Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!evax!cs4344af From: cs4344af@evax.arl.utexas.edu (Fuzzy Fox) Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm Subject: Re: 1571 problems Message-ID: <1991Feb11.041219.14564@evax.arl.utexas.edu> Date: 11 Feb 91 04:12:19 GMT References: <1991Feb6.193749.2593@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> <1991Feb7.202452.14367@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <1991Feb8.154243.8919@news.nd.edu> Distribution: comp Organization: Computer Science Engineering Univ. of Texas at Arlington Lines: 28 In article <1991Feb8.154243.8919@news.nd.edu> treesh@vangogh.helios.nd.edu writes: >I have a questions about this rom upgrade. I have a 1571 disk, and whenever >I put in a disk formatted on a 1541 drive, and then try to load'$',8 the >drive loads it fine, but, the led flashes for about 20 seconds before it >finaly realizes that things are fine. Yes, if you ugrade your ROMs (with JDOS or with the ones from Commodore), this problem will go away. The reason for it is that the 1571 initially was not programmed intelligently. When you put a single-sided disk in, the drive would try to detect the second side by simply doing a normal read, with full error-checking on. This results in the drive doing a bang-up job of trying to read an unformatted side of a disk, and wasting quite a bit of time. The newer ROMs change the rules, so that error checking is turned off when initializing the back side of a disk, so the drive tries once to read the side, and if it doesn't work, the drive assumes that it is a single sided disk. This produces a delay which is only slightly longer than that of a real 1541, and so it is almost unnoticeable. It is MUCH better than the old ROM method. People using Commodore equipment without proper software (including ROMs) are often left with the opinion that the system is crap. Actually, only the software is, and software can be changed. :) -- begin 644 .signature H5&AI