The font Commodore used at the time is the reason for this.
I believe the font originally used an "l" for a one. Commodore modified this to have a flag at the top, so that it resembled a typewriter style 1. This way the perephrials would definately start with a number ("fifteen forty-one") instead of a letter ("eye five forty-one").
Why didn't the ending "1" have a flag on it? If you feel the texture of the numbering and the Commodore logo, they are raised and you can see the grooves that make the lettering and numbering look like stainless steel. Not putting the flag on it probably saved Commodore a fraction of a cent per nameplate.
I looked at my 1541s, my 1571s, and my 1581s, and they carried this through. By then it was a distinction that this was a genuine Commodore product.
Curiously enough, this tradition was not kept with the TED series. All 3 of the 1551s I have handy read "l55l" on their faceplates. The box for the Plus/4's joystick reads T-l34l.
But then again, Commodore wasn't known for consistency. By all rights, the C on 64C and the D on 128D should be lower-case, to match the Commodore name on the same tag. Looking at my Plus/4 software collection, I see some titles that are for the "plus/4" and some for the "Plus/4", and one title for the "PLUS/4" (differences in capitalization). The 1541-II should be a 1541-2 as well.
If it helps you sleep better tonight, evey disk drive I have handy, has "1" on the serial tag where a one should be; the serial tags on my 1541s state "1541", not "154l". My 1551s say "1551" on the serial tags as well.
You know it is funny. After 20 years of using C= computers, I never noticed that. In fact, I have a 1581 sitting right next to me and it even says 158I. I am surprised nobody has ever mentioned that to me before. I'm surprised I didn't hear people going around calling drives one-fifty-four-i or something.
David Murray wrote: > You know it is funny. After 20 years of using C= computers, I never > noticed that. In fact, I have a 1581 sitting right next to me and it > even says 158I. I am surprised nobody has ever mentioned that to me > before. I'm surprised I didn't hear people going around calling drives > one-fifty-four-i or something.
heh, I read it and looked around and saw 157I, SFD100I.... and 1541-II :) So I guess they broke the tradition after all......... :)
David Murray wrote: > You know it is funny. After 20 years of using C= computers, I never > noticed that. In fact, I have a 1581 sitting right next to me and it > even says 158I. I am surprised nobody has ever mentioned that to me > before. I'm surprised I didn't hear people going around calling drives > one-fifty-four-i or something.
On German ebay, they sell e.g. Commondore 1280 all the time! I can somewhat understand where the 1280 comes from, but why Commondore?
I remember seeing an Ebay listing last summer where the seller had an "eye five fourty one" (I541) disk drive for sale. I've also seen "twelve eighty" (1280) and "twelve eight oh" (128O) computers listed. That's why I jumped on this thread so quickly, it irritated me that people can't read what's clearly on the nameplate.
But as I wrote the message yesterday, I realized that the nameplates themselves don't match the serial tags. It wasn't until I specifically looked at my "fifteen fifty-ones" that I noticed the lack of consistency there!
Nicolas Welte <welte_s...@freenet.de> writes: > On German ebay, they sell e.g. Commondore 1280 all the time!
If I got one penny for each misspelled Commodore, I'd be a rich man. Commondore, Commadore.. in light of recent events I searched and even found relevant references to Condomore.
<doctorduc...@gmail.com> wrote: >The font Commodore used at the time is the reason for this.
>I believe the font originally used an "l" for a one. Commodore modified >this to have a flag at the top, so that it resembled a typewriter style >1. This way the perephrials would definately start with a number >("fifteen forty-one") instead of a letter ("eye five forty-one").
>Why didn't the ending "1" have a flag on it? If you feel the texture of >the numbering and the Commodore logo, they are raised and you can see >the grooves that make the lettering and numbering look like stainless >steel. Not putting the flag on it probably saved Commodore a fraction >of a cent per nameplate.
>I looked at my 1541s, my 1571s, and my 1581s, and they carried this >through. By then it was a distinction that this was a genuine Commodore >product.
>Curiously enough, this tradition was not kept with the TED series. All >3 of the 1551s I have handy read "l55l" on their faceplates. The box >for the Plus/4's joystick reads T-l34l.
>But then again, Commodore wasn't known for consistency. By all rights, >the C on 64C and the D on 128D should be lower-case, to match the >Commodore name on the same tag. Looking at my Plus/4 software >collection, I see some titles that are for the "plus/4" and some for >the "Plus/4", and one title for the "PLUS/4" (differences in >capitalization). The 1541-II should be a 1541-2 as well.
>If it helps you sleep better tonight, evey disk drive I have handy, has >"1" on the serial tag where a one should be; the serial tags on my >1541s state "1541", not "154l". My 1551s say "1551" on the serial tags >as well.
maybe the started out in arabic and ened in roman? IE the drive was really a 154 I but then that doesn't work out as the 1541-II should have been 154II WEG Regards Casca
