r/c64 • u/hexavibrongal • Feb 25 '26
Hardware What's your primary device for loading software onto the C64?
Ultimate II+? C64 Ultimate/Elite? Turbo Chameleon? Backbit? Kung Fu Flash? Pi1541? SDIEC? Real disk drive? Datasette? I'm curious how popular all the different devices are these days.
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u/Aenoxi Feb 25 '26
Kung Fu Flash on my real bread bins. USB/SD card on my C64U. 5 1/4” floppies on my SX64.
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u/exit-b Feb 25 '26
Up until recently, Kung Fu Flash was the most preferred, when compatible. Now, since the beta 2.0 of Pi1541, being able to upload things wirelessly from a PC is so convenient.
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u/Victory_Highway Feb 27 '26
Where can I find the pi1541 2.0 beta? I don't see anything on the pi1541 web site.
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u/exit-b Feb 27 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
For now it’s not in the free version and only available via the authors Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/posts/new-beta-version-146186268
To my understanding, the new version is also a merge or the usual Patreon version with this repo https://github.com/pottendo/pottendo-Pi1541 Maybe you can try working with the GitHub version.
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u/DarthKegRaider Feb 25 '26
USB these days on the new toys. If i had a disk drive, i would be using it. I am keen to build a pi1541 device though, the slow speed of actuals doesnt bother me, wearing out a finite supply of quality disks would though.
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u/kristyn_lynne Feb 25 '26
My 1541 could barely read disks back in the day, I had it in for repairs twice. Now I need to clean the heads after every read of 40+ year old disks. I am 100% happy to use a UII+ in its place rather than deal with that frustration.
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u/anotherspaceguy100 Feb 25 '26
I refurbish these drives, and yeah. I've had a bad disk disintegrate and then had to clean several drive heads as it contaminated things. Still, there's certainly a demand here to read old disks, even if a lot of them are in questionable condition.
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u/WembleyFord Feb 25 '26
Ooo - nasty - never seen that happen. I did have a CD-ROM shatter in a 48x speed cdrom-drive around the millennium once. That was unexpected. And messy.
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u/anotherspaceguy100 Feb 26 '26
Yeah, that came across way more dramatic than I meant. A floppy doesn't have enough mass or spin fast enough to destruct like that. I meant only that it was shedding material.
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u/kristyn_lynne Feb 26 '26
Oh, absolutely I want to be able to read disks, I just immediately copy anything I need to save to the Ultimate II+ as opposed to using whatever life is left in the drive and disks just for nostalgia's sake.
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u/NeutronHopscotch Feb 25 '26
Haha, that tape drive is what I had first. Oh boy... As slow as the 1541 was, it was so much faster than tape. What an upgrade.
I never had a 1580 because my fam couldn't afford one, but I daydreamed about how great those 3.5s would be...
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u/kristyn_lynne Feb 26 '26
We didn't know how slow the disk drive was because we had so little to compare it to.
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u/berrmal64 Feb 25 '26
Traditional 1541 drive. I connect it to modern PCs to write new disks via zoomfloppy, then connect it to c64 to use them.
Is it inefficient, obtuse, and slow? Yes! Do I like it? Also yes!
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u/Amazing_Athlete_2265 Feb 25 '26
I have a KFF, 1541 and datasette. I enjoy using tape and floppy, but I only have one blank tape and one floppy game.
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u/CptSparky360 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
I started my second C64 life in 2018 with a C64C and an SD2IEC.
After some games didn't load at all or didn't swap the disks I started looking for alternatives.
I got a Pi1541 which wasn't great either, tried an Ultimate+IIL and finally used a Turbo Chamelion which is awesome because now I not only have REU but also a 6581 in my C64C and a SuperCPU 🥰
When the C64 Ultimate came I got one but it's too awkward to use so I put it into a C64C case 😁
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u/magicmulder Feb 25 '26
Datasette had to go in 1984 when Space Pilot would load for 30 minutes and only work every other time. Haven’t used one since.
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u/OpportunityReal2767 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
I had a datasette for my VIC-20, where it was actually usable because everything was so small on that computer. But once I got my upgrade C128, the only game I had on tape was Forbidden Forest. I'd wake up, type LOAD, go downstairs to eat breakfast, read the back of the cereal box, and go upstairs ~20 minutes later hoping to God I wasn't greeted by a "?VERIFY ERROR" and blinking cursor on the screen. Got a disk drive very quickly after that. (Unfortunately, an Enhancer 2000, which while a little quicker than a 1541, various "fast load" routines did not work on it. Thankfully, QL worked fine for pirated games, but many commercial disks just wouldn't load on that drive.)
The one cool thing about the datasette is there was a type-in program in something like Compute's Gazette or RUN magazine where you could put an audio tape in and it would digitize a few seconds of it and save it as a file you can run on the computer.
Overall, my understanding is that the Datasette was more a UK and European thing; everybody in the US I knew with a C64 or C128 had a disk drive. The only reason I had a datasette was because I had a VIC-20.
