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Aldi C64 Garbled Characters Repair ASSY 250469
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- Опубликовано: 7 ноя 2017
- Repairing an ALDI Commodore 64 that was displaying oddly shaped characters on screen but seemed to work normally in all other respects.
Here's some handy resources I refer to when troubleshooting and repairing C64s:
The Pictorial C64 Fault Guide is here: derbian.webs.co...
Ray Carlsen's troubleshooting and repair guides are here: personalpages.t...
You can get the .bin files for various C64 diagnostics cartridges from World of Jani (in case you want to make your own or try in an emulator): blog.worldofjan...
If you find this video helpful and/or entertaining please like, share, subscribe and/or consider a donation!
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I'm always impressed how good a job those cardboard inserts did and keeping the interiors of C64s and VIC20s clean.
Pretty much the only thing they are really useful for. Okay, maybe they work as RF shields, too. ;)
I picked up my VIC20 from the tip. Filthy on the outside, but mint inside.
+Mr Lurch Oh, that’s a very nice find. :)
My husband & I bought our first C64 right after Christmas 1987. It was a C64c, of course. Commodore had a special promotion at the time in the USA where, if you bought a C64 by 31 December 1987, you could get 5 free games in the mail. They were all Epyx sports games, which weren't to our taste as it turned out -- but that promo got us started on 30 wonderful yeärs of computer gaming!
Oh, didn't know about that promotion. I liked the Epyx games a lot. We used to play them with three or four kids from the neighborhood and were competing for the word records. A matter of taste obviously. ;)
It might have just been offered to C64 purchasers in North America (or maybe even just in the USA). At the time we purchased our C64c, I remember we purchased some Electronic Arts software titles: a game about Chernobyl (which I never played), Heart of Africa and Seven Cities of Gold (both of which I played a lot). After that, we'd look for computer game stores (usually small independent shops at the time) whenever we went shopping in larger towns, and gradually built up our collection of Commodore software.
The Aldi C64 is a nice blend of the classic breadbin style with modern colours. I think it is my favorite style. Nice one Jan!
Is this where the C64G came from, or was that first? Same idea - new components in a classic case shape case.
The C64G came a year (or so) later. It was also sold at Aldi but also at some other stores. This Aldi one was an exclusive deal directly with Aldi, the G was another special German (hence the G) production run because the breadbin shape was so popular here. The main difference is that the parts of the G were specially produced (hence the white breadbin case) whereas the Aldi C64 parts were leftover parts.
I prefer the breadbin shape too
I always love to see a Commodore 64 getting repaired and made good as new again! I'm currently in the process of troubleshooting my primary C64, which won't play over half the cartridges I have while another unit plays all of them. And a few times I've turned it on and nothing happens, but then a couple more tries and it works fine. There's nothing that appears wrong with it, so I'm at the stage of testing a lot of various points with an oscilloscope or voltmeter to see if they're normal.
That scenic background in International Karate is so beautiful! 8-bit artwork is just awesome :D
A very nice C64 Aldi find, and it's nice to have an easy fix once in a while. Another one saved! Well done, again! I look forward to the Jan Beta Christmas Special.🎄
Thanks! I'm also looking forward to recreating my childhood setup. ;)
I honestly never realised the great differences between board layouts in c64's from different years.
There's 5 or so different revisions of the board that all vary a bit. The short boards are pretty much the same except for - I think - the color RAM that was integrated into another RAM chip for the very latest revision. :)
Hi Jan! I ended up here searching info about characters cycling from cyan to black in my 'new' C64G made in Germany.
Really nice video! I will start watchung all your uploads! Kudos on the "easy' repair!!
very nice. didn't know about the aldi link with commodore , love bit of trivia like this.looking forward to the next vid now.
Thanks Ollie! It's already in the making. I don't know if I'll manage the ALDI special for next week though.
Also, boy would I love to get an Aldi for my collection. I have 2 USA NTSC model breadbins that were factory made just like an Aldi with white keyboard and rubber feet, but they have 250466 large boards in them.
Oh, didn't know those USA models with white keys existed. Interesting how many different editions there are. I'm going to sell at least one Aldi C64 in the coming weeks. Watch my Twitter. :)
Jan Beta No one knows about them over here either. At first when I found one, I thought it may be a machine someone swapped the keyboard in, but the white rubber feet on the bottom puzzled me. It wasnt until later after finding another identical machine with a serial number very close to the first that I realized these were factory made for sure. Since then I’ve seen many more online. I wish we had a nice name for them though, as “American Aldi” sounds silly. I’ll keep tabs on your Twitter, thank you sir!
