Hallo Claudio, > Recently, clones of the 1581 electronics have surfaced, and I wondered > about how much of the electronics can be put on FPGA/CPLD and what not. Just have a look at the Ultimate1541 and you have your answer: the sky is the limit. Personally I prefer projects without PLDs and/or FPGAs for various reasons: - most of the times it means SMD soldering and pins very very close to eachother - not everybody can program them and most probably the need socket converters - most of the newer CPLDs/FPGAs are non 5 Volt meaning voltage shifters are needed, thus extra parts, etc., etc., etc. > Can the standard PCB of a 1541 be replaced by a newer, designed from > scratch one, while maintaining hardware compatibility, when managing the > drive mechanism? Just two words: why not? Have a look what is needed to turn a 1541 into a much better machine: http://vic-20.de/x1541/hardware/petram.html What about adding 1 MB of SRAM and a SD interface? Load the RAM with the content of a floppy and loading a 200 block from RAM is a matter of seconds. (Sorry, I forgot the board that did that already in the '80s) Board size? when using a 1541, thus not the 1541-II, you have room enough for the extra goodies. -- Kind regards / Met vriendelijke groet, Ruud Baltissen www.Baltissen.orgReceived on 2022-03-22 19:00:03
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