I don't know about this beta unit but the Kawari site says it does not work with assy 250466 boards currently, I think someone stated a voltage difference of 12v and 5v
Me too I'd love modern fully decked Apple 2e replica. I never had anything to do with it and they aren't popular in my part of world so they get super high prices. So if I could get replica on modern or easily obtained parts I would jump on it. You can do MSX2+ on RC2014, there are dozens of Sinclair Spectrum and ZX81/80 clones, there are clones for Apple 1, even rare Jupiter Ace has few clones, and Apple 2 has only low revision earliest one nothing for plus, e, eplatinum, c/c+. Then there's one recently created reproduction bord for Macintosh.
Jan, really enjoy your Channel. I've been out of action with Covid for the last 5 days and its been awesome to watch your videos. As an 80's child I started my career as a software engineer when I was 11 in 1984 LOL (its frightening to think how long I've been working with computers now). Its great to see you doing all the work on these old computers and keeping them alive. I have some pretty horrid memories of taking apart my CPC464, a friends C64 and in later years my Atari ST - it was always broken keyboards/tracks/membraines, tape and disc drives. I remember making some pretty horrid quickshot joystick fixes with the little alu tabs from the top of fizzy drink cans (Quickshot joysticks were BAD !) and was very very happy when micro-switch joysticks came on the market. Keep it up !!!
Thanks for the kind words! I was knocked out by COVID a couple of weeks ago, too. Definitely not a fun experience (despite being vaccinated). Hope you are back to normal health!
The people behind the ARMSID are very helpful, I'm sure you'll get it fixed or replaced. I had one fail on me, I'm not sure what happened, but it could well have been caused by another issue with the machine. In my case it stopped working completely, no sound and it would fail diagnostics. As a last ditch attempt, I did try updating the firmware with their blind updater which bypasses the chip check, I wonder if that may work for you? There's also an Arduino sketch with a circuit you could build on a breadboard to test and update the ARMSID. Great videos and look forward to seeing this machine progress into something completely modern.
This kind of reminds me of Only Fools and Horses: Trigger's old well maintained broom he's had for 20 years. With 17 new heads and 14 new handles. Still his old broom it is!
Jan Beta: "Lets use modern replacements, so we can have reliable components in the C64 finally!" Me: Yay! \o/ ARMSID: *breaks* Me: *awkward poker face*
Unreal. We're not going to stop at reproducing custom chips for the C64, are we? The next step will be to replace custom Amiga chips! Very interesting video, Jan :-). Danke Dir :-).
Thanks a lot for this video, this is really interesting to see how the combination of replacement parts is working. Sad the Armsid broke, would be interesting to learn whether it is gone completly or if it can be revitalized. And indeed, thanks a lot for mention me and my channel, this is more than appreciated. Keep going, love your stuff!
I'm doing something similar using the uAX64 motherboard (mini-itx C64 board) by Matthais. I've been trying to find a J-PLA, but it apparently isn't made anymore. Like you, I'm waiting on the J-CIA and the CPU replacement. The VIC II Kavari is something I'm hoping to get once they're available and the ARMSID is what I've selected for my SID as well. Can't wait til I have it built!
Has anyone else noticed that the numbers on the work place accident board Jan has in the background are the decimal for the background and border colour registers on the C64????
That black mask is so beautiful. The red and purple on the site look nice too, but that black is just amazing. Ordering mine soon! Thanks for following up on this project!
It would be cool to have headers for the cartridge and diskdrive on the PCB for «permanent» internal mounting. Optionally switch/keyboard combo to enable/disable internally mounted devices.
That’s a goal I have for my blue cased c64 as well. It has a reloaded motherboard and a new PLA but love to eventually replace the custom chips for new variants.
Have you considered installing a new keyboard? There is a project called the MechBoard64. You can install mechanical key switches, has a gerber file for a new pcb, bom list for all of the components needed and stl files for any 3d printable parts such as key adapters for the original keys to cherrymx switches.