Great to see that you have gained some serious routine in repairing these beauties.
Also looking forward to the christmas special you have put so much effort in now.
Thanks Thilo! Looking forward to recreating my childhood setup, too (obviously). :)
nice to see yet another C64 brought back from the dead !
Thanks! And a fun repair, too. :)
Great vid once again. This machine was really clean inside and it's nice to see that the hackers have been nowhere near the board. Yes it was an easy fix. Will make you a nice replacement for your original machine back in the day. Keep doing what you are doing Jan because you are doing it well. Looking forward to more videos in the future. Kim
Thanks so much Kim! :) Looking forward to get this nice and clean and recreate my childhood setup.
I played that game to death in my teenage years, can't wait to get my old system up and running again with some of these awesome mods too! Thanks for your channel.
As they say there's another one save from the junk heap. Great Job as always ;)
Thanks! :)
And again another nice fix...by the way, if you want to have back digital 4-bit samples like 6581, put a 330k resistor on pin 26 of the SID to GND (pin 14) or choose a potentiometer to find a right balance between digital and non-digital sounds !! :-D
Yes! I definitely want to try that mod some time. Not going to go wild on the Aldi C64 though because I want to keep it as close to its original (collectible) state as possible.
I always use pointed pliers to make sure the pins are loose in the hole after desoldering.
+FireballXL55 That probably works even better. I’m currently thinking of using something plastic to do it to not scratch the board (if you are clumsy like me). ;)
I have recently obtained a breadbin with the 250469 rev 3 board. It produces a black screen and some buzzing sound. At first glance it seems the SuperPLA might be dead. I was wondering if there is a modern replacement option for it? Thanks!
I have vague memories of Fran Blanche talking with one of the Commodore bods about the first release days of the unit, they vastly underestimated how popular it would become, and in the final testing process any that did not pass would be shipped- if they basically worked (Ish), that would give some time to replace the duff unit with a good one. I wonder if that still happens?, of course.
Regards, J.
Haha, I guess it happens more often today than back then even. Only the production processes are faster/cheaper so they basically just don't care much about quality control at all.
strangely, Aldi supermarket begun to be in notoriety in italy only in these days because TV commercials. for me they were unknown. a good idea could be another C64 release signed by ALDI :-) ... :D
I just live this keyboard version: white but frontside graphics. Would look great on my red C64c, although the lowness would make them harder to view.
It's my favorite C64 keyboard style. (Maybe influenced by the fact that the first machine I got had a keyboard like this...) The version with the PETSCII graphical characters on top was to cut down cost, I believe.
never knew Aldi had been around for so long ....
I think they were around as a supermarket/grocery chain since the 1940s here in Germany.
they only came to Australia in 2001. but were welcome competition
If you keep breaking loose desoldered pins with a flat head screwdriver you will eventually break a trace or pad. In stead you should buy a cheap heat gun to drop those chips out. Like the ones used for removing paint from houses.
I actually have a heat gun but never used it for that purpose. Going to try that. Thanks for the tip!
Oh yeah! Another C64 repair video!
Good repair, man. Im happy to see another c64 back to life. :)
Thank you! :)
Hey Jan, just a shout out of appreciation for your really enjoyable videos. Cudos for giving priority to sound and video quality. Too many fail on that part.
Oh, thank you Sir. I try to at least keep the quality at a bearable minimum while still being able to make spontaneous videos. Glad you like the approach. There are going to be some equipment upgrades soon(ish), too.
Couldn't you piggyback another chip on the character rom to see if it was faulty?
I think that you should try to use a Lumafix seing the amount of stripes on screen it shows, or at least that seemed to be hapenning in the video (16´04").
I love your idea to re-create your christmas setup :D
Thank you! I'm really looking forward to putting it all together (hopefully). Still hunting for some items. I'll post the first videos of the series soon. :)
Made in Murica - kind of funny - I wonder if they had to have special test equipment because of the 60 Hz mains frequency here?
Anyhow I look forward to your Aldi C64 special.
They probably used some kind of special test equipment to accommodate for the 60Hz I guess. Most of the short board doesn't care about the mains frequency though, I think, so it should at least work with either frequency.
Thanks for another great video Jan. Your idea for your Christmas series is really nice! Looking forward to that :-)
Thanks! I'm looking forward to (hopefully) recreating my childhood setup, too. :)
Hi Jan.
