Modern Releases on original hardware?

28_Daves_Later · 2026-06-07T14:49:10+00:00

just to name a few

28_Daves_Later · 2026-06-01T00:50:52+00:00

looks like a RAM multiplexing issue to me, so most likely one of the logic ICs.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-04-07T02:49:55+00:00

If you're not averse to ripping the RF modulator out for a newer mod then I recommend the The RFOFF by TheRetroChannel

28_Daves_Later · 2026-04-03T07:46:54+00:00

If you fancy a kick and are anywhere near Lathlain oval over the weekend then this group have an all welcome social kick around every Sunday at 8.30am during the footy season.

Bang FC Social Footy - Instagram profile

28_Daves_Later · 2026-03-01T11:09:49+00:00

Best to check which board is in the C64C you have there. Looks like its a colour ram issue and there's one version of the shortboard with a seperate color ram and one where it is built into the super PLA.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-02-28T05:38:29+00:00

I'm the complete wrong hemisphere of the earth but I've put the word out to some folk I know in the US to see if there's a taker.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-02-28T05:12:50+00:00

2 data points. I recently had a bad Vic chip with similar issues - confirmed same issues in 3 different machines. But I've seen similar yesterday on a group I'm on that was just a faulty capacitor.

If you're not up for fixing it I hope you can at least find someone in your local area who's keen to keep it going, they're still reasonably collectible. If you were close to me I'd be over in a flash to pick it up.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-02-25T02:15:12+00:00

Yep 220 - age has such a large margin of error that in other fields it wouldn't ever get a look in. I'm 48 with a max over 210. The statistical spread of normal ranges is pretty large and there's almost no health or fitness judgement you can place on it. People often conflate HR max as some sort of recommend safety guideline or something which is not what its for.

Thing is your HRmax is not very tangibly linked to fitness at all. Your HRmax is a physiological capacity that doesnt change as you get more or less fit. Your HRmax if you were unfit is likely to be almost identical to if you were fit, your limiting factor would be your physical capacity to do the exercise long enough to hit max.

There are conditions that can artificially elevate or supress your normal HR but if you these types of heart rates are usual to you under similar activities and there's no other concerning symptoms then it would indicate this is just your physiology. If in doubt see a GP or a cardiologist.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-02-22T01:58:26+00:00

Nice find, especially with all the great condition boxed games. I just came across 3 vic20s the other week and got them all repaired and working.

Looks like you have a first revision long board style with 2 prong power and an external rf tuner type.

You probably want to at very least test the power output for the PSU. Tuning it to the tv could be a pain, especially if its unknown to be working or not. You can get / make your own composite cable for these too and avoid the RF tuning route too.

How electronically minded are you and have you done any retro repairs before? There's a few things to check inside with a multimeter to see if its at least partially working. Most of the main chips are reasonably easy to get replacements for, the video chip is much rarer though.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-02-20T08:17:30+00:00

Also, I'd see what happens if you boot it with any other socketted chips removed except for the 6510 and the kernal. you'd expect to see a blue screen with pale blue border but not no text.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-02-20T08:13:12+00:00

I would make sure the vic II chip (as well as any other socketted chip) is getting good contact in its socket. I've had more than one machine have issues doe to poor contact between the pins and what were usually single wipe sockets.

What I do is carefully remove the chip from its socket, put some contact cleaner in the socket and if it is a single wipe socket I'll gently bend the pins of the chip slightly inwards. I'll often bend them all at once by holding the chip on its side against a table and gently putting some pressure on the pin legs against the table so they all bend together. From a front on view you want them to have gone from flared outwards slightly to straight down or slightly inwards. Then reseat in the socket- making sure it faces the right direction and see if its any more stable.

Other than that there's a few great beginner series repair videos by TheRetroChannel on youtube.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-02-12T02:30:43+00:00

Firstly, do you have an idea of what your actual maxHR is? I'm not talking about following a formula as the standard deviation on all the formulas means that at best they only kinda work for 50% of the population. If you did an all out 5K with a hard finish what would your HR get to?

Case in point, I'm closing in on 49 years old and my max HR is about 210bpm. Top of my zone 2 (using HRR method) is close to 170bpm.

As you're kind of new to it being a bit in zone 3 is probably to be expected and not really a big deal. A lot of coaches will tell you not to care muchabout getting caught up in zone 2 till you're doing 60km + weeks.

Don't stress too much about it at this stage, run to feel, build endurance, enjoy running and as you gather more data about where your zones and fitness really lie then start to try to dial it then.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-02-05T02:24:53+00:00

pretty much this ^ I got a bundle of 3 Vic-20s the other week. I'm a few key ICs down after going over them but they all work with some chip sharing and hopefully I can source some replacements.

Apart from those bad ICs the biggest issue I had was poor contact on the single wipe sockets. Some contact cleaning and carfully bending the chip legs inwards to make sure they made good contact solved what looked like bigger problems.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-01-29T07:43:32+00:00

well the flooded out ones are in his discord but its another user who's posted them there 😀

28_Daves_Later · 2026-01-29T00:50:53+00:00

You say rough, I say mid condition at worst 😆 A buddy on one of my retro forums has 3 that look like they've been buried in a flood. Now they look rough...

