Can I hook a C64 C to an HD TV?

[Link6415]

I have an HD TV. Is it possible to hook my C64 to it? I know absolutely nothing about hardware, but there are red, blue, and green ports that seem to be for video and white and red for audio. No yellow to speak of. I have tried a few combinations but keep getting a gray screen.

[Mayhem]

There's no S-video or composite video input? You might have a bit of a tricky time then...

[Midnight Synergy]

Red blue green is likely component video - I don't know of an easy way to get from the C64 to component... there may be adapters for sale online?

[JamesD]

I have an HD TV. Is it possible to hook my C64 to it? I know absolutely nothing about hardware, but there are red, blue, and green ports that seem to be for video and white and red for audio. No yellow to speak of. I have tried a few combinations but keep getting a gray screen.

Read the directions for that TV. Some of the component video inputs allow you to input composite on one of the component video inputs.

[rockman_x_2002]

Read the directions for that TV. Some of the component video inputs allow you to input composite on one of the component video inputs.

 

Yes. Mine is precisely like that. I have a 42" Sony Bravia that has a combination component/composite input, and the yellow video cable plugs into the green "Y" input on the TV. On my particular TV, the color of the input jack is green on the outside, and the inner part is also yellow. Additionally, this will usually be labeled on the back of the TV as something similar to "Y / Video" if it supports both. Definitely check your manual, and if that isn't handy, look at the labeling on the back of your TV and see if it says "Video" somewhere among the component inputs as well.

[+save2600]

Read the directions for that TV. Some of the component video inputs allow you to input composite on one of the component video inputs.

 

Just discovered that on my latest set. Thought it extremely odd there was no composite in, but then saw a little yellow dot painted on one of the component jacks. Was the red jack I believe.

[Link6415]

I switched the HD TV out with the non-HD TV in my parents' room (no, I'm not a 30 year old man child who still lives with my mommy and daddy, I'm in middle school.)

 

It works great! There is a weird problem with my AV cable causing rainbow 'fringe' around characters, so I set the TV to black and white usually, which eliminates this problem.

 

See for yourself:

Edited December 3, 2015 by Link6415

[stirring]

Hehe, cool. Man, I remember doing this back in the 80's when I would drag my C128 up to the family room just to play Ultima on our "huge" 32" flat tube TV while sitting on the couch.

 

Cranking up the music and playing it on a big screen made it just so much more epic. Good stuff.

[Link6415]

Hey, that's what I do sometimes! (Minus the music part on U5, I usually listen to my "RPG Music" mix on my Youtube channel on repeat .)

 

I just finished U1, now going to U5, beat U3 a long time ago, next I'll beat U2, then I'll beat U4, then I'll attempt U6. I think the C64 version of U6 is okay, if it weren't for load times and disk swaps. I'm planning on getting a fastloader anyway, so that'll help.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Link6415

[stirring]

Wow, you are brave attempting U6 on the C64 since they basically had to throw out so much content, including all the music, portraits, and some items.

 

It's actually pretty amazing they were able to port most of the game to the C64, only doing because the C64 still commanded such a high market share even in the age of 16-bit systems that they would have lost money if they didn't do so. I believe the C64 was the only 8-bit system U6 was ever ported to.

 

As I'm sure you know, they also had to remove the music for U5 on the C64 so the game would fit. The C128 version did have the music though if you booted it in C128 mode.

 

Funny story... so many C128 users (including myself) were so used to only playing games in 64 mode (since there were like almost no C128 native games) that we totally missed out on the fact that Ultima 5 worked in C128 mode and had the music! We were so used to just booting up games in C64 mode, skipping a native C128 boot, that we totally never knew that Ultima 5 had music if you booted in C128 mode! I'm sure there was like a one liner buried somewhere in the manuals loading instructions of the game about this, but most C64 users didn't feel the need to read sections telling us we need to LOAD "*",8,1 to get the game going. We were all experienced and almost always skipped reading those sections, unless of course we couldn't get the game to boot via normal means. We actually never considered the fact that the game would actually boot in C128 mode and run! Almost no games did that back then. And certainty games that used the extra memory in C128 to make the game even better was even more rare.

 

I actually ended up playing Ultima 5 on the Amiga instead because that version "had" music! I would have actually preferred playing it on the C128 instead.

 

It wasn't until years later that I read about the enhanced C128 mode for Ultima 5 online and actually tested it out because I couldn't believe it (neither could all my Ultima friends that also missed it back then also. I was actually a bit sad that I missed out playing what was the first and only CRPG that actually worked in a native C128 mode for enhanced play. I actually think in addition to music, the C128 version of Ultima 5 seemed to be doing some disk caching as well using the extra memory to help maybe speed up load times and minimize some disk loads. I never verified that, but in addition to the music, the C128 version seemed to play a bit smoother.

 

There was a similar RTFM moment that happened with Ultima III also. Years later when I was re-playing all the Ultima natively on the C64, and probably around the same time I discovered there was actually the native Ultima 5 C128 version, I also discovered a one-liner in the C64 Ultima III manual (quick ref guide I believe) that I had missed (again buried in the loading instructions) that said you can press the 'C' key during the loading to actually skip the whole frontend menu and take you right into the game instead!! What this meant is that you could have literally shaved close to 3 mins off your games loading back then if you knew this little trick on the C64! Again, I didn't feel too bad since all my C64 Ultima buds missed this one as well back then when I asked them about it.

 

The story here is reading instructions about how to load games is rarely done for users familiar with the platform. Most of us were all experienced C64 users and figured that was a waste of time. In fact, many times just putting a new floppy game in the drive and trying to figure out how to load it was part of the fun of the C64! Most games worked with LOAD "*",8,1 but some games didn't and required you to actually load a specific names instead. I think there was one Ultima that wouldn't load if you did a LOAD "*",8,1 (even though the boot file was the first file in the directory if I remember correctly) and you needed to do a LOAD "ULT",8,1 instead.

[SSG]

You could try to do it through RF.