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
It has been a while since I last worked on my mechanical keyboard project, the MechBoard64 (link). I have been wanting to add some lights to the keyboard for quite some time, but never got around to it. How cool would an illuminated MechBoard64 look … Read more
I recently treated myself with one of these nice blue Commodore 64 replica PCBs from Bob’s Bits on Tindie.com (link). After populating it with new parts (except for the orignal chips of course), I thought I would share my exprience. The SixtyClone is basically a … 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’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
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