I have a confession to make – I find beauty in old retro computer hardware like the Commodore 64… I therefore find it very discouraging spending numerous hours making everything nice a neat on a C64 motherboard or a MechBoard64 keyboard and then havnig to … Read more
After releasing the information needed to build the MechBoard64 (link) back in 2020, several people have organized group buys or made small batches for everyone to enjoy. Just as I had hoped for. In this context, Australian based Retro Fuzion (link) has gone the extra … Read more
Back in 2015, original molds for the Commodore 64C slim cases were put into production as I have described previously (link, link). I really enjoyed getting new cases for my machines, but my childhood Commodore 64 was the breadbox version. I was therefore thrilled when … Read more
It has been more than four years since my last post. I guess, real life issues took over my free time to such an extend that the Commodore 64 hobby was put on hold. The primary reason was because I have renovated our 1000 sqft … Read more
The video signals coming from the Commodore 64 have always been challenged by inherent ‘clock noise’ of the VIC-II graphics chip and the color bleeding of the S-video signal. The problems are easily recognized in the form of vertical lines (banding artifacts) or as a … Read more
My SixtyClone C64 Replica has a sweet looking blue printed circuit board (PCB) (link). The same is the case for the installed VIC-II² PAL/NTSC Switch (link) which enables swapping the video output of a Commodore 64 between PAL and NTSC by the flick of a … Read more
Have you ever run a Commodore 64 game or demo that sounded strange or the graphics would either move too slow or too fast? Then you might have experienced a ‘PAL/NTSC related issue’. Hardware-wise, the Commodore 64 is synchronized to its graphics output and the … Read more
Giving just the right amount of electrical power to your Commodore 64’s is vital to ensure a stable operation. Voltage drops may give rise to stability issues while too much voltage will undoubtedly fry the delicate chips on the old C64 motherboards. The latter is … Read more
I came across this very well preserved Commodore 64 keyboard and thought I would share some details. The keyboard is the third (and last) generation of keyboards originally created for the Commodore VIC-20 home computer. It has a tall, thin font similar to Helvetica Narrow … Read more
I’ve been racking my brain for quite some time, to find a solution on what to do with my MechBoard64 (link) keyboard project… The project started as I needed two new keyboards for my C64 Reloaded boards (link, link). Going into such a large project … Read more