Wanna see my almost completed C= related project?

[redrumloa]

Yeah, that's an old SBC with ATX power supply, 2.5 HD and CF reader shoehorned into that 1541 with original controller and 5.25 floppy mechanism. This project is about 90% done (except possible paint job). I just have to add more wires to change the XA1541 adapter to a XAP1541 adapter. The plan is to use this as a stand alone nibtools station for archiving old original floppies in pristine, not cracked state with copy protection left in place. With any luck, I will be finished tonight.

[MobbyG]

Pretty Frakkin sweet! Will there be a video when it's ready for prime time?

[redrumloa]

Pretty Frakkin sweet! Will there be a video when it's ready for prime time?

I could probably do that if people are interested.

[Franko]

Pretty neat & impressive bit of kit ... :cool:

It looks like you've spent a lot of effort, time and probably money building this, but the thing I don't quite understand is WHY !

I mean you can find every bit of old CBM software already archived on the net, so why go to all the bother of re-archiving everything again

[redrumloa]

Pretty neat & impressive bit of kit ... :cool:

It looks like you've spent a lot of effort, time and probably money building this, but the thing I don't quite understand is WHY !

Probably not as much money as you might think, time is a whole other story:lol: Figuring out how to crack this nut on a budget took the longest. I used mostly parts I had laying around.

I mean you can find every bit of old CBM software already archived on  the net, so why go to all the bother of re-archiving everything again  

Every bit? Not necessarily. You can find a ton of software online, but the vast majority has been cracked, modified, intros added etc. Unmolested originals are very difficult or impossible to find.

[Cammy]

Wow, nice work! I'd be interested in seeing this in action when it's finished, so if you want to make a video of it it'd definitely be appreciated.

[Franko]

Every bit? Not necessarily. You can find a ton of software online, but the vast majority has been cracked, modified, intros added etc. Unmolested originals are very difficult or impossible to find.

Yeah I see your point that's one of the main things that put me of cracked software it's the silly intros and crap folk stick on them plus you can never be sure if the software is complete or not...

Reckon your bit of kit rather neatly solves such issues...

[Matt_H]

Very nice! Any particular reason for the "regular" hard drive rather than another CF card? I'm guessing the extra space the case comes from replacing the power supply.

And you're absolutely right - nearly everything out there is cracked and modified. It would indeed be great to get originals backed up.

[coldfish]

Interested much!

As for why?

FUN!

[redrumloa]

Very nice! Any particular reason for the "regular" hard drive rather than another CF card? I'm guessing the extra space the case comes from replacing the power supply.

The reason I am using a laptop HD at the moment is money, I am short of it atm. I had an old 2.5" HD on hand, so it is being used for the time being. The SBC I am using has a socket for a DiskOnChip. Early next year when I have a little extra cash, I will replace the HD with a DiskOnChip.

[redrumloa]

Did some testing with good old Star Commander. So far it works fine (no parallel cable yet), but the passive heatsink on the pentium cpu was not sufficient. I removed the passive heatsink and added a heatsinkfan. Now the wires are in the way when closing the case. I'll have to figure out a way to tidy up the wires, which may mean some extra work...

Won't be finished tonight, but happy to see everything working closed up! With any luck I'll be using nibtools with a parallel cable by tomorrow night.

[Matt_H]

The reason I am using a laptop HD at the moment is money, I am short of it atm. I had an old 2.5" HD on hand, so it is being used for the time being. The SBC I am using has a socket for a DiskOnChip. Early next year when I have a little extra cash, I will replace the HD with a DiskOnChip.

I'm a big believer in spare parts
Hadn't heard of DiskOnChip until now. Looks quite nifty after some quick Googling.

[adz]

Awesome job as always Red

[Zac67]

Simply awesome!

[basman74]

That's an interesting piece of hacker gear you've put together Red! Nice re-use of the 1541 casing as well - I almost forgot how enormous those 1541 floppy drives were!

Look forward to seeing the video of this thing in action!


Cheers Valentin

PS: Perhaps it's a crazy suggestion, but I suppose you could go one step further and pop a C-64 emulator on that sbc mainboard (assuming it has on-board VGA out etc.) to create standalone C64-ish system box from it?