Commodore 64 HDD
Someone gave me a C64, but without a working datasette or floppy drive. Thankfully, I read about the 64hdd program, which allows you to link up your C64 and pc to transmit programs. This way I could still play some SID music powered scene demos :)
Construction
Construction is easy. Below is the schematic for the multifunctional XE1541 cable, which apart from working with C64HDD also allows reading C64 disks with the 1541 diskette drive. While some sites say the diodes need to be 1N5819 or BAT85 type, I used some random (some 1N4148, some other type germanium) I had lying around without any problems. Instead of buying a DIN connector I just cut up my C64 serial cable, I had no use for it anyway.
Seen from the rear of the connectors.
The XE1541 cable, the duct tape makes sure the cable fits snugly in the DB shell.
Of course, I needed to connect the Commodore to my TV as well. The C64 has two outputs, one RF and a DIN audio/video connector. Building a RF connector is trivial, all it takes is connecting a RCA plug to a piece of coax cable. The composite (DIN) cable is a bit harder to build but provides better image quality. All you need to do to build it is combine the part of the page of the C64 manual shown beneath with your favorite TV connectors. I used Scart.
Both cables gave perfect video and sound. Well, sound was a bit more involved, as it didn't work at first. Opening up the C64 and reseating the SID chip fixed it though.
Software
The C64HDD software can be acquired here. It only runs in DOS, so to be able to easily use it with a wide selection of computers I made a DOS bootdisk with the software on it. You only need 64HDD.exe and the SYSTEM folder. To further simplify everything, I made a BAT file to run C64HDD with one image mounted as device #8:
64hdd -xyz -xe -noreset +8 a:\roms\%1 +p
This runs C64HDD with the XE cable, support for Pentium-class processors and an image in device #8. The %1 means the first commmand line argument will be used, eg "go.bat moonpatron.t64" will use the image "a:\roms\moonpatrol.t64". The +noreset parameter means the program won't quit when the C64 resets.
After plugging in the cable, turning on 64HDD and then turning on the C64 everything should work. To load a game from device 8, enter
load "*",8
and press Return. The C64 will load the game from the pc... slowly. While they are busy the pc should make blipping sounds. After the loading went ok just enter
RUN
to start the program. End result:
LEVEL 11 THE HIGHEST LEVEL BLEEP BLOOP BREET *KGGG KGGG*
Links
64HDD websiteC64.com, an unbelievable amount of C64 games