Is my C64 broken?

[necronom]

Troll Alert!

[retromax]

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I haven't used my C64 for many years, so today I fired it up to see if it's still working...it's not. It powers on and it's tuned in to my television. The problem appears to be either the controller for the datacassette drive or the datacassette itself. It doesn't rewind, play or forward. There's a red LED power light on it so it has power but seemingly no motor function. The thing is, I have two datacassettes and neither of them work which is strange. One of them broken I can accept, but both? Or is my C64 the one with the problem?

I imagine the little rubber drive belts will have seen better days!

[Fred83]

sorry for reviveing an old thread,but have to ask,is there way to connect the c64 to hi-fi or something then load a game from that,or was there an device/adaptor invented yet to load games,i just hated the c2n,it was so plasticy and such buttons break easy after years of use....

[Antiriad2097]

Theres a memory stck adapter to let you put games on an SD card.

[soopytwist]

Okay, dragged this one out of the archive. Been a while since I posted this thread but thought I'd give you an update. I recently got hold of a new PSU (well I say new, it's second hand and well used but was advertised as "tested and working"). First up, when I used it I at last had full power to the cassette player so it looked like my old PSU was indeed faulty. The tape would play and forward and rewind...but could not load anything, no signal it seems. I reiterate, the cassette player is one of those "Load It" ones with the azimuth screw censored? Anyway, tried twiddling it but programs don't load. The LED indicators don't light up, except for the first one that indicates power.

Then I happened to move the flex of the power lead and the power went off. When I checked the plug, the live wire wasn't wired in properly. Tested and working my ass! (haven't left feedback yet, wanted the sellers opinion of this before I left negative feedback). I wired it up correctly and it was fine, but still can't load anything.

Then I checked my old PSU again and noticed the fuse in mine is 13 Amps. The fuse in the new one is 3 Amp. Exactly what Amp fuse should be in the plug? I wired a new plug to my old PSU, but accidentally did not connect the neutral wire...yes I know, extremely silly and possibly also very serious; the neutral pin had actually dropped out of the plug on to the floor and I didn't notice. I plugged it in with no neutral wire connected to the plug...still worked though. Yep, you read that right. No neutral wire connected and the commodore and the cassette player all had power and worked, although there was now a loud screeching noise coming from the motor.

Right, so I rewired the plug. The new PSU has both live and neutral connected (and in the right place obviously or I'd be dead now) with a 3 Amp fuse. The old PSU is similarly also correctly wired but has a 13 Amp fuse in it.

Now here's the thing. The cassette player now doesn't play, forward or rewind on either PSU. However, take the neutral wire out of the plug and the cassette player has power! But doesn't load anything. Connect the neutral wire as it should and the cassette player does NOT play, forward or rewind.

So explain this to me...please.

[soopytwist]

I guess no one has any ideas then? Right, C64 is going in the bin then. If anyone wants my vast games collection, tough they're going in the bin too.

[mlucifersam]

Oooo stroppy! And dumping your games in the bin? tut

[TMR]

I guess no one has any ideas then? Right, C64 is going in the bin then. If anyone wants my vast games collection, tough they're going in the bin too.

Oh, well i'd just read the previous post and was about to throw in a few suggestions/guesses (and lets face it, we can't prod at the machine so it's always going to be guesswork) but there's no point apparently.

Next time you ask what is a reasonably difficult technical question, i'd suggest that you remember this isn't a 24/7 helpdesk and that the people who have the reasonably specific knoweldge many not always be around over the weekend to give you a prompt answer. And are far less likely to help if you throw your rattle like that.

[soopytwist]

LOL. Thought that would get a response. It was SARCASM.

I haven't thrown anything away. I bought a new datasette and it now works, with the new PSU as well; the old one definitely is borked. So I still have a tape with OCP Art Studio pictures on and would like to transfer them somehow to my PC. Best way I can see of doing this is with a cable from the C64's Video port to the component IN of my Pioneer HDD/DVD Recorder, burn a disc and load that up on my PC and screen grab the pitctures.

However, I don't have a cable that plugs in to the Video port, only the standard RF lead, can't do it with that can I? Or can I...?

On eBay there are two C64 video cables, a Luma, Chroma video lead for Commodore monitors or an S-Video lead.

