Category - Commodore 64

Commodore 64, How to's

One of the many benefits I enjoyed with my trusty 1541 Ultimate II+ cartridge was the ability to transfer files to (and from) my C64 to my modern day computer. I’m pleased to see that the C64 Ultimate also has this feature built in.

C64 Ultimate MicroSD Card Slot

You can store your digital C64 library on USB flash drives or on a memory card. To keep things super neat and tidy I decided to install a FAT formatted 16GB MicroSD card into the card slot on the motherboard. Really easy to do, just undo the three screws, lift the front of the lid and pop it in, label side up. The socket is spring loaded so you’ll hear and feel a little click once you’ve inserted it far enough.

16GB microSD fully inserted

Before going any further, you need to ensure that your C64 is connected to your LAN, either via an ethernet cable or Wi-Fi and that you know what its IP is. I’d also strongly recommend reserving that IP on your router so it becomes permanent. Not essential but does make life a lot easier if you’re going to be connecting to it a lot, and I most certainly am!

Enabling FTP service

The FTP server feature on the C64 Ultimate is disabled by default so you need to go into the ‘Network Services & Timezone’ menu and enable it, making sure you save the change to flash memory as you back out.

FTP Settings

Next you need to load up your FTP program of choice. I use ForkLift on my Mac (because it’s similar to Directory Opus which I love) and it has a nice built-in FTP client but you could use FileZilla or anything you want.

C64 Ultimate available drives

The Protocol should be set to FTP, the Server is the IP of your C64 Ultimate (192.168.1.120 in my case) and the port should be 21. Ensure Passive mode is enabled too. You should be able to leave the rest of the settings alone.

Now would be a good time to save these settings into your favourites or directory/address book, so you don’t have to enter them next time, then click on connect. All being well, a few seconds later you should be connected and viewing all the available drives accessible to your C64. In my case I could see the Flash memory (where cart and ROM images are stored), the SD card, a Temp folder and lastly a USB drive that was also plugged in.

This card will self-destruct in ten seconds…

At that point I just double-clicked the C64’s SD Card drive on my Mac and was ready to go. You can just upload files to your C64 as you would with any FTP server. D64’s, SID files, cartridges, anything at all. Transfer speeds aren’t brilliant but they’re perfectly acceptable for transferring small batches of games across. A typical 176KB D64 file takes about 4 seconds to copy over which is far quicker than taking the card out, putting it in your computer, copying the file onto it etc.

Of course if you wanted to transfer a large collection across that’s when taking the card out would make sense, but if you’re not in a hurry it’s still possible via FTP too and saves wear and tear on both your case and memory card. Also interesting to note that you can transfer files even when your C64 is playing a game or running a demo.

A nice short and sweet post today. Hope you find it useful, I know I have!

Commodore 64 FDD Power Monitor

2 months ago

Commodore 64, VIC 20

Way back in 2020 I reviewed the 1501 Power Monitor for Commodore 64 and VIC-20 computers, built by a guy in Australia. Now he’s produced another product that works with your disk drive PSUs too called the Commodore 64 FDD Power Monitor.

Whilst the original device was designed to monitor the power output of C64 and VIC-20 PSUs this one is designed to check the output of 1541-II and 1581 PSUs instead.

The attractive box is finished in a suitable Commodore beige colour with black side panels. It’s 12cm wide, 14cm tall and 3.5cm deep.

Power Monitor Top View

It features two large LED displays on the top panel of the box, each measuring 5cm wide and 3cm tall, along with a very professional looking Commodore 1501 badge. (Confusingly the same model number he gave to the original C64 device).

Commodore 1501 Badge

The bottom of the box has a neat little ‘FDD II Power Monitor’ label displaying the unit’s serial number on it along with a reminder that it was made down under.

FDD II Label

This time around there’s only one port to be found on the device, a four pin DIN socket for attaching the output of a Commodore disk drive PSU. This is only to be used for testing and not continuous monitoring.

Power Socket

As is the way, I saw the two screws in the base and couldn’t resist taking a look inside.

Opening up the box

The 1501 PCB

The top of the box is attached to bottom by a few wires that run from the rear of the LED displays to the PCB so I had to be careful not to dislodge them.

LED Panels (rear)

Testing it out

With the visual inspection complete I decided to give it a go and test the output of my 1541-II’s PSU.

The device couldn’t be any simpler to use, just plug the PSU into the socket on the side of the device and power it on.

Voltage readings

I observed a 5V line reading of 5.21V and a 12V reading of 12.7V. According to Commodore’s engineering schematics for these drives they require nominal outputs of 5VDC ± 5% @ 1.0A and 12VDC ± 5% @ 0.5A. That means the tolerance is 4.75VDC – 5.25VDC and 11.4VDC – 12.6VDC.

My PSU is getting close to the upper limit for the 5V line and is just over it for the 12V line. However those figures are measuring the output of the PSU when it isn’t under load so I’d expect those voltages to drop and be within tolerance levels when in use. Still, it’s definitely something I will need to keep an eye on in future as I certainly don’t want to fry one of my drives!

Conclusion

This is another terrific little device and incredibly useful if you are nursing one or more geriatric Commodore floppy drives through their senior years. I mean, sure, you could test your PSUs with a multimeter but you’d have to consult the pin-outs each time (unless you have a great memory) and who is going to bother doing that? Furthermore, there’s also the risk of shorting out a couple of pins if you don’t have steady hands and/or 20/20 vision. This device on the other hand offers a convenient and simple way to test Commodore FDD PSUs and it looks great whilst doing it too.

If you’d like to get hold of your own FDD Power Monitor then head on over to eBay and grab one from user bluebolt12’s store. At the time of writing they’re around $54 (AUS) which is about £29 or $39 (US) plus postage. You can also pick up the original C64 Power Monitor or even pocket sized versions of each whilst you are there too!

C64 Ultimate – Unboxing & Review

2 months ago

2 Comments

I’ve had a C64 Ultimate on order for several months now and the order status remained disappointingly static for so long I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever get mine. Seeing people getting theirs on social media only served to rub salt into the wound. So imagine my excitement to receive a UPS notification out of the blue a few days ago that my parcel was finally making its way to me! Now it’s finally sat in front of me was it worth the wait?

C64 Ultimate Box

Hats off to Commodore (and UPS) as my C64 arrived in pristine condition, double boxed and well protected inside with thick foam. The Commodore 64 cardboard box itself also remained unblemished and has earned pride of place on display a shelf.

C64 Box Rear

3 Great Models to choose from

No humans included apparently…

The packaging stays faithful to the original Commodore blue and white stripes and every side is packed with colour graphics, photos and interesting information about the new machine.

Technical Specifications.

Ports and sockets.

Upon opening up the box I discovered not one but two welcome messages – reassuring me that I would be returning to a happy place now that it had arrived.

Welcome message 1.

Welcome message 2.

The accessory box contains a 2.5m long Commodore branded HDMI cable (nice touch), a terrific sheet of Commodore stickers, a USB ‘Cassette’ and the PSU.

Accessories.

Sandwiched between two chunks of thick foam was the C64 Ultimate – ’Starlight’ Edition which I have to say is a beautiful looking machine.

C64 Ultimate.

Underneath that I found the User’s Guide, wrapped in bubble wrap to protect it.

Bubble-wrapped.

User’s Guide.

