Commodore 64 Creative Micro Designs CMD HD-20 For The C64 - Geek With Social Skills

Geek With Social Skills

atarist bbs bulletinboardsystem c128 c64 commodore64 corei64 createmicrodesigns jiffydos jimbrain rabbitholecomputing retroinnovations scsi2sd zuluscsi

description

Let's check out my Commodore 64 Creative Micro Designs CMD HD-20 hard drive, upgrade the ROM IC, install a Zulu SCSI 2 SD adapter and replace the missing rear case enclosure decal. Creative Micro Designs developed and produced C64 and Commodore 128 products from 1990 to around 2001.

CMD hard drives consists of a SCSI adapter designed for the C64 and a then commercially available internal SCSI hard disk in a housing with its own power supply unit, as well as several connections for operation on the C64 / 128 and a SCSI Port for additional SCSI devices.

It works with JiffyDOS, but its speed advantage can only be used if JiffyDOS is installed in the computer's Kernal. Internally it works with the so-called Boot-ROM, which is housed in an EPROM and the HD-DOS in the system partition.

The CMD-HD offers a parallel connection which establishes the connection to a RAMLink and increases the transmission rate even further. As a cable for the parallel connection, those of the external floppies from the Atari-ST fit.

The Commodore floppy drives 1541, 1571, 1581 can be emulated, which are created as partitions on the hard disk. Native partitions can also be created, the size of which can be freely defined by the user in 256 block steps.

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--- Video Index

0:00 - Intro: Creative Micro Designs CMD HD-20 0:51 - General information about the Commodore 64 and C128 Hard Drive 2:22 - CMD HD-20 front panel lights and controls 3:06 - CMD HD-20 rear panel ports: SCSI, Power Switch, Serial ports, Auxiliary, Parallel and Power 4:42 - Bottom of the CMD HD-20 hard drive enclosure 4:58 - Creative Micro Designs, Inc in Longmeadow, MA Model Number, Serial Number and FCC ID decal 5:35 - Innside the CMD HD-20 hard drive, Real Time Clock Battery (RTC) and CMD HD Boot ROM IC 6:37 - Replacing the stock CMD HD Boot ROM with a Retro Innovations v2.80 for larger HD support 7:05 - Installing a ZuliSCSI v2.1 SCSI2SD Hard Drive solution from Rabbit Hole Computing 8:16 - Applying the replacement CMD Hard Drive rear enclosure decal from COREi64 9:29 - Discussing what's been done so far and future plans with my CMD HD-20 9:50 - Talking about reviving by C64 BBS from 1984 that I ran until mid 1990 on my Commodore 64 computer 10:55 - Outro

--- Video Links

RavenWolf Retro Tech Vintage C64 CMD Hard Drive - Lost documentation found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zckiNjudTjM

CMD HDD Schematics: https://archive.org/details/cmd-hdd-schematics

Rabbit Hole Computing - Zulu SCSI V1.1: https://store.rabbitholecomputing.com/ZuluSCSI-V1-1-p/zuluscsi-v1.1-rev-2022c.htm

COREi64 - Commodore CMD HD Reproduction REAR Label: https://corei64.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=353&search=commodore+label

RETRO Innovations - CMD HDD Boot ROM 2.80 Binary Image: https://store.go4retro.com/commodore/cmd-hdd-boot-rom-2-80-binary-image/

Jim Brain - CMD HD DOS 2.80 ROM IC: https://store.go4retro.com/cmd-hd-dos-2-80-rom-ic/

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