Fixing two C64 motherboards with hot chips

[@falksweden]

Imagine if they'd known in the eighties that in 35 years middle aged men would sit and repair the C64:s for fun, and broadcast it to thousands of other middle aged men that just sit and watch them do it. What a time to be alive! :) Happy new year, Adrian!

[@the_kombinator]

I just realized I am middle aged. Not even mad :D Oh well - I had a blast as a teenager, but I'm kind of glad that's over now :P (Yay stability!)

[@falksweden]

@@the_kombinator And now we are able to buy all the stuff we dreamed of then. And more! Yay! 🥳

[@the_kombinator]

@@falksweden True - at my peak in high school, I had 5 cars at one time (trust me, all were shitboxes, not even gonna flex) and now I have 6! ...some are still shitboxes lol.

[@the_kombinator]

@@falksweden Oh, and a basement full of 80s-90s PCs. I think I may even work on my 286 later today, and live stream it :D

[@Supadupanerd]

I too am a weird nerd being entertained by other weird nerds on the internet :D

[@faux67]

My cat loves these repair videos and will sit and watch the entire thing even if it's an hour long. I think she appreciates the locked camera and the vaguely ASMR sort of element, but she particularly likes the continuity testing.

[@drakethedragon457]

Why do cats do this? it's werid

[@alextrusty2585]

Nice)

[@SidneyCritic]

Strange she's didn't go nuts with that SID test - lol -.

[@br33ch]

I want to see a video of your cat comparing the SID filters

[@drakethedragon457]

@@br33ch i don't think my cat cares about anything

[@SeanBZA]

Solder mask wrinkling is because the board is hot roller tinned before the soldermask is applied, and when it goes through the wave soldering the solder tends to wick under the solder mask creating the wrinkles. Yes common on those age boards and with the soldermask and wave soldering.

[@chupathingy5862]

I had always wondered about that, thanks for the description!

[@gusbert]

One way to stop this happening was to not flood the planes with solid copper but to partially fill them with a cross-hatch pattern of tracks.

[@8BitNaptime]

That's why PCBs all use solder mask over bare copper (SMOBC) nowadays. Only the exposed copper gets further processing like ENIG, etc

[@gusbert]

Also, not using solid copper planes help to stop the PCB from warping during wave soldering, especially if the copper planes were not balanced on both sides.

[@the_kombinator]

Thanks, I always wondered myself. I've seen it in older home theater amplifiers too.

[@photolabguy]

It's only a matter of time until Adrian gets his hands on a thermal camera. 😁

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

Predatorvision!™️

[@wizdude]

Northridgefix uses a thermal camera for black screen/no power on failures where he has detected an unexpected short to ground. He then provides a much smaller power input current than normal while testing and looks for the hot chip. Usually turns out to be mosfets on modern equipment.

[@vjcodec]

It’s only a matter of time until I start to repair c64 for friends. Because of these videos haha

[@tomaszwota1465]

@@vjcodec just how many friends with faulty C64s have you got? ;)

[@wasitacatisaw83]

I love how Adrian considers a near 40 minute video to be a "mini" repair-a-thon. Keep them coming!

[@Manawyrm]

I just love the C64 repairs, it's like a murder mystery, you can always try to guess what's wrong at home until you find it! It's exciting! Happy new year Adrian!

[@FrankConforti]

As several people have pointed out is application of tin over the backside of the board before solder masking was applied. Back in “the day”, again, for RFI reasons, large copper planes were used to minimize noise. Mandates from the US government were relatively new so we used the belt and suspenders approach. As we learned more about RFI and specifically what caused it, a properly designed circuit board optimized to avoid RFI was more effective than “dump a lot of solder over it and hope for the best”. Also, in the day, when the trace masks were layed down on the PCB, it was plated with tin. That resulted in fewer defects because the acids that etch away the copper sometimes would eat through the etch resist especially if the chemicals weren’t quite right. This would not happen as only the copper would be removed when the plated tin was used as the resist. I was designing printed circuit boards just at the time a LOT of new technologies in PCB production were invented. Retired now but it was a wild time back then. I was learning alongside the engineers sorting this stuff out. Fun times.