Taking a closer look at the contents

Once I’d opened everything up I took a bunch of photographs of everything, obviously, so I could preserve the moment for posterity and of course share it with you guys.

Accessory pack contents.

I do love a good sticker and this sheet is jam-packed with excellent ones. Really high quality, glossy and well designed. These will be adorning the doors to my games cupboard for sure.

Stickers!

The ‘Very Second’ ‘cassette’ is apparently continuing a tradition as the ‘Very First’ tape was included with the original C64 back in the 80’s. I say ‘apparently’ as I wasn’t aware of this. As a child my parents couldn’t afford a brand new C64 so they got me a second hand one and a lot of the original accessories and box were missing.

The Very Second ‘Cassette’.

However this ‘cassette’ is actually just a holder for a USB flash drive that slides out the bottom where the tape would normally be. Apparently there are over 100 games, demos and SID music tracks to enjoy on here so I can’t wait to rummage through and experience all of those!

Not your normal cassette.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the HDMI cable included, even more so to see it in a Commodore plastic bag.

HDMI Cable.

I love the transparent PSU, I think it may well be the first one I’ve ever had.

PSU with regional socket adaptors.

It definitely has the first transparent earth pin on a plug that I’ve seen or owned.

Completely transparent.

Have to say that I was a tiny bit disappointed when I looked at the circuit board inside the PSU though.

Inside the PSU.

No matter from which side I looked at it, the board was lop-sided.

Inside the PSU.

Maybe it was designed this way on purpose to accommodate taller components on one side? I’ve no idea but it does seem a bit odd given the attention to details everywhere else.

Inside the PSU.

At the end of the day it’s a trivial, nit-picking observation and it makes no real difference to how the PSU operates. Just my annoying OCD kicking in! Talking of OCD, when the PSU is plugged into a UK power socket the C= logo is upside down!

Inside the PSU.

I had no such problems with the User’s guide though. It’s beautifully made, spiral bound with luxuriously thick pages and lovely full colour printing.

User’s Guide Cover.

It features a little guide/mascot figure called C6T4 (a name clearly based on the idea of an 8-Bit Star Wars droid – or ‘Commobot’ as he’s called here) similar to the way the VIC20 guide had little cartoon VIC’s dotted around throughout.

C6T4!

C6T4 pops up here and there to explain or warn you about important stuff, or just to add a bit of charm to proceedings.

Good use of colour.

The manual is clear, easy to read and weighs in at over 240 pages. It has proper contents and index pages, covers port pin-outs, mainboard sockets and connectors and even has some type-in programs near the back which I’m dying to try out. I love that they kept it spiral bound as it’s so much easier to have it lay open on just the pages you want and it’s infinitely better than a PDF.

A Closer Look at the C64 Ultimate

Beautiful…

The right hand side of the machine looks very familiar at first glance. Two joystick ports, an on/off rocker switch and power. However the power socket is now a barrel jack design and that rocker switch does more than just turn the machine on and off. It can also reset the machine or bring up the on-screen menu too.

Joystick Ports, Multi-Function ‘Power’ Switch and power socket.

Around the back of the machine it’s a similar story with a mixture of old and new ports but also some missing ones too.

Rear Ports.

The cartridge port is present and correct.

Cartridge Port.

Gone is the RF modulator output and the little screw to adjust it. I won’t miss that at all – it used to give a pretty ropey picture anyway. In its place is a 3.5mm audio line out socket and an empty hole.

3.5mm Audio Line-out – and space for something else to its’ left?

Moving along I found the familiar round AV monitor port and the serial port so I can still use it with my trusty 1084S CRT monitor and array of original disk drives should I wish to.

Analogue AV port and serial port.

Next up is another old faithful – the cassette port edge connector, still alive and kicking in 2026.

Cassette Port edge connector.

Finally I reached the section where I would normally expect to find the user-port but it has now vanished. It has been replaced by an HDMI, ethernet and two USB-A ports. I know a lot of people (gamers) probably never used this port and thus won’t miss it but over the years some of the most interesting C64 projects I’ve come across utilise this port. Spoiler alert – it’s not completely gone, it has a new home and requires the purchase of an extra doodad to bring it back. More on that later.

HDMI, ethernet and 2 USB-A ports.

The keyboard looks fantastic and the translucent red used for the function keys is particularly attractive, and this is all before it’s even illuminated.

Just look at those gorgeous function keys!

I spotted some protective plastic on the C64 and Power badges so naturally I immediately started picking at them until they peeled off revealing fresh shiny lettering underneath.

Peeling…

The underside is well worth checking out too. There’s a lovingly attached label with the C64 Ultimate’s serial number in the centre, flanked by a little gold rosette assuring you that it has the ‘Commodore Quality Seal of Approval’. Over to the right you can see the signatures of the Commodore team on the underside of the motherboard. If I’d bought the cheaper beige edition I would never have seen these. A lovely tribute.

Signed, sealed and delivered!

Under the Hood

Before I even switched the thing on I just couldn’t resist the temptation to take a peek inside the case. Out came the Phillips screwdriver and out popped the three screws holding the case together. Glad to see this time around they are using pan head machine screws with threaded inserts in the case. No more shredding plastic posts by accidentally over-tightening!

Pan head screws

With the lid raised I could now see what was under the hood and the first thing I noticed was another raft of signatures including David Pleasance (the old MD of Commodore UK) and Gideon (the guy who designed the motherboard).

More signatures

Also of note, two chunky ZIF sockets where you can install some real SID chips. Not sure if I want to transplant the SID’s out of my real C64C (have both a 6581 and 8580 installed in it on a SIDFX board) or get hold of a couple of ARMSID’s. Or maybe just stick with the onboard UltiSID’s… we shall see!

SID ZIF Sockets

There’s also a built-in speaker and a couple more USB-A ports too. These ports can be used for USB storage devices so you can have a bunch of games and demos permanently available on some USB flash drives hidden away inside the case for a nice clean look and leave the rear ports free for other things.

Built-in speaker and 2 additional USB-sockets.

In the centre of the board we find the ‘brains’ of the machine, an AMD Artix XC7A50T FGPGA chip sitting within a small daughterboard. I do like how they’ve annotated some of the components on the board like the RAM, Paddle, Audio and both Analog and Digital Video chips.

C64 Ultimate FPGA Board

Moving across to the left-hand side of the board we see a bunch of connectors and wires for the RGB lighting and a white USB-C cable that connects the keyboard. There’s also pin headers labelled as ‘Utility buttons’ which, according to the manual, allow you access dedicated ‘Reset’, “Menu’ and ‘Freeze’ functions directly (think Ultimate II+ cartridge buttons). That’s a definite future project right there!

MicroSD Slot and the missing User Port to the right…

Directly below the keyboard connector is a MicroSD card slot giving the user yet another option for storing files internally.

What’s this doing in here?

Over to the right and directly below the FPGA daughterboard is the missing User Port – a long, long way from home. It appears Commodore sell an adaptor for this which entails hooking up a ribbon cable and having it exiting out the back of the case. Sounds ugly but if I want use of that port I don’t have much choice. Another little future project.

Have to say I’m a bit disappointed with this particular design choice. I mean I kind of understand they probably wanted to leave the mould exactly as it was originally, hence why it still has labels for ‘USER PORT’ and ‘RF’ when neither are there. Also Gideon’s board was designed to fit in original cases. But at the same time they had an opportunity to redesign both slightly when creating the Ultimate so we could have had the best of both worlds; retain the user port in the correct location and move the USB, ethernet and HDMI elsewhere.

