TECH : Broken doesn't mean it can't be pretty...

Recently a local retro collector was giving away some of his excess gear - in his collection, he had an old Commodore 64 that was dead. It had been gutted - all of its chips had been removed and someone had soldered in a few random wires - and it was missing a few keys which had broken off.  While only my brother had Commodore (I was the "Sinclair" side of the family), the old "bread box" styling of the machine is iconic.  I also felt even if it didn't work, it could make for a nice display unit.

Not one - but two - but inside none...

On a little googling, I also saw a few small projects with Raspberry Pi emulators, old keyboards and a device called a Keyrah.  It is a small PCB that converts the Commodore keyboard input into a USB compliant USB keyboard.  I figure if I get the time, I may consider looking into projects like this at a later date.

Inspection - yup, its missing a few keys.

The machines arrived well packed inside an old Banana box.  I'd been sent two (I only expected one) - the Commodore 64, and a Commodore 64c that apparently would only produce a black screen and was rather messy inside as well.  The Commodore 64c's keyboard, however was intact.

Yes - I suspect that there may be something missing here

I'm not a big fan of the newer model casing that Commodore started to release its machines in (the later C128, Amiga 500's, etc).  While I could have just transplanted the keyboard across to the older box, its keys are light and the old bread box has great looking dark brown keys.  To keep the retro appeal, I just needed to replace those 3 that were missing with brown keys.

Washing away the dust

These machines have obviously been stored somewhere dusty - covered in grime and dust bunnies (or as they are otherwise known - clumped dust and hair) - a quick wash in some warm soapy water did wonders for the cases.  Obviously - I removed the keyboards and PCB's first!

So it was off to eBay...

I found a reseller who had classic brown C64 keys (refurbished, but in very good condition).  He also had pegs (the things that had snapped on the old keyboard, hence the missing keys) as well as springs.  So I ordered the 3 keys I was missing, a pack of springs and stems.

3 missing keys - now found (on eBay).  US$3.99 each

They arrived around a week later.  So - a little unscrewing (the keyboard PCB has almost 16-20 tiny screws hold it on) and some prying later, I managed to get the pegs in place, sit the springs on top and clip down the keys.

So many screws!

Viole!  Now looks much nicer.

Ta-da!  Now almost complete...

But something was still missing...

The C64 was missing its power LED.  This is a cheap 5mm Red LED - around $0.25 NZ cents.  I bought a couple (along with a green and a yellow one - Just because I could round it up to $1.00 - and because I thought its always handy to have some on hand)

At first I thought I would just clip it into the small black mount - it fits great - but then the clip is way too wide to go back into the case.

I placed the clip back in, inserted the LED and carefully (but forcefully) pushed it in with a pair or needle-nosed pliers.  The "click" meant it was in, and the case now looks complete.

Still one last detail... But for now...

There is still a missing black plastic cover that sits over the joystick and power connectors on the side, but from what I can tell this is really just a piece of black plastic with holes carefully punched into it.  Something for another time...

Something for another rainy day

Ready for display... or...

The case looks great (as long as I don't stare at the joystick connector "space" in the side) - its a classic design, and along with the ZX Spectrums (all 6 of them - lol!), the Atari 600 and the C64c - I now feel I need a display space.

I am definitely keen to make these two C64's at least do something more then sit pretty.  At a later date, I'll try my hand at throwing in a Keyrah interface.  If I'm feeling ambitious enough, a Raspberry Pi project may also be on the horizon...

UPDATE (April 2014)

Thanks to Terry 'tezza' Stewart, I now have that elusive plate.  It was definitely a lot different then I had imagined it to be (wasn't quite as simple as a 'plastic with holes')... A metal plate, with a large base folded flat to sit underneath the Circuit board.  However, that aside - I can now officially say that the case is complete...

Woohoo!  Nuff said...