home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Loadstar 20
/
020.d81
/
t.r.sfd 1001
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
2022-08-26
|
4KB
|
205 lines
--------------------------------------
SFD 1001 Review
--------------------------------------
From: Hautzenroeder 79756
REVIEW: SFD 1001 - Commodores's 1
Megabyte disk drive.
The SFD 1001 (I assume the SFD stands
for: Super Fast Drive) is one half of
a Commodore 8250 dual disk drive.
The SFD 1001 formats a disk with 77
tracks on both sides of a disk (154
tracks total!) with a total storage
capacity of 1,066,496 bytes! Now
that is a lot of disk storage space.
The SFD 1001 is housed in a standard
1541 disk drive housing. The only
difference between it and a 1541 is
the SFD 1001 is a slightly lighter
color (beige), the name: SFD 1001
instead of 1541, and the red LED read
light is placed differently. One
major difference; however, is the
SFD 1001 is an IEEE device, so it
must be used with an IEEE interface
to be compatible with the C-64.
Protecto Industries (they advertise
in just about every computer
magazine) sells the SFD 1001 and a
IEEE interface. The IEEE interface;
although it does work, is not the
best interface available. It plugs
into the serial port of the C-64 with
both a serial port (for hooking up
other 1541's and/or printers) and a
IEEE port for the SFD 1001 drive.
With this arrangement, the SFD 1001
is just as slow as a 1541 although
with a proper IEEE interface, it is
capable of 4X the data transfer rate.
Moral, if you buy the SFD 1001,
spend the extra money and get
either the BUSCARD II from Batteries
Included or QUICKSILVER by Skyles
Electric Works (the best, and
fastest, and most expesive).
Back to the SFD 1001. A Quad
density disk should be used with the
SFD 1001, but I've been using double
density disk without a problem. All
disk commands are the same as for the
1541 and formatting a disk requires
the same command. (If you think the
1541 is slow formating a disk, the
SFD 1001 takes 2.5 minutes to format
a disk). Once a disk is formatted,
the number of Blocks Free is 4133
blocks! The SFD 1001 uses the same
bytes/sector format as the 1541 disks
so any sector editor you may have
should work with the SFD 1001. (I
modified a V1.0 DI-SECTOR so it'll
read all 4133 blocks on the SFD
1001).
Since disks formatted with the
SFD1001 are not read/write compatible
with disks formatted for the 1541,
you must transfer all your program
files to the SFD 1001 disks using any
2-drive file copiers. Any commercial
program which uses the 1541's ROMS
operating system (ie. bad sectors,
etc) or reconfigures the 1541's
operating system will not work with
the SFD 1001. This also includes a
lot of the commercial disk copiers
for backing up program files.
If you want a disk storage
device for saving a lot of files, or
just a few LARGE files (ie. word
processing files, data base files,
etc.), then the SFD 1001 will
definitely suit your needs, but as
for a replacement for the 1541, I
would recommend a 1541 compatible
disk drive.
I have connected the SFD 1001 to
a BUSCARD II and the increase in
performance was very noticable.
Whereas the lower priced interface
allowed normal disk operation, it had
the tendency to prevent other serial
devices from using the serial bus.
The BUSCARD II, being connected to
the game port, not only allows the
SFD 1001 to transfer data at a rate
equal to the speed-up devices for the
1541, but the BUSCARD II also allows
the user to access the SFD 1001 using
BASIC 4 commands (ie, DLOAD, HEADER,
DOPEN#, etc) which should make the
drive compatible with the new C-128.
--------------------------------------
End of SFD 1001 Review
--------------------------------------