Found an "as is" C64 today at Goodwill, how I got

[Atari2600Lives]

Picked up an "as is" C64 at goodwill with power supply and hard drive for $9.99.

 

Got it home plugged it in and got the intital screen then garbage then a blank screen. Second and third try it would not boot up at all.

 

I simply removed 3 screws, unsnapped the back plastic case. Unscrewed the EMI shielding plate (4 more screws). Took an elctronic liquid cleaner and brushed it over all the chips, brushed all the sockets where plugs go as well (maybe 3 minutes total with unscrewing).

 

Put the screws back and the case ,didn't even wait for it to dry, plugged it in and VIOLA! I am on my second game of Super Bowl Sunday...God I love this hobby.

 

:wink:

[MegaManFan]

You mean disk drive, not hard drive... right?

[Atari2600Lives]

Of course I mean disk drive

 

Well guess what? The main unit is doing great but the "disk drive" started pouring smoke out of the vents...nasty. Anyway I salvaged the main disk assembly section but the board inside the drive is history.

[MegaManFan]

Sorry to hear that dude. I just picked up a working 1571 in trade and it's giving me sweet tidings of joy. I played The Last Ninja and Marble Madness last night for the first time in over a decade and I was marking out like seeing Booker T do the People's Elbow.

[Retro Rogue]

Of course I mean disk drive    

 

Well guess what? The main unit ids doing great. The "disk drive" started pouring smoke out of the vents...nasty. Anyway I salvaged the main disk assembly section but the board inside the drive is history.

 

I've got some extra working drives if you want to trade for anything.

[Atari2600Lives]

I have other working drives but I am willing to trade. What are you looking for?

 

I have Atari and Sega stuff.

[Ze_ro]

Of course I mean disk drive  

 

Oh good... if you had found a C-64 hard drive at a thrift store, I would have had to hit you

 

--Zero

[Brad2600]

I want a C64 hard drive and disk drive someday. I already have the monitor for it.

[Ze_ro]

Actually, I sort of improvised my own... using an X1541 cable, and a program caller server64, I had a PC that connected to the serial bus for the sole purpose of the C64 using the PC's hard drive as if it was a normal 1541. It was quite nifty, although not terribly useful since most of the software I have for the C64 has copy protected disks, or other attributes that made a hard drive useless. Also, the 386 I was using had a dead CMOS battery and would lose all the hard drive settings if I turned it off

 

It was pretty cool seeing 65535 blocks free on the directory though... although it was an 80 meg hard drive.

 

--Zero

[AtariDude]

Nice find. You always seem to get lucky that way. You have to tell me all your secrets

[Atari2600Lives]

What's up Atari Dude? Good to talk to you again. I have been missing in action for about 8 months. I am back into the hobby.

 

I had never seen a C64 before at a thrift store. All my C64 stuff is Ebay. I was pretty excited about the find but realized that it had a big "As Is" written on it which usually means "non working" in thrift store talk.

 

I got lucky that the main unit worked. As far as the disk drive , I am still trying to get the smoke smell out of my office !

[Ze_ro]

Do other people have a hard time finding C64 stuff? It's all extremely common around here... I commonly see 2 or 3 C64's at each of the Value Villages, and disk drives are fairly easy to find too.

 

Unfortunately, that's about all that's common... I'd still like to find an RS232 adaptor or a parallel printer adaptor, but oh well. It's not like either of them would have a lot of use nowadays anyways.

 

And of course, I'd still love to get a 1581... I used to dream about that thing back in the 80's...

 

--Zero

[Atari2600Lives]

Like i mentioned before I had never seen one. I have been seriously collecting since the mid 90s.

 

AtariDude and myself are in the South Florida area. Interesting that it would be common in Canada...I wonder if that has something to do with it having longer legs there (it was still for sale after it stopped getting made in the US for a long while right?)

[MegaManFan]

Do other people have a hard time finding C64 stuff? It's all extremely common around here... I commonly see 2 or 3 C64's at each of the Value Villages, and disk drives are fairly easy to find too.

 

Unfortunately, that's about all that's common... I'd still like to find an RS232 adaptor or a parallel printer adaptor, but oh well. It's not like either of them would have a lot of use nowadays anyways.

 

And of course, I'd still love to get a 1581... I used to dream about that thing back in the 80's...

 

--Zero

 

If Commodore stuff is pretty common, let me know if you come across a pile of cartridges.

[AtariDude]

Commodore Business Machines was originally based in Canada so that might account for why it is common in Canada.

[icbrkr]

Actually, I sort of improvised my own... using an X1541 cable, and a program caller server64, I had a PC that connected to the serial bus for the sole purpose of the C64 using the PC's hard drive as if it was a normal 1541. It was quite nifty, although not terribly useful since most of the software I have for the C64 has copy protected disks, or other attributes that made a hard drive useless. Also, the 386 I was using had a dead CMOS battery and would lose all the hard drive settings if I turned it off

 

It was pretty cool seeing 65535 blocks free on the directory though... although it was an 80 meg hard drive.

 

--Zero

 

I'll have to look for this! I've tried everything I could think of, but I cannot get 64HDD to work. I know my x1541XE cable works, it works fine with Star Commander. If it could connect to D64 images, I'd be good to go.

[Ze_ro]

I've tried everything I could think of, but I cannot get 64HDD to work.

 

Yeah, I think I tried 64HDD initially, and could never get it to work properly... meanwhile server64 worked right away! I think it can connect to d64 files as well, but I never really experimented with it too much.

 

If Commodore stuff is pretty common, let me know if you come across a pile of cartridges.

 

Unfortunately, C64 cartridges are never all that common... everyone just kept tons of disks and got all their software at "copyfests"... I have a decent number of cartridges (25 or so), but not enough to start reselling them. The only doubles I ever seem to come across are Music Machine and Kickman, which are about as common as dirt.

 

If you REALLY want C64 cartridges, you're best off asking people from Europe. For whatever reason, the disk drive didn't catch on as well over there, so there were a lot more tape and cartridge releases than there were over here. In fact, there are a lot of games available on cartridge in Europe that never showed up here in North America. Beware of PAL problems when trading with Europeans of course.

 

--Zero

[Mayhem]

The disc drive didn't catch on in England. Everywhere else in Europe it did! Blame Commodore's crappy pricing scheme. But you'll find plenty of discs over here, just all PAL instead though.

 

To my knowledge there are no major issues with running any C64 PAL cartridges on an NTSC machine. A couple of the Ocean ones I've heard don't work quite as well, but that's about it.

 

If you're after C64 carts, here's what I have spare currently... PM if anyone is interested I guess! I have prices in my mind, but am negotiable on some of them...

 

Battlezone (cart only)

Bridge 64 (cart only)

Buck Rogers (cart only)

Congo Bongo (cart only)

Designer's Pencil (damaged boxed with instructions)

Dot Gobbler (cart only)

Ducks Ahoy (cart only)

Galaxian (boxed with instructions)

International Soccer (cart only)

Kindercomp (cart only)

Le Mans (cart only)

Moon Patrol (cart only)

Mr Cool (cart only)

Ms Pacman (boxed with instructions)

Pacman (with instructions)

Pitfall (cart only)

Retro Ball (cart only)

Zaxxon (cart only)