Commodore 64.  Just saying it makes me smile.  I have one here at the house, but I'm aware that its circuit board was built to a price, and it will not last forever.

There are emulators and FPGA projects out there, but this is an actual Commodore 64.  The only real difference is the PLA (a flaky chip that does I/O and timing duties) has been reverse engineered and integrated into the board.  The CPU, the SID (sound chip), the ROMs, all of that is original.  This IS a commodore 64.

https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/produkt-details/product/c64-reloaded-mk2.html





Two more differences are worth mentioning.  They removed the RF modulator because no one uses shitty RF modulation anymore.  You use an S-video connector, which affords the best picture and is still usable today.

Also, they removed the wonky Commodore power supply.  The OEM power supply had to provide both AC and DC power.  It is failure-prone, and as a side note, if you have an original power supply throw it away.  It will fail, and it will fry your Commodore when it dies.  It's only a question of when.  It's a time bomb.  You can buy aftermarket supplies for your original Commodore, but that is not needed for this brand new Commodore.  This Commodore only needs a simple 12V DC in, which is available on Amazon, ebay, and you probably have 3 or 4 of them in your junk drawer.  Way better.

THIS.  IS.  AWESOME.

Why?

Pretty neat.

I too, still have a 64 laying around.

I had the floppy disk player somewhere, probably have the floppies laying around somewhere too. It was a fun system never bought any games, traded and got them for free. The WICO joystick is around somewhere too. LOL

10 poke 53280,int(rnd(0)*16)
20 poke 53281,int(rnd(0)*16)
30 print "You deserve a seizure!"
40 goto 10

The floppy disk is the 1541.

You're not the only one who didn't buy C64 software.  The Commodore essentially created software piracy.  

It was a double-edged sword.  Because software was so available, Commodores were flying off the shelf.  On the other hand, developers started spending significant resources on preventing piracy.  Anyone remember having to look up the 3rd word in the 2nd paragraph of page 18 of the manual of a game?  Or what about those code wheels?

The first and only program I ever wrote as a child was for my VIC-20.

Used the random number generator to roll the dice for creating character stats for Dungeons & Dragons.

I was such a nerd 

I seen an SD card reader that was designed to resemble a tiny version of the 1541.  It is a floppy emulator.  Imagine how many d64 disk images can fit on a 2gb SD card?

I've run emulators, but it's not the same trying to remember which keys emulate which keys, and other issues that became lost in translation.  Raid on Bungling Bay was intended to be played with a Wico or Atari style joystick on a C-64.

I remember all of that, as well as the hidden code in the SimCity manual that you had to use the red film to read...


Load "Choplifter", 8,1

You have to supply your own chips.
Ebay's going to be busy.

It's called the SD2IEC, and I'm not that impressed by it.  A guy in Europe makes the 1541 Ultimate II, a cartridge based 1541 replacement plus so so much more.  I have a real 1541, but this thing is still awesome.

Yeah, but chips aren't that hard to come by.  

The SID can be a little pricey, but the rest are not bad.  Plenty of dead C64s to get chips from.

I'm amazed there aren't more SID alternatives/ clones out there, considering the SID audio tinkering crowd.

Cool.. too bad it doesn't have HDMI out.

Back in the day, we used RF because we were poor and didn't know any better.  This has S-video out, which looks fantastic.  You won't want for better video quality if you use S-video and a CRT or monitor.  Sony Trinitrons are cheap on craigslist.

You could get a S-video to HDMI converter, but I shudder to think of how much lag it would introduce.

If you want HDMI, there are plenty of emulators out there.  This is the real deal hardware, though.

Pretty cool.

I still have my C-128 and fire it up once or twice a year.

The floppies are crapping out.  Kodaks still work.  Verbatims shred.  Generics are 50/50.

Mine is connected to an old 15" LCD TV with composite input.  Works well.

That is pretty cool.

I traded my C64 and floppy drive about 20 years ago for a new circular saw.  I can honestly tell you that the saw has been used far more than the C64 would be.

How much is an original one worth today?

For a random working C64, I'd say $50 to $100.

The disk drive unit for it, working, is another $50 to $75.

There are more valuable variants.  Silver label (very early) C64s go for more.  Units with ceramic chips go for more.  Units without yellowing sell for more because they're prettier.

C64s with socketed chips are more valuable than non-socketed ones.

Certain SID revisions are worth more than others.

As I mentioned in the OP, the original C64 has an unusual power supply that provides 5V DC and 9V AC.  With age (these are 30+ years old), the DC rail tends to not regulate as tightly and overvolts which kills chips.  The C64 really needs protection from DC overvoltage.  You can buy an aftermarket PSU (mine cost $100ish from Ray Carlsen, google him) or you can use a saver device which is pretty cheap.  Either way, don't just use the OEM PSU.

Off to the attic to see what I have. Might be the right time to sell.

Ok but when will IBM rerelease the 5100?

I have some proprietary code I need to crack and going back to 1975 isn't an option right now.

Spent many hours pounding away on the Vic-20. I kept a notebook next to it to record the counter on the tape drive so I could pull up my programs again. 

Got so excited that it came in that I only managed to get a shitty pic of it.



Got a brand new case for it.



Waiting on some chips, since I want to make this a Euro-spec C64 (PAL).

Anyone remember the Loadstar magazine disc?

Gosh, the Commodore 64 brings back so many good memories of childhood:

Montezuma's Revenge
Raid Over Moscow
Beachhead I & II
Space Taxi
Blagger
Miner 2049
Law of The West
so many others I've forgotten about

I basically lived on this thing in the 80s.

There's entire scans of RUN and other vintage magazines available on archive.org.  I recall typing in entire programs off of RUN's pages.  I wished they used a different font at times.

One of my other favorites in that site are DAK catalogs.