A buddy gifted me this Commodore 64 and a big stack of accompanying floppy disks. This seemed like a great computer to start with. Unsurprisingly, given that it was was the best-selling personal computer of all time, there's a big, friendly, welcoming scene of people restoring them and modding them today. I've gotten tons of helpful pointers from folks in person and on Twitter. It's easy to find parts, and there are some nifty new mods being produced. This is going to be my first attempted restoration. I'm uncertain how retrobriting will go in gloomy Seattle, and I haven't done serious soldering since middle school. I figure, if I mess something up too badly, it'll be straightforward enough to replace whatever I break. 🤞

Commodore 64c top view

It's a Commodore 64c, which was the mega-popular "breadbin" C64 repackaged into a slimmer case that matched the style of Commodore's next generation of computers. But... the more I look at this, a few things seem odd. The keyboard is the wrong color: the breadbin C64s had these dark brown keys, and I can't find records of any C64c model that used them. The case also doesn't snap closed in the front, like all the interior components are just too thick for the slim case.

Commodore 64c side view Commodore 64c interior view

Inside, it has the original "long" style motherboard, common to both the "breadbin" C64 and the first models of C64c. There aren't any screws: everything is sitting loose in the case. It looks like somebody put some sort of white goo on some of the chips, maybe thermal paste to improve the connection to the big metal RF shield/heat sink.

I wonder if this is actually a mix-and-match set of parts - some from a breadbin C64 - that somebody removed from its original case and put into a C64c case. I found an ivory-colored keyboard on ebay, so I'll be able to improve the appearance, but I don't think I'll be able to get the case to close. It might actually be better to try to get my hands on an empty breadbin case.

Replacement keyboard with ivory-colored keys

With a new power supply and RCA video cable, it boots to BASIC! There's an unpleasant buzzing sound I'd like to figure out.

C64 and screen, powered off Replacement keyboard with ivory-colored keys

For the restoration, I got replacement capacitors, screws, and a fuse from Retroleum. And then for fun, I got an Epyx FastLoad Reloaded cartridge, an SD2IEC to load disk images, and a 64NIC+ network card.