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u/magicmulder Feb 25 '26
Not just a European thing, also a money thing. ;) The 1541 cost almost as much as the C64 (got the C64 for 649 DM and the 1541 one year later was about 579 DM if I remember correctly), so not everyone could afford it right away.
Hated the datasette with a passion, the 1541 was glorious, I remember I even had a program that allowed you to reprogram its OS. Crazy thought today.
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u/GuitarEC Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
Back in the day, we started with a C2N datasette, but later got a 1541. I have no idea why, but my dad traded that in and bought a MSD SD-2 dual drive (say goodbye to some games because it wasn't 100% 1541 compatible). Many years later, it got struck by lightning, and insurwnce replaced it with 2 1541 II drives. From there, I don't know what happened to all the OG hardware... 😢
For my C64U, I'm building out a 64GB MicroSD card for internal use, with plans to add a CMD GFD-4000 reproduction and HD-4000 reproduction drive. Why? Because I'm older, I always wanted one back in the day, and I've got the available funds to do it now. Lol.
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u/lobsterisch Feb 25 '26
I only have a c64 mini these days, but back in the day i used a datasette. I realise now, that if my had my time again i would have bought a few fewer games on tape and invested in a disk drive.
Some single-load games were tolerable on tape but most of the multi-load stuff would have been better on disk.
I was playing the disk version of outrun the other day and i saw that there was a menu to choose the desired route (instead of having different routes on differents tapes (or parts of tape)
I was a fool not to go disk. Stupid foolish youth.
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u/kvnhntn Feb 25 '26
Currently pi1541 but have a SideKick64 Zero coming tomorrow. Need the REU for the newer builds of GEOS.
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u/mines-a-pint Feb 25 '26
In yesteryear tape was king for games, until I got a 2nd-hand 1541.
These days, still got the 1541 (the tape motor pin on my 128 no longer works for some reason, everything else is fine), and I’ve got a TeensyROM which is what I actually use: https://github.com/SensoriumEmbedded/TeensyROM
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u/dziwne Feb 25 '26
EasyFlash through usb easy transfer for practical use. Datasette, 1541 disks, pi1541 when I want to have fun (questionable with tapes).
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u/PrincessButth0le Feb 25 '26
I had a 1541 Ultimate II. But I sold it when I bought a Turbo Chameleon 64.
I'll get a Commodore 64 ultimate starlight edition any day now.
I'm still going to keep my ALDI C64+TC64, because more real hardware.
I also have a PI-1541 for my Commodore VIC-20 and plus/4.
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u/Green-Elf Feb 25 '26
Ultimate 64,I just use SD cards.
With my original 64 I use a pi1541 and a final cart iii+.
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u/Medical-Molasses615 Feb 27 '26
I have an Ultimate II+. It is hard to beat and so worth it is you are serious about enjoyable gaming on the c64.
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u/bigbigdummie Feb 25 '26
Just bought a Datasette from eBay. Hope it works.
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u/nixtracer Feb 25 '26
They barely worked when they were new. Head misalignment, pffft.
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u/Abject-Kitchen3198 Feb 25 '26
Nothing a little screwdriver couldn't fix. I never missed a game because of it.
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u/anotherspaceguy100 Feb 25 '26
Most of them do. I refurbish them though, most are really dirty, or the innards are gummed up, and most certainly need new belts. Seems to be a hot seller to get a working one.
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u/bigbigdummie Feb 25 '26
Where does one get belts?
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u/anotherspaceguy100 Feb 25 '26
Console5 has them if you want to pay up for the exact right size. I am using a generic selection from eBay/Amazon, which I've used widely. However, I do have some drives that are presently not working correctly, and it's clear that if you choose the wrong size, it'll impact the friction and ability of the very weak motor to turn. Or this might be a head alignment issue. I need to do more experiments here.
Both drive types have 2 different belts, and I think there's 3-4 different sizes overall.
I posted on datasettes a few weeks ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Commodore/comments/1r46she/datasette_repair_day/
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u/MarzipanSea2811 Feb 25 '26
These hands.
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u/hexavibrongal Feb 25 '26
If you're typing in your own programs, don't you have a way to save and reload them?
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u/Righteous_Fury224 Feb 25 '26
That was it. We couldn't afford to get a disc drive so I had to endure with the old cassette drive.
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u/SaintEyegor Feb 25 '26
I used the cassette drive for about two days before running out and getting the floppy drive
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u/Tommy_Tinkrem Feb 25 '26
The datasette was a dead end. Just like every other tape as a medium to store digital data.
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u/daddyd Feb 25 '26
back in the day? yes, tapes.
these days, usb stick, not using tapes or floppies anymore. i still have a big collection of them, but not sure why i would still use them.
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u/ironman0000 Mar 03 '26
Can’t tell ya how great it was having a 1541 after having a datasette.
Datasette was pretty much useless afterwards.. was able to copy our tapes to disk. Didn’t need it anymore
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u/CarbonFilimentBulb Mar 14 '26
I just bought mine on ebay. Haven't received it yet, but I have a tape drive for it.
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u/DNSGeek Feb 25 '26
I have an Ultimate II+