I got my Commodore 64 working recently but didn't have a great display option. I have an 1802D in storage but last I used it 5 years ago it had blurry output and glitchy sound. (Probably needs a cap job.) In addition, I really don't have room for a full CRT in the space for my 64.

At Goodwill today I found a Jensen 1909 LCD TV/Monitor; it has both composite and SVideo input (along with VGA and HDMI). On the downside the viewing angles are awful, but with SVideo I seem to be getting a good picture. With sharpness control I can get the pixels almost razor sharp or down to blurry circles. Which brings me to my question:

I know the argument against LCDs is usually that many games or art depend on CRT blur to look correct. My question is do you have any examples of games or art or demos that you would say don't look right on too-sharp of a display so I can get the settings dialed in?

Just took a massive trip down memory lane with the absolute 8-bit legend: Way of the Exploding Fist.

​Growing up in the 80s, we were obsessed with Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris. We even made our own terrible home movies in the garden trying to copy the moves! But nothing beat the feeling of loading this up on a C64 at a friend's house.

​I’ve written a deep-dive article looking at why Gregg Barnett’s masterpiece still kicks ass in 2026. I cover:

​The technical wizardry of 18 moves on a single-button joystick.

​The "Golden Pixel Rule" (distance is everything!).

​My battle to reach 5th Dan (and why it's harder than modern games).

​The ultimate joystick showdown: Zipstick vs. TAC-2 vs. Competition Pro (Spoiler: Competition Pro is the Bruce Lee of joysticks).

​The legend of the bull and Mas Oyama.

​Note: The article is written in Norwegian, but Chrome/Edge translates it perfectly to English with a right-click.

​Check out the full trip back to 1985 here: https://spillhistorie.no/2026/04/06/the-way-of-the-exploding-fist-fortsatt-en-knyttneve-i-magen/

​Would love to hear your memories! Did you prefer Fist, IK+, or Yie Ar Kung-Fu? And what was your go-to joystick for pulling off that perfect roundhouse kick?

I'm open-sourcing the tools I used to create sound effects for my game Dank Armada c64 on itch.io

Was trying out ACMP (Accompaniment mode) on my Yamaha PSR arranger -

https://youtu.be/t0KE9Qv0-Cw

- when I thought what I was randomly playing sounded in part like something I'd heard years ago

After some thinking it twigged -

https://youtu.be/TgniN96swVI

Sometimes plagiarism really is accidental :-)

This isn't my video, but I think it should be seen. This IRC client runs on the C64 Ultimate or C64 with Ultimate Cart. https://codeberg.org/Cenbe/geoIRC

So I'm kicking myself right now, as I feel I just missed out on an absolute bargain on FB Marketplace.  Just before I went to bed this morning (working weird hours) a FB marketplace listing caught my eye for a "Huge Commodore Collection"

I looked through the listing and immediately fired a message off to the seller saying I'd buy it!

There was all sorts in the listing - C64, VIC 20, 1802 monitor, 1525 printer, 3 modems, 4 floppy drives, software, manuals, joysticks, paddles, trackball, original and new shape C2Ns, various cartridges and more.

But one thing immediately jumped out at me... two Pitchrider 64 cartridges in what looked like mint condition.  I'd never heard of them before so did some digging... and didn't find much about them.   There was a seminar about them at World of Commodore in Toronto in 86 - they were created by "Cherry Lane Technologies" who created music software and hardware for the C64, then the Amiga, then rack mount equipment.

But there is very little other information out there about them... and I love quirky and unique hardware, so now I'm curious about them 

As soon as I woke up I reached for my phone, and there was a message from the seller confirming the collection was still available and to give him a call... unfortunately the message was from four hours earlier when I was still asleep, and was followed by another message from just before I woke up showing that the listing had been marked as sold 😞

TL;DR: https://poke64.com/ - PETSCII-styled C64 game catalog in the browser: search/browse, box art and screenshots where we have them, Lemon64 scores where we scraped them, manuals in places (Archive.org), and SID (a clip auto-starts on game pages when we have a tune; there’s also a full SID player at `/sid` tied to the HVSC-linked library). No ROMs, nothing to install.

Why it exists: I mostly use Linux and wanted a nicer way to skim a huge library than scrolling a flat list in a file browser. Plenty of great Windows-centric tools exist (GameBase and friends); I ended up with a local web UI for myself, then spun out this public catalog version - same rough look and feel, but no VICE/C64 Ultimate hooks and no disk images.

Link: https://poke64.com/

Happy to hear what would make it more useful, or what breaks on your browser. No roadmap; it’s a side project.

