How I Revived My Commodore 64

The Day I Found You

Recently, I relocated from a house in the middle of nowhere to an apartment near the city.

Besides the practical benefits of having a bigger home close to most of the services my girlfriend, our newborn daughter, and I need, I discovered a small, anonymous, yet clearly massive second-hand shop.

I have a thing for second-hand shops—if it weren’t for my self-imposed restraint, I’d be a hoarder. I love giving new life to items once owned by someone else. I love finding gems, as well as seemingly useless things that turn out to be cute or even practical. A week passed, and I couldn’t resist visiting the shop.

Sure enough, a huge pile of used items welcomed me: pins, games, unidentified objects, furniture—each one calling out to me. I started roaming, examining both useless and useful objects, but without expecting much.

I stumbled upon some interesting tech stuff too: a NeoGeo Pocket Color (that I planned to buy later), games for various retro consoles, a Nintendo Wii (also on my watchlist), and an Xbox 360 (my first online console!).

Guided by a sort of sixth sense, I kept walking until I spotted some boxes hidden behind other items. But wait—one of them wasn’t a box. It was a beige case, unmistakably an old piece of tech!

And there it was: a Commodore 64 Breadbin (the first version) in near-mint condition, priced at a competitive 70€! Silently, I tested the keyboard by pressing random keys—everything felt smooth and clicky, just as I wanted.

I knew I’d have to find its AC adapter and other peripherals, but I wanted it. Badly. And so, I bought it.

That was the day I found you.

Sitting on My Desk

The C64 appeared to be in good condition, but nobody had tested it or confirmed if it was actually working. So, I started researching AC adapters, learning more than I ever wanted. Faulty adapters, untested originals, modern but expensive replacements, safety warnings—it was a rabbit hole.

Long story short, the C64 sat on my desk for a couple of weeks until I found a promising original, sealed AC adapter for just 20€. I knew the original adapters were considered unsafe due to a small number of them being faulty, but I wanted to reconstruct an "as it was" complete package, at least for the main parts.

To be honest, I should have bought a modern replacement (which I still plan to do), but those cost around 60–80€, and I wasn’t even sure if the machine worked yet.

So, I ordered the adapter. And sure enough, once plugged in, the Commodore’s LED turned red.

We had power.

Headless Mode!

Now I knew my unit had power.

The C64 turned on and didn’t explode—a good start. But, of course, I needed video output, which I had no idea how to get.

I had bought the machine impulsively, with little knowledge about its hardware and current support. Until I figured things out, my C64 was essentially running in a useless headless mode.

Habemus Video

The C64 has two main video output ports:

1. RF Output: Designed for old CRT TVs, generating a radio signal that can be picked up by a TV. Since I don’t own a CRT and the video quality was expected to be abysmal, I scrapped this option.
2. 5-Pin DIN Output: This carries multiple signals, including S-Video, Composite Video (yellow RCA), and mono audio. I assumed it would be easy to find a DIN to AV adapter and then convert AV to HDMI—simple, right?

Wrong.

Almost every single cable listed on Amazon had negative reviews for the C64. Turns out, not all 5-pin DIN sockets and cables are the same, so I had to dig deeper.

Enter eBay: I found a highly-rated seller offering a DIN-to-RCA cable specifically made for the C64. One week and 7€ later, I had the cable.

While I was at it, I ordered a cheap AV-to-HDMI adapter (since I don’t own a Composite Monitor) for about 13€, shipping included.

Once everything arrived, I plugged it all in and connected the HDMI output to my switch, which was linked to my 1080p monitor.

And then—

A nice, working BASIC V2 prompt appeared.

The C64 was alive, and I was happy… for about half an hour.

Can You Hear Me?

Much later, I realized I also wanted audio output from the C64.

This was as simple as buying a 7€ RCA-to-3.5mm adapter from Amazon and connecting the red and white RCA cables to a speaker.

The hardest part? Finding a speaker with a female 3.5mm jack and balancing the volume—between scare jumps (too loud!) and low-quality SID chip sounds.

Cassettes?

I quickly realized that, while BASIC was fun for testing cycles and conditions, I wanted software.

The C64 was designed to load software via cassettes or floppies, so I searched for the cheapest way to test the cassette port.

