Sprites mod's cable is a very fun item to play with. I built myself one and it was actually pretty easy to solder up, and flash.

I was thinking about getting an arturia beat step for my arguing boy (auto correct changed arduino boy and I liked it's spelling better) and sprite mods gba cable. I think that'd make it the best drum machine.

Yes, do this.

Thanks Jellica. From the songs I listened to it sounds like I really like C64 bass sounds.

RJL I was thinking of going with cynthcart,  i may hold out and go for a kerberos cart with cynthcart. I haven't looked into retroskoi+ yet. If I can get it on a floppy real cheap it'll be what I try first.

I would also recommend Retroskoi+,  a monophonic C64 synthesizer cartridge.

www.6581-8580.com is a good website for mp3 c64 traxxx, its a slightly out of date snapshot of www.hvsc.c64.org

otherwise http://csdb.dk/ should have all the C64 resources you should ever need.

what sort of progs did you want? if it is music then faff around with goattracker/emulator b4 u start shelling out for C64 gizmos

Thanks guys I knew I was overlooking something.  Sid2sid is enough of a reason to keep them. Cynthcart for $30 looks awesome. I'll Google flashcards also.

Is there a good c64 music site? Service manual download?

Vellain thanks for the advice on being more specific. When I go to clean/repair them it'll be awesome advice.

Yes, keep the broken ones. Then if you want to perform a SID2SID installation you'll have more SIDs to populate it with. Also if anything else breaks later you can use parts from the broken to fix the main unit. Also you can potentially swap the working c64 guts into the best looking enclosure.

I'd keep the broken ones for parts or try cleaning them out and see if that helps. SID chips will only become harder to come by in the future. Cynthcart is fun. I still haven't bought a flashcart for mine to work with. I need more space before I can really put it somewhere.

I also advocate GoatTracker if you just want to make SID music and play it off a real machine. Just remember if you're using Goat Tracker to set it to NTSC so it'll play on your machine right. I also had to change GT's tuning tables so it's correctly pitched in NTSC.

(Not really a C64 expert)

For the clarity of further replies, can you please describe the issue in more detail. Do they turn on? What is the state of the C64s? Have you looked at any of the internals, if so what is their state? Is it at all possible for you to provide pics of the aforementioned C64s?

I bought 3 C 64 for $26. Two seem to have problems with showing up on the tv. As a newb to this should I keep them and fix them, or trade cheaply to a local.

Also any advice on programs that are cheap and fun for the "good" one?

Thanks for any advice.