Commodore 1581 Disk Drive
Updated 1 January 2024
The Commodore 1581 is an innovative 3.5" disk drive that can be used with 8-bit Commodore computers. The Commodore 1581 was specifically designed for the Commodore 128, Commodore 64, the Plus-4, Commodore 16, and VIC20. The 1581 uses 3.5" disks with the following features:
- Automatic selection of standard or fast serial transfer rates
- Double-sided, double-density MFM data recording—provides more than 800K formatted storage capacity per disk (400K+ per side)
- Special high-speed burst commands—commands used for machine language programs, transfer data several times faster than the standard or fast serial rates
- Support for Basic 2.0 Commands and Basic 7.0 disk access commands
- Sequential, relative and direct access commands for accessing and writing data files
Commodore 1581 for sale
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Read Commodore 1581 3½ Disk Drive Manuals Online
Commodore 1581
user's guide
(read online)
Commodore 1581
Specification
(read online)
Commodore 1581
Ultimate Toolkit
(read online)
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Commodore 1581 Technical Specification
1581 storage capability
- Total unformatted capacity 1 Megabyte
- Total formatted capacity 808,960 bytes
- Maximum sequential file size 802,640 bytes
- Maximum relative file size ~800K
- Records per file 65,535
- Files per diskette 296
- Cylinders per diskette 80
- Logical sectors per cylinder 40 (0-39)
- Physical sectors per cylinder 20 (1-20)
- Free blocks per disk 3160
- Logical bytes per cylinder 256
- Physical bytes per sector 512
Integrated circuits used in the 1581
- 6502A microprocessor
- 8520A I/O processor
- 23256 32K bytes ROM
- 4364 8K bytes RAM
- WD177X floppy disk controller