It uses a wide-case form, and uses the parallel IEEE-488 interface common to Commodore PET/CBM computers.

These drive models use a single-density, single-side floppy data storage format similar to that used by the Commodore 1540 & 1541 drives, but with a slightly different data marker indicating which model formatted the disk.

The Group Coded Recording (GCR) scheme of binary encoding is used to store data on the magnetic disk medium.

The drive also uses variable bit-clock to enable increased data density on a standard single-density floppy disk.

It is a form of constant bit-density recording done by gradually increasing the clock rate (zone constant angular velocity, ZCAV) and storing more physical sectors on the outer tracks than on the inner ones (zone bit recording, ZBR).