541 Ultimate User Guide http://www.1541ultimate.net Developed by User guide by User guide revision Disclaimer Gideon Zweijtzer N.A. Hoijtink 0.15 (CONCEPT.3) All information in this guide is provided as is. It has been gathered from various sources, including, but not limited to, the 1541 Ultimate’ forum. The author of this guide does not accept any liability, expressed, implied or in any other way, for the completeness or accuracy of the information given in this guide.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Table of Contents Welcome The boards Firmware 1.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Welcome Congratulations on becoming an owner of the 1541 Ultimate cartridge/board for your Commodore computer. In my humble opinion you made an excellent choice, and sincerely hope you will enjoy all its capabilities. This document is subject to changes without notice.
1541 Ultimate User Manual The boards Drive leds http://www.1541ultimate.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Firmware 1.5 features Full emulation of a real Commodore 1541 disk drive. o Uses .D64 files stored on SD card o Supports .G64 files as well (Read only) o Configurable ID o Configurable ROM (1541/1541C/1541II or custom) o RAMBoard memory expansion (16K) Secondary 'IEC-drive' for direct access to FAT file system. o Can be used in stand alone mode to mount disks into the emulated 1541.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Led lights The 1541 Ultimate has several led lights located on the top and right on the board. The description start from left to right, and then down. Drive leds (Green & Red) Located between the left and middle button. The green led is on if the 1541 Emulated drive is Enabled from the Configuration menu and ready to be used.. The red led flickers when the drive is accessed.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Regardless of the operating mode, pressing all three buttons at the same time will cause the 1541U to perform a hard-reset. This is easiest done by pressing left (pointing-finger) and right button (ring-finger), and then the middle button (middle finger), and then immediately releasing the three buttons, with whatever hand is nearest to the buttons. After resetting, remember to watch the led lights mentioned above.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Modes of operation The 1541 Ultimate has two possible modes of operation. Cartridge mode In this mode the 1541 Ultimate is inserted into the cartridge port of your Commodore. This is probably the most common way to use the board. To have access to the 1541 Ultimate’ emulated drives, you need to connect an IEC cable from your Commodore computer to the 1541 Ultimate’ IEC port, just as you would connect a real 1541 drive.
1541 Ultimate User Manual RUN/STOP http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Exit the active screen, brings you eventually back to the Commodore computer itself. If you enter any other key alpha/numeric key, it will activate the QUICK SEEK function. The 1541 Ultimate’ User Interface will assume that you are typing (a part of) a filename, and based on that try to find the first entry that has the identical filename within the current directory.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ easier to use the SD-IEC drive commands instead of using the buttons, especially when combined with a cartridge that supplies abbreviations for use with the command channel. Be advised: in Stand Alone mode any cartridge based function is not available, so no Cartridge, no REU, no NET, etc, etc, just the drive(s) but only if the IEC cable is connected. Pressing all three buttons simultaneously will perform a hard reset.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ IEC 2 SD-Card drive / UI The 1541 Ultimate offers a special ‘drive’ to enable you to manipulate SD Card access. This special drive can for example mount D64 on the emulated 1541 drive. Since this drive is NOT trying to emulate a real 1541 drive, but merely is meant as an interface to work with from Standalone mode, it only allows a small set of basic commands.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ A lot of software (like games and demos), and even some hardware like cartridges, do not correctly handle a second drive connected to the IEC bus (especially the IEC 2 SD drive), resulting in unexpected behavior. This is not a flaw of the 1541 Ultimate, but rather a limitation of the software! If you are experiencing problems with software, you should try to disable the IEC 2 SD Drive.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ The Configuration menu When you press the middle button of the board, it will get you into the SD Card browser. From there press the F2 key to get into the Configuration menu. In the Configuration menu you will find a whole lot of options that affect the operation of the 1541 Ultimate. Note, this screenshot has been taken from an 1541 Ultimate running firmware 1.5, so older/newer firmware releases may have less or different options.
41 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Default: appl.bin 1541 Drive Enabled/Disabled the 1541 emulated drive Default: Enabled 1541 Drive Bus ID This is the drive-id the emulated 1541 drive responds to. If you combine multiple drives on the IEC bus, you should always use different ID’s for each drive. Default: 8 1541 ROM Select Selects the firmware (kernel) the emulated 1541 drive uses. There are four possible choices, CBM 1541, 1541 C, 1541-II, and Load from SD.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Default: Enabled (Advise: Disabled in Cartridge mode) IEC SDCard I/F Bus ID This is the drive id for the direct access drive to the SD Card. Default: 9 Cartridge Here you can select which cartridge emulation you want to use. There are several to choose from, and they are explained in the Cartridges chapter. Default: Retro Replay V3.8p PAL RAM Expansion Unit With this option you can Enable the 1750/1764 REU emulation.
