Commodore 1570

The Commodore 1570 is a 5¼" floppy disk drive for the Commodore 128 home/personal computer. It is a single-sided, 170 kB version of the Commodore 1571, released as a stopgap measure when Commodore International was unable to provide sufficient quantities of 1571s due to a shortage of double-sided drive mechanisms (which were supplied by an outside manufacturer). Like the 1571, it can read and write both GCR and MFM disk formats. The 1570 utilizes a 1571 logic board in a cream-colored original-1541-like case with a drive mechanism similar to the 1541's except that it was equipped with track-zero detection. Like the 1571, its built-in DOS provides a data burst mode for transferring data to the C128 computer at a faster speed than a 1541 can. Its ROM also contains some DOS bug fixes that didn't appear in the 1571 until much later. The 1570 can read and write all single-sided CP/M-format disks that the 1571 can access.

Commodore 1570

Commodore 1570 floppy drive
Manufacturer	Commodore Business Machines, Inc.
Type	Floppy drive
Media	5¼" floppy disk SS DD using GCR or MFM
Operating system	CBM DOS v3.0
CPU	MOS 6502 @ 1-2 MHz, WD1770
Memory	2 kB RAM 32 kB ROM
Storage	170 kB (GCR) ; 200 kB (MFM)
Connectivity	Commodore proprietary serial IEEE-488 5200 bytes/s
Backward compatibility	Commodore 64, Commodore 128
Predecessor	Commodore 1541
Successor	Commodore 1571

Although the 1570 is compatible with the Commodore 64, the C64 isn't capable of taking advantage of the drive's higher-speed operation, and when used with the C64 it is little more than a pricier 1541. Also, many early buyers of the C128 chose to temporarily make do with a 1541 drive, perhaps owned as part of a previous C64 setup, until the 1571 became more widely available.

The drive uses the CPU MOS 6502, floppy controller WD1770 or WD1772, I/O controllers 2x MOS Technology 6522 and 1x MOS Technology 6526.