I grew up on a Commodore 64 computer- learning BASIC, discovering PC games and delving into the realms of software piracy (you can still find C64 inspired style loaders in many current keygens). My first major electronics purchase was a Commodore 128- purchased with money saved up from washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant over Summer vacation way back in 1987 (which shows how old I am).
In remembrance of this bygone legacy, I had purchased a C64 DTV (Direct to TV) a few years ago from eBay. I played with it for a few days and grew bored of it. I never really grasped that there is actually a full C64 system embedded in the joystick handle…
After seeing a post on Hack-a-Day about Ben Heck making a C64 laptop and using a 1541-III-DTV for the floppy drive I did a little research. Some creative ADD web searching landed me on Hacking the C64 DTV and showed me what I had missed when the C64 DTV booted (The ‘Loading “*”, 8,1’ was not just a special effect!)
The most interesting creation to this search was the 1541-III; this is a device that emulates the old 1541 floppy drive for a C64- but using SD media. This will enable one to put D64 images onto an SD card and the 1541-III will handle presenting the file as a floppy image to the C64. The 1541-III-DTV is the same item but minus the DIN ports and shrunk down to fit inside a C64 DTV system.
There are several C64 DTV Hacking Videos and even a full project for a Wooden DTV that provides information on how to use additional games beyond the basic 20 that were included with the C64 DTV. This looks like a fun project- adding games like Mail Order Monsters. M.U.L.E. or Ultima IV (to mention but a few) to my old C64 DTV!
The big issue I have found so far that there is no place to purchase a 1541-III or 1541-III-DEV- but one place still does sell both the MMC2IEC and SD2IEC
Looks like I have something to work on over the Easter weekend… :o)
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