Power On

After having a good nose around both the exterior and interior of the machine, and lamented what could have been, it was time to put those screws back and power up the new girl!

Ain’t she pretty!

I flipped the switch and after a couple of seconds (not instantly like the old days) she flickered into life in all her ’Starlight’ glory. Flicking the switch upward momentarily whilst the machine is on brings up the menu screen whilst holding it upward for a full second resets the machine. You need to hold it in the downward position for four seconds to power the C64 off. It’s not called a multi-function switch for nothing! However it quickly becomes almost second nature.

Pretty in Pink.

Initially the screen was set to something pretty safe and low-res, looking rather stretched on my 32” monitor.

C64 Ultimate Menu Screen

However after delving into the Video options and changing the screen mode to Full HD (1080P) with scan-lines enabled that all changed. The aspect ratio was now correct, the picture was pin sharp and it just looked the business.

1080P for the win.

Next I decided to connect it up to my Wi-Fi network, which, as it turns out, was very straightforward. It picked up my 2.4Ghz WiFi SSID (doesn’t see 5Ghz ones) straight away with no faffing about. It did throw me at first as it doesn’t pop up any sort of ‘Connected’ confirmation – you type your password in and nothing happens. However if you back out to the previous screen you can see the ‘Link up’ status and your current IP displayed on the screen.

Link Up.

Web Crawling

With my C64 Ultimate now connected to the internet I decided to give ‘Commoserve’ a go. I typed in the names of a few of my favourite SID tunes, Myth, Cybernoid and Supremacy, and listened to them using the built-in SID player. They sounded awful (bet you weren’t expecting that!). Myth in particular has a bass-line that should be sustained from one chord to the next but it just wasn’t so each chord would play for a second or so and then end, leaving the track largely bereft of bass.

Tweaking the UltiSID’s

I immediately dived into the ‘Audio Setup’ menu to have a tinker around. There are a lot of things you can tweak there but a quick fix for me was to change the UltiSIDs Filter Curve from 8580 Lo to 6581 Alt. This made a night and day difference immediately. At some point I will sit down and check out how all the different controls affect the sound but for now I was content to just enjoy my SID tunes.

In the little video below the first section is Myth played ‘wrong’, you then see me make some changes and then play the same section again, ‘right’.

It’s not just SID’s you can find on Commoserve but demos and even games too. Once located using the search function you can mount and run the .D64 images as if they are stored locally, a lot like how the WIC64 I reviewed a couple of years ago operated only this is all built into the machine, no extra hardware required. Very cool indeed.

Firmware

The same day I received my C64 Ultimate I received an email off Commodore saying they had released a new v1.1 Firmware would supersede the v3.14 it shipped with because… reason. So of course, like a true pioneer, I threw caution to the wind and set about updating.

Firmware 3.14

The firmware file is found on the Commodore Download Center and once downloaded just needed unzipping to a FAT32 formatted USB drive. With the new firmware on a USB drive I just popped it into one of the rear USB ports on my Ultimate and used the Disk File Browser to locate and run the file.

Firmware Updater.

It asked me a slightly scary question next, did I want to ‘Reformat Flash Disk’? As my nan always used to say ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’ so I hit yes and let it do its thing.

Flash!

A new screen came up, reassuring me with steady progress including the flashing of the ESP32 WiFi module. I’d say the whole process probably took less than two minutes and culminated in the C64 powering itself off (yes that’s actually thing it can do now).

This is what success looked like.

I turned it back on and checked the System Information screen again and was pleased to see that the version was now reported as 1.1. I was slightly less pleased to discover that all my little tweaks to the screen mode and UltiSID’s were lost in the process so I had to spend a little time putting things back just the way I liked them.

The new firmware apparently fixes a bunch of little issues but it did add a terrific new feature that I found really useful. It allows you to use the ‘left arrow’ at the top-left of the keyboard to navigate back a menu. Sounds like a trivial addition but it was huge for me. Decades of muscle memory built up pressing escape on PC’s to do just that means I was instinctively pressing that key to back out already, only to then realise my error when nothing happened. Awesome.

Rounding Off (yes it was worth the wait!)

I’ve only scratched the surface of what this machine can do here, there are many features that I’ve not even looked at yet. Networking it with my computer to transfer files, using the modem, the virtual printer, trying the turbo boost and loads more. But that’s a great place to be in my book, having things left to discover and enjoy.

I’m really glad I paid the extra and got the Starlight edition – it looks fantastic, even when the lights aren’t on. I have seen a few people complain about keyboard flex on this model but I have no such issue with mine – it’s rock solid no matter where I apply pressure.

Should have gone to SpecSavers?

There is one downside to the lighting though – certain colour combinations can make reading the keys rather tricky. Not a dealbreaker, just something to be aware of if you are likely to make use of it for typing rather than just joystick waggling.

Is it the ‘Ultimate’ C64 though? It’s certainly pretty damned close. But there is a little room for improvement by including a proper User Port, making that MicroSD card slot accessible from the rear and factory fitting those ‘Utility Buttons’ too!

I’ll leave you with a little video of my C64 Ultimate playing a SID track whilst putting on a light show of its own to the beat of the music. I’m off to see what’s on that The Very Second USB ‘cassette’.

Building a Joystick Tester

21st December 2025

Amiga, Commodore 64, How to's, MEGA65, VIC 20

Having been collecting old computers and consoles for many years now I’ve also managed to amass quite a collection of controllers and joysticks along the way. Many of them are 40 years old or more and in varying states of repair so I often find myself needing to test them out. I could of course just load up a game of Space Invaders and try one out or even use one of a handful of ‘Tester’ programs on my C64 that can test joystick inputs. However both options would create extra wear and tear on the ports of my old girl.

Alternatively I could build a Joystick Tester and give myself the perfect excuse to conduct some DIY electronics tinkering. Not only that but PCBWay reached out to me and offered to foot the bill in exchange for me doing a write-up of my experience – which I would have done anyway. The stars had aligned for me for once…

Whilst I’m fairly competent at soldering (so long as its not SMD stuff) I haven’t got much of a clue about designing circuit boards as I’ve not progressed beyond breadboards as of yet. However I am aware of PCBWay’s ‘Retro Stuffs’ community – a huge repository of community created PCB’s for all manner of retro computing projects, so I had a search around on there.

I found a number of joystick testers but decided to go with this one: Joystick Tester for Commodore & Atari.

It’s compact, operates off a single button cell battery which helps keep it compact, plus it’s all ‘through hole’ soldering with no SMD components needed. One day I will conquer SMD stuff – but that day isn’t now.

Joystick Tester

The PCBWay ordering process looked a little intimidating at first as a screen full of options appears when you go to add it to your cart. However there are tooltips for each one to help you decide what to choose. For a simple project such as this one you can basically just leave everything on the default settings and you are good to go.

I did opt to change the board colour to black with white silk-screening (writing). The pricing was a nice surprise too – just $5 (pricing is in USD) for 5 PCB’s so I have 4 spare to make extras… or in case I screw up!

Joystick Tester PCB x5

Shipping options for my order ranged between $4 for economy up to $25 for DHL express. I opted for the latter so my order was with me 7 days later. Pretty quick considering the boards are made to order and came all the way from Shenzhen in China. I was able to track the progress of both the PCB’s manufacture and delivery from the Orders page on their website.

