In a fresh episode of Retro Tech Insanity, the Commodore 128D gets an Internal Pi1541 Upgrade. This rebuild comes after the original 1571 was removed to make room for earlier mods. Now the system regains a drive, but with modern features and cleaner operation.
Better Controls with OLED + Rotary Encoder
To make the most of the Internal Pi1541 Upgrade, this setup adds a 1306 OLED display and KY040 rotary encoder. These parts make file browsing far easier, letting users scroll and select images without relying solely on software menus. The OLED connects to the Raspberry Pi’s I2C pins—pins 3 and 5 for data, with 3.3V power from pin 17. The encoder uses GPIO pins 13, 15, and 16 for inputs, and taps into 5V power from anywhere convenient.
Based on Stephen White’s Option B Design
The Internal Pi1541 Upgrade is built around Stephen White’s “Option B” design. His Pi1541 firmware makes the Raspberry Pi behave almost identically to a real 1541 drive, supporting fast loaders and accurate IEC bus emulation. His work can be found at cbm-pi1541.firebaseapp.com.
Full build instructions for the internal interface are available on GitHub:
https://github.com/insanity213/C128-Internal-Pi1541-Interface