[@JustinEmlay]

Wow! That OLED screen is a massive improvement, especially on camera.

[@EngineeringVignettes]

The wrinkled solder mask on the bottom is from the "wave soldering" system. The board literally passes over a flowing fountain of molten solder and that solders all the through hole components at the same time. I used to run one of those machines in the olden times. Had a really funky smell from the rosin in the solder. The solder just gets onto the underlying copper traces, under the mask and bubbles the mask up. Totally normal. Cheers and have a good new year now o/

[@micksam7]

32:00 - Old reject SID chips were sold as new on eBay and other chip suppliers in the early 2000s, the chips had nothing wrong with the voices but the filters were all bad. You probably have one of those chips. Many early games and demos barely used the SID filters so some people never realized they had a bad replacement chip, plus with how much the SID sound varies chip to chip some folk thought it was normal until it started getting documented in c64 forums.

[@6581punk]

I don't think it's that. I just think the cut off is just different. One of the reasons people often prefer the 6581 over the 8580 is the filter can start to distort and that's used in some 6581 tunes. There is no "normal" with the SID, the filter performance is all over the shop. If the filter was used on a track then your ability to hear it as intended is all about how close your filter curve is to that of the composer.

[@danieltufvesson1349]

How about trying out different values for the external filter caps? Maybe that could make the filters sound more "normal"?

[@jacobrodgers2700]

35:18 Yes, I love watching electronics repair videos like this even though I myself have no experience with the C64. Keep 'em coming!

[@deborahberi3249]

I could watch Commodore repair videos non-stop...keep'em coming! -Mark.

[@jeffreyphipps1507]

You could. There's so many that need repair because so many were sold.

[@bengmo64]

I wonder if the people servicing commodores in their day ever had anything like the diagnostic tools you have today. That chip tester is pretty impressive

[@wastelandwanderer3883]

The 8-bit dance party reminds me of Genesis's The firth of fifth from Selling England by the pound: I could never record it correctly on 4 tracks, it only sounds good when you listen to it on the original vinyl! And congrats on getting your /// channel back, you got a new subscriber, if that means anything!

[@MartinGalway]

Thanks for your awesome support for the C64 and the SID chip, Adrian 😀 I also knew something was up with that SID as soon as the tune started coming out! Perhaps we could say, your unWAVering support for the SID does not oscillate. It's like 5 volts DC. 🤣

[@jeffreyphipps1507]

Yay! Two more C-64s back in service!

[@danielmantione]

I had an Assy 250469 recently with broken ram that didn't like a Samsung RAM chip like the one you installed on the one in the video. The machine did start but didn't want to run stable. I though I had a bad of bad chips for a while, but after multile chip swaps, investigation turned out it was the board. It took me a while to find the cause and was timing related. Installing a 15pF capacitor between the RAS line and ground did solve the problem.

[@migry]

Regarding the reliability problems with MOS chips, you might be interested in a recent video from what appears to be a Vintage Computer Forum event. It's called "Life at Commodore (Act II) - Bill Herd". He explained that MOS reverse engineered the 82S100 PLA chip. Elsewhere (or possibly the same video) I watched a video where it was said that MOS had a problem with boron contamination of the passivation layer, which caused chips to fail early in their life. I'm an Atari fanboy, however I really enjoy your videos on the C64 computers, and colour me impressed with your fault finding abilities. Thank you for sharing your expertise and knowledge.

[@BigDaddy_MRI]

All I can say is I love the C64 repair-a-thons. Really good troubleshooting technique and the actual repairs are really good. I’ve used your desolder/heat gun technique twice now and no damage to vias or lands. Works great. Thanks for the great video!! And using the RCT to check/verify is excellent. Love these videos!

