[C64] Trying to LOAD and RUN floppy disks from 1990-1995.
I have disassembled and dedusted the disk drive and still get this error on an Commodore 64. Is it probable that the floppy diskettes are simply demagnetized by now? I am trying to recover some of dad's old essays and poems.
Edit: the error channel says READ ERROR
Edit2: the read head is not rusted. In fact, it looks like new. 😅 Tried both LOAD"*",8 and LOAD"$",8 on another ten or so disks, with the same file not found error.
25 replies
Are you sure the drive heads are properly aligned? I don't remember the program name, but I vaguely remember loosening the stepper motor on my drive and ever so slightly moving it to get the drive heads aligned. The program included a reference disk for analyzing the alignment, so that may not be an option here.
Good question! I have opened the unit twice now, once for dedusting and once to wipe what I thought to be the "read head" with some alcohol. A litte, white, oval protuberance. Other than that, I don't really know what components could need adjustment. This says Head alignment is more sensitive and may require factory alignment disks.
I'm taking a break for now. I've had three really intensive "retro weeks" and I don't want to get fed up with it. 😅
I don't think you're supposed to use alcohol on the drive heads, but that's just based on very vague faded memories. Good luck.
40 years later I learn that I didn't need to type the spaces
It's all right. 😂
lol
Freaking awesome! Such a lovely, magnificent historical miracle...
Still partially works! Or it does indeed work, but just the machine does not process the data correctly, including modern memory, logic, architecture instructions order etc.
Floppy discs and their drives are notoriously fragile.
I'd start with making sure that the drive head is clean and not rusted. Test on a new floppy disc.
I'd be very surprised if the standard LOAD command would still work, and I'd start with making a block copy of the disc(s).
You can access individual disc blocks from within BASIC, I wrote a disc editor at the time to do just that.
I'm going to start with this tomorrow and then read my C64 manual to try to find those block copy commands. Will the measly 64K of memory hold the copy/dump though?
In any case, thank you so much!
You'll likely need the 1541 user manual and the command you're looking for is BLOCK-READ. Have fun!
https://www.commodore.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/commodore_vic_1541_floppy_drive_users_manual.pdf
Load the directory first to see if there is a program to run. Load"$",8
Then list it
I think if the first program you wantes to load wasI binary you needed load"*",8,1
LOAD”$”,8gives the same error. I'm pretty sure dad was writing essays and poems, not programs. Is plain text saved in binary format anyway? Or is there another way to list/display text?If it won't load the directory, then the diskette is either corrupted or was never formatted. Text files would have just been a text type file rather than binary, unless he used a special word processor and these are savw file disks in a different format.
If you happen to have a copy of KwikCopy (I think) you can read bytes on the disk by sector. If there is actual ASCII text you will see it show in the hex editor panel.
Thanks! Does this mean, that if there were any
chars / ASCII representable data on the floppies, they would've been displayed by aLOAD"*",8? Some of his floppies clearly say on the labels "letters" or "poems" and such...LOAD"*",8 just loads the first PRG file it finds on the disk, its like a shirt cut to using LOAD"$",8 and the LIST, then typing LOAD"nameoffile",8.
If LOAD"$",8 doesn't find anything it means the directory doesn't have a file listing, so could be damaged or empty.
But, if he was using a word processor (from another disk) then the poetry disk could be a save disk of the word processor and could be in a proprietary format, like one giant database or something that won't show as a regular directory list.
Or there is a slim chance he encrypted the work. I used to have a sentry program you ran first, and gave password before you could read scrambled content. I doubt it was that because we didn't really worry about encryption that much back then, it was more of a fun thing to try
That brings back memories. Dino Eggs, and Satan's Hollow got the most screen time, even though things like Impossible Mission and Beachhead |I were more actoin and actual speech for sounds.
Thanks for all the help! He says he definitely didn't use encryption, but he'll have to ask around among his peers whether they used some an editor or not. I'm starting to give on them though, having tried variant of LOAD and re-initializing the drive between the errors... The cassette tapes work though, amazingly! All these game. I just LOVE the soundtrack!
Yep, tape is still used as major archiving today, it has the best longevity for large amount of data.
The diskettes are possibly toast then, unless you can read the blocks on the disk individually to get info off of them.
The C64 sound chip is pretty amazing it was half a digital chip and half analog. People still buy the old scavanged sound chips for use in modern electronic sound emulators.
LOAD”$”,8
LIST
LOAD”$”,8yields the same error.You might try
OPEN 15,8,15,"I"
https://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=72971
Thanks for looking that up! I'll do this whenever I get such an error. As for now, it didn't help, so I'm still leaning towards it being faulty/dead disks.
They make SD card adapters for the C64 — much easier if you cant get the floppy drive to work. You might search for topics like “1541 drive alignment” and “1541 head clean” on YouTube (or 1581 if it’s that drive model).
The point is that he wants data off those disks. The SD card adapter won't help there.