I recently had a water leak and had to evacuate the whole apartment. I took the opportunity to "box up" my VIC, 64:s and Amigas as far as I had the original boxes. Now they're all stored away in a closet. I have another loose VIC that I'm intending to use.
Now, I recently went away to pick some stuff, and brought with me a box of five C64 motherboards, all partially broken. I thought maybe I can switch some chips to get at least one working, but so far I haven't had any success. All just display a black screen, which could be due to a number of reasons. Perhaps if I go wild with a multimeter and soldering iron, I could spot respective board's failure.
At the same time, I picked up an empty C64C shell w/ keyboard in very good condition. My idea was to place a working motherboard inside the case, and get an instant 64. Since none of the boards is working, that is currently not possible.
Tonight I realized that the spare, loose VIC has one of those spring free keyboards, a bit stuffy and one key broken. I might be able to make a replacement pin to fix it, but since I had a C64C keyboard in perfectly working order, why not just swap it? Many of us have those white keyboards in our VICs...
Maybe I'll unbox one of the C64:s, just to have one available. I think I'll go with my old breadbox that I recently brought to life, as it takes less space in the drawer and perhaps is more functional than my C64C...
Another white keyboard VIC-20
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Another white keyboard VIC-20
Anders Carlsson
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- Vic 20 Hobbyist
- Posts: 123
- Joined: Sat Dec 23, 2006 4:47 pm
As far as the dead 64, I would check your voltages, then take a logic probe and make sure the clock is ticking. If thats the case toggle the power on and off quick and see if anything displays on the screen. Sometimes a broken pal will display blank screen, but when power is toggled you get garbage. At any rate I would bet its the pal. I purchased about 50 back when I repaired commodores, and that was the most often to fail. I think I only have about 6 left.
I thunk once and it hurt!
I think you mean PLA? Out of the four boards with chips, one displays garbage, and the other three a blank (black) screen. The PLA is soldered to the board on all motherboards, and I yet didn't have time or interest to get into trying to repair it. Maybe later.
By the way, I brought out my C64C anyway.
By the way, I brought out my C64C anyway.
Anders Carlsson