Rocking Rust #2 - Using Rust to test Commodore disk drives

Learn how to control vintage Commodore disk drives using modern Rust code. This video demonstrates building a bridge between 2025’s systems programming and 1970s and 1980s hardware using the rs1541 crate and rs1541-cli program.

Rocking Rust #2 - Using Rust to test Commodore disk drives - floppies rock ep15

In this episode, I use Rust-based rs1541 and rs1541cli to test out my newest Commodore 1570 drive, and extend rs1541-cli to implement a bus scanning feature.

Skip ahead to 12:10 and 21:04 if you’re interested in Rust.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
00:37 1570 internal inspection
07:34 Accessing a IEEE-488 drive
10:40 Initial power-on
12:10 Testing with Rust and rs1541
19:03 Testing with a C64
21:04 Accessing 3 drives simultaneously
24:00 Wrap-up

rs1541 source code is here: https://github.com/piersfinlayson/rs1541
The rs1541 crate is here: https://crates.io/crates/rs1541
And Rust docs are here: https://docs.rs/crate/rs1541/latest