My retro-gaming fear...

[josekortez]

The subject line above is totally misleading, I guess, but I'm afraid to plug in the old Commodore 64 I found at a yard sale over the summer. The problem is that I'm staying with family members, and I don't want to short out the house by trying it.

Am I just being paranoid or is it actually possible that this could happen?

On a related note, I've kept the C64 monitor in my car's back seat for the past 3 months just so it didn't get thrown out. It's probably ruined, but maybe not. It's been out there during the snow that hit the state a couple of weeks ago, and it's been in the heat too. Quite possibly, it may never have worked since it was in a lady's attic before I got it from here.

I'm at the point where I either need to keep the lot or get rid of it. Any thoughts?

[Flack]

I would say for the most part, your fears are unfounded. The Commodore 64 had its share of hardware issues, but shorting out people's houses isn't one of them.

To test a C64, all you really need is power. Plug the unit into the wall and switch it on (right hand side). You should see the red LED on the top right of the unit come on. If so, so far/so good.

Commodore monitors are nice but not necessary. Depending on the cable you're using, you can output either composite or RF signal, so you can hook a 64 up to basically any modern television, again with little to no risk of blowing up anything.

Common hardware failures on the C64 include the death of the "power brick" (which is full of epoxy and eventually overheated) and disk drives going out of alignment. The heat and cold probably didn't hurt the montior, but if it's been bouncing around back there for three months it might need degauzing or realignment.

Let us know how it goes!

[Mayhem]

At worse you could take out the fuse, and that just involves opening it up and replacing it. Commodore, despite some penny pinching, actually made the C64 as a reliable, quite sturdy bit of kit.

[Lucifersam1]

I don't know that much about electricity, but if they have 200 amp electrical on the box, and not everything in the room is plugged into one circuit, you should be ok. You can just go check their box if in doubt about the amps.

[kainemaxwell]

Same subject, slightly offtopic: Anyone ever hear of a C=64 acting spazzy after a key is broken on the keyboard? happened to mine years ago when I had it, somehow cousin and I broke a key on it and it acted weird sometimes.

[Flack]

Hm, never have. If you've ever taken apart a 64, the bottom of the keys just have little rubber pieces that press on the contacts. Unless one got scratched or something somehow, I don't see how a missing key could hurt anything. My friends and I used to pop the keys off of each other's keyboards reguarly.

[Porkchop]

I have tested quite a few C64's and Vic 20s and never had any of them short out and blow a braker in the house.

Hook it all up say a short prayer and start fliping power switches. If you don't get a picture on the monitor there may be a switch you have to flip that changes input from the back front depending on where you pluged things in at.

If that does not work and you still have no picture you may have bad chips in the C64. Test the Monitor with a NES, Geni or VCR to make sure it works and confirm you C64 is bad.

Hope it all works. Good LucK

[CreamSoda]

I wouldn't worry about it, the worst thing that I've ever had happen to a system. Was a Sega Master System, I plugged it in, got it all hooked up and everything. Then turned the system on, it made like a loud pop sound, and smoke came out of the system while a few sparks did out of the wall socket.

No damage really done though, but poor SMS :(

[qbertandernie]

its not going to do anything permanent. even at 30 amps and 110v, even with 20's wiring youd still be fine!

or youd pop a fuse...

[davidleeroth]

I've rescued numerous C64s and Commodore monitors from outdoors in the rain and non-heated attics where they had been storaged for years. In all the years I've had one with "out of memory" error and even that had a good sound chip I sold later.

[josekortez]

Thanks for all of your advice. On a related note, I picked up the Commodore 64 DTV joystick today, so I'll probably mess with that first. However, the huge box full of C64 games and paraphernalia needs to be moved since I can't get in and out of the door to my room particularly well.

[Sothy]

In a semi related note you WILL fry your jaguar motherboard by plugging a NES power cord in it. I think a couple people here even called me on it and payed the video game gods a sacrifice.

[qbertandernie]

jaguar cord power an NES ok? i bought one with that set up once...never tried it out though.

[Sothy]

not sure on that one..

[crazyjackcsa]

You know, after you loaded a game on the c64 you could plug in a genny controller and use that. (At least with test drive) I always thought that was neat!

[Wavelflack]

The NES can take AC or DC. It has it's own rectifier setup. The NES PSU is an AC power supply. The Gen and Jag PSUs are DC. The NES doesn't care which, as it already has provisions to take AC and turn to DC.