In all honesty if I was paying for the boards myself I would have chosen the cheapest option and just been patient!

Side A

The quality of the boards I received from PCBWay were spot on and they were carefully packaged in foam inside a cardboard box to protect them in transit.

Side B

This particular PCB is double-sided with both an ‘A’ and ‘B’ side to it and there are 2 sets of solder pads to short depending on which you choose. These swap the left and right signals so the LED’s still light up logically regardless of which side you choose to be the ‘top’ one.

Parts Required

Besides the PCB I also needed a few extra components, some of which I had lying around and others I needed to order.

I’ve linked both Amazon (faster delivery) and AliExpress (cheaper) options so if you want to order some yourself you can choose what suits you. Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy through them, it helps support the site at no extra cost to you.

Part	Notes	Buy
6x Round Colour LED’s	You can get an assortment of hundreds for just a few pounds	AliExpress · Amazon UK
1x D-SUB 9 Pin Male Right Angle Connector	Need a male connector as joystick plugs are female	AliExpress · Amazon UK
1x CR 2032 or CR 2025 3V Lithium Battery	Either type will work fine and fit in the holder	AliExpress · Amazon UK
1x CR 2032 Battery Holder	Another part usually sold in small quantities cheaply	AliExpress · Amazon UK
1x 150 Ohm 1/4 watt Resistor	Resistance value changes LED brightness – buy an assortment	AliExpress · Amazon UK

Once I had all the components delivered it was time to build my Joystick Tester!

All the bits needed for the project

I decided that I wanted Side ‘A’ uppermost so began populating the board with my components, starting with the DB9 port and the battery holder. The DB9 connector needed quite a bit of solder applying to the two posts as the holes are quite large but with my soldering iron set to 400C it only took a few seconds to secure it in place.

Components in place waiting to be soldered

With those secured I added the LED’s and resistor next, pushing the legs through the holes and bending them over to keep them in place until I soldered them. The PCB helpfully has the Anode (positive) wire marked on it so it was easy to orient them. Remember the anode is always the longer of the two wires on an LED.

Mostly soldered…

Once everything was soldered it was simply a case of snipping the legs off with some side cutters to tidy things up.

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I also had to join two sets of pads together using some solder to configure the left/right sticks with the corresponding LED’s on side A.

The Finished Joystick Tester

Completing the build probably took about ten minutes tops and I’d rate the difficulty as very easy. With a clean easy to follow PCB design, large components with through-hole wires that are easy to solder, it’s an ideal beginner project.

Testing

With soldering complete and my tools tidied away it was on to testing next! I popped a 3V CR2025 coin cell into the battery holder and my trusty ZipStick into the DB9 port to see how it was holding up.

Testing a joystick couldn’t be any simpler. Just press the buttons and waggle the stick around and make sure the corresponding LED’s on the tester illuminate. Thankfully they did which meant that my 40 year old ZipStick was still in good health and also that my Joystick Tester had been correctly assembled and soldered!

You can test the main fire button and each of the standard Up, Down, Left and Right directions. You can also test the diagonals which should light up the corresponding 2 LED’s (Left + Up, Up + Right, Right + Down and Down + Left). The blue LED is for testing joysticks with a second fire button but I couldn’t get my hands on one at the time of writing this.

It was a really fun little project that kept me occupied for an entire evening (it takes infinitely longer to write up a post about doing something than actually doing it!)

Once again I would like to thank PCBWay for the free PCB and if you would like to build your own tester you can pickup the board I used from PCBWay here: Joystick Tester PCB.

C64 Tape Pulse Visualizer

22nd October 2025

3 Comments

This cool looking Gizmo is the ‘C64 Tape Pulse Visualizer’ and is the creation of a guy who goes by the handle of @BWACK on the internet and has been manufactured and supplied by the good folks over at Shareware Plus.

Back of the box.

Inside the cartridge sized box you get the visualizer itself along with a card that gives a little info about the device along with a link to @BWACK’s github page.

C64 Tape Pulse Visualizer – What’s included.

The device comprises six 10 segment ‘light bar graph’ LED display modules, each with an accompanying resistor, an Arduino Nano v3 and finally the pass through connectors for your datasette.

C64 Tape Pulse Visualizer Device.

The odd looking 7 pin mini DIN socket on the top left corner is so you can use it with the tape decks that came with the Commodore 16 and/or Plus 4. This is a thoughtful addition if you have one of those systems (sadly I don’t).

Reverse side.

The back of the PCB isn’t very interesting at all with no components on show, just a bunch of solder joints.

Closeup of the Arduino Nano board.

The Arduino nano, pictured above, does all the work here, processing the signals being read off the tape and converting them into a cohesive display on the LED’s.

What does it do?

If you’ve ever had problems loading a game or program off a cassette on your trusty Commodore C2N Datasette then this gizmo could be just what you’ve been waiting for, but before I get into that I need to explain a little bit about *Azimuth adjustment…

Normally my first port of call when I have an issue loading a game is a bottle of Isopropyl Alcohol and some cotton buds to clean the heads, capstans and pinch roller. If that doesn’t work then I will reach for my trusty Azimuth alignment kit from Interceptor Software – a bit of kit I’ve owned since the dawn of time itself**.

* Azimuth is basically the angle of the tape head relative to the tape being run past it.

** Actually about 1984.

My Azimuth Alignment Kit

This essential bit of hardware comprises a small Philips screwdriver, a cardboard arrow with a hole in it and a tape containing a special calibration program. The cardboard arrow is arguably the most important thing in the box – you certainly can’t complete the process without it!

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To use this you first load up and run the program and leave the tape playing. Next you twist the screwdriver in one direction until the program makes a ‘bong’ sound and the counter stops. You then repeat the process in the opposite direction. This will give you two angles, denoted by the cardboard arrow, the centre of which is the correct Azimuth and should give you the strongest signal when loading stuff. I have simplified this somewhat to keep it brief as there are a few more steps involved but that’s the gist of it.

The test tape contains a constant 3000 baud signal and is supposed to have been recorded on a professionally calibrated machine to guarantee the integrity of the signal. This is what makes adjusting the azimuth possible with it.

C64 Tape Pulse Visualizer

However what happens if your tape head is so far out of alignment that you can’t even load the program? You could try blindly tweaking the azimuth a bit and trying to load it again but that’s a very hit and miss approach and a sure-fire recipe for frustration and headaches. This is where the ‘Tape Pulse Visualiser’ can come to the rescue.

How to use it

You don’t really even need to run the program when you have access to the Visualiser as it literally does what it says on the box and lets you see (visualise) the signals being read by the tape head as illuminated segments on the displays.

A well adjusted Azimuth using the test tape is represented by two groups of illuminated segments on the display that are tightly packed together. The more ‘scattered’ they appear, the weaker the signal, and thus more badly aligned the head is. There are 3 strips of LED’s that represent short, medium and high length pulses. Not all the strips will illuminate – it will depend on the nature of the recording such as whether it uses a turbo-loader etc.

The idea is to adjust the screw and ‘focus’ the LED segments as much as you can as in doing so you are aligning the head. It’s far easier to understand by just watching it in action.

