Timeline for Commodore drives

Disk drives, Monitors, SuperCPU etc.
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Gyro Gearloose
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Timeline for Commodore drives

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

It seems difficult to piece together when the plethora of Commodore disk drives were introduced.

For example I looked here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_8050

The previous model according to wiki is 4040. Wiki says the 4040 is the replacement for the 2040. Curiously absent are any dates.

What was the first model of disk drive Commodore released? And when?

Was it the 2040 in 1979 as stated here?



I am trying to figure out whose great idea it was to create disk drives as separate computers in their own right.

Atari came out with their 810 in 1979, it also has a CPU and RAM.

But it was serial, the CBM drives were parallel in 1979. I assume the first Commodore serial drive was the 1540 introduced for the VIC-20.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1540

Well, was it introduced in 1982 as the text states, or 1981 as the caption states under the picture?

Either way there seems to be a gap between the Atari 810 and the 1541 release. Some people think Commodore copied the idea of an intelligent drive with a serial port from Atari, but clearly both companies were making intelligent drives at the same time. Just that Commodore was parallel for a while there.


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merman
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Re: Timeline for Commodore drives

Post by merman »

Commodore started out with IEEE/parallel cables, but there were supply problems.
Some sources claim a large military contract meant all the drive manufacturers had trouble getting the cables.
So Jack Tramiel told his engineers to get off that cable, and they came up with the IEC/serial interface common to VIC and C64.
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