Commodore 64G: First look and (very) simple fix

So... I accidentally bought a Commodore 64 on eBay. Not just any old C64, but a C64G.

If I were in Germany, this wouldn't be a big deal. The 64G was a German domestic market variant of the Commodore 64 that sold alongside the 64C. The G has the classic Breadbin form factor, but with later 64C cost reductions. At least, that's how the 64G is reported to roll...

As to how a 64G ended up in Australia? I have no idea, as I bought this from a seller in Sydney. Whether the seller imported it himself, or he bought it from someone else who brought it in from Germany is anyone's guess.

For what it's worth, it was sold with an Australian-market black C64 PSU; vented, screwed together and epoxy-free. I should probably try refurbishing it at some point just to see if can be done.

Links:
Jan Beta's Aldi 64 video:

OzPLA from Melbourne Console Reproductions:

I bought my Versa64 cart from a dude named Gavin:

Contents:
0:00 Introduction: WTF is a 64G?
3:52 "For parts or repair only"
5:43 A mildly interesting discovery
7:44 Replacing the character ROM
7:59 More chip swapping goodness
11:41 Running diagnostics with the Versa64 cart
12:49 Another RF shield bites the dust
13:29 Another mildly interesting discovery
13:51 Conclusion and outro

Music from Chillhop Music, used under licence (in order of appearance)
"Let Girls Play Soccer" by Sleepy Fish

[mechamania]

This ended up being a total clickbait... but the best, ever, to be fair — not that that’s a high bar, but it was cleared, by a mile. I’d thought Aldi were selling a special edition version of the “The C64, ” and I went a little nuts.

Then, I saw a great, nostalgic video about my middle school days, but with a kicka$$ variant of the original, which was my best friend’s folks’ computer with which we did all sorts of things, although (much) more on the software side. I did learn to solder, on a Commodore 64–and, I know, y’all are gonna say, “But... but, Carson, you had an Atari 800, *and, worse yet, a TI-99/4a* you could’ve learned, using”—and I honestly forget what it was, exactly — or maybe never knew... They’d just gotten it back, from a shop in Philly (Philadelphia), where they’d sent it, because there was a failed chip that had to be replaced, and a wire had come loose, in shipping it back. I think it was a wire to the monitor input, because I remembered the colors being all wrong (as though one of the CRTs weren’t casting light. I’d gotten a “soldering set, ” for my 10th birthday, about a year prior, and I just told my buddy’s parents that I knew how to use it and could fix the wire connection. They bought it... Then, as my friend scanned them for the schematics and how to work my soldering iron, about which he read, step-by-step, and we got it working. It was so awesome, because we’d been without, for weeks. He was ready to get back to programming—which, with the sprite codes, key graphics, and etc. (I dunno how much Commodore folk generally know about Atari 8-bits and “ATASCII, ” in Australia, in the 2020s... ), was so unlike Commodore’s, that he didn’t care to work on it... A year later, though, the write-protection detector switch, on my Atari 810 disk drive went, constantly sending out the write-protected value, and so I could only read disks. So, from my earlier experience—and a little practice, in-between—I figured to get a small, metal flip-switch, from Radio Shack, and I made a manual write-protection switch (for which I got my grandpap to drill a hole, in the front panel of the drive, to mount the switch, and it worked perfectly. So, I could go back to swapping cracked copies of game disks, at the weekly, local Atari User’s Group meetings, which always had those audacious opening screens, with tons of flashing, moving text and gaudy graphics that screamed to the world the name(s) of the hacker(s) who’d cracked the copy-protection and started distributing it...

I gotta be honest. I don’t remember a single hacker’s name, and they brought me so many hours of joy. So, thanks to anyone reading this, especially to whoever cracked Alternate Reality: The City, Ghostbusters, The Goonies Ultima II (which I later got, because of the cloth map and the original copies of the codes... and, well, yeah, _everything, _ really, on Atari and Commodore (sometimes both, with one version on each side, like the original disks... ). My buddy and I sold so many of our friends’ folks on Ataris and Commodores, instead of Apple IIs (at their request, after seeing our computers, versus the computer lab, off the library. I’m sure that led to a lot of game sales... The librarian was pissed, at us, for so many other students not having Apples, which kinda killed the home-school learning connection, but she still gave us passes to get out of any class, to go “work” on the IIs, so we could teach her how to use them... Ha! (... and, seriously, who makes their OS, so that, wherever in the line one is, when hitting return, cuts off all the letters—making it so that we’d have to re-enter the line, completely, after always forgetting that ridiculous nonsense—that follow, instead of letting one use the direction keys, to quick fix a typo, quick, and then just enter it all, with one button, as the fixed line, even if it were already entered, no matter where in the screen you were 🤦‍♂️... )

Anywho, many thanks! I’d never seen or heard of that variation, and it looks really cool! 🍻

[markcalhoun]

You have a refurb. I bought a real G model in West Germany as U.S. Army soldier in 1990 at Aldi's. The real G is a PAL short board with the 220v two prong power supply. Funny thing is I just came across it in one of my parts bins the other day.

[HelloKittyFanMan]

Maybe that one noise was being made by the strap even for those who weren't wondering. (Meaning: not dependent upon if we were wondering.)

[Anangelspath]

Your retro channel is way better than mine, I'm subscribing and thumbs up! I got a 64G from France years ago, love the look.

[MD_il_microcanale]

great video as always! i have never bought a c64g, i don't know why it doesn't appeal to me. I am more attracted to the first examples of C64!

[v-for-victory]

I had problems with these models in connection with Austro Compiled Basic.

[HelloKittyFanMan]

"I didn't realize I had..."

...at least for some time (since you would've realized it back when the machine you had it in was good).

[antonhenry]

Nice machine
Your c64g, a pre 89, model.
The green led, model, 90, onwards.
And sold in other European countries,
As the video supergame 64.

[davefarquhar]

If I had to guess, your system is a refurb of some sort since it has a 1989 date of manufacture, and has a 1983 board in it and chips with dates all over the place. Here in the States, if you had a broken C-64, you could send it to Commodore along with a check for $64, and they'd send you a refurbished one. Then they'd fix yours and send it to someone else. If you sent in something weird, it meant some future customer got something weird. Maybe weirder, depending on what Commodore had to do to fix it. Did Commodore Australia do anything similar?

[HelloKittyFanMan]

How does it supposedly "cost more money" just to put the graphics characters on the fronts of the keycaps than to put them on the tops?

[HelloKittyFanMan]

"I'll just grab a photo off the internet..."

Then where did you grab the photo _from?_

[HelloKittyFanMan]

"Different from either a 64 breadbin or a 64C."

That doesn't make sense, because this case IS the "breadbin" type of case, and your thumbnail text even includes this as one.

[HelloKittyFanMan]

But when was the CPU _ever_ soldered into a genuine C64, supposedly?

[HelloKittyFanMan]

"I bought myself one of these bad boys off of ebay..."

Then which site did you buy it ON?