Option 1: Buy an original Datassette. Found one for 24€, negotiated down to 20€, and got a cassette included. Three days later, I was rocking a LOAD "",1 command and watching the Datassette slowly but surely read "Ludoteca 3", a cassette from a defunct magazine series.

Some programs loaded, others didn’t—either the cassette was damaged or the reader needed calibration. But at least I confirmed the Datassette port was functional.

Option 2: Buy a Tapecart—an Arduino-based Datassette emulator that loads .TAP and .PRG files from a microSD card, with much faster loading times. Found one for 20€, negotiated to 18€.

Once it arrived, I downloaded a 16.4GB archive of C64 tape files from Archive.org. Everything loaded flawlessly through the Tapecart Browser.

Happy face!

Power Is Nothing Without Controls

I played a few games via the Tapecart.

Then, I realized most C64 games were meant to be played with a joystick.

A trivial step: I bought a boxed joystick for 20€ on Vinted.

But then, a problem—the fire button was stuck. I feared I had wasted money on junk. Fortunately, a generous spray of isopropyl alcohol into the joystick’s junctions fixed everything.

Yay! I launched Bubble Bobble and started playing like a 1984 pro!

Ahem…

More like a newbie.

Either 1984 games were harder, or I’m just terrible at joystick controls. Maybe both.

Floppy Disks to the rescue

Like a true data hoarder, I wanted them all—or, at least, I wanted to find the best ones available online. Since my experience with the Commodore 64 was (and still is) quite limited, I started researching the various ROM file formats.

Soon, I came across files with .D64 and .D81 extensions.

It took me a few minutes to fully grasp what I was getting myself into, but the short version is that the Commodore 64 also supported floppy disks, specifically the 1541 and 1581 formats (the 1571 exists too, but it doesn’t seem as popular).

And that’s where the easy part ended.

I quickly ruled out buying an original 1541 floppy drive—too bulky, and preserved floppies were scarce. So, I dived deep into emulators and alternatives.

Many users online suggested a device called SD2IEC—a neat piece of hardware that lets you load floppy disk ROMs through the same port as the 1541 floppy drive. A great option, but an expensive one.

After some discussions online, I decided to go the Raspberry Pi route. I grabbed a Raspberry Pi Zero (the 10€ version) I had lying around and ordered a Pi1541 Hat—an add-on that plugs into the GPIO pins and allows the Pi to emulate both the 1541 and 1581 with minimal effort. The whole setup cost me about 18€.

Following the official guide, I prepared my MicroSD card. Once the Pi1541 arrived, I inserted the MicroSD, powered it up, and connected the IEC cable (included) to the C64. A simple LOAD"FB64",8 command later, and I was browsing, launching, and testing every .D64 and .D81 image I could find.

While performance on a Pi Zero isn’t perfect, I managed to speed things up by disabling cycle-accurate mode (as suggested in the guide). So far? Zero issues.

The Modern Web

You know, having a retro machine like the Commodore 64 makes you wonder—can it do something truly weird, like connecting to the internet? Maybe even through WiFi?

Surely impossible, right? After all, it's a 41-year-old machine. While it did support old dial-up modems, modern network protocols are far too different. No chance.

Wrong.

Turns out, there are plenty of ways to connect microcontroller-based devices to the C64’s user port (the wide one on the rear), effectively giving it modern WiFi capabilities.

After some research, I ended up buying a 34€ WiFi modem on Vinted, simply called “Modem WiFi for Commodore 64 and 128.” It came with a small paper guide explaining its usage. While I have no idea of the exact model, I’m fairly certain it’s ESP8266-based—though I could be wrong.

Setting it up was surprisingly simple. I just had to load a .PRG file (a terminal emulator) onto my Tapecart, issue a couple of configuration commands, and—

Soon enough, I was connecting to BBSes (yes, they still exist!) and experiencing the internet at 300 baud, just like in the old days.

So exciting.

Conclusion

So far, my journey with the Commodore 64 both ends and begins here.

I’m having a blast playing old games, chatting and posting on BBSes, and diving into the surprisingly thriving world of C64 enthusiasts.

With this post, I wanted to write a love letter to all the retro communities across the web—and maybe even inspire someone to embark on a similar adventure.

Next step? Maybe an Amiga 500.

Or maybe... I’ll just keep enjoying my C64. :)