Is a 1540 floppy worth $750?

[quarkx]

A 1540 floppy popped up on fleabay for $750 BIN. I know these are rare but is it worth $750 USD?

[Blacklord]

No way!

[Andrew Wiskow]

I sold one on eBay a couple years ago in mint condition, with a 99¢ start price (as always), and it had a final sale price of $457.10.  I think that's a more accurate value.

[Andrew Sutton]

I remember my dad bought 10 or 15 of the 1540 drives to resell, and changed out the rom chips in them. We allocated one for our VIC-20!;) Too bad I don't have it anymore!

[commodorejohn]

Unless you have a VIC-20 and really, really want something that A. is slightly faster than the 1541 when used with a VIC and B. matches the color scheme, I'd say that's a "no."

[Blacklord]

I sold one on eBay a couple years ago in mint condition, with a 99¢ start price (as always), and it had a final sale price of $457.10.  I think that's a more accurate value.

Geez - these turn up fairly regularly over here (although 1570's are much more common), last 1540 I sold on eBay about 7 months back went for $AU25.51 which is the highest I've ever got for one. I certainly would not pay more than that for one !

[Andrew Wiskow]

Unless you have a VIC-20 and really, really want something that A. is slightly faster than the 1541 when used with a VIC and B. matches the color scheme, I'd say that's a "no."

From a standpoint of a useful item, it's probably not worth too much.  But 1540s in good condition are quite hard to find, and as Mr. Sutton has pointed out, most of the 1540s out there have had the ROM swapped out, so to find one in good condition with the original ROM is quite rare indeed.  So from a collector's standpoint, they can be worth quite a lot.  Just FYI, the buyer in my auction was Bo Zimmerman.  I think the fact that he was willing to pay as much as he did says something about the value of it.

[Andrew Wiskow]

Geez - these turn up fairly regularly over here (although 1570's are much more common), last 1540 I sold on eBay about 7 months back went for $AU25.51 which is the highest I've ever got for one. I certainly would not pay more than that for one !

You're not confusing the VIC-1540 with the VIC-1541, are you?  If not, please let me know when you see a 1540 this cheap again.  By all accounts, not many 1540s were even made in the first place because, at the time, cassette drives were much more popular than disk drives.

[Blacklord]

Geez - these turn up fairly regularly over here (although 1570's are much more common), last 1540 I sold on eBay about 7 months back went for $AU25.51 which is the highest I've ever got for one. I certainly would not pay more than that for one !

You're not confusing the VIC-1540 with the VIC-1541, are you?  If not, please let me know when you see a 1540 this cheap again.  By all accounts, not many 1540s were even made in the first place because, at the time, cassette drives were much more popular than disk drives.

Nope - 1540, I believe I still have three or four in the shed (along with about half a dozen 1570's).

The VIC-1541 is (for me) rare - I have one & it ain't for sale.

[carlsson]

So there is where all the leftover 1540's went. :-D Just like Commodore later dumped C16 onto Hungary, perhaps they dumped 1540 onto Australia.

[Blacklord]

So there is where all the leftover 1540's went. :-D Just like Commodore later dumped C16 onto Hungary, perhaps they dumped 1540 onto Australia.

They definitely dumped stuff here - Australia was considered one of Commodore's best markets. When the plus/4 was dumped, a large number were repackaged and bargain-basemented here - they went into a large pale blue picnic bag with the C= logo and had the 'puter, a drive, a printer, a Datasette, various cartridges & manuals. I have 5 of these - one of which was bought new at the time ($99 - at the time the AUD was at parity with the USD) - the others have been picked up since.

Also, PETs where dumped as well - before Commodore set up shop here the PET 2001 was sold here by Hanimex - these ended up being run out when CBM set up a local office. They're easily distinguished - only "PET 2001" on the front (no Commodore logo to be seen) & the Hanimex label on the back.

[Blacklord]

Distributors label, adhesive printed in black on silver: "DISTRIBUTED IN AUSTRALIA BY HANIMEX PTY. LTD".
Manufactures label, adhesive, printed black on silver: "commodore/PET 2001-8/voltage 240v ~50hz Current 750mA
Serial No 1009013
MADE IN USA".

[redrumloa]

Nope - 1540, I believe I still have three or four in the shed (along with about half a dozen 1570's).

