Page "Commodore 1541" Paragraph 6

The early ( 1982 – 83 ) 1541s had a spring eject mechanism ( Alps Drive ), and the discs often failed to release.

This style of drive had the popular nickname " Toaster Drive ", because it required the use of a knife or other thin object to pry out the stuck media just like a piece of toast stuck in a real toaster ( though this is inadvisable with real toasters ).

This was fixed later, when Commodore changed the vendor of the drive mechanism ( Mitsumi ) and adopted the flip-level Newtronics mechanism, greatly improving reliability.

In addition, Commodore made the drive's controller board smaller and having a lower chip count than the early 1541s ( which had a large PCB with dozens of TTL chips running the length of the case ).

The gray-case Newtronics 1541 was produced from 1984-86.