Yes, a Commodore video: contrary to popular opinion this isn’t purely a Sinclair channel. This is a quick look at the C64C styled SD2IEC, a new version of the SD card disk drive emulator for Commodore 8-bit machines, housed in a tiny 1541 style case. I compare it with my original SD2IEC and explain what’s changed, then cover the one thing every SD2IEC owner runs into: speed. Big thanks to Nick at sd2iec.co.uk, who sent me this unit for review.
What does an SD2IEC do?
My wife bought me the original SD2IEC from sd2iec.co.uk for my birthday the October before this video, and I love it. It gives you SD card based storage that emulates a disk drive on Commodore 8-bit hardware. You put an SD card in the slot, plug the DIN lead into the drive’s serial port and the other lead into the cassette port, which is only used to draw power. From there you can browse and mount disk images and run programs. It has reset and disk change buttons too. There is a bit of command syntax to learn, but it’s almost that simple.
The new C64C style SD2IEC
When I contacted Nick he told me about a new version that would be exclusive to him. Functionally it’s the same device, but it’s much, much smaller and far more stylish, styled after the C64C with a little Commodore logo on the front. Hold the two side by side and the size difference is massive.
The changes that matter are underneath:
- The PCB has been completely redesigned to remove functions that people didn’t really use on the original board.
- The old flat multi-core cable felt fairly fragile by comparison; the new one is a round cable that feels much more durable.
- The cable fits snugly into the strain relief of the DIN plug, and the power lead now loops out of the DIN connector so it takes advantage of that strain relief too.
- The power connector is filled with resin that sets solid and gives the cable something to grip. On my original unit it wasn’t filled.
A C64 breadbin styled version was also on the way at the time. And yes, I use a 512MB card in mine purely because its colour reminds me of a retro double density floppy.
Why is the SD2IEC slow, and how do you speed it up?
The SD2IEC emulates the 1541 disk drive really accurately, which is both good and bad. Good, because lots of disk images work brilliantly. Bad, because the real 1541 is slow: the bottleneck is the C64’s serial I/O, which is partly handled in software. So loading from SD runs at pretty much real disk speed.
There are two ways around it. You can install JiffyDOS in your C64, which means getting hold of the ROMs and fitting them in the physical machine. Or you can use SJLOAD, a software version of JiffyDOS that you load first, and then load a file browser on top so you can pick files from a menu. That gets you into the browser with about two lines of typing. There are caveats and not everything works, but when it does it loads images about six times faster than the original drive: a game in under a minute rather than around four.
Verdict
Both units do the same job, but the C64C style SD2IEC is better built where it counts (cable and strain relief) and just so much cooler to have next to the machine. Nick let me know on Twitter that they were available to buy from sd2iec.co.uk.
Related
Later I put the SD2IEC to work in an Epyx FastLoad build with an SD2IEC speed test. For other C64 storage options, see my Kung Fu Flash review and building a Tapuino virtual datasette, and the C64 and C128 disk commands reference guide helps with the command syntax.
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