Posted By
YERZMYEY
on 2009-11-19
18:31:53
 |  Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
Hi.
I know for C=64 the only solution instead of real diskdrive is 1541_Ultimate because they use some "fast loaders" (am I right?) and anyway they require full/entire emulation of the 1541 diskdrive.
Do we have the same problem? Do 264 machines use 1541 in other ways than loading/saving only? (Like for additional work in demos, for C=64)?
If so - then I would obviously consider buying the 1541_Ultimate.
But maybe Plus/4 uses the drive only... as a drive?
Then I could consider simplier interfaces and I found there are pretty many of them.
SD2IEC http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/SD2IEC, or C64TPC or others.
Any thoughts?
Maybe somebody already uses such stuff?
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Posted By
TLC
on 2009-11-20
03:51:40
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
1.) Plus/4 prods vs. custom 1541 routines
You can bet. The serial devices are just slow themself. Sometimes you have an option (or: the code does some autodetect by itself) to fall back to standard loader routines. But generally, the majority of stuffs that ever try loading from disk do that by custom routines.
More enhanced stuff (or special disk copiers) do even use custom routines with the 1551.
2.) 1541 "Ultimate"
That one slowly evolved from a 1541 emulator into an "anything you ever dreamt of" module. Today it has a lot of bells and whistles (seems to take the position previously taken by products like the Retro Replay) together with 1541 emulation capability. As a consequence (it's not a serial device but a C64 cartridge), there's no way to use that with the Plus/4.
[Edit]: That was bullshit. As it turned out, the 1541 Ultimate can be used as a standalone device, too.
3.) SD2IEC et. al.
Yeah, their drawbacks just apply here. Yet I've bought one myself... Pro: it's a very convenient and safe form to transfer Commodore stuff and keep that at hand / on a pure electronic media; con: basically no custom 1541 routines work. And I also don't know (yet) a way to copy full disk images from the unit to a real floppy drive (and back), just files. (Note that it does handle .d64 images that you copy onto the SD card, it does that by emulating subdirectories; I just couldn't find a way to get these .d64 images onto disks, using Plus/4, SD2IEC and 1541).
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Posted By
YERZMYEY
on 2009-11-20
08:41:42
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
>You can bet. The serial devices are just slow themself. Sometimes you have an option
>(or: the code does some autodetect by itself) to fall back to standard loader routines.
>But generally, the majority of stuffs that ever try loading from disk do that by custom
>routines.
>More enhanced stuff (or special disk copiers) do even use custom routines with the
>1551.
--------------
So I get - only real emulation of diskdrive (for most progs)?
>1541 "Ultimate"
>That one slowly evolved from a 1541 emulator into an "anything you ever dreamt of"
>module. Today it has a lot of bells and whistles (seems to take the position previously
>taken by products like the Retro Replay) together with 1541 emulation capability. As a
>consequence (it's not a serial device but a C64 cartridge), there's no way to use that
>with the Plus/4.
------------
How come?
They wrote on their site http://www.1541ultimate.net/content/index.php
"The '1541 Ultimate' is a storage solution for your Commodore home computer, such as the C64, C128, C plus4, C16, etc."
>SD2IEC et. al.
>Yeah, their drawbacks just apply here. Yet I've bought one myself... Pro: it's a very
>convenient and safe form to transfer Commodore stuff and keep that at hand / on a
>pure electronic media; con: basically no custom 1541 routines work.
------------
Arrrgh.
How many % of sotware does it cover (more/less)? 50%
So at the moment there is no CF/SD/MMC device for 264 that covers all programs, entire soft?
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Posted By
Patrick
on 2009-11-20
08:52:49
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
i use the 1541-III and i am really happy with it.
it is just easy to download from the net and store software on a sd-card and run them on the real hardware. only the speed.......
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Posted By
YERZMYEY
on 2009-11-20
08:57:53
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
Patrick:
>I use the 1541-III and i am really happy with it.