Jan, I also had the same exact issue with the Saruman and 6567R8 VICs in 250466 NTSC and PAL boards only. The Saruman however works fine with the 6567R9 or 6569R5. So the Kawari must be such a perfect replica of the VIC that it reacts exactly the same as the earlier VIC II :-) on a 466 board. If I recall correctly, the exact "weird character" issue you saw in the video with the Saruman is due to some of the different RAS timings on some of the earlier C64 board revisions and earlier VICs.
Whoa! I've been selling Saruman-64 for 3 years now and nobody reported these problems to me!! I have a 6567R8 here and will sure perform some testing!! Time to take the logic analyzer for a spin!
@@francoisleveille409 I obviously don't know if you've done any subsequent tests and the results, but I can confirm the symptoms SX64 man described above. My setup: 250466 sixtyclone; original CIA,; replacement ROMs from DIYChris; original 6510; ARMSID; your PLAnkton (ev); 6569R3; original 8701; all original logic and Saruman. With this the C64 boots to a lone ready prompt, weird characters (in my case the letter D scattered randomly) and no cursor. On replacing the 6569R3 with a 6569R5 the Saruman worked perfectly. Adding your TOLB and everything continues to work perfectly. Should also state, like Jan, I am using RECOM replacement voltage regulators.
@@iainbennie It looks like the CPU clock coming from the 6569R3 is 'offset' relative to the AEC signal and this causes the R/W signal, when low (CPU performing a write) to stay low for a brief period INTO the VIC-II access portion of the cycle. The C64c (250469) is protected from this problem because the DRAM R/W signal is passed through the large 64 pin PLA.
I too enjoy the old computers from new components. I have a thought. The incompatibility of the Kvari and the Sauruman SRAM might be caused by leaving the unneeded timing chip installed, causing some bus contention or some timing irregularity. I have no idea if that would happen. It is a shot in the dark. Great video Jan!
The kovari looks like a nice unit, but it looked like it was washed out on colour, the original Vic seems to have deeper more vibrant colour. It could just be how it's coming over in video.
Maybe I missed something, but did you try the SRAM with the new VIC-II after removing the ARMSID? I wonder if the ARMSID was causing the problem and for some reason made it worse.
Ahaha...you are right Jan...who better than you can be a "Beta" tester? ;) ...other than this joke..great testing work with the board and replacements Jan!
I watched some of your older videos like the power supply ones. I think you should look into some liquid electrical tape. It comes in handy, Thanks I really enjoy your channel, I am looking forward to get my old c54 and amiga 500 setups working again.
Every time I get memory issues after installing modern chips and static ram I remove C204 and install 82pF (or something in that range) for C203. Since C203 is not present on the 250466 I used an 82pF 0805 SMD capacitor on the underside of the board soldered to pin 9 of the PLA chip and the GND line that is right next to it. (need to scratch off some of the solder mask). Tuning C203 and C204 has been an issue since the early days of the C64, as different chip combinations create different latencies and propagation delays. Adding and removing the capacitors causes slight delays on the CAS and CASRAM signals. Experiment with capacitor values 33pF and upwards on either C204 or C203 (not both) until you can run the full diagnostics for at least one hour with 0 errors.
Lol I love how many comments have missed the spirit/goal of this project altogether. Guess it’s free engagement though when folks tell you to just use an emulator slash claim you are in fact just building a convoluted emulator! Still, I think these modern replacements are super cool.
As for the ARMSID potentially being broken, I would suggest that you try to update it using an sd2Iec instead of the Ultimate 2. I have experienced that I can’t update modern devices containing flash RAM using the Ultimate 64 (and hence possibly also the U2). I can’t remember if I tried this on an ARMSID specifically, but I recall that programming an EASYFLASH from the U64 doesn’t work for me (I’m aware that others have been able to run easy flash programmer on the U64)
Nice! I'm on the exact same project myself. I've already ordered a lot of the parts. Unfortunately the 466 board in blue is currently backordered (I don't like it in black), ETA a few weeks. For the keyboard stands Individual Computers and some eBay sellers others have proper new stands made in metal - naturally I've ordered those too. The CIA and VIC chips have to wait a while. I've already spend way too much on ordering the parts and still not a very important one - the PCB. A new PSU at some point naturally. Beside C64 (I don't use) I have a C128 I replaced the connector years back, technically very good and much better than the C64 without risk of sudden high voltage - had I done it today I would just have made an adapter but couldn't find connectors back then. Naturally a Mechboard I'll need too. Also one of the last things as not only is it expensive I've also only found US sellers (live in EU).
