Commodore 64 Raspberry Pi Mod (The Purple Nurple)

[RetromanIE]

Just thought I'd show off a paint job I'm working on for one of my Commodore 64's(it's the breadbin version, my favourite C64). I had some paint left over from another repair job so decided to funk up an old C64 that I had stashed away that wasn't working anyway(I've since decided to swap in a working motherboard). The case was also very yellowed and in need of some work as Retr0brite didn't clean it up much at all.

Here it is at the moment(top half is completely finished but I need to install a new keyboard as one of the keys is missing):






Most certainly the colour wont be to everyone's taste, but I happen to like the candied purple look

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Next to my normal main C64:









Tools/Products used:
Humbrol 68 Purple Gloss Acrylic Paint.
Humbrol 35 Clear Acrylic Gloss Varnish.
Grade 0000 steel wool.
Grade 180 Sand Paper.
Isopropyl alcohol(rubbing alcohol).



.

[RetromanIE]

I'm going to use this C64 case and keyboard in a new mod. I gave the top and bottom case a fresh coat of clear varnish while i was working on it and also swapped in a new keyboard(no more missing keys )

I'll be putting a Raspberry Pi 2 in there and hooking it up to the original C64 keyboard using a Keyrah V2(so i can actually use old joysticks as well).

The basic plan is to move most of the Raspberry Pi 2 connections to the back of the case using various couplers and I will probably do something about the GPIO connections as well.
I've got all the main parts and am just waiting on the Keyrah v2 to arrive from Germany.


Some pics(more pics and info to follow in next few days).










The Raspberry Pi 2:

[RetromanIE]

Few more bits arrived this morning.
I got a nice little adapter to convert the micro sd connector on the Raspberry Pi to an external full size SD card connection to make life a bit easier(and allow for a dual boot setup in the future with another little mod).

It's a cable nightmare at the moment, but I have a slim and short HDMI cable on the way so that should help.
I'll be changing the power connector so there will be an external female micro usb port to power everything. Still waiting on some small bits to arrive, and also the Keyrah.

[RetromanIE]

Well, might as well have a matching mouse





It's just a Dell laser mouse with a fresh paint job on it

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Its starting to come together now. I've most of the hardware sorted and am just working on the software for it now.
As its running on a Raspberry Pi it can be used for pretty much whatever you like(media player like XBMC/Kodi or emulator front end like Retropie). I'm using Retropie as the main emulation frontend at the moment and its a slow to setup, but runs pretty well on the Pi 2.


Check out my boot video(it plays while the Pi is doing the boring Linux boot stuff):

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Quick boot test and loading up a PSX game.
You can see I've disabled the boot up text/RPi logo and also the initial Raspberry Pi rainbow GPU test image that comes up when you power on the Pi.

[RetromanIE]

The Keyrah V2 arrived today. It's a bit larger than I was expecting so I'll have to rethink the full size SD card slot location inside the C64.
Still, tested it in both normal and emulator modes and all the keys work as expected(on the Raspberry Pi and my main PC).

[RetromanIE]

It's starting to take shape internally now. I got a small and thin HDMI cable to connect to the coupler and it looks a lot neater than the massive cable i was using..
Just waiting on a small USB hub to arrive from amazon to install inside the case and have to sort out the full size external SD Card port somehow. Also need to cut off some of the excess hot glue as i went a bit heavy in places and don't like the look.
The external USB cable thats going into the case is just a temporary solution until I solder on the headers to the Keyrah and connect the keyboard that way.