Introduction
The 1541 was priced at under US$400 at its introduction. A C64 plus a 1541 cost about $900, while an Apple II with no disk drive cost $1,295. The first 1541 drives produced in 1982 … See more

Hardware
The 1541 does not have DIP switches to change the device number. If a user adds more than one drive … See more

The 1541 drive uses standard 5¼-inch double-density floppy media; high-density media will not work due to its different magnetic coating requiring a higher magnetic coercivity. As the GCR encoding scheme does not use the index hole, the drive was also … See more

• CBM (1982). VIC-1541 Single Drive Floppy Disk User's Manual. 2nd ed. Commodore Business Machines, Inc. P/N 1540031-02.
• Neufeld, Gerald G. (1985). 1541 User's Guide. … See more

IEEE Spectrum in 1985 stated that:
The one major flaw of the C-64 is not in the machine itself, but in its disk drive. With a reasonably fast disk drive and an adequate disk … See more

Early copy protection schemes deliberately introduce read errors on the disk, the software refusing to load unless the correct error … See more

• Commodore 64
• Commodore 64 peripherals
• 1541 Ultimate See more