By the way. I've even ordered non CBM ROM replacements. When project eventually is finished I'll put back the original parts and probably sell an original machine or two. Got quite a few of them.
I ran into the same issue with both the small and large Kawari combined with the SuRaMan ram module. The ArmSid works fine with the Kawari or the SuRaMan, but not both. If I use a Vic-II and timer chip I have a monochrome display, so there's a timing bug in the stock circuit somewhere...
could design an FPGA replacement of SID, VIC-2, and 6510 CPU combined on to one FPGA - if were manufacturing a modern C64 that would get the chip count way down, which is especially important given on-going chip shortage isses. Would make it much easier to design in a turbo mode as well.
There are several stereo SID mods. Are those working with everything or does it have to be special tune and games? I know the Stereo Mod for the Atari ST just splits two of the three channels (why not the fourth sound channel I don't know)
They play both channels together on mono tunes so you can get a pseudo stereo effect on mono songs if you set each SID up slightly differently. But to get all the voices playing and proper multi SID it needs to be implemented in the game or demo, that's very common in the demoscene. Tons of them are multiSID. A few games are too. It should really be the standard now since very few enthusiasts are still running one SID. I've got three machines in regular use, an U64 with dual sid's, a breadbin with a SIDkick and a longboard C64c with a ARM2SID. All setup in dual sid config. The SIDkick and ARM2SID machines also have yamaha emulation enabled.
Before you inform everyone of more stuff broken, could you put some copper foil tape on bottom inside of case and tie it to ground? Edit: Be sure to overlap by ~3mm, and solder-blob each row to the last.
I'm a huge fan of original hardware. Replacing one or two failing chips with modern alternatives is a nice way to keep things going. But, at what point are we going to realize that we've replaced every chip just to recreate the FPGA solutions already available for years? The lines in our head are really weird, and really flexible depending on the particular machine we're working on, eh?
Very good video Jan. Really enjoyed watching it. What I miss in this new boxes is the warranty sticker. I would really like to make one ending with the warranty sticker. naturally not the original ones that break even if you look at them, but some sort that could be removed and sticked again.
My favorite thing said about the operation of the C64 is from Bill Herd, the lead designer of the C128 (and the only person in the world who may know more about the actual operation of the C64 than Jeri Ellsworth): "The Commodore 64 doesn't actually work. It LOOKS like it does, but it doesn't." This statement has to do with a bunch of really harry things to do with signal timing and bus contention. Certainly, you wouldn't try to build a system that way today.
You might consider trying my MCL64 board which is a MOS6510 drop-in replacement which can run in cycle-accurate and accelerated modes and is open-source.
Ah my comments got deleted because I had links to github, But there's a CPU replacement by Jim Brain on there and also the SIDkick which is a very good open source dual Sid + yamaha + midi in/out + flash.. SID replacement (yeah it's pretty fancy)
One thing struck me. Do you remove your armSID using an IC extractor? Did you take care to only grab the socket or did you grab the pcb? The point is that the components are on the underside and you may inadvertedly have damaged something. If lucky it's easily fixable. I do like looks the older generation armSID a bit better with most (if not all) components on the upper side of the board. Then you can see what it actually is and less risk of damaging something when extracting it out of ordinary sockets. But hey it doesn't look like a chip then. (At least they could have made it look like a sid chip with the printing instead of a huge logo)
Can't the ARMSID behaviour be explained by some bad interaction between the ARMSID and the Plankton? The symptoms are puzzling, but it seems somehow the VIC-II can't access the right memory content, which points to a bus conflict under specific circumstances.
is the armsid working with the old plankton? if the CS signal is coming with a different timing - or not at all, if the new plankton is broken, then the armsid cannot work.
