Anders from Arctic Retro recently got his hands on a Commodore 64 of unknown condition, bundled with various accessories like a cassette player and paddles. When he powered it on, the LED lit up, but the screen stayed black—time for a closer look inside.
His initial checks showed normal voltage levels, but something was off with the signals on the address bus, hinting at a possible issue with the CPU, PLA, or RAM. Digging deeper with a Dead Test cartridge and an oscilloscope, eventually tracing the problem to a faulty character ROM. Swapping it out does the trick, and the C64 comes back to life.
Next, Anders tackles the keyboard, restoring its responsiveness with a simple paper-rubbing technique. The paddles and cassette deck also get a thorough cleaning and minor repairs, bringing them back to full functionality. After running a complete diagnostic check, every port and function was confirmed to be working.
With the machine reassembled and tested with multiple games, it was officially back in action—fully restored and ready for many more years of retro gaming.
