1541 Ultimate 2

[Harrison]

That does look good.

So this is basically a floppy drive emulation system, allowing you to put a load of disk images onto a memory card and load them up so the C64 thinks it is booking a real disk?

Is it a better solution that previous memory card hardware that has been produced for the C64? I've read in various places of incompatibility with many software titles with other units.

[Buleste]

As it emulates a 1541 it has more compatibility than other systems like the MMC replay etc. It's still not 100% and multiple disk games can still have issues but it's as good as you can get.

[Harrison]

So it is more compatible with multi disk games that other solutions? I remember reading that everyone was having problems with the other systems for this.

I also read that you can select the disk images either from a ui or directly on the unit using built in buttons to swap disk images during a game. Is that true, and how does it allow you to navigate the images directly? Does something appear on screen?

Devices like this make is very tempting to buy a C64 as it makes the whole system much more compact and easier to use for a bit of retro gaming.

[Buleste]

If you remember old C64 Action Replay carts you had 2 buttons. A Freeze and a reset. The U1541-II has a third menu button which brings up a menu allowing you to access disk images. Other sdhc card devices didn't allow you to do disk swaps although I think the 1541-III did I'm not entirely sure. You can also use cart files that have been converted to .bin so you can use action replay images and also some cart games. With the USB post you can plug in a USB Ethernet stick and also connect to the net (although I'm not entirely sure how fully this is implemented yet). If you want you can also plug in speakers and have the U1541-II make all the noises a 1541 would including some of the music.

Word of warning. This is a one man operation and whilst Gideon does his best it does take a while for him to complete his orders. SO if you want one order one now and shop around for C64's as it'll take at least 1 month for you U1541-II to come through.

[Demon Cleaner]

Other sdhc card devices didn't allow you to do disk swaps although I think the 1541-III did I'm not entirely sure.

The 1541-III indeed can, I have one of these. It has a display, where you can see which file is accessed, and when asked, you can just swap the disk image via buttons next to the screen.

[Harrison]

So which is actually better? The 1541-III or this new 1541 Ultimate 2.

And how to the features of the 2 compare? With the 1541-III having a built in LCD does that give it an advantage?

BTW, isn't there also a similar floppy drive emulation system released for the Amiga? I seem to remember reading something about this, with A600 users utilising this to gain the space from the floppy drive to fit the Scan doubler inside.

[Demon Cleaner]

I would need to have a 1541 Ultimate 2 to compare both, as I don't also exactly know which features it has.

Here's a link to the 1541-III thread.

Features of the LCD screen:

- card initialisation information
- number of files inside the current (sub)directory
- index number and name of selected image file
- file information and details during browsing with buttons
- progressbar (usefull to see how long it takes, when loading)
- error, device, track and sector
- mode of operation (Hard-disk mode, D64-mode)