>it is just easy to download from the net and store software on a sd-card and run them
>on the real hardware. only the speed.......
-------------
Speed is no problem for me. I can wait. 
But 100% of software works on the device You've mentioned?
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Posted By
TLC
on 2009-11-20
09:09:13
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
1.) For a great number of disk dependent stuffs, true drive emulation is "needed". Typical examples are demos and games that load content from drive by themself.
Stuffs that load/save data files from drive upon "request" (tools, except for drive tools) usually don't care about the exact type of the drive.
A lot of otherwise 1541-specific stuffs do detect, or can at least deal with non-1541 drives (fall back to standard routines). Back then most people had 1541 drives, yet their programs usually had to work with other people's 1551s (that they usually didn't have themself)... in cases like that, they ultimately let the progs just fall back to use standard routines... which come handy here, too. But there's no general rule here. Some do, some don't.
2.) I was wrong. Thanks for quoting that URL. It was pretty much not obvious that this card can also work as a standalone device.
Then yes. It's fine, it should work as a full 1541-compatible unit. I'm sorry. ...As a personal note: even though I find the 1541 Ultimate a bit overkill (because of added features not useable with the Plus/4), being a "perfect" 1541-reproduction might make it the ideal (although a bit pricey) option...
3.) I don't know. Please note that custom 1541-routines are only concerned if the program depends on loading from some storage device by itself. A great majority of stuffs are one-filer programs, you load them from storage and they won't try accessing any storage devices anymore -- you could even load them from tape. There are obviously no problems with these (other than the long loading times because of relatively low speed of standard I/O routines).
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Posted By
YERZMYEY
on 2009-11-20
09:20:51
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
Many thanx, guyz.
It helps much.
Btw, a guy from "8 Bit Collective" portal asked:
>I think an internally mounted SD2IEC would be ideal. Does the Plus/4 have the tape
>port that can power it?
Although it's not info for me but I could forward the answer.
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Posted By
TLC
on 2009-11-20
16:18:09
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
The Plus/4 has electrically the same tape port as the C64 does. Although, it has a physically different tape port (C64: edge connector, Plus/4: mini DIN 7). I doubt if it'd matter if he's about to hack an SD2IEC inside the computer (...in fact, I'm really wondering why the tape port is important in that case, at all... the SD2IEC is an usual 5V-powered device, as far as I can tell...)
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Posted By
V-12
on 2009-11-24
16:49:14
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
As far as I know you can use 1541Ultimate for Plus/4 in standalone mode. Didn't tested it yet but I will do in near future, because I owned Plus/4 today 
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Posted By
indi
on 2009-12-08
04:45:51
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
I started making one of these... the easiest way of doing it is via the user port and by replacing the built in software with a SD/MMC ROM.
It wouldn't actually take long to make the hardware... but the software side would obviously take much longer. The plus4 is much better at replacing disk access via the bios, so you should be able to do it completely. Of course turbo loaders would never work with this, but you could mod a lot of them if you really wanted to...
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2012-07-09
06:34:16
 | Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
Thinking about to build/purchase something can handle sd cards for my commie. if i build http://www.pitsch.de/stuff/mmc2iec/index.htm it will be good for plus4?
Ultimate 1541 is a bit expensive and there is a lot of features i don't need..
Can i purchase a pre builded or just an "empty" board for sd iec?
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Posted By
RobertB
on 2012-07-10
03:56:29
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
Chronos wrote:
> Can i purchase a pre builded or just an "empty" board for sd iec?
Well, the SD2IEC comes built, but you can order the daughterboard "unbuilt". See
http://store.nkcelectronics.com/Classic-Computer_c_39.html
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
July 28-29 Commodore Vegas Expo v8 -
http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2012-07-11
10:23:21
| Re: Mass-storage: CF/SD/MMC cards and others?
thx for your reply!
Is there anybody who interested if i made a cheap sd2iec?
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