Hi there people!
I recently aquired a C64 which has been sitting in a work colleagues basement for 30 years. I got a MIDI Interface and a 1451 Floppy with it (I believe it's a first gen 1451, it has a solid eggshell case, an internal power transformator and that weird latch mechanism to lock the disk in, not the more common lever variant).
I was super excited, that the breadbox still works and was eager to load some of the floppies that came with it. Sadly the drive won't respond correctly.
When I turn on the floppy, it resets the head like it should, while the red led is lit. then the red led goes out as it should, leaving only the green power led on. I then boot the c64 and the drive resets again, like it should. The serial cable seems to be working and I think a fault in the c64 is unlikely, as it communicates with the drive.
then I load"$",8 and the drive will not budge, not even the red led. c64 either displays "drive not present" error or "searching for $" and hangs until I run/stop + reset.
I read that there are two likely culprits to the problem. There is an inverter ic 7406 that likes to die and cause this error, which I have exchanged. I got the drive working for a short while and it was reading and loading floppies like it should. when I came back in the evening it stopped responding again... I'll try exchangin the 74SL14 beside the aforementioned IC next.
I recently aquired a C64 which has been sitting in a work colleagues basement for 30 years. I got a MIDI Interface and a 1451 Floppy with it (I believe it's a first gen 1451, it has a solid eggshell case, an internal power transformator and that weird latch mechanism to lock the disk in, not the more common lever variant).
I was super excited, that the breadbox still works and was eager to load some of the floppies that came with it. Sadly the drive won't respond correctly.
When I turn on the floppy, it resets the head like it should, while the red led is lit. then the red led goes out as it should, leaving only the green power led on. I then boot the c64 and the drive resets again, like it should. The serial cable seems to be working and I think a fault in the c64 is unlikely, as it communicates with the drive.
then I load"$",8 and the drive will not budge, not even the red led. c64 either displays "drive not present" error or "searching for $" and hangs until I run/stop + reset.
I read that there are two likely culprits to the problem. There is an inverter ic 7406 that likes to die and cause this error, which I have exchanged. I got the drive working for a short while and it was reading and loading floppies like it should. when I came back in the evening it stopped responding again... I'll try exchangin the 74SL14 beside the aforementioned IC next.