If you watch the video above you can see me adjust the azimuth screw from a correctly set position to an incorrect position in both the clockwise and anti-clockwise directions. Note how the LED’s start flickering across the display as the head is moved further and further out of alignment. It changes from just having 2 or 3 LED’s constantly illuminated to having a bunch of around 10 of them flickering away like mad. The ‘bonging’ noise is coming from the Azimuth alignment program as I still had it running whilst recording the video clip.

In a nutshell, you just need to twist your screwdriver slowly , first in one direction and then the other until you find the sweet spot where just a couple of LED’s are steadily lit up and you should be good to go!

There’s no reason to unplug this when you are done adjusting your azimuth either as it just looks super cool to have the LED’s flickering away whilst you are loading a game. You can see it working whilst I’m loading up my copy of ATF which employs the use of a turbo loader and it loads up just fine.

ATF Title Screen

I’m a sucker for VU meters and flashing lights on old Hi-Fi decks and my C64 is no different – this will be staying plugged in for the foreseeable future! I’m delighted to be able to confirm that it still works if you have Gideon’s Ultimate II+ cartridge and cassette adapter installed too, although it is a bit tight when attaching the USB cable!

If you’d like to get hold of your own Tape Pulse Visualizer for your C64 head on over to sharewareplus.blogspot.com where you can pick one up for £28 pus P&P.

Addendum / Pro Tip

If you think your Commodore 64’s cassette port might be damaged and you also happen to have a JiffyDOS ROM installed – turn it off! I had totally forgotten about JiffyDOS utilising the space used by the tape routines so it could have more for itself to beef up disk commands! I was getting a ‘Device not present’ error every time I tried to load something off a tape. After wasting an embarrassingly long time faffing around I disabled the JiffyDOS ROM and BOOM it started working again. In my defence it has been over 2 years since I installed JiffyDOS and I haven’t used a tape since…

Freespin: Play MUSIC & VIDEO from your 1541 Drive!!!

3rd September 2025

This astonishing little package from Shareware Plus dropped through my letterbox a few days ago. It was nicely presented in a custom printed box with some very trippy black and white ‘Freespin’ artwork on the cover. At this point I just thought it was a standard disk based C64 demo, or collection of them…

Back of the box

So what was inside the box? Well there was a 5.25” Floppy Disk with a cool printed colour label and snazzy jacket, an intriguing Commodore Serial to RCA plug cable and a single instruction card. A cable… maybe this wasn’t just a typical demo after all?

Contents of the Box

The card featured a link to a website for more info on the front and a simple set of instructions printed on the reverse side in nice clear, easy to read text.

Contents of the Box

So, what was it, really?

According to the blurb on the box, ‘Freespin generates sound using the floppy drive stepper motor and video through the serial bus. With just a Commodore 1541 disk drive, Freespin cable and a standard C64 monitor, you can watch the Freespin demo by Reflex that runs directly from a 1541 disk drive and without a C64’.

If you’ve ever stumbled across the Floppotron on YouTube then you’ll have a good idea what this is from the get go – but this is even better than that…

I was pretty excited at this point as I’m a sucker for this kind of thing and was chomping at the bit to see if and how it worked!

Running the Demo

Getting everything set up couldn’t have been simpler. I popped the floppy disk into my trusty 1541-II drive and performed the usual “LOAD”*”,8,1″ command. The program only took a few seconds to load up and then I simply launched it using the “RUN” command.

(By the way – it wasn’t until I saw my photo below when putting together this post that I realised I had JIFFYDOS enabled but as it happens it didn’t have any detrimental effect).

Loading up the Freespin Program

After a bit of flickering a cool looking Freespin screen appeared using the C64’s HIRES graphics mode containing instructions on how to proceed along with a wiring diagram for creating your own cable. Thankfully one was provided in the box so I didn’t need to but I appreciated having it displayed on screen like that.

The main Freespin Program screen

By the time that screen appeared the program had already been loaded into the RAM in the 1541 so I was able to disconnect the drive from the C64 and also disconnect it from my monitor too! I then hooked up the supplied cable to the serial port on my disk drive and routed it into the now empty composite video input on my monitor. At this point nothing happened but I kept the faith and did as instructed which was to open and close the lever on the drive – without removing the disk – and this is when the magic started.

Not only disk my 1541 become a mini digital orchestra but I was treated to a demo-scene style monochrome graphic display from my monitor. Graphics that were definitely not coming from my C64 VIC chip but my from my disk drive!!! Equally amazing was the quality of the music coming from the drive. The range of ‘instruments’ or ‘effects’ it was able to generate was unbelievable – if I didn’t know better I’d have sworn some of the sounds were coming from the SID chip. Very, very impressive stuff – the Floppotron, as good as it is, by contrast uses a whole bunch of other devices to make its sounds and I still don’t think it can produce anything as nuanced or awesome as this and of course this is all coming from a single 1541!

The guys behind this project can explain how it works far better than me so if you want more info on how they pulled this off head over to the Freespin website.

Sadly I did have some bad image sync issues with the video output on my LCD monitor which is hardly surprising really given the source. I ended up digging out my Commodore 1084S CRT monitor and most of those issues vanished although it did make my workbench look even more cluttered than usual!

There’s no way I can convey how it sounded without resorting to a video recording so here’s one I prepared earlier…

I apologise for the quality of the audio in the above clip – I had a window open because it was so warm and cars kept going past and planes flying over… well you get the idea. The CRT monitor also appears to flicker in the video as I couldn’t get the exposure right on my iPhone – the display is rock solid in reality.

Anyway that video is just to give you an idea of what to expect – you really need to experience this for yourself – it’s incredibly cool and clever and given it’s only £15 (plus P&P) from SharewarePlus there’s no reason not to get your own copy and see the capabilities your trusty 1541 has been hiding from you all these years!!!

Commodore Zone USB Tape Collection

30th January 2025

Commodore 64, Reviews

Back in the 1990’s when most of the Commodore 64 magazines had withered away and died, or were in the process of doing so, a small fanzine appeared in the UK. Called ‘Commodore Zone’ it was only available by mail (obviously) and was printed entirely in black and white except for the cover which was still monochrome but printed on a different colour of card each issue.

Box cover art

We take it for granted these days, but colour printing was an expensive luxury back then – it certainly was for me at any rate. I made do with a black and white Canon Bubble Jet (a BJ10 – I think) which I used with my Amiga 4000 right up until the millennium when I finally moved over to the Dark Side and bought a Windows 98 PC and an Epson Colour Inkjet to go with it.

Back of the box

Anyhooo, getting back to the original Commodore Zone mag – the highlight of each issue for me used to be the 5.25″ floppy ‘coverdisk’ it came with that contained all manner of entertaining stuff including games, demos, music and so on.

An original Commodore Zone coverdisk alongside the issue it came with.

I’ve still got all my original issues along with the cover disks but I couldn’t resist picking this ‘complete collection’ up. It was just too good to pass up as it contains digital versions of all the disks, enhanced colour editions of each magazine and a whole raft of other Commodore Zone goodies, all packaged up in a luxuriously glossy box.

What you see when you open the box up

The main event is the USB ‘cassette’ tape which is tucked safely away within a foam inlay at the bottom of the box.

Commodore Zone ‘Cassette’

It certainly looks like a cassette tape when you first get your hands on it.

Could be any old C64 action game on cassette at first glance….

The jewel case looks just like any other…

Something missing there…

As does the J card inlay…

USB Flash drive

It’s only when you get the cassette out of the box that you can see what it really is with a little flip-out USB flash drive where the tape would normally be!

