Commodore 64 floppy drive has the power to be a computer — bulky 1982 Commodore 1541 5.25 inch drive packs a 1 MHz MOS 6502 CPU

Commodore 1541 floppy disk electronics used as a computer.

The Commodore History channel on YouTube has confirmed that the Commodore 1541 floppy disk drives electronics are powerful and capable enough to work as a standalone computer. This 1982 vintage peripheral, designed to add a 5.25-inch floppy disc to the equally ancient Commodore 64, actually has its own processor, RAM, ROM and I/O.

There’s a 1 MHz MOS 6502 in the floppy drive electronics, which is closely related to the C64’s MOS 6510, and exactly the same processor as in the VIC-20. However, Dave from the Commodore History channel did his work with minimal hardware modding, so the resulting ‘1541 computer’ ended up being rather limited.