Recently I bought a CBM 8050 dual floppy drive from eBay. It came at a good price, but it was listed as “untested. for spares or repair”. So in this video we’re going to inspect it, give it a good clean, and see if we can make it work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 8050 is an example of “intelligent” disk drives from the Commodore era. Instead of being controlled from the computer through a drive controller card, this drive has its own complete internal computer. In fact it has more computing power than the PET it connects to – there are two MOS 6502 CPUs inside it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s also made from 18 gauge steel, and is very heavy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n