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
Getting tired of using your old Competition Pro joystick with the sloppy spring and the far-from-always-working fire buttons? If so, you could clean and possibly change the worn out parts of the joystick as described here (link) or you could look for a replacement joystick. … Read more
Someone finally got too tired of waiting for Phase5 to deliver new keycaps from their 2015 campaign (link). Jim Drew, from CBMstuff.com (link) just launched another Indiegogo campaign in which he tries to reach a fixed funding (all-or-nothing) goal of 1000 keycap sets (link). If … Read more
To reduce any radio frequency (RF) interference with surroudning hardware (e.g. old tube TV’s), Commodore added shielding to their machines. In the early machines the RF shield came in the form of an aluminum covered cardboard that was wrapped around the motherboard. As carboard is … Read more
Part of the QA procedure for the MechBoard64’s (link) includes testing the keyboards in a real Commodore 64. Doing it this way calls for a lot of power cycles, cartridge swaps for testing keys, plugging and unplugging of the keyboards etc. I therefore use a motherboard … Read more
Introduction I own a near mint Commodore 1541 diskette drive that I only use for special occasions. At those times I drape my sweaty hands with white cotton gloves, gently release my original Montezuma’s Revenge diskette from its paper pocket and with my breath held … Read more