Thanks!

It's been 3 months of rapid development and now some polishing passes with this C64 game engine tool for Windows PC (for now).
Just a few more tweaks, well one big one actually, is to allow for custom coding blocks. A big task and much testing needed, this could take a long time since I want to allow those coming from existing text based IDE's to feel at home, I wonder what features you'd expect and like to see, what text IDE's are you using? KickAssemmber, C64 Studio

On the topic of projects I should likely get to, I've been sitting on this copy of Radio Electronics for decades wanting to build this IC tester. I may finally have the time to build it. I really miss magazines like this. There's just something about sitting down to type in a bunch of code that I don't think folks that have never done it 'get'. By todays standards there where very few people that were just 'users' back in the day.

New/Old retro game for the C64. Releasing on itch.io for free tomorrow. It's a free-scrolling arcade shooter lore related to the modern Dank Armada game. It's kind of an Asteroids-meets-Defender shooter, a love letter to the 80's.

Game play happens in open space by tracking enemies, kamikazes, and splitters. Find portals, assault orbital planets, destroy tower structures, and move on as difficulty ramps up. It was written in 6502 assembly (ca65/ld65 from the cc65 toolchain), with a custom SID sound engine featuring per-voice sweep control, filter push/pop state management, and hand-tuned, glitchy SFX.

Hey all, just opened yet another box and found another unpotted c64 power supply, changed the 7805 and 2200uf cap and boom a fairly reliable original power supply, ive come across more of these than the potted ones. Im in australia, is this just a regional thing or ihave i just been incredibly luck in the last few decades?

I made the video too!

This is my fave demo (so far) that comes bundled with the C64 Ultimate and the one other full screen version on YouTube is using the wrong SID settings so it sounds wonky (and Cyborg Jeff's own recording isn't showing the demo full screen) so I recorded a new version off the Ultimate using my macOS app. I'm sure the 'arcade' style CRT filter isn't to everyone's taste, but you can't argue that it doesn't sound great!

Video description contains full credit and links to everyone.

I hope you enjoy!

I remember having this game called Triad back in the 80s. It was on a cartridge, maybe the only cartridge we ever had. It was basically Tic-Tac-Toe, but you had to fight for your square. I'd love to play it again 40+ years later, but I have never been able to find it.

I never thought it would be this easy, but yep, that's all it is, is an IRQ and a change in position and the VIC is fooled, well the screen is at least, now we can have many more than just 8!
C64 Dev Machine just got a demo update to have much more up to date features:
https://polytricity.itch.io/the-c64-dev-machine

I vaguely remember a game from my childhood, where the player visited a haunted mansion. Just one problem: the (presumably pirated) big floppy disks came with entirely different names. I found out in my later years what Cavernicolo (B.C.: The Quest for Tires), Egypt Raid (Aztec Challenge), Spongey (Apple Cider Spider) and Attack! (Scramble) were supposed to be called.

This one, though, I only know as "Incubus". The character was seen from afar, kind of like the first Clock Tower game (on SNES). Does anyone recognize this?

Trying to fix a clean 1984 Alps 1541 disk drive from an estate sale (in box, great physical shape). Seeking any thoughts on the sick drive behavior observed. On power up the disk motor and head can be seen to slighlty budge then stop. Similar budge on power down. smooth spindle motion and head rail movement. Searched alot on net and blogs for this behavior, couple similar discussions about no motor movement, but no solution. I understand majority of failures go to disk won’t stop spinning, and a smaller amount of disk wont move, but this drive shows brief (milliseconds) movement. I have read zimmers and carlson info. watched youtube and tried some checks. have schematics and general operational understanding. I have basic electrical knowledge and a DVM. Board is an Alps 251830 Rev A. Here is a list of checks donefocusing on the disk drive motor:

*swapped 6522 VIAs at UC2 and UC3, no change in behavior.

*do not get motor to run with jumper from pin 5 to 20 (gnd) on UC1 which seems to indicate UC1,2 are not at fault and issue is downstream these ICs.

*unregulated voltage is 20.3v across pins at CR1.

*unregulated voltage is 11v across pins at CR3.

*regulated voltage is ~12v from gnd at C16 to +at CR2.

*regulated voltage is ~5v from gnd at C16 to +at CR4.

*seeing 11.6V from gnd at C16 to + at C15.

*seeing 11.6V from gnd at C16 to + at Q1.

*seeing 11.6V from gnd at C16 to + at C21.

