What is ready

The 1541 disk drive: a disk image goes in drive 8, and the C64's own LOAD, SAVE and VERIFY, the directory, files opened by name and the drive's command channel all work through it, at a real 1541's pace or faster. The drive is rebuilt as the real one is, a computer of its own with its own processor and its own DOS (ours, NexusROM+ 1541), the disk turning under its head; on that drive, loading, saving, the directory, the drive's messages and its disk commands (formatting a disk, scratching, renaming and copying files) all work. Disk images: .d64, and .g64, which keeps a disk exactly as it is.

The Datassette is built: a .TAP tape plays into the C64 pulse by pulse as a real deck plays a cassette, and the C64's own LOAD, SAVE, VERIFY and tape data files work with it, in the C64's own tape format. PRESS PLAY ON TAPE, FOUND, LOADING: it takes as long as it did. Turbo tapes, the ones that load their own fast loader first, load too, as quickly as they did. Both are tested at every build.

Putting in a disk or a tape

Under the C64's screen, beside Drive 8, press Put in a disk, a tape or a cartridge and choose the file, or drop the file on the screen. A disk (.d64 or .g64) goes in drive 8; a tape (.tap) in the Datassette; a cartridge (.crt) in the expansion port, and the C64 starts again with it. A file that is none of these is refused, and the page says why.

• The disk. The drive switches on with the first disk, as you would switch on a real one: its light comes on as it reads. Take the disk out empties the drive; put another one in to swap. Write protect covers the disk's notch, so nothing can be written to it (the drive answers 26, WRITE PROTECT ON). Save the disk gives you the disk back as a file, with everything the C64 wrote on it.
• The tape. Type LOAD and RETURN, then press PLAY. To save to tape, put in A blank tape, press RECORD, then SAVE"NAME",1. STOP and REWIND do what they did on the deck. Save the tape gives you the tape back as a .tap file.
• Switching the C64 off and on keeps the disk and the tape in.

Typing it in

LOAD"$",8          the directory of the disk in drive 8
LIST               shows it
LOAD"NAME",8       a BASIC program
LOAD"NAME",8,1     a program that loads where it was saved (most games)
RUN

The drive's own messages: OPEN 15,8,15 then INPUT#15,A,B$,C,D gives the number, the message, the track and the sector, as 00, OK,00,00, or 62, FILE NOT FOUND,00,00 for a name the disk does not have.

What this chapter will cover

RUN IT from a title in the Software Library; putting a floppy in the disk box; programs that come on more than one disk.