Yeah... about the reliability.... There was the top read/write head that had to be levered up and down to get the disk in and out. It was directly connected to the lever on the front. It's "hinge" was the cable bundle to make it work as a read/write head. This cable bundle tended to rip after a few months, whisking the head first out of alignment, and then stopped to work altogether. Happened on both my 1571. I think the second one is still around somewhere...
I also had two 1541s. Ran the second one mostly without top cover for cooling, since it's main problem was the hot power supply in the back.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