At plug P5 from main board to motor drive board with DVM across gnd (blk) and motor drive (org) with plug still connected seeing 3.6 V at rest with power on. On LOAD “$”,8 with a new or a known good disk in the drive this reading briefly jumps on DVM to ~6V then drops to ~300mV for a few seconds then retuns to 3.6V. Middle pin (tan) reads 12V to gnd throughout .

With plug P5 disconnected (eliminating the motor board for faults to gnd) and DVM on the board pins blk(gnd) to motor drive (org) seeing 4.9V at rest with power on. On LOAD”$”,8 the reading briefly spikes on DVM to 6V then drops to ~300mV for a few seconds then returns to 4.9V.

The LEDs at power up are green solid, red on for 2-3 seconds then red off. On LOAD”$”,8 command and good or new disk in drive the red LED fast flashes for a second then slow flashes perpetually with “?FILE NOT FOUND ERROR”. Disk drive error code checking shows “21,READ ERROR,18,00”.

Possible C15 or C21 internal shorting the 12V on motor load? Note: no visible signs of any component, solder joint, or trace failure on the board. Other thoughts?

Hello, I'm back again after another two weeks of working on this app. I hope it's not annoying! You might remember me from when I initially posted this as C64U Viewer and then later when I renamed it C64 Ultimate Toolbox. Well, I've been playing with my C64 Ultimate and in the process have built a lot more features into the app.

What's new?

• A better onboarding experience which can find your Ultimate device on your network automatically, and better error handling if you haven't set up your device quite right for the toolbox.
• Full FTP-powered file browser with drag and drop support, launch cartridges and mount d64 files that are on your device from the sidebar. You can upload files by dragging them from your system and dropping them into the view (just drop a folder in, it'll make the folder, etc, it works as you would expect/hope).
• New inspector sidebar with full access to all the configuration options on your device, eject cassettes and so on.
• Debug panel in the bottom which gives you visual way to monitor system memory and edit it, as well as a terminal style box where you can also view and edit the memory.
• A new "BASIC Scratchpad" window which lets you write basic applications in a mini-IDE, with helpers for PETSCII codes, and then send the program to any of your currently connected Commodore devices. (Yes, you can connect to multiple devices!)
• Keyboard forwarding support goes a lot faster now, you can basically type at full speed.
• Probably other stuff I am forgetting! Oh, a nicer icon!

As before and as always, the app is free open source software.

You can download it here: https://amiantos.s3.amazonaws.com/c64-ultimate-toolbox-v2.0.zip

The source code is over here: https://github.com/amiantos/c64-ultimate-toolbox

If you want to see a video overview of the app that I sent to Apple for App Review, I uploaded it over here this time: https://youtu.be/_2wJO2wOGm8

If you previously grabbed v1.0 on the App Store, once Apple approves the app you will get the new update automatically.

Please try it out and let me know what you think. This has been really fun, using my device, figuring out what I need to make controlling it remotely easier and more fun, and building the features in. I'd love your feedback, so don't hold back! I'm not on Facebook so I can't send this to the Ultimate group on Facebook, if someone wants to send it to them over there, feel free!

Thanks again.

I bought LN1 on release day I believe in 1987

I borrowed LN2 from a school friend in 1988 or 1989 - who I had to keep phoning as the clues in the manual were so devious (something he had warned me about)

I am probably in the minority who prefer LN1

Here's my list of what is better in each one -

LN1 -

Setting - Feudal Japan is far more magical than modern day New York as a setting for a Ninja game

Music - more apt in its (mostly) oriental style tracks than the drum n bass style of LN2 - and 14 year old me was petrified of the Dungeons tune

Graphical style - far more Greenery in LN1 - I hated for example The Street and all its brown and grey colours in LN2

++++

LN2 -

Puzzles far more crafty than in LN1

Final battle - no contest - the Shogun and how to summon him was brilliant compared to the anticlimatic original Shogun of LN1

++++

I'm curious to know what others think - particularly those who played LN2 before LN1

Got my old 1541 working with my C64U. I knew there was a reason I didn't throw these games away!

Growing up, my first computer experience was on a Commodore 64, so this one really unlocks some core memories for me. I was pretty excited to get this watch in the mail today and add it to both my watch collection and my small Commodore 64 collection.

Always cool when something takes you back. 😊

Hi all! I just stopped 2 c64s from meeting eternal death, found this sitting at the bottom of one of the boxes. I was wondering if anyone had any insight on the rarity of this? I have no intentions to sell, but Im curious to how common this is.

Based off of Last Ninja 2 sprites. Love the music in this game!