Commodore 1540

The VC1540 is a 5.25-inch floppy disk drive for the home computer Commodore VIC-20. Along with this, it was the first computer system with floppy for less than $ 1,000. The floppy was first delivered November 1980. The then German introductory price was DM 1898.00 (approx. EUR 970.00 ). The VC 1540 is the German version of the American VIC 1540.

The 1540 has only one read-write head and can therefore describe disks only on one side. The capacity is 166 KB.

Disks that have been sold as one-sided writeable were also coated on the back with a magnetizable surface. One could therefore such disks the wrong way put in the drive and describe further 166 KB. For this purpose, however, it was necessary to cut a small notch in the disk to disable the write protection. Trading sold for matching punch devices, so-called floppy punch.

Like most floppy drives Commodore is the 1540 stand-alone computer with integrated Commodore DOS.

The 1540 was the predecessor of the imaginary for the C64 VC1541. Indeed, were the first in 1541 ( the so-called " long board" ) is nothing more than 1540 slightly modified DOS.