[@francoisleveille409]

Hot chips are good! As long as you have a tasty beverage to go along!

[@MrRedFoxorMrelzorrorojo]

Yeah, and if they're smothered in hot nacho cheese they are even better.

[@cheapasstech]

Tang!

[@francoisleveille409]

@@cheapasstech Perhaps with vodka which is also very useful to clean your solders.

[@cheapasstech]

@@francoisleveille409 I repaired a liquid damaged tv mainboard with vodka once!

[@francoisleveille409]

@@cheapasstech Flux remover is too expensive and doesn't taste good.

[@dividion8102]

"The art of troubleshooting is still fun to watch." because you make it fun to watch. :) It's also great to see these classic machines brought back to life.

[@bishopofrustyiron3101]

These are so fun to watch, the fixing of the old C64...way cool. Up here in WA north of ya, looking to find an old 128 at some garage sale or ebay to go with my old 1571 that I got back in high school that I still have! Rock on, love the videos!!

[@38911bytefree]

16:59 ... The board was soldered by wave soldering. The bottom of the board (the one that has the solder joints) face the wave and probably the intense heat and the use of flux made the solder mark to look like crap. It is not the copper, just the mask. Some soldering machines use a flux wave BEFORE the soldering wave. You can see the fumes and flux crunching noises as board poases over the wave.

[@SuperBrainAK]

your a venerable Rossmann of the 80's era love the videos!

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

New camera vid quality is looking awesome.

[@danman32]

I agree, even if I don't have a high interest in what is being fixed, I do enjoy watching the troubleshooting. Back in mid-late '80s I worked on C64s. We had a dead test diagnostic cartridge that had an LED matrix that would show which chips it detected as bad. It didn't require much to be populated on the board. I think all it needed was the graphics chip (probably for clock) and CPU.

[@superspedboy0076]

anytime i get to see adrian dance to his party, always makes it a good day. thanks for putting a smile on my face! great work as always

[@bob19611000]

Back in 1984 my C64 came up with a black screen. When I dissembled it the only thing obvious was the RF Shield solder joints were broken. After I re-solder it everything was fine and it worked great several more years until I replaced it with a C128D. Never really figured out why that fixed it; maybe something with the ground connection I accidently fixed at the same time.

[@davecarroll]

I'm loving this new thing about being disappointed when I get a KZbin notification... Because I've already seen it because I'm a proud Patreon supporter! I'm sure I'll rewatch some. Happy New Year!

[@charlesdorval394]

Ah, that's what it is! I was wondering about that screen since the last appearance, it looked a lot nicer than the regular yellow on black LCDs

[@DerekWitt]

Adrian has his chefs hat on. Kicking the chips up a notch. Bam! :) Happy New Year, Adrian.

[@foogod4237]

Regarding the RF shield, it really is a good idea to put it back on after you're done (you don't need to solder down every singe tab). Yes, many things are more resilient to RF noise nowadays, but old machines like the C64 can put out a _lot_ more noise across a much broader spectrum than things like modern switching power supplies do, and can still produce significant interference for many types of devices. Because everything is digital now, the interference usually isn't as obvious, but that actually sometimes makes the situation worse and harder to actually diagnose. In the analog days, if you were getting interference from something like a C64, you would hear it as noises, or see it as picture artifacts, etc. Nowadays, you'll just get digital devices randomly not working sometimes, or randomly cutting in and out, or significantly reduced range on your RF devices than you should have, or reduced WiFi speed, etc, with no idea what's actually causing it (unless you go around and test turning on and off everything in the area to find out what the culprit is). *RF shielding does still matter.* Arguably even more nowadays than it used to, it's just often less obvious how much it actually does matter nowadays because the resulting problems are often more subtle, annoying, and hard to troubleshoot.

[@argusroot]

Nice dual camera setup ! Great work as always

[@justindavis2968]

I wanted to say thank you, you taught me how to troubleshoot most if not all of my retro machines. Being 27 and into retro computers makes it difficult for me to learn from anyone around me, but your videos have taught me a lot. Just got my rev1 A500 running again. I look forward to learning more and playing on these retro machines.

