I've wanted a Commodore 64 for over 25 years when my teacher first bragged about his (as my mother sold him our TI-99/4A, no less). I finally got one a few months ago in a killer deal with a 1702 monitor, 1541 disk drive, two Datasette decks, leather dust covers, and several hundred dollars worth of boxed games. The seller assured me it all works and I trusted him thanks to a large Atari lot I purchased earlier this year but I didn't actually test anything. Though I had never touched a Commodore 64 I knew enough to know that I didn't want to turn it on without a saver device of some kind.
https://imgur.com/a/6Z9do (full resolution)
Researching which to order from where took longer than I'd hoped but I eventually got my C64 Saver from Hans/Bwack a few weeks ago. My twin bro was getting ready for work as I began preparations to boot it for the first time. It was hard enough to get the monitor, computer, disk drive, etc together in the same place near an outlet (used a TV tray, a night stand/end table, and a file cabinet), but I quickly realized that I couldn't plug it all in without a power strip or something.
Meanwhile, my bro was waiting for me to finish so he could witness the first boot if I finished before he absolutely had to leave for work. It was already taking longer than I thought so I asked him to connect the power to the C64 while I retrieved a power strip. When I came back he was still having difficulty and complained that he didn't know which port it was supposed to go into. With my head down as I plugged other things in, I stupidly responded to say that it should only fit in one port. Well, I was wrong, and I didn't realize what had happened until I finished plugging into the wall and stood back up to see the power plugged into the AV output. The power good LED of the C64 Saver was just happily glowing as it pumped +5V into the Audio Input pin of my 6481 SID chip. Doh!
I may have managed to fry the SID chip before even turning it on, but my destructive potential apparently knows no bounds. After googling the load command which I've seen in countless videos but ever actually used, I tried to load Maniac Mansion and got a black screen with a flashing light on the 1541. I laughed when I saw that the load command was actually printed on the disk and I would have saved time if I had simply looked there first, but I was only capable of laughing because I didn't yet know that I had fried the SID. I loaded a magazine cover disk menu just fine then blew a piece of dust off Maniac Mansion and loaded it just fine only to discover sound problems. Some sounds are really low but for the most part I only get silent screens or loud screeches, hissing, or popping.
To see if if was just that game, I tried to load something else, but here's the thing: I still didn't know what I was doing. I picked a write-protected disk and it locked up presumably because it was trying to write to the disk (the menu did say that some titles would attempt this). The access light never went off and the software never finished loading so I eventually turned the power off and removed the disk. The manual kinda contradicts itself by saying that the access light ONLY lights while accessing the disk (it also flashes error codes) and tells you not to remove the disk then or power it off with the disk loaded, so I picked the one that seemed safest to me (no power means no attempts to R/W during disk removal).
After that I couldn't even get it to load the stuff that was loading fine before ("?FILE NOT FOUND"). I now know that it's because I needed to push the heads back but at the time it appeared that the drive had just died on me. I switched to a Datasette with a commercially produced tape and it "FOUND FROGGER" right away... then failed to load it. After that I couldn't get it to even say "FOUND FROGGER" (the name was either scrambled or blank). The lot included two Datasettes so I assumed one was broken and tried the other. Again, I got "FOUND FROGGER" the first time but it failed to load and never said "FOUND FROGGER" again. It seemed like it was frying everything I connected but I'm going to guess that Frogger might work once I get that ground lug attached wherever it is supposed to go.
OK, so I never got to test any other software before I lost the ability to even load software. I knew that something wasn't right with the sound in Maniac Mansion and that the disk drive that was working suddenly wasn't, so I asked for help online. Someone told me that the PLA was likely fried since it handles drive access routines or something, and the chip was getting hot (CPU and SID were getting pretty warm too).
I was also told to check the voltages which I did exactly as GadgetUK did in one of his videos. Unfortuneatly, when I was measuring at the 7812 voltage regulator, my probe got a little too close to the heat sink which is also connected to ground so I saw an arc and I suddenly had no 9v power. I used my removable probe boots to isolate those pins on the AC adapter and thought that I blew a fuse in that because I got no readings but I later found out that I just wasn't getting my probes into the holes of the probe boots. I began preparations to "rebrick" my PSU and obtained a 5v 3A DC PSU and a 9v AC unregulated 1.2A PSU.
Of course, I only discovered that the internal 250v 1.5A 1.25" fast-blow glass fuse was blown after I've done even more drastic stuff. While I was waiting on PSU stuff I used my desoldering station to socket a few suspect chips:
The CPU (because it was hot)
The PLA (because others suggested that it was responsible for my drive problems)
The SID (because it was most likely bad even without getting to test anything else)
I kept reading warnings about the PLA being particularly heat-sensitive and they all recommended that you not socket it unless there was reason to believe it was faulty. Others were telling me that there was reason to believe that, so I socketed it in confidence that I was doing the right thing in preparation for when I get it powered up again. I soon read on Ray Carlson's 1541 troubleshooting document that the drive issues were likely caused by not reinitializing the drive head position and, thus, there was no good reason to suspect the PLA. At that point my situation had gone from working to non-working with no idea what else might be fried from my exploits after the initial fried SID. To add insult to injury, simply taking the screws out broke two screw posts and my smaller clip on the top shell broke (seemed to be 100% stuck). This thing was deteriorating fast despite me taking every precaution! After their recent closure I couldn't just go to RadioShack to get the right fuse and no one in town had 1.5A. Even the fuse assortments skipped that value.
After checking every hardware store and auto parts store in town EXCEPT The Home Depot ("why would they have it if Lowe's Home Improvement Store doesn't?", I thought), I finally broke down and ordered from a US seller on eBay. Of course, I found 1.5A fuses when I was at The Home Depot for something else and I'm very relieved to find that only my SID needs to be replaced. I can't seem to reinitialize the drive with the program from the manual but it does work when I push the heads back. It's a Newtronics drive so it should be less prone to sticking heads so I'll just cross my fingers and hope it lasts.
Oh: and all the voltages measure good.
*sigh*
I've had a lot of time to research SID replacements in the mean time. I really wanted to try Arkanoid with the mouse or paddles but I see that modern replacement SIDs usually break paddle/mouse support. On top of that, my boxed Commodore 1352 mouse is for Amiga (need 1351 for C64). The SwinSID Ultimate seems to be unobtanium right now, which sucks because that's the only aftermarket replacement that supports paddles/mouse. eBay prices on a 6581 SID are a little higher than I'm willing to pay so I'm still waiting.
That's what brings me here. Hi! Don't let me touch anything.
https://imgur.com/a/6Z9do (full resolution)
Researching which to order from where took longer than I'd hoped but I eventually got my C64 Saver from Hans/Bwack a few weeks ago. My twin bro was getting ready for work as I began preparations to boot it for the first time. It was hard enough to get the monitor, computer, disk drive, etc together in the same place near an outlet (used a TV tray, a night stand/end table, and a file cabinet), but I quickly realized that I couldn't plug it all in without a power strip or something.
Meanwhile, my bro was waiting for me to finish so he could witness the first boot if I finished before he absolutely had to leave for work. It was already taking longer than I thought so I asked him to connect the power to the C64 while I retrieved a power strip. When I came back he was still having difficulty and complained that he didn't know which port it was supposed to go into. With my head down as I plugged other things in, I stupidly responded to say that it should only fit in one port. Well, I was wrong, and I didn't realize what had happened until I finished plugging into the wall and stood back up to see the power plugged into the AV output. The power good LED of the C64 Saver was just happily glowing as it pumped +5V into the Audio Input pin of my 6481 SID chip. Doh!
I may have managed to fry the SID chip before even turning it on, but my destructive potential apparently knows no bounds. After googling the load command which I've seen in countless videos but ever actually used, I tried to load Maniac Mansion and got a black screen with a flashing light on the 1541. I laughed when I saw that the load command was actually printed on the disk and I would have saved time if I had simply looked there first, but I was only capable of laughing because I didn't yet know that I had fried the SID. I loaded a magazine cover disk menu just fine then blew a piece of dust off Maniac Mansion and loaded it just fine only to discover sound problems. Some sounds are really low but for the most part I only get silent screens or loud screeches, hissing, or popping.
To see if if was just that game, I tried to load something else, but here's the thing: I still didn't know what I was doing. I picked a write-protected disk and it locked up presumably because it was trying to write to the disk (the menu did say that some titles would attempt this). The access light never went off and the software never finished loading so I eventually turned the power off and removed the disk. The manual kinda contradicts itself by saying that the access light ONLY lights while accessing the disk (it also flashes error codes) and tells you not to remove the disk then or power it off with the disk loaded, so I picked the one that seemed safest to me (no power means no attempts to R/W during disk removal).
After that I couldn't even get it to load the stuff that was loading fine before ("?FILE NOT FOUND"). I now know that it's because I needed to push the heads back but at the time it appeared that the drive had just died on me. I switched to a Datasette with a commercially produced tape and it "FOUND FROGGER" right away... then failed to load it. After that I couldn't get it to even say "FOUND FROGGER" (the name was either scrambled or blank). The lot included two Datasettes so I assumed one was broken and tried the other. Again, I got "FOUND FROGGER" the first time but it failed to load and never said "FOUND FROGGER" again. It seemed like it was frying everything I connected but I'm going to guess that Frogger might work once I get that ground lug attached wherever it is supposed to go.
OK, so I never got to test any other software before I lost the ability to even load software. I knew that something wasn't right with the sound in Maniac Mansion and that the disk drive that was working suddenly wasn't, so I asked for help online. Someone told me that the PLA was likely fried since it handles drive access routines or something, and the chip was getting hot (CPU and SID were getting pretty warm too).
I was also told to check the voltages which I did exactly as GadgetUK did in one of his videos. Unfortuneatly, when I was measuring at the 7812 voltage regulator, my probe got a little too close to the heat sink which is also connected to ground so I saw an arc and I suddenly had no 9v power. I used my removable probe boots to isolate those pins on the AC adapter and thought that I blew a fuse in that because I got no readings but I later found out that I just wasn't getting my probes into the holes of the probe boots. I began preparations to "rebrick" my PSU and obtained a 5v 3A DC PSU and a 9v AC unregulated 1.2A PSU.
Of course, I only discovered that the internal 250v 1.5A 1.25" fast-blow glass fuse was blown after I've done even more drastic stuff. While I was waiting on PSU stuff I used my desoldering station to socket a few suspect chips:
The CPU (because it was hot)
The PLA (because others suggested that it was responsible for my drive problems)
The SID (because it was most likely bad even without getting to test anything else)
I kept reading warnings about the PLA being particularly heat-sensitive and they all recommended that you not socket it unless there was reason to believe it was faulty. Others were telling me that there was reason to believe that, so I socketed it in confidence that I was doing the right thing in preparation for when I get it powered up again. I soon read on Ray Carlson's 1541 troubleshooting document that the drive issues were likely caused by not reinitializing the drive head position and, thus, there was no good reason to suspect the PLA. At that point my situation had gone from working to non-working with no idea what else might be fried from my exploits after the initial fried SID. To add insult to injury, simply taking the screws out broke two screw posts and my smaller clip on the top shell broke (seemed to be 100% stuck). This thing was deteriorating fast despite me taking every precaution! After their recent closure I couldn't just go to RadioShack to get the right fuse and no one in town had 1.5A. Even the fuse assortments skipped that value.
After checking every hardware store and auto parts store in town EXCEPT The Home Depot ("why would they have it if Lowe's Home Improvement Store doesn't?", I thought), I finally broke down and ordered from a US seller on eBay. Of course, I found 1.5A fuses when I was at The Home Depot for something else and I'm very relieved to find that only my SID needs to be replaced. I can't seem to reinitialize the drive with the program from the manual but it does work when I push the heads back. It's a Newtronics drive so it should be less prone to sticking heads so I'll just cross my fingers and hope it lasts.
Oh: and all the voltages measure good.
*sigh*
I've had a lot of time to research SID replacements in the mean time. I really wanted to try Arkanoid with the mouse or paddles but I see that modern replacement SIDs usually break paddle/mouse support. On top of that, my boxed Commodore 1352 mouse is for Amiga (need 1351 for C64). The SwinSID Ultimate seems to be unobtanium right now, which sucks because that's the only aftermarket replacement that supports paddles/mouse. eBay prices on a 6581 SID are a little higher than I'm willing to pay so I'm still waiting.
That's what brings me here. Hi! Don't let me touch anything.
