Limitbreak
Offline
Arizona

This is going to be a two part post. For starters, my girlfriend and I were thrift shopping for things for our new house when my five year old son got my attention and wanted me to check out an "old tv" he found. What he thought was a television ended up being a Commodore 64 and monitor in their original boxes. I was thrilled. It was the last thing I expected to see there. I opened them up and saw that they were packed with the original styrofoam, were clean, and there was an assortment of cables zip tied together. I admittedly know very little about C64s but decided to take the leap of faith and spend the $30 on it. I figured if someone cared about it enough to keep it in the original box and packaging, there was a good chance that it would work.

I've always been interested in making music with a C64. If anyone can link me to informational threads or sites that detail the software and hardware I'll need to get started, I'd be very thankful. I'm just dying to get this thing up and running for tracking.

Here comes part two. This is where things get interesting. I'm kind of inclined to believe this machine has been used for chipmusic in the past...or at least a tech savvy person owned it previously. When I pulled out the cables and started looking at what was in the box I saw that I had the cables for the monitor, stereo RCA cables, a mono RCA cable, and oddly enough, a MIDI cable. It also came with a Commodore AutoModem...

Then I hooked up the machine.

See anything different? It's been modded! I don't know how common it was for consumers to mod their C64s back in the 80s, but they have added a red button on the keyboard.

Then I fired up the C64 and was greeted with this screen. I'm not entirely sure what it means but I'm eager to learn. On this screen it allowed me to type and I was able to test all of the buttons, all of them work perfectly. When I hit the added red button, the screen refreshes and the text disappears...possibly clearing the RAM?

So what do you guys make of this? I think it's fascinating. I can't believe that I stumbled upon a C64 in its original packaging...it being modded makes this even cooler.

Last edited by Limitbreak (Dec 22, 2013 4:48 am)

Jazzmarazz
Offline
Michigan

Count the pins on that "midi" cable. I am guessing it is not 5.
Also, one or more of your RAM is bad. Read through this;
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=19196

My good friends at Amibay should be able to help. smile

Also, very good on you for finding that in a box! Really.

I also think that the added button is no more than a reset button, but still pretty cool indeed.

Last edited by Jazzmarazz (Dec 22, 2013 4:57 am)

Limitbreak
Offline
Arizona
Jazzmarazz wrote:

Count the pins on that "midi" cable. I am guessing it is not 5.
Also, one or more of your RAM is bad. Read through this;
http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=19196

My good friends at Amibay should be able to help. smile

Also, very good on you for finding that in a box! Really.

I also think that the added button is no more than a reset button, but still pretty cool indeed.

Very cool thanks! I hope I can find someone that might able to help me repair this thing. I don't trust myself to attempt it. The thing with the button is that it doesn't black out the screen as if its being turned off and back on, it would just clear the text...pretty neat though I agree. Probably just a reset button like you said though.

Jazzmarazz
Offline
Michigan

It is the difference between a cold-boot and a warm-boot. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reboot_(co … arm_reboot

Limitbreak
Offline
Arizona
Jazzmarazz wrote:

It is the difference between a cold-boot and a warm-boot. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reboot_(co … arm_reboot

I sincerely thank you for your input. This is great...I love learning about new things.

Limitbreak
Offline
Arizona

I'd be more than willing to commission you to repair it if you're willing.

Jazzmarazz
Offline
Michigan
Limitbreak wrote:

I'd be more than willing to commission you to repair it if you're willing.

Not me, I have had enough trouble from my own breadbins. hmm
I know someone else will chime though. Good luck.

DSC
Offline

The switch could be jiffyDOS.  Done many of those mods back in the day.  Great score!  I still have my 1802 monitor from when I was 14.  Don't ever sell that monitor, it is priceless!  So many uses.  It is a bit small, but very useful.  Good luck with the repair.  I also have not had much success fixing breadbin's.  In my experience you fix something and something else breaks.
If you can get it fixed, check out the Mssiah and Cynthcart. 
Welcome aboard the C64 sid group big_smile

rygD
Offline

Lucky bastard.