[@raymitchell9736]

Yep, brings me back to the good old days 1984/5-ish when I worked for an Authorized Commodore Repair Center... I quickly learned to identify bad chips using my finger... sizzle sizzle... Yep that's the bad one! LOL. Most of the time it was a bad RAM chip. Although I have a memorable bad SID chip, when I pressed down on it then it started working correctly, took my finger off of the chip and it went back to making funny click click sounds. Quickly I determined that it was actually the single-wipe socket. I tried to determine if the chip had a bent leg or if the socket had a bad metal contact... after reseating the chip the problem was not resolved. Eventually I gave up and the repair to this board was to solder the SID down on the board directly because I didn't have any of those sized sockets... sorry if that makes someone mad to hear, but the shop didn't stock sockets for that kind of repair and the board was already taking a long time to find and troubleshoot the issue... Customers were demanding their C64's get repaired ASAP and I had still had a stack of C64's to get through... so it passed QA testing and on to the next.... Anyway, Adrian... Happy New Year and Cheers!

[@tonybennett7145]

All repairs are useful to watch Adrian, very educational. Thank you.

[@david4368]

I had an 80's flashback when you were getting into the music. I really enjoy the information you provide. Have a safe and happy 2022.

[@PhuketMyMac]

always enjoying a C64 troubleshooting video

[@claudioquintanilla1471]

absolutely superb video!!! so much good tech info on here!!! and so much fun !!!👍😉

[@CubicleNate]

The art of troubleshooting is such a fun thing to watch. I hope you keep doing these.

[@Schattiz]

Have been follwing you for about little over a year now and tho I dont know all that much about digital electronics I really enjoy your videos. I had an Amiga 6oo and I loved it to death. Keep up the good work, much love from Sweden.

[@danniemortensen597]

He ask If we like his videos? Was that a real question 😂 oh boy i do. Always makes my evening better when that Bell shows a New video is online. Btw. His tester is crisp to look at now, compared to The Stock lcd it came with. A much better solution.

[@erinwiebe7026]

The new screen for the chip tester looks amazing!

[@hernancoronel]

At 31:40 maybe you could try baking the chip and that could probably fix it? Thanks for the great video Adrian!

[@horusfalcon]

At first I didn't understand your love for Eight-Bit Dance Party, but I think I get it now: it's a great tune to test SID Chips. (And... everytime I see the acronym SID, I think of Space Intruder Detector from the old seventies show UFO...) Hearing that tune sound as it should makes you happy because it means the SID is working as it should.

[@jdryyz]

16:19. Funny, I am working on a 250425 today. It also has the wrinkles on the bottom.

[@paul_k_7351]

Love these c64 repair videos! Keep em coming!

[@ddacombe4752]

Thank you so much for your videos and showing your trouble shooting process. Im just waiting for delivery of a c64 with drive that i bought, no idea if it works and no power supply, so fingers crossed else ill be breaking out the scope!

[@basvanharen2904]

Watching Adrian fix c64s, better than a good movie😁 Heck, I could watch this all day! Thanks!

[@OriginalMergatroid]

The origonally had a shield over the board with tabs that would touch the hotter ICs and was used as a heatsink..I spent about 10 years repairing these and other Commodore products.

[@StrangelyIronic]

I never got my hands on a C64 or C64c before the prices shot up. I've learned so much by watching/listening to these repair videos. The excitement is pretty contagious when solutions are found. My dad got a C128D back in the late 90s by accident from an office sale and so that was my xmas present that year. Thankfully it hasn't had any problems really, while I love the traditional wedge/all-in-one design of micros the 128D is a great machine IMO. I have kept a collection of Apple II's though, a standard //e, //e Platinum with the numpad no IIGS upgrade, //e Platinum with the IIGS upgrade kit installed, and a IIGS Woz edition that's been mine since ~96 that was fully upgraded with accelerator and other cards for a printing house. Also, a small pile of 5.25 disk drives and 2 3.5 disk drives for the two IIGS.