[necronom]

If you had a 1541 drive, an Action Replay cart, and an XM 1541 cable, you could load it up, freeze it, save to disk, then transfer that to your PC as a D64 file with "gui4cmb4win" and run it on your PC with VICE to get a perfect screen grab.

If not, then I'm not sure what else would work as well. A video grab isn't the ideal solution.

[Edit]
Actually you could replace the 1541 and cable option with one of those SD card readers and freeze and save to SD card. Still involves buying hardware and having a freeze cart of some sort.

[TMR]

LOL. Thought that would get a response. It was SARCASM.

Yes, i'm sure it was.

So I still have a tape with OCP Art Studio pictures on and would like to transfer them somehow to my PC. Best way I can see of doing this is with a cable from the C64's Video port to the component IN of my Pioneer HDD/DVD Recorder, burn a disc and load that up on my PC and screen grab the pitctures.

No, that really isn't the best way of doing it because you'll end up with at best a blurred version of the original image and at worst a mess.

The cheap, no frills way to move tape files over is to record a WAV of the signal using a common or garden tape deck connected to a PC sound card, run that through a program like AudioTap or Tape64 (i can't vouch for either, this isn't a process i've tried personally) and if you're very lucky and the volume levels were right, a TAP file will pop out the other end for VICE to load - so mount a disk with Art Studio, load the program, mount the TAP and load as though working with a real tape deck. Fairlight Tools has links for those tools and a few others.

A better (as in more likely to produce a workable image) way to do it would be to get an X*1541 cable, connect it to the C64's serial port and run mtap at the PC end to pull data over, using the C64 to run the tape deck. After that, an SD2IEC-based device can be used assuming Art Studio doesn't use any unsupported fastloader; connect that to the serial port, load Art Studio from the "disk", switch the program to tape mode to load the files, then switch back to disk for saving to SD.

[soopytwist]

That all sounds tricky. I can record output through the standard RF cable to my HDD recorder but yeah the picture isn't great...well it looks like it did on my old portable CRT TV I used to use with the C64 many years ago. The problem with Art Studio is it uses a weird tape loader, I couldn't actually load the program earlier today because of the azimuth, yes that old chestnut, and certainly not my own pictures on a Sony C60 cassette, so I had to perform a little bit of magic.

If you've read this thread from the beginning you'll know I had a Load-It datasette that is now trashed because it was borked. I salvaged the Load-It PCB from inside, don't know why - something told me to hang on to it. Today I got delivery of a new datasette from eBay, a used one obviously but in very good condition. I took the back off and had a look inside. The main PCB has a different layout to my old Load-It one so didn't think they'd be a chance of connecting the Load-It PCB to it. On closer inspection though I could clearly see the blue and red wires connect to the main chip. The black wire connects to a carbon resistor, I don't know what voltage (it has a red, purple, red, gold stripe). Despite the difference in layout, there was an identical resistor on the new PCB, albeit not in the same place. So I got the soldering iron out and connected the Load-It PCB to the new datasette. The be honest I really didn't think this would work but what do you know, it does! The load-It PCB is hanging out the side of the datasette through a hole I made in the side like some kind of cyborg but at least it loads stuff now.

My new problem though is OCP Art Studio has copy protection...and I don't have the manual any more so I can't load the program. Side B of the tape has a mulitloader though so I can still load my pics but takes longer cause I have to reload the multiloader after each picture. anyone know where I can PDF of the manual?

[TMR]

That all sounds tricky.

i ordered the list by cost; sampling the tape signal and converting to TAP is the cheapest and that means the odds are a bit lower of getting a decent image. The SD-based solutions are the most expensive (especially if you go for something with a bit of power like a 1541 Ultimate 2 which does so much more besides what you're currently trying to do) but more likely to actually work without hassle.

I can record output through the standard RF cable to my HDD recorder but yeah the picture isn't great...well it looks like it did on my old portable CRT TV I used to use with the C64 many years ago.

And it'll only be marginally better going via composite video or other outputs.

My new problem though is OCP Art Studio has copy protection...and I don't have the manual any more so I can't load the program. Side B of the tape has a mulitloader though so I can still load my pics but takes longer cause I have to reload the multiloader after each picture. anyone know where I can PDF of the manual?

It's not online with any of the usual suspects, but that's probably because the versions of the program on the web are all cracked to remove the protection.