I have repaired a few Commodore 64 computers recently for other people and finally decided to acquire one of my own. I figured it should be something somewhat unique if possible and this led me to this Australian Commodore 64 that I purchased from someone in the UK.

This is actually a regular bread-bin C64 inside with an aftermarket case to look a little like a C64C. The case was created by a company called “Micro Accessories”. This would have made a cheaper alternative to buying an entirely new C64 so that you can get the new styling.

This example is not in a great condition and is in definite need of restoration, but you can see what it looked like.

Flipping the case over we can see the feet are not in great condition, I might find replacements for these. A couple of the screws are missing, one is even the incorrect one, but I believe these are easily obtainable. The biggest oddity is the big hole in the bottom. It was cut right through the case and shield in a near perfect rectangle. I cannot fathom why at this stage, I’m not quite sure what to do about it either, but that can be handled later. If anyone knows why a C64 user would have done this, please let me know.

Removing the top section reveals this “lovely” metallic cardboard shielding which can be bent over to reveal the motherboard.

The motherboard is a 250407 which a common original bread-bin model of motherboard. I removed the motherboard, blew out some dust, cleaned it up a little and replaced the 5V regulator. The thermal paste on the regulator had aged quite a bit and I generally don’t trust the regulators on many 8bit machines, they can sometimes fail high causing damage to the chips. It is a cheap part to replace anyway.

It could do with a bit more cleaning later, but it is better than it was. I did put the regulator screw in upside down, I’ll fix that later. Let’s switch this thing on…

Well that’s not good. Looks like some diagnostics are in order. I gave it a quick check with the thermal camera in the hopes it would show a cooking chip, but no joy, the hot spots are around 40°C and my workshop was already in the high twenties so nothing was really getting hot.

For now it will have to wait until I have a diagnostics cartridge to figure out what’s up. But it looks like this machine is going to take a little bit or work before it is ready to use.

15 responses to “The Australian Commodore 64”

  1. Regarding the hole in the bottom, one reason might be to either short two or more points in order to cause a desired effect, or to connect something for input/output or maybe debugging.

    1. Possibly, the hole is roughly under the VIC II circuitry. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence of anyone trying to solder anything extra there.

  2. The idea of using a thermal camera for diagnostics is new to me and a really cool idea.

    1. I have been burned before, literally, when trying to find a bad chip 🙂

  3. […] the end of my last post I showed that my Australian C64 unfortunately was not in the best of health. After a bit of work […]

  4. […] the end of my last post I showed that my Australian C64 unfortunately was not in the best of health. After a bit of work […]

  5. First of all, you missed a thing. The 5V regulator of the C64 is in the wall brick. But the C64 has an internal 12V regulator from the 9v~ coming from the wall brick too. Maybee when you switch back to the right regulator your computer will work again. If I remember right, the VIC and the SID need this 12v to work.

    1. On this version of the C64 motherboard there is both a 12V and 5V regulator on the motherboard as well as 5V from the PSU. The 5V onboard regulator supplies the “CAN +5V” line to the VIC II as you can see here: http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/schematics/computers/c64/251138-1of2-l.gif

      They did this to reduce noise on the 5V line to the VIC II circuit, which is understandable. I’m guessing “CAN” because the video circuit was encased in a can 🙂

      1. Oh, thanks for the info, that was new for me 🙂
        I mostly worked on the C64C.

  6. You mean “led”, not “lead” in the first paragraph.

    1. Correct, fixed! Thanks 🙂

  7. I have one of these unused still in box. It came in a bundle of C64 stuff I bought I few years ago.

    https://i.imgur.com/7Evug74.png

    1. Careful… now that you’ve shared with the world that you have one, a gnome from that Commodore Hole Cutter’s Union might pay you a visit.

      1. Lol, good point, I’d better ramp up the security around it

  8. So glad that the machine arrived safely and that it has been restored. Such a strange find in a secondhand shop in Port Talbot, Wales, of all places!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *