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A Revolutionary Input Device, 30 Years Too Late
Way before you kids had touch screens and mice, we had to walk uphill both ways to tell a computer where we were pointing at on the screen. I speak, of course, of light pens. When these photodiodes in...
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Golden Commodore C64 Brings the Bling to 8-Bit Computing
Sometimes, a hack is just a hack. And sometimes, a hack is nothing but a gold-plated Commodore C64. Alright, it’s not gold-plated, it’s gilded. For the uninitiated, gilding is the process of gluing...
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Adding A Second Drive To A Forgotten Commodore
Commodore would never release a laptop, or really much of anything resembling the chunky luggable portable computers of the 1980s. This doesn’t mean a ‘Commodore LCD’ wasn’t designed – it’s sitting in...
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Giving the C64 A WiFi Modem
If there’s any indication of the Commodore 64’s longevity, it’s the number of peripherals and add-ons that are still being designed and built. Right now, you can add an SD card to a C64, a technology...
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The Immersive, VR, Internet of Things Unicycle
Want something that you’ll try for fifteen minutes before realizing it’s extremely stupid and has limited utility before throwing it in the back of a closet to eventually sell at a yard sale? No, it’s...
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Refurbishing Six Commodore 64s in Parallel
[Drygol] found himself with six Commodore 64’s in various states of disrepair. Because batch work is often more efficient, he detailed the process of restoring all of them in parallel in this one-,...
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Slack, Backwards Compatible With 1982
Slack is great, but there are a few small problems with the current implementations. There isn’t a client for Palm, there isn’t a client for the Newton, and there isn’t a client for the Commodore 64....
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Atari Now Runs Java, Thankfully Doesn’t Require Constant Updates
Java Grinder is a tool that compiles Java programs to run on platforms like microcontrollers and consoles, by outputting native assembly code and using APIs to work with custom hardware like bespoke...
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C64 Keyboard Emulation Over Serial
There’s a lot of reasons you might want to emulate the keyboard on your Commodore 64. The ravages of time and dust may have put the original keyboard out of order, or perhaps you need to type in a long...
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Flappy Bird is the New “Does it Run Doom?”
Back in 2014 [Johan] decided to celebrate BASIC’s 30 50 year anniversary by writing his own BASIC interpreter. Now, a few years later, he says he feels he has hit a certain milestone: he can play...
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Building a Replica Final Cartridge III
The Commodore 64 was the computer of the 8-bit era, and remains the highest selling computer of all time. In addition to disk and tape drives, it also had a cartridge interface. A popular extension...
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Adding Character To The C64
The venerable Commodore 64, is there anything it can’t do? Like many 1980s computer platforms, direct access to memory and peripherals makes hacking easy and fun. In particular, you’ll find serial...
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Fixing Bugs In Ancient BASIC Games
Before everyone learned programming on Stack Exchange, things were much different. Computer magazines had BASIC programs in them, which readers would type out, line by line, and hit RUN. In theory,...
View ArticleHacked Headset Brings VR to the Commodore 64
The venerable Commodore 64 got a lot of people started in computers, and a hard core of aficionados keeps the platform very much alive to this day. But a C64 just doesn’t have the horsepower to do...
View ArticleRetroModem for the Commodore 64
Retrocomputers are fun, but ultimately limited in capability compared to modern hardware. One popular pursuit to rectify this is the connection of early home computers to the Internet. To that end,...
View ArticleCommodore 64 to Raspberry Pi Conversion is Respectful & Complete
We’re big fans of taking old computers and giving them a new lease on life, but only when it is done respectfully. That means no cutting, no hot glue, and no gouging out bits to make the new computer...
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C64 Keyboard Helps Keep The Memory Alive
To say that the Commodore 64 was an important milestone in the history of personal computing is probably a bit of an understatement. For a decent chunk of the 1980s, it was the home computer, with some...
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Hackaday Links: September 23, 2018
In the spirit of Nintendo’s NES mini and Super NES mini, Sony is releasing a tiny version of the Playstation. It’s a hundred bucks in December and it comes with Final Fantasy VII, what more do you...
View ArticleAnts, Dirt, Rain, And The Commodore 64 That Wouldn’t Quit
Some electronics gear is built for the roughest conditions. With rugged steel cases, weatherproof gaskets, and cables passing through sealed glands, these machines are built to take the worst that...
View ArticleA Portal Port Programmed For Platforms Of The Past
If you still have a Commodore 64 and it’s gathering dust, don’t sell it to a collector on eBay just yet. There’s still some homebrew game development happening from a small group of programmers...
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