RE: The washing thing. It's normal in production when stuffing boards to finish with a soapy wash or an ultrasonic cleaner. That sticker keeps the water from getting in, as the water in both cases can cause corrosion to internal piezo components and the ultrasonic cleaner can destroy the internals if water seeps in.
Exactly. Some PCAs might need to be washed in some manner after assembly to clean away flux or other potentially conductive impurities on the board and of course some components may need to indicate that they may need protection to the assemblers or cleaners.
Yeah, sorry, am still working on 1571 and burst mode for the few people that want it.I have it mostly working but still trying to debug a CPM issue that occurs millions of cycles into the boot process. It is a massive amount of work that I'm doing for free. The 128 scene is very small and the CPM scene even smaller, so sometimes I think that it is just not worth the effort. I have new projects I'm working on like a SuperCPU clone. Love the channel, keep up the good work!
Stephen - I'd love burst mode. I wish the 128 would have done better back in the day. I'm still working on getting a pi1541 doing. I was wondering, can you recommend someone that sells the pi hat already built (or as a kit) and is ethical enough to send a few bucks your way for each unit they ship? If you'd rather not answer publicly I'll find another way to reach out.
See, I knew that would work for finding others from New Jersey. I just need to shout "NJTransit sucks" in a crowded room, and those who agree are from NJ!
@@NCommander I grew up in Elizabeth, I have strong opinions on NJ Transit, and the trauma hasn’t healed despite the fact I haven’t lived in NJ for 15 years.🤪
Burst mode worked fine in my experience, the bigger thing missed here is the C128 itself was a flop in terms of C128 specific software/use cases. The Amiga had come out around the same time and was the logical upgrade for people requiring similar or better hardware capabilities (if not going PC). The only draw of the C128 was the C64 mode giving backwards compatibility. The Z80 processor shifted duties to use C64 hardware leading to the exact same hardware limitations (hints lack of burst mode). The same limitations hardware/kernel wise that stopped bread bins, C-64C, etc were going to plague, well, the the same hardware and kernel/firmware found in C64 mode C128s. The result of software houses wanting to reach the larger audience was basically all software was still made with the 64 in mind and so most people never used the 128 outside of the 64 mode. There's also the part where the C128's graphics chip was absolute dog; it had potential, but the hoops and limitations you had to jump through were not worth the handful of people that may see the results outside of a demo convention.
I thought about getting one of these, but then decided it may be better long term to just get the Ultimate ii+, considering it can handle tape, cart, ram expansion, network, printer, etc. Although it may be lacking for you for C128 drive stuff. Edit: Oh and if you want to feel better, whoever assembled my C64 composite cable used red (i.e. right audio) for the video output. I only found this after getting an oscilloscope out, probing the DIN socket and seeing it was indeed producing video. This was a replacement cable, so now I don’t know if I had wasted money on a cable I didn’t need. The original was from an MD/Gen model 1, so I figured it was just incompatible but now I’m wondering if it was sending video on the other connection.
You could realistically make the minimalist Pi1541 for about $10 bucks plus the Pi. I just went with the more fancy deluxe version. I didn't menthon it on this video, but my first set of Commodore video cables managed to leave Lumia missing, and cross connected Chroma and Composite. Surprisingly, a 1702 *will* sync to that on the chroma/luma input, but the retrotink won't. I had to order another set of cables, and then make an adapter to wire it to S-Video. (C64/128 DINs have four signals, composite, mono sound from the SID, chroma, luma, so four plugs is expected) As for flash carts, well, yeah, that's the 128 life. The 128 was not what I call a great success, and we get less love than even the C64 crowd. I'm not entirely sure you can even replace the C128 KERNAL via flash cart. The honest truth is most C128 users were in C64 most of the time (you could use the extra RAM in C64 mode). However, those flash carts are getting to the point where I question if you're not better off using a TheC64 or another modern replacement. Honestly, I do want to do an entire video on the C128 "experience", but this machine has been a serious problem child No one actually cares enough for the 128 to give it much support. Most of those flash carts work, but only in C64 mode, and none (to my knowledge) can emulate the burst mode support needed. Even then, I do think a lot of people forget the major cons with these machines due to serious nogastia glasses at times :/
Get a small single 14500 flashlight(I use an UltraTac A1) to make the color bands on your resistors clearer. There are also TONS of little things a tiny and powerful flashlight when doing projects, especially if you get one with a diffuser.
Does it emulate read head misalignment due to head knock? lol There are some things I don't miss about the past. Copy protection schemes that thrash your hardware is one of them.
I def. want to get real Commodore disk drives, but the eBay premium for them are ridicious. A 1541 untested (which usually means out of alignment) goes for 80-100 USD before shipping, and a 1571 can double that. On the rare occassion that eBay has 1581s, I've seen them go to for 600-700 USD.
With videos like this and already having tried a sd2iec and a kung fu flash - none of which work very well on a c128 or 80 col mode, I'm beginning to think there isn't a good floppy drive solution. while these work marginally in c64 mode that isn't the reason for buying a c128
Actually I have. I did a rail tour of that entire area. From Bosnia to Serbia was 15 hours and two full pages of passport stamps, and plenty of other long legs
