@AndyGER look at sordan.ie either web or ebay. He sells pi1541 minus the Pi Zero, which is easily obtainable. IMHO sd2iec are mostly useless and Pi1541 the most affordable option that works 99% of the time.
@AndyGER i have the very same. Had it for ~4 years and it works great. The Epyx makes loading a breeze. Sometimes it’s incompatible, but then you can unplug the cartridge (power off first!) and drive the Pi via Micro USB.
@root42@AndyGER The modern storage situation is a bit frustrating on the C64. The Atari 8 Bit computers have the SUBcart that's affordable, 100% compatible, fast, feature rich (4MB RAM expansion, RTC, IDE emulation, dual POKEY emulation) and has a very nice UX. The Ultimate 1541 comes closest, but is very expensive and hard to find. All other solutions are incompatible to some degree and often have a terrible UX (PI1541, SD2IEC), are slow (PI1541) and don't support cartdrige images 1/2
@root42@AndyGER that are gaining importance with modern releases. Thankfully most of the C64's software library has been converted to run from generic storage devices, so incompatiblity only really is an issue if you are using the wrong disk images. I don't think the SD2IEC is useless and my choice would be the Kung Fu Flash just because it's so much faster and has a nice UI. 2/2
@ipaschke@AndyGER SD2IEC means you can't run most demos. Which is, at least for me, very important.
The SUBcart you are mentioning: is that the same as AVGCart? That seems to cost around 75 EUR, which is in the order of the Pi1541, and seems to have disadvantages, too: "supports ATR (floppy image) files (read/write) - support is limited without an optional SIO or ECI/PBI cable due to Atari cartridge port constraints (e.g. SW that uses RAM under OS does not work)"
@ipaschke@AndyGER Furthermore the Pi1541 is only slow because it is a cycle accurate emulation of the 1541, which is slow! But the Pi1541 I linked to includes the Epyx Fastload, so that is less of an issue. Modern productions come with their own IRQ Loaders anyway and are not slow anymore, even on original 1541.
@root42@AndyGER My admittedly old Raspi 3 based PI1541 build (latest firmware) can't run many demos because it can't really keep up with the extreme timing constraints on modern demos like Performers: Next Leve for example. It is a bit more stable if you disable GraphIEC, but still can't make it through all 4 sides. That's my biggest frustation with the PI1541. And yes, SubCART is the successor to AVGCART and still needs that cable.
@ipaschke Hm, I use a PiZero on my Pi1541 and have had very little trouble running demos. However I must admit that it sees very little use these days, as I run almost everything from real floppies... But eventually those will run out, so Pi1541 it will be. :)
I will have to test Next Level some time. Only watched it on floppy so far. But even with real floppies the IRQ loaders have issues. Krill's loader used to be a bit picky, producing garbage on some of my wonky drives. He fixed that, though
@root42 Yes, I also use a real 1541 where all else fails.
But to sum up: I would recommend the Kung Fu Flash to anyone starting out. It costs about the same as a Epyx Fastload Reloaded which the KFF can emulate perfectly. If more compatibility is needed, just add a PI1541 later, no money wasted and you can still run those CRT images.
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