Commodore 64 Laptop

April 6, 2009 by 41 Comments

c64

[Ben Heck] has just completed one of his more unique laptop game consoles. This time around it’s a Commodore 64, which he’s been attempting since 2006. Recently he scrapped everything and started fresh on what turned out to be the fastest build yet. While it certainly looks similar to his other laptops, he put in a lot of effort to give it the appearance of an 80’s computer from the beige color to the texture. He used an original C64C motherboard since it was the final and smallest revision and coupled that with an original keyboard. A 1541-III-DTV allows use of an SD card as a floppy device. Just drag any disk image onto the card and it’s ready to go. Check out a video of it in use below.

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BBS On A Commodore 64

August 21, 2008 by 32 Comments


[Lief Bloomquist] was in need of some geeky nostalgia. He thought making a BBS server on a Commodore 64 would fill that need perfectly. He used a PC running some routing software to make the BBS server available over the net, without any long distance charges. Anyone with an Internet connection can telnet to the BBS and join the fun.

[Jason Scott] made BBS: the Documentary. He has interviewed [Lief] and taken some pictures of the set up. You can view them, as well as download a PowerPoint about the project here.

[thanks HighNoon]

Wii Style Controls For The Commodore 64

July 5, 2008 by 2 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1WOoPV_7HU&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]
[Jeff] has been playing around with Parallax’s Propeller chip. He’s used it to adapt an NES controller to the to the Commodore 64. In this latest iteration though, he’s added a Memsic 2125 dual axis accelerometer to the end of a whiffle ball bat and used that to provide Wii style controller input. The video above shows his son playing Street Sports Baseball with it.

Hacking The Commodore 64 DTV Version 2

February 20, 2006 by 15 Comments

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The original C64 DTV was a joystick containing 30 games sold in 2004. It attracted hackers because it could be modified into a fully functioning console. The latest version of the chip is being sold inside a Radio Shack Hummer game. This version fixes bugs in the original and adds several features to improve memory access and CPU speed. Before you get started there are several modifications that need to be done to improve the video and audio quality of the system. Once these mods are complete you can start playing with the machine just like an original C64. Oh, the Hummer game will look a lot better too.

[thanks av1d]

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Getting The VIC-20 To Speak Again

February 5, 2026 by 9 Comments

The Commodore Amiga was famous for its characteristic Say voice, with its robotic enunciation being somewhat emblematic of the 16-bit era. The Commodore VIC-20 had no such capability out of the box, but [Mike] was able to get one talking with a little bit of work.

The project centers around the Adventureland cartridge, created by Scott Adams (but not the one you’re thinking of). It was a simple game that was able to deliver speech with the aid of the Votrax Type and Talk speech synthesizer box. Those aren’t exactly easy to come by, so [Mike] set about creating a modern equivalent. The concept was simple enough. An Arduino would be used to act as a go between the VIC-20’s slow serial port operating at 300 bps and the Speakjet and TTS256 chips which both preferred to talk at 9600 bps. The audio output of the Speakjet is then passed to an LM386 op-amp, set up as an amplifier to drive a small speaker. The lashed-together TTS system basically just reads out the text from the Adventureland game in an incredibly robotic voice. It’s relatively hard to understand and has poor cadence, but it does work – in much the same way as the original Type and Talk setup would have back in the day!

Text to speech tools have come a long way since the 1980s, particularly when it comes to sounding more natural. Video after the break.

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A VIC-20 Emulator In Your Browser

February 3, 2026 by 11 Comments

The Commodore VIC-20 was a solid microcomputer that paved the way for the legendary Commodore 64 to come. If you’re a fan of the machine and want to revisit its glory days, you could hunt one down on an auction site and hope that it’s in working order. Or you could just emulate the VIC-20 in your browser thanks to the work of [Lance Ewing].

The project is called JVic—because it’s a VIC-20 emulator written in Java. It’s primarily intended for playing old VIC-20 games, and is designed with mobile devices front of mind—so it works well on a phone screen. You can enjoy the built-in library of games, or you can even direct JVic to boot up a ROM from a ZIP file hosted on a given URL or attached to a forum post. You can also install it on your own device rather than running it online, if so desired. [Lance] provides a range of setup options for running it locally or putting it on your own web server if that’s how you like to do things. Files are on Github for those eager to dive in.

We get lots of VIC-20 hacks around these parts. Even if it’s not the most popular machine that Commodore ever built, it’s certainly up there in the rankings. If you want to learn Forth, or even build a VIC-20 from scratch, we’ve explored that before. If you’ve got your own retrocomputer hacks kicking around, don’t hesitate to let us know!

[Thanks to Stephen Walters for the tip!]

Lazarustorm Lets A PiStorm Live Outside Your Old Amiga

January 29, 2026 by 7 Comments

The PiStorm is nothing new; if you’re familiar with the retrocomputer scene, you’ve probably heard of it. By replacing the 68k processor in an old Amiga (or some models of Atari) the PiStorm accelerator gives a multiple order of magnitude speedup. It’s even a reversable mod, plugging in where the original CPU was. What’s not to love? Well, some people would simply prefer to keep their original CPUs in place. [TME Retro] has a video highlighting the solution for those people: the Lazarustorm by [arananet].

It makes perfect sense to us– back in the day, you could plug a whole x86 PC-compatible ‘sidecar’ into your Amiga, so why not a PiStorm? The whole bus is right there for the taking.The Lazarusstorm, as a project, is bog simple compared to the PiStorm itself. A PCB and the connectors to get it plugged into the expansion port on the Amiga side, and the connectors to plug the PiStorm into it on the other. A couple of jumpers and a few passives, and that’s it. [TME Retro] also took the time to come up with a case for it, which sits on felt feet to relieve stress on the PCBs. It’s a nice bit of CAD, but we rather wish he’d done it in beige.

As for the upgraded Amiga, it runs just as fast as it would had the 68k been replaced with a Pi3 and PiStorm internally, which is to say it’s practically a supercomputer by 1980s standards. You get the SD card to serve as a hard drive and can even access the internet via modern WiFi, something Commodore engineers likely never expected an A500 to do. Of course, just connecting to the network is only half the battle when getting these retro machines online. When these accelerators were new, the 68k emulation ran on top of Linux, but now that the EMU68k project has it bare metal and even faster.

This isn’t the first Raspberry-flavoured slice of Amiga sidecar we’ve featured: here’s one running Spotify. If you haven’t got an Amiga, there’s a PiStorm for the FPGA-based MiniMig, too. Continue reading “Lazarustorm Lets A PiStorm Live Outside Your Old Amiga” →