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READERS WRITE - PC TO 1541 COMMUNICATION

Christophe Jeandel

christophe.jeandel@solystic.com

Christophe Jeandel, from France, signed our Visitors Book with the following comments:

I had a poor experience some years ago when asking for C64 software - the process of asking for software, shipping disks and postage coupons was very slow. I am surprised the same principle is still going on. Why not make the software available on-line for downloading, with a floppy disk conversion software from PC to C64/C128/Amiga. This would put boring work off your 'contacts'.

I am also looking for a software to enable reading C64 floppies on a PC; does something like that exist ?

Editor: To answer the first question I have to beg forgiveness! One or two of the pages on this site are out of date. One of these is the ICPUG Services page which has remained unchanged since ICPUG existed in the days of the paper newsletter. We do not handle the software libraries in the same way as the past. Parts of the library are still available from Ken Ross and the VIC library was still available last year. As far as I am aware all other libraries have gone. If I get specific queries for VIC material, (the last time was last year), I pass them on to the VIC contact. Ken advertises the stuff available from him on his own web site:
http://members.tripod.com/~petlibrary

We are given the space for the ICPUG site by the good nature of Easynet. I do not wish to jeopardise this by filling server space with software that can usually be obtained elsewhere on the Internet. For example, Amigans can find the Fred Fish aquarium at ftp://ftp.digital.com/rom/fred-fish. The ICPUG shareware links page gives some pointers to sources of software and you are advised to try putting the software title into the Google search engine when trying to locate software.

I decided to pass the second question (and a third) on to Ken Ross for ideas. Here is his response:

That I'm not sure of to be honest - I've seen questions about it but as it's a PC subject I've not looked into it. I recall that Tom Ramm mentioned being able to use a 1541 drive with his PC - Star Commander - I think was mentioned and I did have some correspondence with Joe Foster when I was creating lynx8017.
(see funet fi answer below)

• get a 1581 or fd-2000 and a copy of big blue reader
• get a cheap Amiga (A500+ ?) and a copy of messyDOS along with a copy of ami64link

These two are my preferred methods

• get a PC with a 5.25'' drive , and a 1571 drive and big blue reader (seems like a good idea to me!)
• use something called x1541 cable or use another thing called prlnk
  (info on them from ftp.funet.fi/pub/cbm , or buy the funet fi CD-ROM from silicon classics and get everything- 650Mb worth of downloaded stuff for £6)
  ( mailto:siliconinfo@siliconclassics.co.uk )
  I've tested the funet.fi CD-ROM from Silicon Classics in my Mac and my Amiga A570 drive and it works in both.
  (Allan Bairstow of Commodore Scene can supply x1541 cables at reasonable prices & tested)
  (mailto:allan.bairstow@btinternet.com)
• funet fi has other variations of doing the job in the crossplatform folder but being a Mac user I've never looked into the subject that deeply, but there's quite a few to explore & chose from.
• using the WAVE from Maurice Randall it's possible to surf the internet with your C128 - ( throw away that PC!)
• High Osmosis Absorbing Kinetic System - place a floppy disk on a lino floor then take the PC with the C64 files on and drop it onto the floppy disk. Being not proper Windows electrons the Commodore electrons fall out of the PC onto the floppy disk.

Editor: You will detect a slight(?) anti PC bias in Ken's approach and I suggest you first check out the acronym for the system before trying out the last suggestion! However, Ken's ideas are useful and I followed up his reference to Star Commander for those of us keen to keep our PC! Once again, Google amazed me by coming out at top of the list with the Star Commander Home Page at http://sta.c64.org/sc.html. This site seems to have all the answers needed for getting communication going between a 1541 and a PC.

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