1541 Ultimate User Manual Startup in menu http://www.1541ultimate.net/ When set to Yes, the 1541 Ultimate will power-up into it’s freeze menu. Default: No Ethernet interface When set to Enabled this will turn on Ethernet support for your 1541 Ultimate. This option is only visible if you have a 1541 Ultimate with Ethernet support.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ The Cartridges (and custom rom replacements) The 1541 Ultimate supports several cartridges. These are built into the firmware, and are easily selected from The Configuration menu. Most cartridges come in two flavors, NTSC and PAL. You should choose the appropriate emulation for the cartridge. If you choose a NTSC rom instead of a PAL rom, you might get all sorts of problems.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ @KILL0 Do you remember? @$ or $ Get the directory of the active drive @N:name,id Format the disk in the active drive using name,id, beware you do not use this command on the IEC 2 SD drive. The Action Replay cartridge’ Fast Loader is known to cause problems with some programs. If you have problems, you should turn the Fast Loader off, prior to running the program you wish to use.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Replacement roms: The Final Replay 0.8 This rom has been tested by me. It seems to work OK, except for ETHERNET/CODENET support. This rom is 32 KB and does not seem to need any modification to replace the 64 KB RR rom. ROM The rom size of this cartridge’s firmware is 32 KB MANUAL http://www.oxyron.de/html/freplay.html Final III (PAL?) ROM The rom size of this cartridge’s firmware is 64 KB MANUAL http://project64.ath.cx/hw/fc310.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Networking The 1541 Ultimate (Ethernet version) includes a UTP socket, also known as an Ethernet port, for networking. Having said that, there is no software included by default. So here are a few programs that you can use with it: WarpCopy A utility for packing/unpacking D64 disk images between your PC and your Commodore computer. WarpCopy is most stable if you use it to copy a D64 image directory onto the 1541 Ultimate’s emulated 1541 drive.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ BUGS, Testing and reporting As with all hardware and software, you might find strange behavior with your setup. To help others understand what’s wrong there needs to be a bug report. In order to solve any bug, the bug preferably needs to be reproducible. To help you create a detailed report, here are a few things to consider: Are you using the latest firmware? If not, please upgrade the firmware, and test again.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Availability / Compatibility matrix This little matrix shows what hardware you can use and when. For example, enabling REU does not mean it will be available to the Commodore computer when you combine it with the Final III emulated cartridge, since that cartridge can’t handle the REU being present. Cartridge REU NET IEC2SD None n/a + + Action Replay 4.5 + n/a ? Action Replay 6.0 + n/a ? Retro Replay 3.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Known software/hardware issues and solutions Keyboard problems while in menu Some people reported unresponsive (or sluggish) keys of their C64 console while the 1541U menu was active. No problems however when in BASIC (or normal use of the C64). I was lucky to come across a user who experienced this phenomenon. After testing, it was concluded that the problem was with the C64, and not with the 1541U.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ C64 may turn a black screen when powered up while the IEC cable is connected to the 1541U, and show the normal blue BASIC screen when it is disconnected! Because a PSU that delivers too little current may cause the components on the 1541U to take longer to power-up, you could leave the C64 powered on for a couple of minutes, and then do a power-cycle (turn C64 off, then on again).
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Ethernet reliability NET support is by no means flawless. It works for some people, and not for others. Ethernet support has been introduced in firmware 1.5, so it might (not) work (reliably) for your setup. IEC Bus hangs As with real drives the C64 will appear to hang when drive commands are issued and the initialization sequence of drives have not been completed yet. Be sure to wait long enough to let the drives power up correctly.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Other questions and answers Can i use a third party drive kernel that is larger then 16 KB? No you can’t. At present (firmware 1.5) only 16KB roms are supported. Can i use a filecopy tool to copy PRG files to the IEC 2 SD drive? No, you can’t. The IEC 2 SD drive only support the Commodore LOAD and SAVE functions, and doesn’t allow block access, which these kind of copiers almost always use.
1541 Ultimate User Manual http://www.1541ultimate.net/ Conclusion and personal opinion Well, all things considering the 1541 Ultimate is a great piece of hardware, even if it still has a couple of hurdles to go. Because of that I mentioned some hints to hopefully help you work around (or avoid) some issues. Now these might work for you, or they might not. At least it will give you some insight in regard of the 1541U’s current development stage.
