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A C64 with black screen
When a C64 fails, the most common symptom is a black screen. While having a display of some sorts makes troubleshooting easier, a black screen gives away many useful hints. Here is how I usually start the diagnostics process, when I get a machine with a black screen. Introduction A black screen can be caused…
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Testing software
While cassette games usually still work even today, disk games have a considerable error margin. Original games vary greatly in price, meaning that the effort put into testing needs to have be reasonable. Here is what you can expect when I sell software. Disk games Disk games tend to be increasingly valuable but unfortunately also…
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Understanding Azimuth
Azimuth Head Alignment is one of my go-to tools when working on datasettes. It is not only useful for adjusting azimuth but also for datasette diagnosis in general. Unfortunately there is no documentation for it, so I decided to dig into how it actually works. How data is stored on the tape To understand Azimuth…
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Datasette repair notes
Commodore’s datasette is a robust little machine, and many of them still keep spinning. Furthermore, many of the most frequent problems can be fixed easily. This post contains my datasette repair notes, and will be updated regularly. Some numbers I have bought several lots of defect datasettes and it has been surprisingly feasible, if we…
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Testing datasettes
Given the price tag, there is a limit to the amount of time you can spend on datasettes. Annoyingly, many of them come with minor issues like incorrect azimuth settings, dirty tape heads or defect drive belts, which mostly are easily fixed. But mostly isn’t the same as always. What “working” should mean In my…
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Replacing the drive belt in a 1530/1531 datasette
Failing drive belts among the most frequent problems you encounter when servicing Commodore 1530 and 1531 datasettes. But when should you replace the drive belt and how do you do it? Commodore’s many datasettes As illustrated in Giacomo Vernoni’s eBook on the topic, Commodore produced an impressive range of datasettes for use with its range…
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Testing floppy drives
Commodore’s 1541-family of floppy drives went out of sales decades ago. The drives that remain in working condition have surpassed their life expectancy multiple times. In this post, I share my thoughts on what constitutes a proper test before listing a drive for sale. A few notes about Commodore’s design Before we discuss test procedures,…
Categories
- buying and selling
- Computers
- dansk
- Datasettes
- Floppy drives
- Joysticks
- Not categorized
- Power supplies
- Repair Notes
- Test procedures
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Tags
1530 1531 1540 1541 1570 1571 assembly number azimuth; black screen Commodore commodore 64 commodre computer datasette disks drivebelt drive belt drive head hardware joysticks køb og salg mainboard power supplies r/w head refurbishing repair notes reselling retro retro-computing retrocomputere retro computers selling tapes testing original games test procedure warranties