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DolphinDOS is a hardware expansion for the Commodore computers and floppy disk drives like Commodore 1541, 1541-II, Commodore 1571. It combined the disk controller side RAM expansion and firmware replacement with computer side KERNAL replacement and additional Parallel connection between the disk drive controller and the computer. [1]
The Commodore 1541 is a floppy disk drive which was made by Commodore International for the Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore's most popular home computer. The best-known floppy disk drive for the C64, the 1541 is a single-sided 170-kilobyte drive for 5¼" disks. The 1541 directly followed the Commodore 1540.
The Commodore 1581 is a 3½-inch double-sided double-density floppy disk drive that was released by Commodore Business Machines (CBM) in 1987, primarily for its C64 and C128 home/personal computers. The drive stores 800 kilobytes using an MFM encoding but formats different from the MS-DOS, Amiga, and Mac Plus formats. With special software it's possible to read C1581 disks on an x86 PC system, and likewise, read MS-DOS and other formats of disks in the C1581, provided that the PC or other floppy handles the "720 kB" size format. This capability was most frequently used to read MS-DOS disks. The drive was released in the summer of 1987 and quickly became popular with bulletin board system (BBS) operators and other users.
The Commodore 1570 is a 5¼" floppy disk drive for the Commodore 128 home/personal computer. It is a single-sided, 170 kB version of the Commodore 1571, released as a stopgap measure when Commodore International was unable to provide sufficient quantities of 1571s due to a shortage of double-sided drive mechanisms. Like the 1571, it can read and write both GCR and MFM disk formats. The 1570 utilizes a 1571 logic board in a cream-colored original-1541-like case with a drive mechanism similar to the 1541's except that it was equipped with track-zero detection. Like the 1571, its built-in DOS provides a data burst mode for transferring data to the C128 computer at a faster speed than a 1541 can. Its ROM also contains some DOS bug fixes that didn't appear in the 1571 until much later. The 1570 can read and write all single-sided CP/M-format disks that the 1571 can access.
The Commodore 1571 is Commodore's high-end 5¼" floppy disk drive, announced in the summer of 1985. With its double-sided drive mechanism, it has the ability to use double-sided, double-density (DS/DD) floppy disks, storing a total of 360 kB per floppy. It also implemented a "burst mode" that improved transfer speeds, helping address the very slow performance of previous Commodore drives.
A disk operating system (DOS) is a computer operating system that resides on and can use a disk storage device, such as a floppy disk, hard disk drive, or optical disc. A disk operating system provides a file system for organizing, reading, and writing files on the storage disk, and a means for loading and running programs stored on that disk. Strictly, this definition does not include any other functionality, so it does not apply to more complex OSes, such as Microsoft Windows, and is more appropriately used only for older generations of operating systems.
The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, and, in early models, a cassette deck.
The Commodore 1540 introduced in 1982 is the companion floppy disk drive for the VIC-20 home computer. It uses single-sided 5¼" floppy disks, on which it stores roughly 170 kB of data utilizing Commodore's GCR data encoding scheme.
The Commodore 65 is a prototype computer created at Commodore Business Machines in 1990–1991. It is an improved version of the Commodore 64, and it was meant to be backwards-compatible with the older computer, while still providing a number of advanced features close to those of the Amiga.
The Commodore 1551 is a floppy disk drive for the Commodore Plus/4 home computer. It resembles a charcoal-colored Commodore 1541 and plugs into the cartridge port, providing faster access than the C64/1541 combination. Commodore reportedly planned an interface to allow use of the 1551 with the C64, but it was never released.
The Catweasel is a family of enhanced floppy-disk controllers from German company Individual Computers. These controllers are designed to allow more recent computers, such as PCs, to access a wide variety of older or non-native disk formats using standard floppy drives.
Commodore DOS, also known as CBM DOS, is the disk operating system used with Commodore's 8-bit computers. Unlike most other DOSes, which are loaded from disk into the computer's own RAM and executed there, CBM DOS is executed internally in the drive: the DOS resides in ROM chips inside the drive, and is run there by one or more dedicated MOS 6502 family CPUs. Thus, data transfer between Commodore 8-bit computers and their disk drives more closely resembles a local area network connection than typical disk/host transfers.
The Commodore 8050, Commodore 8250, and Commodore SFD-1001 are 5¼-inch floppy disk drives manufactured by Commodore International, primarily for its 8-bit CBM and PET series of computers. The drives offered improved storage capacities over previous Commodore drive models.
The RAMLink was one of several RAM expansion products made by Creative Micro Designs (CMD) for Commodore's C64/128 home computers. The RAMLink was intended as a third-party alternative, successor and optionally companion to Commodore's own 17xx-series REU RAM expansion cartridges.
The DOS Wedge is a piece of Commodore 64 system software that was popular in its time. It was written by Bob Fairbairn, and was included by Commodore (CBM) on the 1541 disk drive Test/Demo Disk and also packaged with the C64 Macro Assembler. The DOS Wedge was referred to in the 1541 drive manual as DOS Support and on the software startup screen as DOS MANAGER. The original design was developed by Bill Seiler.
The Commodore 64 home computer used various external peripherals. Due to the backwards compatibility of the Commodore 128, most peripherals would also work on that system. There is also some compatibility with the VIC-20 and Commodore PET.
The MSD Super Disk were a series of 5¼-inch floppy disk drives compatible to some degree with the Commodore 1541 disk drive. produced by Micro Systems Development for use with Commodore 8-bit home computers. Two different versions of the MSD Super Disk were available: the single-drive model, SD-1; and the dual-drive model, SD-2.
The floppy disk is a data storage and transfer medium that was ubiquitous from the mid-1970s well into the 2000s. Besides the 3½-inch and 5¼-inch formats used in IBM PC compatible systems, or the 8-inch format that preceded them, many proprietary floppy disk formats were developed, either using a different disk design or special layout and encoding methods for the data held on the disk.
The Indus GT is a 5+1⁄4-inch floppy disk drive that was introduced by Indus Systems in 1983 for the Atari 8-bit family. It was later released for the Apple II and Commodore 64. On the Atari, it was widely regarded as the best drive of the era, with the most features, highest performance, and even best industrial design. They were known for the advertising slogan, "Turn your Atari into a Ferrari." The GT was sold until around 1987, at which point the rights were sold to Logical Design Works and reintroduced as the LDW Super 2000, sold primarily into Poland, and the CA-2001, sold into the US.
Commodore 64 disk/tape emulation and data transfer comprises hardware and software for Commodore 64 disk & tape emulation and for data transfer between either Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore (1541) disk drive or Commodore tape deck and newer computers.
The Commodore D9060/D9090 Hard Disks were the only family of hard drives that Commodore made for both the home and business market. The electronics are identical in the D9060 and the larger D9090 unit; the only difference is the size of the installed hard drive, with a jumper set to distinguish between 4 or 6 disk heads. Originally intended for the metal-cased PET/CBM series of computers, they are compatible with the VIC-20, Commodore 64 and later models with an adapter.
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