world gone mad

with the world gone mad i figured i need a new hobby. and i’m looking to the past, i will set up a home office from the 80’s.

the core of the platform will be the trusty Commodore 64

However.. these old machines, as great as they were - are starting to get on a bit in years, well there are other options that will let me do things..

after all is a c64 a specific set of hardware? or is it a machine that responds like a c64 when you interact with it?

So what i will build will look like a c64, it will act like a c64, the ports will be compatable so any periferal you plug in will be unaware of the modern hardware.

case keyboard [main board](#main board) [disk drive](#disk drive) [tape drive](#tape drive) printer plotter modem joystick

Case

i would have preferred to build a breadbox, but there appears to be no repro cases of that flavour, it’s all c64-c boxes..

so rather than mess about with a dremel and the c64 case, i got a black 64c box, added bonus i get a nice cardboard box to put it in when it’s done.

as you can see, i’ve rebranded it with ultimate64 badges as i plan on running the repro board on it it’s got all the cutouts to make it work right even got myself a serial number label. but i have no idea what to use as the number..

Keyboard

the keyboard is interesting as there is no option to plug in a usb one, plus having the option to be pin compatable will allow more flexability with the compute backend i slap on it.

i have settled on the mechboard64, I chose the default options as i didn’t know how to drive their website.

it seems there are minimum production runs, so any leftovers will be up for sale. and on top of that the default options do not assemble any of the parts.

parts from the bom are available at element 14 and you can buy in the small quantities for this project

QTY	Value	Part number	Description
2	10K, 5%	RC2010FK-0710KL	Resistor SMD 2010 10k
1	100K, 5%	RC2010FK-07100KL	Resistor SMD 2010 100k
1	56R, 5%	RC2010JK-0756RL	Resistor SMD 2010 56R
1	1uF / 50V / 10%	VJ1812Y105KXAAT	CAP ceramic SMD MLCC 1uF 50V 1812
1	10nF / 1kV / 10%	C1812C103KDRACTU	CAP ceramic SMD MLCC X7R 10nF 1kV 1812
1		NE555DR	General-purpose single bipolar timer
1		74HC4066D	Quadruple Bilateral Analog Switch
1	20 pins (minus one pin, right side)		Single Row 90 Degree Right Angle Pin Header
1	20 pins (minus one pin, left side)		Single Row 90 Degree Right Angle Pin Header
1	2x3 pins		Single Row straight pin header

2020-11-19

smd parts have arrived

it’s going to be interesting practice putting them together

keyboard switches..

i have purchased a pile of cherry mx blue switches,

soldering the key switches in place took a bit of work, they are all in place now, but a couple are out of alignment.

after i find the keycaps, i might be able to correct that.

giving up

i built the keyboard, but forgot a couple of details.. the board was just a raw pcb, there was nowhere to mount it to the c64. and getting the mounting plate was going to be horrifically expensive.. i shelved the diy aproach, gave up and just bought a keyboard from the 80s

it’s still cheaper to do that that build your own. so, failed in my “all new” parts requiremnt.. but it’s an easily reparable component. all the keys on the board work

Main Board

with the machines being as old as i am, and probably more original parts.. i know that they are getting themselves ready so that they can relax after a lifetime of service.. modern hardware hasn’t put in the hard yards yet, so i should use that.

only one machine provides all the ports to cover compatability.. the ultimate 64

Disk Drive

while the ultimate 64 wil have built in drive emulation i would like the feeling of the old 5 1/4" disk drive i reckon i should be able to achieve a sumulation of this with the pi1541.

i will need to build a dedicated case however, printed in the style of the 1541..

it will be scaled to full size with a 3d printed case. Colour matching seems to lean towards a black disk drive, though commodore never produced these.. maybe thingiverse can help here

I was able to procure a pi hat that has all the bits pre-built.. good thing to as you have to assemble the disk image manually first.

Initially i thought it wasn’t booting when the LCD screen didn’t turn on.. since no instructions were provided as to the configuration i thought “defaults"would be good enough.. nope

it was only when i plugged in the HDMI that i learned that it was all working. Looking at the board i discovered the URL of the original designer and read their instructions on how the board operates.

checking the solder “jumpers” revealed that it was not operating in a default configuration.. after fixing this it works..

configuration patch to go here

Tape Drive

Tape was easy to solve, a tapduino from ebay. sd card to tape adaptor.. and since it can save, i wonder if there are tape size limits. likely to be the 4GB limit of fat32, but for a c64.. that’s effectivly infinate.

Printer

this will be easier to tacke than the plotter, but retro folks seem focused on games.

probably as we were all kids at the time of the c64.. However i want to build an office, which means i need a printer.

ebay to the rescue again, scored a mps 1230..

it’s meuseum quality, oh my god it’s glorius.. like right out of 1989. it even has the box tape that sealed it.

Plotter

Modem

joystick

well, it is part of the expected layout of a 64..

since i have failed the “all new” challenge.. i just grabbed myself a quickshot 2 turbo

The same stick i had as a kid.

paddles

TBA but i think i can mod the stick