JiffyDOS in *my* 1581?

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Gyro Gearloose
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JiffyDOS in *my* 1581?

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

I bought an "as-is" 1581 on eBay that powered up fine. I never knew it has JiffyDOS in it until I checked its status after power up and it reported a JiffyDOS message.
Is this the reason this 1581 seems to grind its head for 5 seconds after power up? I don't have JiffyDOS in the 64 but I use the Super Snapshot with it. So this is a strange combo, no?
I've been discovering that I don't know that much about the 64 anymore. I'm confronted with hardware failures like the 1541 head issue, I never heard of that before and I certainly don't recall that from back in the day.
Now the Super Snapshot turns out to be quite buggy. It loads fast but it fails to freeze half the time, the C=/freeze combo certainly isn't a substitute for a real hardware reset.
Now I have this JiffyDOS drive in my system that I don't know what it really does. Worse, it seems to be an unauthorized copy on a generic EEPROM. Should I scrap it and put in a standard 1581 CBM DOS? Should I keep it as an unintended bonus and buy a JiffyDOS KERNAL for my 64C?

All this to play Arkanoid II and it still freezes for no reason...


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eslapion
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Re: JiffyDOS in *my* 1581?

Post by eslapion »

Gyro Gearloose wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2019 5:04 pm Is this the reason this 1581 seems to grind its head for 5 seconds after power up? I don't have JiffyDOS in the 64 but I use the Super Snapshot with it. So this is a strange combo, no?
Multiple questions... multiple answers...

No, this is not the reason you 1581 'grinds' on startup. They all do it. You do get a form of bonus with JiffyDOS, however as it includes the upgrades found in firmware 318045-02.

JiffyDOS and SSV5 don't make a good combination but the culprit really is with the SSV5. The SSV4 was a more reliable cart, IMHO.

Having JiffyDOS in your C64 is a good idea if you never use the datasette. Because it's a complete replacement of the CBM communication protocol it has a very high level of compatibility with various software and loading large files with a 1581 and JiffyDOS is lightning fast. It also exists for the VIC-20 so you can load large VIC-20 games at impressive speeds. Remember Sword of Fargoal ?

As for Arkanoid, it is so much better on the Amiga or emulate the real thing with MAME32. The C64 version is far from the best. I do believe you can find a fixed version on the web.
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Gyro Gearloose
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Re: JiffyDOS in *my* 1581?

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

This 1581 does a much weirder noise than the power up grunk noise. It's a softer noise. It's very weird and it only does it from cold, like being off overnight.
My 1581 that I bought years ago and is still in-box has not been used in decades... But looks like I'll have to dig it up soon.

"The C64 version is far from the best."

It's the one I grew up with... I *must* have a working one somewhere, or I had one at some point. The one I found crashes. My disks are a mess.
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Re: JiffyDOS in *my* 1581?

Post by eslapion »

Gyro Gearloose wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2019 7:24 pm "The C64 version is far from the best."

It's the one I grew up with... I *must* have a working one somewhere, or I had one at some point. The one I found crashes. My disks are a mess.
You have no idea how much I prefer the Amiga version from discovery software. Even nicer than the arcade version.

As for JiffyDOS, it's a nice complement to any Commodore 8 bit machine. For the VIC-20, there was only Turbo Disk from Compute's Gazette to accelerate disk loading and the least I can say, considering where and how it loaded itself in RAM is that it was extremely inconvenient. JiffyDOS replaces the kernal.

I have it in my 1541s, 1571 and 1581. A million times better than Fast Load too.
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Re: JiffyDOS in *my* 1581?

Post by Gyro Gearloose »

Well the problem isn't the 1581. It was sold "as-is", without a power supply. So I got a 5/12 switching supply on eBay with an advertised 5V/2A output. Turns out, not so much. The 5V dips to 4.1V when I first turn on the 1581, and it sloooowly climbs to 5V, then it's OK. Off to the trash can with this nonsense!
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