Anyone get their 1541Ultimate-II for C64?

[+eebuckeye]

I heard some shipped and would like to know how people liked them, etc...

 

Thanks!

[+wood_jl]

I have one but have not tried it yet.

[98PaceCar]

I got my 1541u-2 last week and love it. I've had 2 others previously, the very first batch and the first run of ethernet enabled ones. It's a must have for Commodore owners.

 

I do wish the newest version was a bit more stable, but Gideon always gets to that point so I'm not too worried about the few nagging issues it has (I need my Jiffydos!).

[ApolloBoy]

I finally got my preorder from December filled and I'll have to wait until September or October to get mine.

[+remowilliams]

I got my 1541u-2 last week and love it. I've had 2 others previously, the very first batch and the first run of ethernet enabled ones. It's a must have for Commodore owners.

 

Same here, have 2 previous 1541Us and received my II last week. It's a thing of beauty! The II should be able to do Jiffy custom rom now, no? Haven't tried it myself yet though.

 

Hmm... maybe I should sell one of the 1541Us now that I think about it.

[98PaceCar]

Same here, have 2 previous 1541Us and received my II last week. It's a thing of beauty! The II should be able to do Jiffy custom rom now, no? Haven't tried it myself yet though.

 

Hmm... maybe I should sell one of the 1541Us now that I think about it.

 

There appears to be a bug in the routine to use a custom 1541.rom file. Not a huge deal, but a temporary annoyance.

 

I've thought about selling one of mine as well. They seem to hold their value pretty well. Just not sure which one I'd let go!

[Hatta]

I thought the 2.0RC5 update fixed the custom rom bug. I haven't had a chance to try it out myself yet though. I did play with it last week, before the update was released but was too afraid to do much testing with a known bricking bug in the firmware.

 

I know these things will run .d64 images and .prg files. Will they run .crt images as well? There are so many features on this thing it's pretty confusing.

[+remowilliams]

I thought the 2.0RC5 update fixed the custom rom bug.

I just tried it with 2.0RC5 and it doesn't seem to be loading 1541.rom from the root of the sd when custom is selected.

[Hatta]

Oh, good to know then. At least it's not bricking them anymore, heh.

[Mirage]

I got mine last week but have only gotten about an hour to play with it. Pretty awesome, can't wait to dig into it more. Picking up a larger microSD this weekend to load it up!

[Ze_ro]

I have one of the original 1541 Ultimates, and I love it to death. I never really saw the benefit of the II aside from having an actual casing. The move to microSD especially disappointed me, as it seemed rather pointless.

 

--Zero

[Mirage]

I have one of the original 1541 Ultimates, and I love it to death. I never really saw the benefit of the II aside from having an actual casing. The move to microSD especially disappointed me, as it seemed rather pointless.

 

--Zero

 

The way I understand it, that was largely part of making it smaller to fit into the standard(-ish) cart case. There were a couple other advantages to the II, but I can't recall what they are since I never had a U-1. I don't mind the microSD too much, other than they're a bit more pricey.

[+remowilliams]

I have one of the original 1541 Ultimates, and I love it to death. I never really saw the benefit of the II aside from having an actual casing. The move to microSD especially disappointed me, as it seemed rather pointless.

 

I wasn't thrilled with the move to microSD as I'm always afraid I'll break the slots on those things, but it makes sense from a board design perspective.

 

As for the II itself, I believe it has a much larger FPGA onboard which could allow it to have extended capabilities over the original units if developed.

 

Heck just getting a II for a proper case is worth it. Lorianos cases were an amazing job, but for the price I could just about get a whole new II with a case.

[Ze_ro]

As for the II itself, I believe it has a much larger FPGA onboard which could allow it to have extended capabilities over the original units if developed.

What exactly was the point of this? Were there any freezer cartridges that were too complex to be done on the original 1541U? At the time I had heard some rumours that the extra space was going to be for SuperCPU emulation, but I was (and still am) very sceptical about that.

 

--Zero

[Mirage]

I read somewhere that SuperCPU emulation was NOT going to happen... IIRC, that was from Gideon himself. It would have been on the official forums I would have read that, and I'm about 99% that's what I read.