Rare video about repair Aldi C64. I have one with "black screen" failure. I cheked clock on CPU and I found that clocks ( on pins 1 and 39) are in phase wich, according to data sheet, is wrong. Are they on functional board in oposite phases ( "non overlaping clocks")?
I remember repairing one of these years ago, maybe it's my memory but I seem to be remember more chips being socketed, is this an example of the cost cutting for this Aldi range?
The later (short) board revisions I have seen (including the ones in Aldi models) mostly only had the VIC and the SID socketed. For earlier boards, the sockets varied a lot. I have one 250425 board nearly all the ICs were socketed on from factory and a couple of 250407s with various different ICs in sockets. The VIC and the SID seem to be socketed on all of them, though.
Eeekk That scratch at 12:35 I thought something like that could be fatal to the board seeing as the scratch went right over a path.
Sorry for my clumsiness. The scratch didn't go through the epoxy solder mask though. It's pretty hard to scratch through that fortunately.
Those late revision boards look nothing like the old ones, where is the memory BTW?
They replaced the original eight 4164 RAM chips with two more modern (and higher capacity) 4464 chips. The location is quite similar still. There's a lot of chips that integrate a number of chips from the old layout to further cut down production cost.
Moin Jan. Super Video. Eine Frage. SVideo liegt doch nicht an der AV Buchse? oder? Habe mal gesehen, das man
einen eingriff machen muss, oder wie bekommst du so ein tolles TFT Bild hin? Lg Rolf
Hallo Rolf, vielen Dank! An der AV Buchse liegt tatsächlich Chroma und Luma als getrenntes Signal an. Ich habe vor einiger Zeit mal ein Video gemacht, wie ich mein S-Video Kabel gebastelt habe (man kann natürlich auch ein fertiges kaufen, bei Bedarf auch mit SCART) -> ruclips.net/video/gU2iaZ7dfeo/видео.html
So in 1980s West Germany, did Lidl sell Amstrads?
Haha, no they didn't. I wonder if Lidl ever sold any computers. Aldi also sells Medion brand PCs frequently nowadays.
Have you tried swapping the old chip back in, to make sure it wasn't a broken solder joint? (I doubt it was, but it's worth checking.)
James Potts I wondered similarly, if all the characters were similarly deformed (blue line running through horizontally) it could have possibly been a dry joint instead of bitrot inside the ROM. Bitrot could have more random results.
You are right. I didn't even think of that and just assumed the ROM itself was broken. Going to re-check that (given I didn't discard the ROM yet)...
I re-inserted the old ROM in the socket yesterday. It has the same issue as before while the replacement works fine. So it really was a damaged ROM in this case.
Jan Beta Hooray glad it was the right decision :)
Is it my own screen settings, or do the characters and broder look a little to bright to me ? Should be light-blue (unless the Aldi has a change in Kernel ROM).
Also, from the initial screen, it looks like some bit of the address line (8th) was not working, as well as some bits in data.
Oh, I think the colors look strange because the monitor looks weird on camera/the phone I use for filming (it tends to set the color balance wrongly if you point it at a screen). It looks perfectly fine in reality. :)
Jan Beta I remember that the SX64 had VIC20 colors set due to the small screen size for better readability. You could create a greyscale startup kernel for this one :)
There actually is a ROM for the Educator 64 (a C64 in a PET case, basically) that resets the screen colors to black and white every time you try to change it. I played with it in VICE for a bit. Maybe a nice idea to try it in the real 64. ;)
Nice pickup and repair =D
Thanks! An easy one for a change. :)
Hallo Jan, da du ja scheinbar mittlerweile eine ganze Sammlung von 64ern hast, wäre es nicht mal ein interessantes Projekt, das du dir eins von den neuen von ICOMP MK2 Reloaded Boards für den 64er holst und dann einmal ein Gerät auf eine "moderne" Mainboardvariante umbaust?
Das ist eine Idee, die schon auf meiner Liste steht. Es mangelt ein bisschen am Geld, aber etwas in der Richtung probiere ich sicher mal. Ich finde sowohl Jens' Reloaded Platine als auch Gideons C64Ultimate sehr interessant. :)
This is just a dumb random question, and only out of curiosity:
Using all pins on both joystick ports, and a small loader program, do you think it would be possible to actually program a C64 through those ports, and if so, how would the data rate compare to cassette for example?
