scottyau

So since the last post I have acquired the last piece that I was looking for to round out my c64 setup - a Commodore 1701 CRT monitor: It took me quite a while to find one of these in Australia that was in good condition but that wasn't several hundred dollars.  Good things do come to those who wait (sometimes at least).  It's in excellent condition - it did get mishandled during shipping which resulted in a crack in the top of the case which is a shame.  Other than that though it functions perfectly and has the front little cover on the controls in one piece as well!  I needed to order a different video cable to the one I had - so I ordered this guy from Hercules Workshop (my other s-video cable was from them and is awesome quality - thanks guys!).   Once I had the monitor and cable I set about making a more permanent setup for my c64 - that would give me my "electronics workbench" (ie half of my desk) back.  First I made the shelf you see ab...

After getting the 1541 sorted, I thought "What C64 setup would be complete without a dataset?"  They are dirt cheap on eBay and I managed to pick one up with its original box no less for little more than the cost of postage.  The seller even confirmed before sending it that he had connected it up to his C64 and loaded a tape and it had worked first go.  It turned up pretty quickly too: While looking around to see what common faults these guys had prior to it arriving I was surprised to see that it was mainly just the rubber belts (if anything) that fail, with the head, capstan and pinch rollers needing cleaning as well .  There's one belt for the main drive, and one for the little counter on the front.  I ordered one of each as part of another order and waited for them to arrive.  Once they did, it was time to crack this guy open and have a look: These things are super simple - and thus quite easy to take apart.  Four screws on the bottom...

So what have I been doing since the last post - playing some solid C64 that's what.  It hasn't skipped a beat since I put it back together at the end of the last post.  I've been playing some games, writing some BASIC and just generally getting reacquainted with the C64.  I haven't stopped on the hardware side of things though.  Like I mentioned previously I've bought a few accessories, and now the system is running it's time to work through them.  The first being this guy: It's a beast of a thing!  Just like the C64 itself, instead of paying top dollar for something in mint condition I took a punt on something that was listed as "found in storage - sold as is".  The unit looked like it had been sitting on a shelf in a garage for a long time.  Instead of firing it up - I opened it up to have a look before plugging it in: It was dirty - but actually in pretty good condition.  I kept pulling it apart so I could give it all a goo...

So a lot has happened with the little C64 since my last post.  I've tried to take photos of everything I've been doing, as well as some video.  It's given me a HUGE appreciation for what it must take to produce the quality of videos that I am used to watching on YouTube.  I knew it took work, but wowsers.  So thank you to all those makers/hackers/tinkerers I enjoy watching on YouTube.  Onto the work! So first stop was a capacitor replacement.  This revision only has six electrolytic capacitors - and it was another chance to use my FR300. Original caps: I'd ordered replacement caps while I was waiting for the PLA and FR300 to arrive (hoping that the PLA would fix things - lucky it did!): The FR300 made quick work of the old caps.  Although as suggested in a few places online I did have to crank it up a bit more for the negative terminals on the larger caps - the ground plane in the board really absorbed quite a bit of heat: Onc...