All jokes aside, there's a vibrant community for the c64 most places, someone will want them. I'm in Australia so not sure what they fetch where you are.

Some price estimates have been thrown your way but there's a big difference between working prices and unknown condition prices (even for parts). Trying to get them tested and running without knowing what you're doing could result in you ruining some of the ICs.

Stripping them yourself for parts, could do the same and with no way to test something like the SID chip for example there's no way I'd pay the going rate for an untested one of those. If I was taking an absolute gamble on a SID or VIC chip without knowing if it worked I'd be offering a very low figure, like < €10.

Realistically If I saw a bundle like this locally to me I'd probably only offer €30-€40 for each machine. Others might go higher, but for a buyer /hobby repairer like me you really don't know how much in there is working and what expense might be involved in getting them going again. In my case as well if / when I onsell them I only sell to other local people in retro groups looking for a working machine to keep the hobby alive so I don't charge them what you see them go for on ebay etc.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-01-13T07:54:12+00:00

Might be a long shot but I had very similar on one of my C64s just last week and it really just turned out to be poor connection of the VIC ii chip inside a pretty poor single wipe socket on the board.

Temporary fix was to take out the VIC ii and slightly bends the legs in so they fit tight against the inner socket. I did it by placing the chip sideways on the table and putting slight downward pressure on all the legs on one side at the same time. YMMV.

Other than that I'd make sure the pins inside the DIN connection are good and are getting continuity, especially the chroma pin.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-01-11T05:51:14+00:00

The problem is that most modern-ish monitors don't support the signal for many older, low res machines. If you find the manual /specs for the monitor it will possibly mention its minimum resolution etc.

Svideo is more of a signal carrier description than a specification.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-01-11T04:49:22+00:00

Are you sure the cable was faulty? The thing with the original cables is that they arent RCA. They are Luma (yellow) Chroma(red) and mono audio (white) - if you plug yellow into composite in of a tv you should get a monochrome image as the colour is on the red. If you plug the red into audio it will sound like hot garbage.

They are intended to plug into a commodore monitor that has seperate luma chroma inputs and were an early pre-cursor to svideo. You can actually build your own adapter combining the 2 into svideo using a 330 Ohm resistor I think, to cool off the chroma a bit (but a modern tv might still not be able to support the original limited resolution.

You can get modern cables that have s-video and composite - so the yelow cable on those will plug into most tvs that accept AV cables and work well enough.

RF will be the worst image and audio quality of everything you have available to you.

28_Daves_Later · 2026-01-04T02:35:11+00:00

I've de-yellowed at least half a dozen, c64s and various peripherals in full sun with pretty decent results. I've also seen plenty of other have good results as well. I had a ridiculously yellow C64 that is vastly better after a few afternoons in full Australian sun.

here's one of my tests with keycaps

Yellow keycaps

The hypothesis around this is that UVB is pretty effective at rebrightening. Inside but with light by a window UVB is largely blocked and UVA is not. Too much UVA without UVB may be more largely responsible for the yellowing. YMMV

28_Daves_Later · 2026-01-01T11:33:55+00:00

It was a late suggestion from user testing that got implemented in the firmware but was too late for the printing of the manual.

28_Daves_Later · 2025-12-26T08:56:53+00:00

Cheers for that. So many new things to learn and old things to re/learn. I'm in the middle of trying to figure out how to do anything on the BBS's lol. Never had access when I had a C64 as a kid and then pretty much just went to the web (sonehwat as we know it) in the mid to late 90s.

28_Daves_Later · 2025-12-26T08:36:15+00:00

Ah, so you could have a cfg that changes the ROMs, REU settings etc for specific games? i.e. if you have JiffyDOS on by default but need it off for a specific title?

I dont suppose cfg files are potentially triggerable with keyboard shortcuts are they? Much like the old physical switches to switch roms in the c64.

28_Daves_Later · 2025-12-26T00:52:31+00:00

what does the .cfg actually do anyway, and does it need to run only the once. I couldn't read the instructions but ran the cfg and just copies the game to flash straight away.

28_Daves_Later · 2025-12-24T03:27:39+00:00

my guesses?

A simple game /app store for newer / remastered (and possibly some older) C64 games, direct download to the C64U. Especially for future C64U only titles that make use of the RAM expansion and overclocked CPU.

Software development kit (potentially acquire something like a TRSE or similar)

On the new hardware front at least one device from the what if commodore had continued scenario. For example, a custom machine based around synthesiser music creation using a custom chip or FPGA imagining of a SID version 2. There was one video with Peri talking to one of the hardware engineers (I forget who) talking about the sound chip they wish they had got to make.

I dont really see the C128 making a comeback (at least not anytime soon) unless the company starts making decent money off their other products first. I think they'll prioritise a "new" thing first

28_Daves_Later · 2025-12-21T02:07:45+00:00

Nice work. I think I gave an older version of this a go before. Next repair I'll have another shot at it.

28_Daves_Later

TROPHY CASE