 

What WAS the point of the larger FPGA though, I'm not sure.

[spaceman]

Does anyone know if this would work on a C128D? Is it easy to navigate and run your games images on this? IS it overkill just for games? I don't want a PC to be connected at the same time, so this seems ideal. Does it makes game load faster or is it emulating at the same speed as a normal drive? If I place an order now, how long do you guys things it takes to get it delivered? Thanks everyone, this look awesome, but I just want to get some user feedback before spending $200+.

[Hatta]

I use my 1541 on a C128, I know others use theirs on a 128D. All the freezer cartridges built in seem to work find, they dump you right into 64 mode so you don't have to hold the C= key. Disable the freezer cartridges and you can use it from 128 mode.

 

I don't think it's overkill just for playing games. It makes it a lot more convenient than dumping disks over an x1541 or something. The 1541U menu is *very* easy to work with. There's even a "mount & run" option which will start a program without even having to 'load "*",8,1'.

 

Now the 1541 is emulated exactly, so you don't get any speed increase in a lot of cases. However, it does support fast loaders, which competing products don't. Also, I believe it supports DMA loading of PRG files, putting them directly into memory without mounting the disk. So that's a bit faster.

 

As for ordering, the first batch of U2s have sold out. He's not accepting payments for a new batch yet, and it's very hard to get a solid date for shipping. There are bugs that still need to be ironed out in the firmware, so it may be a while before he gets the next batch in production. It is just one guy doing the entire project, so you have to be a bit flexible. Keep an eye on the 1541U website, eventually there will be another batch. Pay as soon as you can, and exercise patience.

[Ze_ro]

Also, I believe it supports DMA loading of PRG files, putting them directly into memory without mounting the disk. So that's a bit faster.

Tape files also load super fast. So, even though the device is a 1541 emulator, you're actually better off using PRG, P00, or T64 files when it's an option... not only do they load faster, but they take up less space on your SD card.

 

--Zero

[Hatta]

Tape files also load super fast. So, even though the device is a 1541 emulator, you're actually better off using PRG, P00, or T64 files when it's an option... not only do they load faster, but they take up less space on your SD card.

 

--Zero

 

Yeah, despite that there are folks on the 1541U forums who want a cable so they can load files over the tape port. As if the 1541 weren't slow enough, heh.

[spaceman]

I use my 1541 on a C128, I know others use theirs on a 128D. All the freezer cartridges built in seem to work find, they dump you right into 64 mode so you don't have to hold the C= key. Disable the freezer cartridges and you can use it from 128 mode.

 

I don't think it's overkill just for playing games. It makes it a lot more convenient than dumping disks over an x1541 or something. The 1541U menu is *very* easy to work with. There's even a "mount & run" option which will start a program without even having to 'load "*",8,1'.

 

Now the 1541 is emulated exactly, so you don't get any speed increase in a lot of cases. However, it does support fast loaders, which competing products don't. Also, I believe it supports DMA loading of PRG files, putting them directly into memory without mounting the disk. So that's a bit faster.

 

As for ordering, the first batch of U2s have sold out. He's not accepting payments for a new batch yet, and it's very hard to get a solid date for shipping. There are bugs that still need to be ironed out in the firmware, so it may be a while before he gets the next batch in production. It is just one guy doing the entire project, so you have to be a bit flexible. Keep an eye on the 1541U website, eventually there will be another batch. Pay as soon as you can, and exercise patience.

 

 

Thanks a lot for your response! This has covered a lot of things I was pondering and will must likely pick it up now. It's just a bit annoying to have to pay so much ahead of time. Any issues with PAL/NTSC system and roms around?

[Hatta]

PAL/NTSC hasn't been an issue for me. It ships with ROMs for Retro Replay/Action Replay/ Final Cartridge 3/ Super Snapshot and possibly some others. There are both NTSC and PAL versions of those ROMs on the cart.

 

For disk images, you just need to have the right disk image for your region. The 1541U doesn't care either way.

[Hatta]

Ordering on these has reopened. If you missed the first batch, now's your chance. He wants orders done by the end of October. With luck he might even get these out by Christmas. Most of the hard work (designing hardware, debugging firmware) is done, so I'd expect more attention given to customer service now.