The 6526 CIAs do you really need 2 TOD clocks? I'm wondering if you could use on of the branch new Western Design Centre 6522s. Most pins are compatible. And some of the others are renames of pins which exist on the 6522. Modern 6522s don't have the shift bug.
How do you feel about replacing a chip using a microcontroller that may be several (at minimum) orders of magnitudes faster than the processors in a C64?
It’s controversial of course! To me, the new replacements are mostly a way of keeping existing machines working in case one of the custom chips breaks. Replacing ALL the custom chips is just an experiment, obviously.
@@JanBeta Just in case it was not clear; I was not judging you, but I have seen other restorers worry about the issue. I just wanted to get your opinion.
Do you know if the replacements have more current demand than the originals? I was thinking there might be an issue where 1 or 2 replacements get away with it, but running multiple might draw too much power or be marginal. To think about running multiple ARMs and FPGAs…might be rough on original spec power.
@@talideon Unless you make your own mechboard using an acrylic transparent plate, transparent cherry keys, wire the keys manual in wirewrap technique and print transparent keycaps. Which would definitly be the coolest C64 ever...
Is there a reason that you went with an original SID instead of the SwinSID after discovering the problems with the other intended ARMSID replacement? If the goal is to replace as many chips with modern replacements as possible, this seems like the SwinSID would have been the logical choice over the original chip.
I don’t really like the SwinSID that much so I temporarily went with a real SID. I’m eventually going to try other replacements. It’s a work in progress kind of thing as I mentioned. :)
Things must have been really fixed up in the Kawari as I have the same SixtyClone board (250466) and I have absolutely zero issues. Mine is the Kawari mini however. Do you know if the issues with the static ram upgrade were fixed?
Yes, the Kawari firmware was updated to support the static RAM shortly after I made this video. There were some other timing fixes in the meantime so the production models should be very stable (mind you, the one I have is a prototype version that I got for testing).
@@JanBeta Actually the Saruman still does not work. I received mine from eslapion today and installed it into my 250466 sixtyclone board and when installed it does the same thing as in your video. I am using the Kawari mini with the latest v1.16 firmware for the mini Trion based board.. Is there any way to contact Randy about this? EDIT: I submitted an issue on his Github. It's funny too as I get the exact same screen you do....with the same characters and all. I think this may be some kind of firmware regression or the implementation Randy added to the firmware for the Spartan based board (which you have) is not functioning obviously in the Trion based board which is the latest and what I have. Remember COVID messed us all up and now we are dealing with alternate components. I hope it can be re-fixed as I kind of want to use this SaRuMan-64 :)
I'm on the fence between having my 2nd C64 be a U64 (not possible because of the shortage) or 100% replacements on a 64 clone board (also not possible for the reasons mentioned in the video) when it becomes possible. Maybe I'll do all 3. lol
@@greenfoam I'm aware. From a practicality standpoint I'd rather have a U64. Then I wouldn't need the retrotink and the gigantic power adapter I built and the U2+. It would just be fully self contained. But.......a sixtyclone might be fun to build.
@@awilliams1701 Have you seen the other C64 motherboard that has triple SID sockets and onboard plugins for a pi1541 and midi etc? it's a LOT cooler than any of the basic clones.
perhaps someone could just build a sid on the pi, make it a sid chip and we could use one of those nano or whatever pis as a sid drop in replacement. no one has done it yet. what ive found is someone hooking a sid up to the gpio pins of a pi and running a .sid tune on it.
So, the only chips that still need to be originals are the 6526 CIA chips (due to a lack of modern replacements) and the ROMs (since the owner of the Commodore 8-bit code is notoriously silent when inquiries about licensing are made).
moinsen, bei 5:44 min...ich habe an dieser stelle...einen "goldenchip" in einem schlachtbrotkasten (rev.3 board)...kannst du mir näheres dazu sagen?...sieht komisch aus...aber edel.lg und sorry, das ich in deutsch schreibe...PS: einen genialen kanal hast du da, dude...weiterso..
A lot of PLA's broke after a year in like 83. lol It can happen. I've even had a motherboard in the 90's where the USB controller was 100% dead on arrival.
