expensive if they have it at all.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 10:19 am

What was the condition of the drives you received?

I bought one from JP PBM and was a little surprised to find the drive was somewhat dirty, scuffed, and there was a bad gouge across the faceplate. I suppose I was under the mistaken impression that these were new-old-stock.

But reading this thread, I supposed if Commodore had to open all of them up to use the drives in Amigas then their warehouse crew might not have been too gentle (plus they probably got moved around quite roughly during the liquidation auction in 1994).

I was also surprised that I received no modding instruction sheet (the JPPBM site says these kits come with instructions for modding a PC drive). I found some modding instructions (for the Panasonic JU-257 PC drive) on the net, but am not sure if these are the same as the ones that were supposed to have been included.

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/gob ... 150dpi.jpg

http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/display.cgi?525

Oh, and if I take a drive out of an A1010 do I have to do ANY board hacks at all (like with PC drives), or will it work straight away?

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:17 am

ral-clan wrote:...if I take a drive out of an A1010 do I have to do ANY board hacks at all (like with PC drives), or will it work straight away?

No modding required with the drive from an A1010! I believe it is the same with a drive from an A500.

Also, of the two types of mods you mention having found on the internet, it seems to me that the first one is just plain crazy. The second one looks like what I got with my drive but I didn't look it into details.

eslapion · Post by **eslapion** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:22 am

carlsson wrote:It has the revision 1 ROM though, but I've been promised to get a revision 2 EPROM burned at a later time. Or I might still look for my own burner, probably on eBay since few stores in this country seem to sell them, and mighty expensive if they have it at all.

I presently sell the revision 2 ROM for 4.95$

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:30 am

Yeah, the first mod seems to be a hack to the circuit board of the 1581 itself, while the second mod seems to accomplish the same thing by hacking the 3.5" PC drive instead.

I can see the attraction of the first mod. You can then pop in almost any PC drive without modification. But I'll bet that by modding the 1581's board directly, you elimate backwards compatibility with original Commodore/Amiga Double Density drives.

Therefore I think it's probably better to mod the PC drive and leave the 1581 circuit board untouched. That way, you can always revert to an original Commodore Amiga drive if you ever come across one (they fit better, anyway).

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:34 am

eslapion wrote: Also, of the two types of mods you mention having found on the internet, it seems to me that the first one is just plain crazy.

Maybe....but it works.

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:59 am

ral-clan wrote:I was also surprised that I received no modding instruction sheet (the JPPBM site says these kits come with instructions for modding a PC drive). I found some modding instructions (for the Panasonic JU-257 PC drive) on the net, but am not sure if these are the same as the ones that were supposed to have been included

I bought a 1581 "kit" from Joe at WOC. It also came with no instructions.

I asked about HD drives and was told "just plug it in and it will default to DD". This is not the case.

The HD Panasonic JU-257 was in production for a number of years and has multiple sub model numbers, each one with small design variations. I tried about 30 different models that I have and I found none would allow diskette eject button to line up with faceplate. Also Panasonic dropped DS0/DS1 drive address select option in later models.

Finally a found a Chinon FZ-357 which had eject button line up (only minor grinding to left side of eject button). Chinon FZ-357 also has DS0/DS1 drive address select jumpers. The floppy drive assembly required spacers to align floppy door height to faceplate.

I provided to Joe all the install details I had gone thru, (drive compatibility, spacer requirments, etc) to allow him to better support his product. I'm suprised he is still selling units without basic instructions (despite advertising that he includes instructions).

The 1581 is a nice little drive.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 2:16 pm

carlsson wrote:It arrived to me on Thursday, as I told Leif by e-mail. That is freaking quick, three days from that he posted it in Toronto until it arrived here.

Some of the disks I mailed in November have still not arrived in Austrailia and parts of Europe. Lost forever? Some nations just have better postal systems...

Schema · Post by **Schema** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 3:33 pm

Joe definitely has instructions. He has two versions, a "short" version and a long version. I photocopied them on each side of a page for the kits I sold.

Here's the long version. This is exactly what Joe provides with the kits.
http://c64.mustangindex.com/images/1581hack.txt

Schema · Post by **Schema** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 3:34 pm

Jeff: Three months to Australia is common, especially if you sent it Surface.