r/Commodore

I'm still digging through all my old belongings that I shipped from the UK to Canada and this old Commodore calculator was in there. Sadly teenage me decided to attack the calculator with a ballpoint pen, but amazingly even after all these years as soon as it has some light it turns on and is fully working.

it's a Commodore H801W Solar Film Card Calculator, and I'm struggling to remember how I got it.

I got a C64 in 1985 - I don't remember what bundle, but I do remember that just after I got it they launched the "Commodore 64 Compendium Pack" with Music Maker Keyboard, The Designers Pencil, and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole game plus Growing Pains of Adrian Mole book.

Being a sneaky teenager, I wanted this improved pack and shorted out my C64 with a paperclip to the serial port. Back to the store with a non working C64 and they replaced it, with the same pack! A few weeks later I tried again, and this time it worked, I came home with the Compendium pack!

I'm sure I must have got this calculator with either the original pack or the compendium pack, but I can't find any references to it online.

Anyone else get this calculator with their C64? or know how I may have received it?

I know they're worth a bit but I think that's a bit inaccurate 🤣🤣🤣

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A few years back I built a customized A1200 by the time mechanical keyboard was just a dream for Amiga fans.

Built with mech kb, gotek and accelerator.

28 years ago I packed all my computers, books, mags and software into a storage unit when I went on a 6 month vacation to Canada... 28 years later I'm still here. Last year I finally managed to ship everything to Canada from the UK.

Yes, there are some non-Commodore titles in there... MSX, Sharp, Atari, Speccy, Dragon, TI99, and Beeb. But the vast majority are for the C64, C16, and Amiga..plus one token VIC 20 title!

The C64 games are nearly all ones I bought back in the 80's, The C16 games all came with a C16 I bought from a mate when he was upgrading to a proper computer (a C64!) Some of the Amiga titles are ones I worked on in my early days as an artist.

Sadly I'm missing all my Speccy games except Scrabble ( I was a Spectrum owner before jumping onto the good ship Commodore )

The Amiga RGB to HDMI project is an open-source hardware and software solution that captures the pixel-perfect digital video signals from a vintage Amiga's "Denise" graphics chip and outputs them as zero-lag HDMI using a Raspberry pi zero.

Spotted a familiar shape in the office scene while watching the official video for Look Mum No Computer's Eurovision song Eins, Zwei, Drei. Then watching the behind the scenes video I spotted a bit more Commodore hardware... three 1702 monitors in his video/synth wall.

Hey everyone! My CRT is working, but it’s making a really unpleasant high-pitched whining noise. It’s honestly so annoying that I can’t even sit next to it for more than 10 minutes while it’s running. Does anyone happen to know what could be causing this?

A few years ago someone told me it might be the flyback transformer. Today I finally got around to opening the monitor up and discharging the tube. The solder joints around the transformer actually seem fine though.

Any ideas would be appreciated!

Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies were my fav Amiga games, a few weeks ago I was playing on RetroArch and the experience was not giving me enough satisfaction so I built a dedicated controller with real flipper buttons on the sides for that clicky feel. It connects via USB and works on PC and mac by emulating a keyboard. Any feedback is welcome.

We used to program drum patterns on the C64, record them on to audio cassette and play along with it. Anybody else do this?

I live in Asia and this thing is probably impossible to find elsewhere as I got it from a collector. I am absolutely in love with this piece of machinery and I want to make sure it lives a long life.

Things I’m planning on doing is recapping the whole thing, as well as purchasing the replacement keyboard membrane to ensure that it lasts a long time.

Already have a C64 wifi modem and an SD2IEC as well.

I’m a bit worried that the internal power supply may give out, but no signs of that thus far. I’ve seen listings of the CRT as well as the PSU on eBay though.

I want to ask — unironically this is my first entry into the Commodore64 world, what are things you would suggest I do apart from recapping so I can enjoy this for at least another 20-30 years? What are things that I could invest on?

On another note what are some apps/games that I have to try in your opinion?

EDIT: I had reached out to Ray Carlsen (the man himself!) and got this response almost immediately. Golden knowledge imo for everyone else out there:

There is very little you need to do to extend the life of your SX-64. Its internal power supply is a switch-mode type and failures are extremely rare. I set up a website decades ago to assist people in maintenance and repair of their Commodore hardware, and the SX is listed there with all the information I could gather over the years.

There are a few IC’s that, as in a C64, run hot normally and would benefit from the installation of heat sinks. I make those myself out of strips of tin and secure them with fast-set epoxy onto three chips, the SID, PLA and CPU, on the CPU board. I’ll show you a few photos. There is very little room inside the SX so the “ears” of the sinks need to be bent so they are clear of the opposing hardware.

I never agreed with the need to recap Commodore 8 bit hardware. The existing electrolytic caps may outlive us all. I’ve only had to replace a few on C64 motherboards in all the years I’ve done repairs on them. There are vendors who sell cap kits and that makes money for them so it will continue, but that’s it. The Amiga series computers do have caps that must be replaced, the SMD (surface-mount) electrolytics. Those caps leak electrolyte and damage the motherboard, so they must all be replaced before they cause damage. Such is not the case for 8 bit hardware such as the SX-64.

The disk drive in the SX is a standard ALPS mechanism and as such requires some occasional maintenance, head cleaning and lubrication, especially if the SX has sat unused for a long time. The original lube gets sticky like honey and the stepper movement gets sluggish. Extracting the drive mechanism is tricky but I’ve done it many times without a problem.