#1541
>> I just can't imagine that such a drive can't be produced for a ridiculous
amount of money…
Let me see. You have two negatives in there, and I'm not sure whether you
are saying ridiculously-high or ridiculously-low …
Several third-party vendors made 1541 clones until Commodore squashed them.
Keep in mind that the 1541 has quite a bit of RAM and logic inside, all of
which adds to the manufacturing cost. It's still hard to convince
non-Commodore types that you can plug a drive or two into your 64K machine, and
still have 64K of memory available in your computer.
A 1541-style machine just needs extra stuff inside, which make it non
industry standard and increase the price. It was intersting to see that the
C65 was claimed to be able to interface with "industry standard" drives, both
floppy and HD.
–Jim