1540 Disk Drives With A 64

I had a VIC-20 with a 1540 disk drive. Recently I decided to buy the Commodore 64. This leaves me with a big problem, which I hope you can help me with. Will the 1540 work with the 64? So far I haven't been able to get it to work.

Dave Lester

The best long-term solution is to see if your dealer can get you an upgrade ROM chip that will convert your 1540 to a 1541.

In the meantime, you should be able to save to disk without trouble. To load, you can use a trick to establish communications:

Instead of typing LOAD "filename",8 to bring a program into the 64, type POKE 53265,43: LOAD "filename",8. The screen will go blank, but the file should load correctly. When everything stops, type POKE 53265,27 (you'll have to do this without being able to see what you're typing) and the screen will return to normal.

The problem arises because the 64 is not able to transfer data to and from the drive as fast as the VIC-20 can. The 64 is slower because more time is required to maintain its 1000-character video display, as opposed to the VIC's 506-character display. When its screen is blank, the 64 operates at the same speed as the VIC-20, and loading can proceed without timing difficulties.