Limitbreak
Offline
Arizona
DSC wrote:

The switch could be jiffyDOS.  Done many of those mods back in the day.  Great score!  I still have my 1802 monitor from when I was 14.  Don't ever sell that monitor, it is priceless!  So many uses.  It is a bit small, but very useful.  Good luck with the repair.  I also have not had much success fixing breadbin's.  In my experience you fix something and something else breaks.
If you can get it fixed, check out the Mssiah and Cynthcart. 
Welcome aboard the C64 sid group big_smile

Do you know where I can order these replacement chips? I think I want to order them and then call around to local computer repair shops to see if they might be able to do the job for me...if not then I'll start hounding people here on the boards to possibly take a stab at it.

Sorry for the requests for spoon feeding. I've never been good with electronics...I love making music on them but when things go wrong or break I can't be trusted with a soldering iron.

Jazzmarazz
Offline
Michigan

Funny story, I went "around to local computer repair shops" once just to see if they had any junk to spare and they all laughed at me.

These may be your best bet:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/KM4164A-15-4164 … 45e97031eb

The chips are all out of production so a high price is to be expected. you will need to open it up though so that we can make sure of the board revision. Later models, of which about a quarter of my breadbins happen to be, have the smaller B. revision board. This has different IC's.

Last edited by Jazzmarazz (Dec 22, 2013 8:01 am)

Limitbreak
Offline
Arizona
Jazzmarazz wrote:

Funny story, I went "around to local computer repair shops" once just to see if they had any junk to spare and they all laughed at me.

These may be your best bet:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/KM4164A-15-4164 … 45e97031eb

The chips are all out of production so a high price is to be expected. you will need to open it up though so that we can make sure of the board revision. Later models, of which about a quarter of my breadbins happen to be, have the smaller B. revision board. This has different IC's.

I'll open this thing up as soon as I get a free moment. Per the post on Amibay the guy said "Since you are ordering at least one new IC, you might as well order eight" which kind of lead me to think these parts were readily available...

No big deal though, I love a good goal to work towards.

EDIT: Oh those chips aren't badly priced, shouldn't be a problem. I'll take pics of the inside soon.

Last edited by Limitbreak (Dec 22, 2013 8:09 am)

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden
DSC wrote:

The switch could be jiffyDOS.

Wouldn't a JiffyDOS switch be a flip switch rather than a momentary push button? From the description of the effect I would say that this is simply a reset button.

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA

Usually a pushbutton like that is a homebrew hard reset. In your place I'd buy another C64 breadbox and keep the one you have for spare ICs. Make sure you have at least one proper copy of the manual because it has a schematic diagram in the middle that will tell you what the different ICs are for. I made two working specimens from four computers in that way. Good luck!

katsumbhong
Offline
Taichung, Taiwan

Ken knows his stuff. He's located in Texas. Shoot him a message.

http://www.ebay.com/usr/aaascrapdogsunlimited

Jazzmarazz
Offline
Michigan
Limitbreak wrote:
Jazzmarazz wrote:

Funny story, I went "around to local computer repair shops" once just to see if they had any junk to spare and they all laughed at me.

These may be your best bet:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/KM4164A-15-4164 … 45e97031eb

The chips are all out of production so a high price is to be expected. you will need to open it up though so that we can make sure of the board revision. Later models, of which about a quarter of my breadbins happen to be, have the smaller B. revision board. This has different IC's.

I'll open this thing up as soon as I get a free moment. Per the post on Amibay the guy said "Since you are ordering at least one new IC, you might as well order eight" which kind of lead me to think these parts were readily available...

No big deal though, I love a good goal to work towards.

EDIT: Oh those chips aren't badly priced, shouldn't be a problem. I'll take pics of the inside soon.

Exactly why I said to open it first. The rev A requires 8 of the chip I linked and the rev B requires only two but of a different kind. Most commonly though, you will have a rev A.

These chips are going to be hard to desolder because of he board thickness. You may as well just cutthe chips off at the board and then remove each pin one by one. Also make sure to install sockets.