Modder Details Awesome Retro Frankenstein Commodore 64 Built From Scratch
by
Zak Killian
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Monday, January 02, 2023, 03:20 PM EDT
If you're reading this HotHardware, chances are good that you're someone who enjoys getting information from written articles as opposed to just videos. It's also likely that have enjoyed computing as a topic in general for many years. If those two things are true, you might just be in the target audience for Celso Martinho's article about building his "Frankenstein 64."
As you could probably guess from the name, the Frankenstein 64 is a Commodore 64 built from the remains of broken units. Well, that's not entirely true; the motherboard is newly-made, and many of the components are brand-new, too. However, there are a bunch of classic Commodore parts in there, salvaged from several broken machines that Celso had laying around.
It's a pretty slick system that he built. It's functionally a Commodore 64 from 1982, so don't expect to see it running Windows, or anything. Still, if you're a fan of the classic 8-bit computer, there's a lot to love with the Frankenstein 64. From its original brown keycaps to the clear reproduction casing (made from the original Commodore molds), it's a labor of love from the ground up.
A labor it was, too. The project took months because Celso ran into an issue with the timing that he eventually solved by replacing a few tiny discrete electronics. The TTL circuit ended up being the problem, which is sort of darkly comical considering that all of the immense soldering workload to attach all of the components to the motherboard went through without a hitch.
Obviously, we're not going to re-tell the whole story here. If you'd like to read about the process of custom-building your own C64 for fun, you can head over to Celso's blog and read the whole detailed report on his wonderfully painstaking process.