
C64 Keyboard Prototype - erickhill
http://www.breadbox64.com/blog/c64-keyboard-prototype/
======
vardump
Keyboard is pretty amazing for C64 preservation efforts. Perhaps lessons
learned could be applied to other same era systems.

There's one part in C64 that's becoming more and more rare — the amazing SID
sound chip.

I wonder whether it'd be possible to have production runs of truly new 6581
and/or 8580 SID chips. Does someone still have the old masks?

Other chips you could emulate with an FPGA. But SID is partially analog, so
it's special. Some say no two SIDs sound the same.

Btw, recent C64 music demo playing off 1 MB Ocean style (= ROM) cartridge (not
REU):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qxxnJVU4jQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qxxnJVU4jQ)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYAf_awh5XA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYAf_awh5XA)

Yes, it's real. Not particularly good example of SID though, but still
impressive for 1982/83 technology.

But this one does show off SID; C64 "Cubase", realtime DSP (timestretch,
low/high pass filter, distortion, etc.) pretty amazing:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4GWheE4Gkw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4GWheE4Gkw)

~~~
monocasa
> Does someone still have the old masks?

You can probably reverse the masks with a microscope with a little elbow
grease. Not trivial by any means, but doable by someone in a garage as a
hobby.

The real question, does a fab that can work with that process still exist?

~~~
jdswain
There’s an ongoing effort to understand the SID here

[http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4150](http://forum.6502.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4150)

Lots of interesting analog chip level stuff, it’s all new to me as I’ve only
dealt with things at the digital level, but very interesting to see how the
fabrication technology works in an analog way..

------
ChickeNES
Those acrylic backing plates are going to crack at some point. The author
should look into aluminum composite panel (Dibond is one brand name). It's a
sheet of HDPE plastic sandwiched between two thin layers of aluminum, and is
much stiffer and stronger than acrylic of the same thickness.

------
beamatronic
As a kid all I ever wanted from any computer was this:

Set pixel (x,y) to color (r,g,b)

I wish today’s kids had this with as little overhead as possible

~~~
egeozcan

        var canvas = document.getElementById('canvas');
        var ctx = canvas.getContext('2d');
        
        ctx.fillStyle = `rgb(${r}, ${g}, ${b})`;
        ctx.fillRect(x, y, 1, 1);
    

I say it's pretty close.

~~~
codeflo
It's pretty amazing to me that in 2018, the way we pass colors to a modern
graphics API is to build a string with comma separated list of the individual
components _encoded in decimal_.

And then people wonder why computers feel slower than they did 15 years ago.

~~~
egeozcan
Legacy APIs for DOM are hard to get rid of, which the Canvas API is based on.
There is some progress though:
[https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/03/cssom](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/03/cssom)

------
pault
Those keycaps are gorgeous. If someone could manage to get those manufactured
I guarantee they would fetch upwards of $150/set on a site like massdrop.

~~~
xenomachina
I wonder how much it would cost to get custom keycaps made today with double-
shot top and front legends.

~~~
pault
Ask signature plastics!
[http://www.solutionsinplastic.com/](http://www.solutionsinplastic.com/)

~~~
xenomachina
It just occurred to me that using the Commodore logo probably adds to the
cost, as you'd have to license it from the company that owns the trademark.
(The C64 Mini avoids using the logo, presumably for this reason.)

~~~
pault
There's a set called SA Retro[1] that used the C64 logo; no idea if it was
cleared or not.

[1]: [https://www.geekzone.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Minila-
Ai...](https://www.geekzone.fr/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Minila-Air-SA-
Retro-1.jpg)