Loads of goodies

But what about all those extras? Well there’s a Commodore Zone badge and keyring along with a bunch of cool Ferris stickers (the little guy with the propeller hat) plus an awesome sticker featuring the Star Wars: A New Hope artwork taken from the Spring 1998 cover.

Enhanced colour covers

There’s also a fantastic little 16 page booklet that contains all of the past front covers of the magazine, tastefully enhanced in glorious colour, as we’ve never seen them before.

Enhanced colour cover vs original B&W cover.

As you can see in the comparison photo above, the enhanced cover is very similar to the original, just shifted around a little to make way for a slightly flashier and more modern Masthead and Cover Lines.

My edition is number 11 out of a grand total of 200 copies. Noice!

As this collection is limited each box has been numbered out of 200. Sadly I didn’t get the first box to roll off the Psytronik production line but number 11 is still a pretty low number. 🙂

Commodore Zone Sampler CD

The Commodore Zone ‘Sampler CD’ is pretty awesome too and is presented as a vinyl record. Not really sure why I keep calling them that nowadays as we always used to just call them records back then.

Groovy!

The record grooves are just for show of course as the data side of the disc is smooth, just like a PS1 CD, but it looks really cool and successfully triggered the old nostalgia receptors in my brain.

Track listing

There’s loads of great tracks on this disc and it’s well worth a listen if you are a fan of C64 music.

Contents of the USB ‘Cassette’

The USB flash drive is packed with an impressive 11.4GB of content for you to rummage through.

11.4GB of Commodore Zone Goodness

All the stuff is sorted neatly into directories so you can go straight to the material that interests you.

Contents of the USB

Included are:

D64 images of all the past coverdisks.
Digital copies of both the ‘classic’, ‘enhanced’ and the one-off ‘anniversary’ editions of the magazine in both PDF and JPEG format.

Enhanced (right) and Classic (left) digital versions of the mag covers.

If that isn’t enough Commodore Zone goodness for you there’s even scans of each and every mag included too as JPEG images.
Digital version of the sampler CD in MP3 and FLAC format.
Bunch of other great SID music CD’s in both MP3 and FLAC format.

Enhanced (left) and Classic (right) digital versions of the mag.

Loads of D64 images of PD demos
Directory full of retro music videos accompanied by some stonking SID music tacks.
Web Book version of the ‘restored’ Issue 1 edition of the magazine that you can explore on your desktop.

Basically there’s a mountain of stuff on here for you to browse through – enough to keep you entertained for many hours, days even. Takes me back to the days when I used to order a bunch of PD disks without really knowing exactly what would be on them and then spending a Sunday afternoon just exploring everything that was on them, listening to SID tunes, watching demos. playing PD games or whatever. Good times.

The first batch of 200 units are sold out now but if you fancy getting yourself a copy then Psytronik will have another batch of them over on their website https://www.psytronik.net at the beginning of February 2025.

Checkmate Retro Monitor

12th January 2025

Amiga, CD32, Commodore 64, MEGA65, PET, Playstation, Sega Megadrive, VIC 20

12 Comments

A couple of years ago I backed a Kickstarter campaign for a new ‘Retro Styled Modular IPS Display for old and new systems” (from now on I’ll just refer to it as the ‘Checkmate Retro Monitor’). It was basically a brand new monitor using a modern IPS display that incorporated a ton of ‘old’ inputs for hooking up all the retro game consoles and computers we know and love.

I’ve been following the project closely over the past two years, tuning in to Steve Jones’s regular YouTube updates documenting it’s progress, revisions and refinements along the way. However the wait is finally over now and my shiny new Checkmate Retro Monitor is in my possession courtesy of DHL.

Monitor Box

It came double-boxed which ensured it arrived in tip top condition with the inner box not suffering any damage at all

Checkmate Retro Styled Monitor Box

The monitor itself is protected by heavy duty polystyrene, further protecting it from damage.

Colour manual tucked into packaging

A little recessed area houses the spiral bound full colour manual.

Checkmate Monitor Manual

After removing the top half of the polystyrene packaging the monitor is finally revealed. In true retro fashion, even though I ordered the white version (the alternative was black) it is actually beige. This is a good thing as I don’t own a single ‘white’ retro computer – they have all yellowed to some degree or other, even after retro-brighting.

First glimpse of my new monitor

The packaging was hiding a few more things out of sight…

Just as well I didn’t toss the packaging straight in the bin!

…inside another box tightly wedged into a recess in the polystyrene.

Accessories box

This contained the remote control, PSU for the monitor and a couple of alternative panels for the bottom front panel of the monitor.

Accessories

There were a couple of noticeable omissions here, namely a set of batteries for the remote and an IEC (kettle) cable. We (the Kickstarter backers) were told not to expect these so this came as no surprise. I’m sure most people will have these things in plentiful supply if they’re anything like me.

Back Panel

The back panel is where all the magic begins and is where you can add and remove the ‘pods’ that give the monitor its unparalleled versatility,

Ports galore

Out of the box none of the ports are labelled – this is a little DIY job for the user!

Sticker Sheet

Tucked inside the manual is a small sheet of stickers which need to be aligned correctly and stuck to the relevant areas on the back to identify each group of connections.

Labelled ports.

I used a pair of tweezers to carefully position the stickers followed by a blast from my heat gun to ensure they were firmly attached.

Pods

All the monitors come with the bottom ‘Pod 0’ which leaves two bays to fill. I opted for (Appy’s) Retro Scaler with GBS Control and a Raspberry Pi pod. I could also have chosen a MiSTer Pod but I already own a few Raspberry Pi’s so that was the more appealing option. I do hope to pick up a MiSTer at some point in the future, funds permitting, but for now I’m looking forward to setting up either PiMiga or AmiKit on a Pi 4 housed inside my monitor!

Contents of the Raspberry Pi Pod Kit

The monitor includes a fully functioning tilt and swivel base, stereo speakers, an OLED display panel on the front, a remote control and of course more inputs around the back than you can shake a stick at.

Powering On my Checkmate Retro Monitor for the first time

Screen with light bleed

The monitor powered on without issue and displayed a very natty ‘Checkmate’ logo. However I was a little bit disappointed to see quite a lot of backlight bleed down both sides of the screen which is definitely something I wasn’t expecting. I put up with it for a week or so before deciding to tinker with the bezel screws and managed to greatly reduce the issue thankfully.

Screen without the light bleed issues

I basically had to slacken the side bezel screws off almost to the point were they came out completely but this did pretty much eradicate the bleed as you can see in the photo above (taken a week later after I had rearranged my desk). The bezel is a little loose both sides now but it’s not going anywhere (there’s other screws holding it in place) so it doesn’t bother me too much.

OLED Screen for the GBS Controls

Underneath the screen is a tiny little OLED panel that provides access to some of the GBS Control features/pre-sets on the Scaler via the jog dial. You can use it to check what the current settings are and also reset the scaler without having to power it off and on again. Changing pre-sets (stored custom configurations) is as simple as selecting a numbered pre-set from the menu and pressing in the jog dial.

