Hi, I have Commodore 64 computer in my house but I don’t know what can I do with it… Also I need to find a way to connect it to my monitor or buy CRT Monitor.

I’m completely from another generation than you guys (I’m teenager) so I didn’t have too much contact with this computer. I’m really interested about computers so this is reason why it caught my eye. I think the most basic purpose of this computer is playing games, I mean that this is what people think when they hear about it.

I love retro games but I’m bored with games for right now and instead I’m focused on learning new stuff and improving my skills. And if I would like to play games I would just run them on emulator.

I don’t have any hardware for it expect broken joystick, cassette player and blackbox cartridge (I buyed it few years ago and I don’t remember why)

My question is how can I learn something about computers/electronic stuff with this Commodore 64? What’s best way to display video from it? Why you love this computer so much? And what this computer can do, what emulator can’t?

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    3 days ago

    One word of warning for your C64 hardware!!! Lots of the old c64 power supply bricks tend to fail with their advanced age, and when they do, they dump higher voltage onto a lot voltage rail in the c64 doing serious damage to the c64! If you post what power supply you have we can probably tell you if its one of the more risky ones. Alternatively, you can simply buy a modern one without this issue for about $60.

    There are a few types of games that don’t need a joystick (or paddles), like the RPG games Bards Tale or the Ultima series but, you’re going to need a joystick to play most games. The good news is joysticks are also very cheap. A whole bunch of systems essentially used the same joystick config and connector. The same joystick that was used on the very popular Atari 2600 plugs right into the C64. I did a quick amazon search and found this brand new cheap compatible joystick for under $14 USD.

    If you already have games on cassette, you can load and play those right now once you have your display (and joystick if required for the game). However, that will likely be a small collection, if you have any at all. You could go about buying a 5 1/4" disk drive, blank disks, and a USB PC interface cable for the disk drive, but that may be more than you want to buy right now. A cheaper solution is to buy a modern PC loadable cartridge like the Kungfu Flash 2 which can be had for about $35. You put the games on a microSD card, then put that microSD card in the Kungfu Flash cartridge, then plug the KF cart into the c64.

    • ZimnoOPEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      That’s my brick https://imgur.com/a/qZkOMvf I tried to turn on my C64 and everything were okay. I wasn’t powering it for the first time, I did it few years ago already.

      If we speak about loading games I have cassete jack adapter, I heard that I can load games from it using phone. But what when I want to save my program? I don’t think it’s possible by this way. Maybe I can save it to this Kungfu Flash 2? Where I can get it?

  • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    3·
    4 days ago

    How old is your TV? Many TVs support AV input through a little headphone jack. It wasn’t until like a few years ago they actually dropped this. If it supports it then you can just plug it right in and go.

    Look up the original manual for the computer and learn a bit of BASIC programming. The guides back then were REALLY good. I had plenty of fun learning BASIC on my vic20.

    • ZimnoOPEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      I have tv like this but it’s big, it’ll be a uncomfortable for me. Of course I can try to change layout of my room, then maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll try BASIC but it don’t sound to me like something practical but maybe fun

      • SeductiveTortoise@piefed.socialEnglish
        5·
        3 days ago

        I used about 30 programming languages in my career (most for fun) but I’ve started with that crappy little BASIC. It’s not about what you can do with it now, but what you can learn from it. And the bar might never be lower than with this.

  • ZimnoOPEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    I also want to say that I don’t know too much to about electronic but I know more about software and programming. However, I have never had any contact with low-level programming such as Assembler.