Wikus Van De Merwe; Dolphin DOS, among others, uses the userport for fastloading. Considering the joystick ports use the same type of interface chip you would expect similar loading speeds.
I think Peter is right. Considering that the I/O ports are all handled by the 6526 CIA chips, the speed should be pretty much the same no matter what port you use.
Thanks for the clarification :) It sure would be interesting to see a game load from the joystick ports!
Let's have a Christmaas rendez vous with your C64 so :-) Mine was 35 years ago with a TRS-80 :-)
Oh, the TRS-80s are sweet machines. I'm running out of space at the moment but would love to tinker with one some day. :)
It has the YM3535 PLA...
Yes, it's the same board I show in the ALDI C64 video.
Recenly got an Aldi cheap(er) than i would get a regular C64 here in Sweden, looked like it had been in an autoshop, RF shield was oily and there were also spiderwebbing on the inside, apart from that it worked fine.
First time i ran the diag cartridge on my old box, i panicked, OMG - SO MUCH STUFF THAT'S BROKEN/FAILING!! Then later on i learned about the diagnostic harness that does not ship with the cartridge. Meh. I realised that something was wrong when i by chance ran the diag ROM file in vice and got the same results, then tried it on my other boxes, and finally finding a picture of it in the C64 service manual.
Don't even know where to get a harness, checked stores like Amikit and the local ones, guess i have to live with it. But if there is a problem with storage devices, i guess it wouldn't be so hard to try a CIA chip from another box.
The schematics for the test harness are available online, I think (don't know where at the moment). I'm definitely going to make one some time to get rid of all the panicky errors displayed by the diagnostics. ;)
I recommend using the Dead Test cart without a harness. Does most of the tests the other diagnostic does and also works if nothing else works and flashes the screen for RAM faults.
Very nice video again, thanks
Thanks for watching. Glad you like it. :)
I really enjoyed this repair ;) subscribed
Thank you and welcome aboard. :)
Do you sell these old boy?
Watch my Twitter. I'm going to sell at least one Aldi C64 in the coming weeks (after I shoot my Aldi C64 special video).
Can you make a copy of your deadtest and diagnostics?
I made another dead test cartridge in my giveaway video actually. There's some info/links about how to make your own there -> ruclips.net/video/H7TtxRbsLPs/видео.html
Aww, what happened to the toothbrush? :) That was a nice and easy fix. For you, at least, hehe.. Talking and playing at the same time is also a problem for me, especially if it's English.
Thanks Brian! You talk and play like a pro in my opinion (compared to me at the very least... I always begin stuttering AND die in the game if I try it...). The toothbrush was replaced by a donated ESD safe brush. It's meant to prevent electrostatic discharge which probably makes sense when working on circuit boards with sensitive components. ;)
Thanks for the kind words. Self-critisism is a b*tch.. :)
How much was Aldi selling them for?
299 Deutsche Mark, which is about 150€ in today's money.
But why you share video at the beginning of work :-D
Haha, sorry. I mostly post these before I go to work myself. :)
That board has got a size of a big sound card ;p
Haha, that's right. I remember having a Soundblaster AWE 32 (?) at some point that was the same size. :D
Great video 👍
Thanks Edu. :)
I personall wouldn't bother much if it's only the character set, as long as it's readable. But it's just me.
A matter of taste, I guess. I found it a bit difficult to read in its broken state. ;)
Awesome video man, thank you for sharing. #subscribed
Thanks a lot & welcome aboard! :)
Cooler Kanal. Wird sicher demnächst abgehen mit den Abos. Ich bin sicher es gibt reichlich Interessierte. Besonders auf Englisch. Also weiter so ! :)
Vielen Dank, freut mich, dass es dir gefällt! Ich hoffe mal das Beste für den Kanal. :D
90-12-25 Merry Christmas you got a bad ROM 😂
16:00 AvE lässt grüßen? :)
Genau! Ich habe viel zu viele von seinen Videos gesehen, glaube ich. ;)
Tell those people who complain at the way you do things to bugger off!
Thanks. I don't care too much about complaints as long as they are pointless. If I get tips, I often try them but mostly end up doing things my way no matter what others say. ;)
Aldi grocery store !!! ??? LOL that is too funny :-)
Indeed. It was quite a surprise back then. Aldi also sold C16 and Plus/4 some time. Nowadays, they still sell lots of Medion brand electronics in Germany.
That's German? What about the keyboard; that's English standard.
Cool! :) \m/
Thank you Jay!