Hooking up stuff to my new Checkmate Retro Monitor

Amiga Workbench via HDMI

My Amiga 1200 is fitted with an Indivision AGA Mk3 board so I was able to hook this up to the Checkmate Retro Monitor directly via HDMI. After a (good) few minutes playing around with the Indivision config tool (and some pointers off a helpful soul on the discord channel) I was able to achieve a beautifully crisp, rock-steady Workbench display running at 1280×1024 resolution that filled the screen from edge to edge.

Roguecraft running on my new Checkmate monitor

This also gave me a good excuse to boot up Roguecraft for a quick blast which displayed just fine straight out of the box. Such a great game too – I don’t need much of an excuse to fire it up!

After a few goes of Roguecraft I decided it was time to hook up a few different systems to the monitor to see how it performed with those.

Sega Rally on Dreamcast via Composite cable

I tried my Dreamcast first and hooked it up via a Composite cable and got a really nice picture.

Sega Rally on Dreamcast via Composite cable

Next up I hooked up my OG Xbox and had a blast of Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb. This was hooked up via an HDMI adapter cable and I had no issues with picture quality.

Indiana Jones on Xbox via Composite to HDMI adapter

I fired up my trusty Commodore 64C next with an (admittedly cheap) composite cable and got a pretty decent looking picture. It was a little soft but perfectly useable. There were some very very faint vertical lines but I’m sure I could eradicate those if I spent some time twiddling with the pots on my LumaFix64 board.

Commodore 64 via Composite cable

SCART Test

I thought I’d give the Scaler inputs a test next. I hooked up my pretty ancient Matsui VCR (which used to belong to my Grandad back in the 1990’s) using a SCART cable and popped in a copy of the greatest movie of all time…

I’d buy that for a dollar!

…and then proceeded to spend the next hour and a half watching the whole movie. Picture quality was really good considering the source and sound was great too with some very meaty gunshot and explosion effects coming through the built-in speakers.

ED209 vs Robocop

It’s probably been 20 years or longer since I’ve watched this with a PAL 5:4 aspect ratio as all my subsequent purchases have been in widescreen. To get this to display I had to select AV3 as the channel but other than that it just worked.

Dick Jones really does live up to his name…

Getting an Amiga to display an image via (RGB) SCART proved a little trickier. Initially I just couldn’t get an image at all. After going on the Discord I realised that there are basically multiple ‘hidden’ VGA channels that you can access by pressing the channel up and down buttons on the remote. After doing this a few times (pausing for a few seconds in-between) I eventually got an image to appear. Not very intuitive for sure but at least my monitor wasn’t faulty and now I know! The colours were washed out but I’m putting that down to an issue with my Amiga SCART cable as I’ve had it for donkeys years and not used it for a long time. The colours from my VCR were just fine.

Amiga via RGB SCART (think I need a new SCART cable).

Component Video Test

Thought I’d test out the Component video input next so hooked up my PlayStation 2 slim via Component, making sure to select ‘Y Cb/Pb Cr/Pr’ for Component Video Out in the PS2’s System Configuration. Again I had to jump VGA channels blindly until I stumbled across the correct one. I also needed to spend a bit of time messing around with the settings to get a decent looking, centered image as the default one was over to the far left and was ghosting quite badly. I did get a terrific picture in the end though and made sure I saved my GBS Control settings into a special ‘PS2’ slot which I can easily select from the OLED control on the front panel in future.

Some of my GBS Control Pre-sets – including one for my PS2

Unfortunately there are no red/white RCA stereo inputs which you would normally expect to find with component cables. Thankfully I discovered in the manual that the VGA audio input will accept audio for the component input so by using an RCA to headphone jack converter I was able to get the sound working as well.

PS2 Config Screen

Playing Media Files via USB Ports

Not really Retro related but there’s a couple of USB ports on the back so I thought I’d give them a quick try and see what sort of media files I could access through them.

USB Media Access Screen

Turns out quite a lot! I put a bunch of music, photos and videos on a USB flash drive and popped it in one of the ports. There are two of them and you have to select the correct one from the on-screen menu via the remote.

Audio Player

I had no problems dealing with audio files and was able to play back both high bit-rate MP3’s and FLAC files. You can have it play them sequentially, randomly, utilise playlists and access track info – it’s got quite a lot of functionality for a tacked on feature.

Image Viewer

Likewise pictures were no problem at all and the monitor helpfully displays them as a slideshow automatically complete with random transitions.

Video Player

I didn’t fare quite so well with video playback. It doesn’t like MOV files and although I had better success with MP4 files it is quite fussy about the resolution of them. I was able to play back some (very) old home movie footage in MP4 format successfully though so it’s just a matter of working out the resolutions it likes.

Final thoughts about the Checkmate Retro Monitor

This is a great monitor and I’m really glad I bought it. It works amazingly well with all my Commodore machines, especially my Amiga via HDMI. Workbench was never meant to be displayed on a 16:9 display and it’s great to be able to enjoy a lovely, crisp and vibrant image in the original aspect ratio. The quality of sound from the speakers is impressive and the huge variety of input options is a retro collectors dream come true. Seeing those unused cut-outs on the back does make me regret not purchasing the extra S-Video/RF modules though. Thankfully Steve from Checkmate has said he’ll be offering these for sale separately soon so I’ll be ordering those as soon as they’re available.

It’s not without its drawbacks though and most of those are related to the complexity of using the scaler. There’s frequently an element of ‘fiddling’ required to get something to display on the screen. Once you’ve got an image you often then need to ‘tweak’ it to get it displayed optimally. This is exacerbated by the fact there are actually two ways to adjust the image size; the panel has it’s own built-in adjustment via the VGA menu and then there’s the GBS Control which offers a myriad of customisable features on top of this. It’s quite easy to mess up when adjusting things to the point where you think the monitor is broken so it’s best to make small incremental changes rather than wading in clicking everything in sight! Thankfully you can save GBS Control settings into ‘Presets’ that you can load up in future for each device.

The issue with light bleed (even though I have now sorted it) from the bezel being too tight didn’t create an amazing first impression. The lack of RCA audio inputs for the component cable was also a bit disappointing as most consoles have these connections when you get a component cable, although once more there was a solution which involved purchasing a suitable adapter.

The instruction manual, whilst well made and very interesting, doesn’t really do a great job of actually explaining to a lay person (i.e. someone who wasn’t involved in making the monitor) how to use it. It’s more of a technical reference really. Thankfully there is an active and helpful bunch of people on the Checkmate Discord and Steve himself is quick to respond to issues by email.

This is very much an enthusiast project – a product made by a hardcore retro fan, for other hardcore retro fans. So long as you are happy to tinker, mess around with configurations, menus, twiddle knobs, experiment and learn as you go along then I’m sure you will love the Checkmate Retro Styled Monitor just as much as I do.

Cassette Tape Storage Solution for 2024

25th July 2024

Commodore 64, Music, PET, Reviews, VIC 20

I’ve covered some storage solutions for Cassette tapes in the past but sadly they are no being made. With my own collection of tapes continuing to grow (both music and computer games) I needed a smart, attractive storage solution, and preferably one that would continue to be made for a long time to come.

There was really only one way to guarantee the latter so I’ve ended up designing and 3D printing my own rack and have made it available to purchase on my Etsy Store in case anyone else would like to get one.

Empty storage rack. Mounting holes at the top.

The finished storage rack measures 23cm x 23cm and is a shade over 5cm deep. I literally cannot make a larger capacity rack as that’s pretty much the maximum size of my printers’ build plates.

