I think tech progress was so fast at the time that customers were used to that. Commodore’s design was newer, so of course it was better.
Also, they got more capacity, but did they also get at least the same speed and reliability?
Also, they got more capacity, but did they also get at least the same speed and reliability?
1541 was horribly slow because the marketing people wanted it to be backwards compatible with VIC-20, and the serial protocol used by the VIC-20 was very slow because of a timing bug found at the last minute. It was possible to multiply the default speed by an order of magnitude or more using custom firmware, but stock software was almost slower than using a cassette tape.
Finding primary sources while on my phone is difficult, but there’s some discussion here that would probably point you to a primary source. (Bill Herd and other have spoken about it in panels at various VCF gatherings.)
> It also had something to do with a board screw hole. Iirc, the pcb already had a screwhole where the traces should be. Robert Russell was the engineer who designed those IEC traces and so when he found out about it, he was pretty much upset, but it was too late, they already modified thousands of boards.