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

You are right. Such videos are really entertaining and an easy way to "collect" experience on how things can go wrong in a machine. I mainly fix 8bit Ataris and 16bit Amigas but I can say that after watching all those repair videos I am sure that I know more about C64s then the machines I usually work on ....lol

[@crowbarviking3890]

About the wrinkles. I remember in the past the bottom side was called the solder side, while the top side was called the component side. (Could use the wrong words since english is not my native language) You can also still get such wrinkles when you order PCBs from a cheap supplier and pick HAL (LF). So I guess it happens on the bottom side, because it was the solder side where heat is applied and the board is finished with HAL instead of gold to cut costs and the manufacturer did not get the HAL to make a flat surface.

[@hackbyte]

This moment when you listen to Adrian probing voltages on a C64 board while being distracted and in your mind pops up the image of a doctor examining a patient... Better as the lockpicking lawyer "nothing on three, click on four".... ;)

[@thedungeondelver]

Happy New Year, Adrian. You're my favorite vintage resto guy when it comes to computers. Glad to see you rescue another couple of classics.

[@iroll]

The ZIF-64 is my favorite frequent guest star. I think it should get a "featuring the ZIF-64" card after Nathan Divino's credit.

[@jonnno100]

I loved the Kermit arm-waving dance party! Go Adrian!

[@AcydDrop]

What do you even do with all these old computers? I love watching you fix them but you're bordering on getting your own episode on Hoarders at this rate. Also big ups for your lazy cabbage patch dance (I think that's what it was). Love your videos thanks for all you do.

[@mattparker9726]

4:45 My favorite part of any video it's in!

[@migry]

Every time you mention the FCC, I immediately think about the "FCC song" from "Family Guy". The song seems quite apropos.

[@TRONMAGNUM2099]

So glad to see my favorite computer back on the bench again!

[@performa9523]

I could watch these videos all day. Seriously! Nice work sir, rock on!

[@maciejjanicki8385]

Hey Adrian! Nice work. Please remember that old PCBs don't like heat air treatment - it can provide irreversible damage.

[@rfmerrill]

The hybrid desoldering gun/hot air method for removing DIP chips does actually work pretty well, I've tried it! The only thing I want to flag about it is that it can result in the chip having some residual blobs of solder on the legs that make it difficult to then put that chip in a socket. If you can deal with that, that's fine. If your desoldering gun is in good condition and you use the right technique, you should be able to get *all* of the solder out of the joint with just the gun. This is really the ideal way to do it but it can be a pain sometimes and if you're in a hurry the hot air method is fine--just gotta be careful because if solder is on the edge of molten you can easily end up pulling on the pads or through hole plating . I think it might be a different story if you're working on game consoles rather than old desktop computers, because I think game consoles were typically built more cheaply and often this means phenolic/paper PCB substrate, which is not as sturdy as fiberglass.

[@nickwallette6201]

Who managed to out-cheap Commodore? That’s quite a feat! 😄

[@rfmerrill]

@@nickwallette6201 I've not looked inside of a Commodore machine myself, but I'd be surprised if any home computer were as cheaply built as the Mega Drive/Genesis.

[@nickwallette6201]

@@rfmerrill Wait, huh? What's wrong with the Genesis? I have one on my workbench taken apart. Doesn't strike me as too different from anything else of that era. I mean, it's no Dreamcast... :-)

[@JohnDoe-qg6hm]

Hi Adrain, Love your videos as always but hoping you can perhaps do a introductory series to repairing electronics / diagnosing faults as your more knowledgeable than a lot of us Noob's and i don't always follow your logic in how you repair your circuits. Sometimes its the jargon or how to use the oscilloscope or perhaps basic knowledge on ic function which you perhaps assume we all know. So , I think, a series covering oscilloscope use, component function and explanation on why its needed. Eg Caps are basically small battery's, as i understand it, that charge up and provide a constant voltage ? to reduce 'noise' or fluctuation in voltage ? But WHY ? its the simple stuff that trips a lot of us up , stuff that you likely know and don't think about and don't tell us !