The VIC-1541 is (for me) rare - I have one & it ain't for sale.

Hmm.. I think I have a few Vic-1541s, what do they normally go for?

[Andrew Wiskow]

Hmm.. I think I have a few Vic-1541s, what do they normally go for?

In good condition, they usually only sell for slightly more than a standard 1541.  In other words, around $10 or $20.

[maraud]

so isn't the only difference with a 40 vs 41 is the serial timing.  Which makes them a little faster on the VIC?  If that's the case wouldn't putting a 1540 DOS and Kernel ROM in a 41 give you the same thing?

[cbm-ii]

so isn't the only difference with a 40 vs 41 is the serial timing.  Which makes them a little faster on the VIC?  If that's the case wouldn't putting a 1540 DOS and Kernel ROM in a 41 give you the same thing?

I believe you can place the 1541 in 1540 mode by sending it the initialize command UI- and retain the slightly higher speed on the VIC-20.

OPEN 15,8,15,"UI-":CLOSE 15

You're correct that the only technical difference between the 1540 and 1541 is in the ROM.

[carlsson]

I thought a true 1540 has some slightly different mechanism, allowing it to auto boot an "&" file from the floppy disk. It would mean the ROM would look for a such file, but for some reason that feature would not work on a 1541 with a 1540 ROM. However I have only heard about this once, so I may have misunderstood a lot of the details.

[commodorejohn]

I thought a true 1540 has some slightly different mechanism, allowing it to auto boot an "&" file from the floppy disk. It would mean the ROM would look for a such file, but for some reason that feature would not work on a 1541 with a 1540 ROM. However I have only heard about this once, so I may have misunderstood a lot of the details.

According to the Wikipedia article (and as you know, Wikipedia is always right,) the 1540 and 1541 are mechanically identical. You may be right about the auto-boot, I dunno, but it wouldn't really make any sense for that to have anything to do with the hardware, since the filesystem is just a software construct anyway (though in the C= 8-bitters the software in question is in the drive.)

[cbm-ii]

I thought a true 1540 has some slightly different mechanism, allowing it to auto boot an "&" file from the floppy disk. It would mean the ROM would look for a such file, but for some reason that feature would not work on a 1541 with a 1540 ROM. However I have only heard about this once, so I may have misunderstood a lot of the details.

According to the Wikipedia article (and as you know, Wikipedia is always right,) the 1540 and 1541 are mechanically identical. You may be right about the auto-boot, I dunno, but it wouldn't really make any sense for that to have anything to do with the hardware, since the filesystem is just a software construct anyway (though in the C= 8-bitters the software in question is in the drive.)

I believe the Commodore 128 was the first C= machine to support auto-booting from a disk.  There were some kernel replacements and carts for the C64 that were designed to auto-boot a disk primarily for BBS usage, but I'm pretty sure the standard kernal of the VIC-20 and C64 don't support an auto-boot feature. 

Maybe it was a feature that loaded code directly onto the 1540 itself?  It's essentially a computer in and of itself.

[carlsson]

It seems I am referring to this Denial thread in which it says a VIC-20 with +8K expansion memory or more will search for an USR file, load it to the 1540 RAM and execute it. This feature was removed on the 1541, so supposedly the commands the computer sends out are just intercepted by a 1541. It is true there doesn't seem to be any mechanical differences between the two, but then again perhaps a 1540 ROM only works in a long board 1541?

I have no idea what kind of USR file it would be. Most probably it was not an IRQ fastloader. :-D

[quarkx]

Well, I watched the seller re-list it a few times, and the last auction it actually sold for around $70 USD, not really all that surprised at that price

[Andrew Wiskow]

Well, I watched the seller re-list it a few times, and the last auction it actually sold for around $70 USD, not really all that surprised at that price

Do you have a link to the auction page?  Or the eBay item number?  I'm just curious to see what kind of condition it was in.

[quarkx]

For some reason,I can't find the final listing, but the second time he listed it for BIN at $250, the Item # was [ebay]290371325873[/ebay]

[cbm-ii]

Here you go, this was the final auction where it sold:

[ebay]290382630266[/ebay]

[Andrew Sutton]

Don't forget to take into consideration of the "provenance" of the rather worn box!