ScuzzBlog: Diaries August 2019
Entry 27th August 2019: Post 01: C64 - Quick Data Drive.
C64 - Quick Data Drive.
Against better judgement I decided to break my rule about older
kit by risking usage and decided to fire up the Quick Data Drive.
This uses a thin strip of tape running at high speed rather like
the Spectrum Micro Drive or Wafer Drive. The issue is that when
an old drive or tape hasn't been used for a very long time then
one of four things happen in order of probability.
01: The tape mechanism often a rubber band has perished.
02: The tape sticks and snaps.
03: The drive just doesn't work.
04: The drive works or partially works.
And so I connected the C64C and fired the drive up. This is done
in the conventional way as if loading a tape program. Once you
get the Play prompt you simply press the red button on the back
of the unit.
Anyhoo ... the drive kicked in and nothing loaded. So I tried
again. I could hear the tape rewinding and then nothing. So I
took the tape out and opened the slide and could see the tape
had snapped. I had tapped the tape as suggested, many times.
Not wanting to give up I tried the second tape and this time it
found the program but ran out of memory. Odd. Sadly again the
tape snapped. Never mind. Its is a sealed unit so what are you
ever going to do. I have another drive , but I sense that either
the tape perished or possible there are two drive bands in the
machine and only one is working causing the tape to spool out.
I did fire up the C64 with the normal cassette drive and this
worked without fault so there wasn't a memory issue. The moral
here with old kit is if you don't know if it works and you are not
planning on using the kit, it's probably safer to leave well alone.
'Schrodinger's cat'
C64 - Quick Data Drive.
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