Talk:Commodore 64 peripherals

Rearrangement of tape/floppy/hd section
I rearranged the ordering of the sections floppy/tape/hd to tape/floppy/hd. I think this is a more logical arrangement. --Tomlouie 16:47, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Drive head banging
Was Bicycle Built For Two really played be banging the drive head? I thought it had more to do with the stepper motor. On the 1571, the Bicycle Built For Two program would play the song twice as fast if the 1571 was in double sided mode. Skankboy 23:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Drink while loading wasn't a joke
The thing about getting a drink when you loaded something on a 64 wasn't a joke, it was what you did. come home from school, turn computer on, load game, eat milk & cookies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.125.110.223 (talk) 21:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Image of 1541 drive on this page
I notice that the image on this page has a user mod switch on the right hand side. What is this for, and is its function worth adding to the article? a_man_alone (talk) 12:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

That looks like a JiffyDOS modification. I did something similar to 1 of my C64s probably 20 years ago. It dramatically sped up load times (like the Fastload/Super Snapshot cartridges) only better. Tripleh13 (talk) 04:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

1525 printer
I have a 1525 printer, which the main article lists as a 1526.

The main article could be improved by posting the fully commented source code to the ROM inside the 1525. If my memory serves me rightly, it was a Hitachi 6301 microprocessor of all things? Can anyone verify that? Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 10:20, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * You mean a link to the source right? I'm not sure how that would improve the article - the source to a ROM inside a printer seems to be a pretty tenuous connection to me.  If you can confirm that it's a 1525 not a 1526 you could make that change.  I don't have either so won't do it myself.   a_man_alone (talk) 17:21, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * How about a link to the fully commented 1525 source in Wikisource?  Somehow I doubt the source code exists any more.   Copyrighted code from so long ago has negligible market value.   What makes the 1525 so unusual, is how CBM used a non-motorola, non-mos chip (perhaps the first time ever) to receive and negotiate the TALK/LISTEN protocol responsible for making it work.   Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 21:33, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Shortwave Radio link?
Twenty years ago I had a shortwave radio gizmo. It attached to the User Port and let you receive morse code. But I must have mislaid it somewhere along the line, and now that it's 20 years later, I haven't the slightest idea where it is. Might even have thrown it away.

The main article could be improved by adding a section on radio scanning using shortwave radio gizmos that you plug into the User Port. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 10:32, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Teletext / BTX
Concerning the "Teletext" section: The products "BTX Decoder Modul" and "BTX Decoder Modul II", sold by Commodore in Germany, were - contrary to what the text currently says - not devices that you attached to a TV antenna in order to receive teletext that was transmitted along with ordinary TV stations, but rather modules that allowed users to access a popular online service in Germany called "BTX" (Bildschirmtext). Teletext and BTX are often confused. BTX, however, was a dial-up online service similar to CompuServe or maybe even QLink, and thus the two BTX decoder modules were attached to the Commodore computer as well as to a modem (which, in Germany, could only legally be bought by the Deutsche Bundespost, who were the telco monopoly at that time (and also the operator of BTX)) in order to access that online service. I'm not sure how to change the current article in order to correct that little mistake, however. The two modules certainly don't belong into the Teletext section, but there also seems to be no other section where they really fit in. Any ideas what to do? Nholland (talk) 10:28, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Predecessor to Quantum Link
Under modems the article states in the US online services for the C=64 were Compuserve, Quatumlink and America Online. Playnet preceded Quantumlink (Quantum Computer Services) then was bought out by Quantum Computer Services.Tomandzeke (talk) 14:09, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Joysticks
I've removed the following paragraph segment:

Commodore's joysticks were often derided because they were not particularly robust, especially for extreme gameplay. Many gaming enthusiasts preferred third-party joysticks, while some enthusiasts even built their own joysticks and controllers for the Commodore 64, or modified controllers from other systems to work on it. While the Commodore 64 only had two joystick ports for use, a few different kinds of joystick adapters were constructed by enthusiasts, which allowed up to four or eight joysticks to be used on the Commodore 64, with appropriate programming. Only about 20 games (by 2011) can take advantage of these however.

It's probably true - I remember mocking the joysticks myself in comparison to the Kempston, Wico, and even the QuickShot range - but it's unsourced. I'm not aware of a template that states "only part of this section is in dispute" so thought I'd bring it here instead where it can be rescued if another editor feels it needs to be. Chaheel Riens (talk) 11:23, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Buzzer System
There was a buzzer system available in 1990. It would connect to the Commodore 64, which would output to a TV monitor the score of a match as well as time and would display the name of the player who buzzed in. I can't remember the name of the system, but it was used by many schools for their quiz bowl teams. 73.171.109.147 (talk) 16:22, 19 September 2022 (UTC)