Posted By
GeTE
on 2021-05-01
16:31:34
|  Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
When the 264-line was set up something happened like later on the C128, when the 1571 was not ready to ship and Commodore produced the interim drive 1570.
The 264-line should have shipped with the fast SFS-481 but it wasn't ready at first and therefore Commodore made an anthrazit serial drive that is totally equal to the beige variant except the colour (like they did with the printer MPS 803, MCS 801 and DPS 1101) to offer the customer a uniform desktop setup.
Fortunately, I managed to get such a device. Let's take a look at it:
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Posted By
Luca
on 2021-05-01
16:35:15
 | Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
Wow GeTE it looks like manufacted yesterday! :O Congrats!
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Posted By
Retroshire
on 2021-05-01
16:46:44
| Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
Very nice!
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Posted By
GeTE
on 2021-05-01
16:49:42
| Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
Thank you! 
Well and in those days the idea behind the 264 - before it became the plus/4 that only shipped with the 3-plus-1-software - was to be sold with preinstalled software on your own choice.
Typically Ira Velinsky designed the 116, 232, 264 and V364 with the rainbow line logo, but there was also a plan to deliver a writing system bundle. That would have included this disk drive unit, a DPS 1101 letter printer and a Commodore 264 with Script/Plus as preinstalled software.
This bundle was meant as unique system and therefore intended to have a different but uniform design. I am happy now to have rescued the top shell the contained 264 have had.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2021-05-01
16:56:35
 | Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
A Stealth Bomber 1541, very cool!
Just a thought tho I have no idea as I have never used one, the Commodore CD TV was black like this and it also has a serial port just like it's 8bit computers...
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Posted By
GeTE
on 2021-05-01
17:08:30
| Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
Ok, before you all went out on the quest to find another one of those, I want to disolve. 
After about a long time of measuring colours, fonts and spaces between letters Commodore used and looking at the companies history, I worked out this possible past and tried the best to make it real.
If you want to follow me on this path, feel free to ask Marco "Badge Man" van de Meulenhof, who finalized and printed the stickers I created to ship them to you too and grab yourself one of those botles to make a scary yellowed 1541C look really much better.
And stay tuned, there is more to come. Just imagine how a later plus/4 between the "Commodore LCD" and the C128 might have looked like.
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Posted By
MIK
on 2021-05-01
17:28:38
| Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
The paint job is awesome!!!
That 264 badge has a Vic20 feel about it, maybe it's the blue & white like the machine screen. The Mastertronic games for Vic20 also used light blue in the corner, add the white Vic20... It looks very Commodore as if they did do it tho! 
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Posted By
Mad
on 2021-05-01
18:44:47
| Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
Wow!!! It took around fourty years for this to be seen in public. Great find!
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Posted By
George
on 2021-05-02
07:58:49
 | Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
GeTE..amazing job! I like the black theme so much, that i over a period of a year i tried to get every matching hardware to the 264 series. Your colorscheme mathes the MPS803 printer.
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Posted By
GeTE
on 2021-05-02
13:31:18
| Re: Early 264-dedicated 1541 discovered
After all those years I can call me an Ira Velinsky fan (compared to him Jonny Ive is so much overrated).
I even try to collect the maching components (if I succeed in getting a DPS 1101 and a MCS 801 I really will give "Graphprint Plus/4" the printing routines it misses), but I do not collect the Commodore CRTs. Earlier or later the CRT will fail and they are even to big to store anyway. Therefore the 264-computers are used with old black - and even optical fitting - TVs. It will be easier for me to dump them, when they break one day.
But, I told above that there is more to come ... well I now work on what will visualize the greatest TED-graphics in the future. Stay tuned for another thread ... later this year.
I'm convinced of a bright, black future: Sometimes with a thin blue line and sometimes with rainbow-stripes.
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