[Coco] PCs pretending to be drive boxes wasRe: Drivewire question

[Steven Hirsch]

On Tue, 21 Apr 2009, Willard Goosey wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 08:19:08PM -0700, Derek wrote:
>
>> I have both C64 and Atari 8 Bit set ups to use my PC as a disk
>> server like drivewire.
>
> Cool.  My housemate has a C64, and recently I ended up with one, so at
> some point I'm going to have to make those cables.

You can purchase a fully-assembled C64 interface

http://www.nkcelectronics.com/commodore-xexm1541-ada1541.html

or

http://www.nkcelectronics.com/commodore-xa1541-ada1541.html

for about $15.

Building one is a huge PITA, since it involves surface-mount devices. 
Before anyone asks:  There are some very picky electrical characteristics 
required to support the interface and no leaded component equivalent 
exists.  This has been beaten to death in the C64 community and interested 
parties can Google for insight.  It didn't sound right to me either, but 
one of the developers sent me a bunch of logic analyzer and scope captures 
to prove the point.

The Atari SIO2PC interface is probably more practical to build, but is of 
medium complexity and far from "..a cable".

Steve


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