Tired of having to use an archaic Parallel port to connect your PC to your C64 drive?
Don’t want to buy expensive hardware like the u1541, or other memory card solutions?
Want to backup your diskettes with your modern day computer without the hassles involved with stuff like TPC64?
Fear ye not, my friend, a solution is in the works! Actually, currently in alpha stage.
Not long ago I was alerted about xu1541 by Mr. Animal Style, and I was wondering, “why is it that nobody took over this idea and continued it?”. Obviously, someone was on the subject.
Nate Lawson of the Root Labs has taken the xu1541 and improved upon it, creating the xum1541 (pronounced zoom 1541), a USB interface to connect your IEC bus disk device to your modern day computer.
High speed, and supporting parallel cables too, this device will be running easily with the OpenCBM software, and also will support Nibtools (for copying copy protected software)
Best part of this whole deal? The schematics will be free, of course, and it seems this will possibly cost under 40 dollars to build (not bad considering you need a hardware USB controller, based on an Atmel chip… This is not just a cable).
Watch it in action!: (more…)