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It has a couple of screw mounting holes at the top so it can be hung on a wall. Alternatively it can be placed free-standing on a shelf, or even on its back inside a drawer.

Lots of VIC20 games

The idea is that you can just keep adding more racks as your collection grows.

A rack full of VIC20 games.

Although you can just place them side by side or on top of each other when expanding I’d recommend fixing them to the wall if going vertically for stability. Nobody wants their collection of tapes falling on the floor if your cat decides to go mountaineering!

Expanding your collection – 3 racks together

These are produced on Bambu Labs printers using premium PLA and each one takes nine hours to complete. They’re really nice quality even if I do so so myself but you can judge for yourself by looking at the photos.

As I said if you want one you can get one from my Etsy store. If you’d like to order more than one then drop me a message and I can sort out a discount.

Wireless Tank Mouse

12th July 2024

Amiga, Commodore 64, MEGA65

7 Comments

I missed the initial Kickstarter for this ‘Wireless Tank Mouse’ back in 2022 but now that they are on general sale I decided to pick one up from Sordan.ie to see if it was any good and hopefully use it with my Commodore and MEGA65 machines.

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The packaging is certainly very attractive featuring a very 80’s neon VHS style design on the front and a multitude of specs and features plastered over the sides and back of the box.

Wireless Tank Mouse

In the flesh it certainly looks the part and is very similar to the Amiga tank mouse we all know and love. Of course there’s two striking differences, the first of which is that this is now an optical mouse with the ball having been relegated to the history books. The second is the lack of a wire as this is now fully wireless, utilising either Bluetooth or 2.4Ghz to transmit the necessary signals back to your computer. You can switch between these options using a little 3-way switch underneath. This same switch is also used to power the mouse off when it’s placed in the middle position.

Wireless Tank Mouse underside

An optional extra that I purchased was the Tom adapter which came packaged separately in a little plastic bag. I have to confess to wondering why it was called Tom for a little while until I remembered the Tom and Jerry cartoons and then it all made perfect sense! Without this little gizmo the mouse will only work with modern computers which would defeat the purpose of it for me.

Wireless Tank Mouse with Tom adapter

The Tom device is basically just a USB to DB9 adapter with some clever electronics to convert the USB signals into something old Commodore computers can understand. Compared to most of the Tom adapters available on eBay this one seems to be extremely compact and is actually referred to as a ‘Micro Tom’. It’s housed in a really nice 3D printed case that holds everything together securely.

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When placed next to my original Amiga Tank mouse you can see just how close the design is. The main visible difference, besides the obvious lack of a wire, is that the buttons are a little narrower and spaced further apart on the new mouse. There’s a good reason for this that I will get to later on.

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Opening up the battery compartment reveals a small USB receiver tucked away at the bottom.

Wireless tank mouse battery compartment and USB receiver storage

This USB receiver can be plugged directly into a modern computer should you wish (Mac, Linux or PC) so you can use the mouse with those systems (or emulators running on them). If your computer has Bluetooth then you can leave the receiver in its cubby hole and simply pair it with your PC using that instead.

USB Receiver

To use the mouse with Commodore machines you need to insert the USB receiver into the Tom adapter.

Tom adapter with USB receiver plugged in

It was a really tight fit, so much so that I felt the need to double check I was putting it in correctly before risking applying more force to get the job done!

Let there be (green) light!

It’s powered by a couple of AAA batteries (rechargeable ones appear to work fine) which helps to add a bit of weight to it. I know some people like their mice light but I’m not one of them so the batteries went some way towards compensating for the lack of the ball.

Mousing Around

Before trying the wireless tank mouse with my retro machines I gave it a quick go in my Windows 11 PC and it worked immediately and completely flawlessly. I also tried it with my MorphOS Apple Mac Mini G4 with similar success. When used with modern machines you can use it with your favourite emulator for a more immersive experience or even as your daily driver should you wish.

In addition to the obligatory left and right mouse buttons the wireless tank mouse actually fully supports mouse scrolling too. Now you may well be thinking how’s that possible – it has no scroll wheel? Well remember earlier on when I mentioned about the buttons being spaced further apart? That’s because the designer has ingeniously incorporated a touch sensitive strip between the two buttons. You can simply swipe up and down with your finger to scroll in those directions. It works really well too. Obviously it lacks the tactile feedback of an actual wheel but having one of those would ruin the whole aesthetic.

Using the wireless tank mouse with my A1200

I have plenty of mice for my modern computers though, I got this to use with my Amiga mainly so I plugged the Tom adapter into port 1 of my A1200 and powered it on, and it just worked. No messing around, no pairing, no software to install, just plug and play. The scrolling support worked seamlessly too, (I installed scroll wheel support for my existing wired Amga mouse years ago). Tracking was super accurate and smooth and the mouse was just as comfortable to hold as ever – in fact more so now as I’m not constantly fighting against the cable in the limited space I have available to use it!

Wireless tank mouse ‘Tom’ adapter (on the right)

Satisfied that it worked with my Amiga I fired up my MEGA65 and loaded up GEOS65 and sure enough it worked really well with that too.

GEOS 65 running on my MEGA65 controlled by my wireless tank mouse

Next I invoked ‘GO64’ and switched my MEGA65 into C64 mode to load up a BASIC Solitaire game that I typed in a few years ago. This was designed to work the the Commodore 1351 mouse and sure enough this also worked like a charm with just occasional jittering. Incidentally this is also a game that really benefits from switching the CPU to 40Mhz mode – no more lag when shuffling the cards!

I tried it with my real C64C computer and ran into my first problem. It simply refused to work. After a bit of RTFM (or RTFW in this case) I discovered the following…

Switching between C64 and Amiga Mode

Out of the box the Tom adapter is configured to run in Amiga mode. Consequently when plugging it into a C64 it just doesn’t work. (Same for the alternative C64 CORE in the MEGA65). Thankfully it can be switched into C64 1351 mode quite easily by plugging in a USB mouse, holding down the middle button (usually the scroll wheel) at bootup and whilst still holding it down press the left mouse button a few times until the red LED flashes 3 times and then you can let go. The adapter will now behave like a 1351 mouse forever until you change it back.

I did come a little unstuck trying to change it back to Amiga mode though. Either I have a slightly different model of Tom adapter or whoever wrote the instructions on the Sordan site got a bit confused. Thankfully after about 30 minutes of swapping different mice, power cycling, cursing and failing I figured it out. To switch to Amiga mode I had to hold down the right mouse button at bootup and then rapidly press the left button until the red LED flashed just the one time and then let go. (The instructions tell you to do the complete opposite which makes it flash twice which appears to be Atari ST mode).

What do I think of it?

All in this is a fantastic product that works with a huge range of machines, both old and new. It oozes nostalgia thanks to its design but at the same time embraces modernity by swapping the ball for an optical sensor, the wire for wireless connectivity and adds ‘invisible’ scrolling support beneath the plastic case. It works with pretty much every machine I own; all my Amigas, CD32, MEGA65, Commodore 64, Mac Mini running MorphOS and even my PC’s and emulators. My only criticism is the method of switching modes on the Tom adapter is a bit of a faff. I would much prefer a little 3-way toggle switch than trying to pull off some kind of weird secret handshake with the mouse. Other than that though the wireless tank mouse seems to be a jack of all trades and a master of them all and I’m really glad I picked one up.

Freeze 64 Issue #67 Fanzine

27th April 2024