[@Colin_Ames]

These repair videos are always entertaining and educational. Keep them coming.

[@victorwidell9751]

That bad sid sounds really good in the test. Broken, but good. A song composed specifically for that sid could sound amazing.

[@mcy1122]

Thanks 🙏🏽- love the c64 videos…

[@TheFurriestOne]

I find it kinda funny that it had the RF shield on the bottom but not the enclosure around the oscillator circuitry.

[@rxblackpill]

I LOVE C64 REPAIR VIDEOS!

[@Andy-Christian]

To enjoy your own work is so awesome.

[@taltechchip5827]

I love c64 repair videos, you made my first day in 2022 a happy one!

[@steffenbrix]

Adrian.... could you make a video going over the C64, C64C, C128 and explain every single chip's function?? That would completely amazing 😇

[@artursmihelsons415]

Great new years first repairs video! Hot chips in flux sauce.. 😂 Nice, that diagnostic and repair was so quick and no major or rare chips was involved.. 👍 Happy new 2022 Year!

[@Radek__]

31:36 that 6581 SID chip is probably good! it doesn't have "R3" or "R4" mark on the package, so it must be a rare R2 revision, because first R1 had a ceramic package. Each next revision introduce filters changes (updates, fixes). Please write in youtube search this sentence to hear bass differences in 20seconds: Oscilloscope Comparison of 4 Different SID Chips (Real SID Recordings)

[@garethdodds]

Happy new year Adrian from the UK. I love watching C64 repairs, brings back such nostalgia. I could never the courage to solder or repair anything, that's why I am amazed at your videos. I really wish I had your skills. Thanks.

[@falksweden]

There's only one thing to do! Get yourself a solder iron and start soldering. It's not that hard. Big Clive has some really good videos on the subject.

[@erikl5340]

Excellent video! Thank you!

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

22:30 Sattinger’s Law.

[@mikesilva3868]

Happy new year 🦖

[@drakethedragon457]

When repairing any old computer make sure to install Sockets on the microchips you replaced so that it can easily be replaced if it fails again

[@applesushi]

You know what they say - Dance like all of KZbin is watching. Dancing right with you.

[@tetecko81sk]

I am going to be addicted on NTSC-"DanceParty" Music :)

[@volkerking5932]

Hello Adrian this on the bottom side viewable waves are from the solderwave. This is only on the bottom side. So the Vacrel paint (this is the green paint) will be destroyed. It mean also that the solder temperature is/was to high. Best Regards Volker

[@mawamatakama5150]

@4:36 OH MY GOD! Someone get help! Call an ambulance! .... Oh wait, It's Adrian dancing? Uhhh...OK, nevermind about the ambulance then.

[@catriona_drummond]

These Videos are so motivational to fix something yourself. So I did at least bend CPU and Jumper pins back for the whole duration of the video.

[@chuckherndon3251]

I've found that a hot air machine is the best way to remove the bottom RF shield. No need to desolder anything, just shoot the air and use a screwdriver to remove the tab. Works great!

[@Omegaman1969]

Those PCB's look just like Sega arcade PCBs from the same period, same colour masking. I wouldn't be surprised if they produced them for Commodore.

[@bitoxic]

Happy New Year Adrian! I see you have a strong c64 fan base on this channel.... over 2k likes on this video! 😁👍

[@6581punk]

24:37 SID filter cut off is always very variable, just down to the luck of the draw. You can change the capacitor values near the SID to tweak this a bit. On a proper synth they would have had calibration options but the SID was just a chip in a computer, Commodore didn't really know what they had, the original specifications were wrong compared to the real thing.

[@6581punk]

Also, some distortion is normal on the filter. "Despite its documented shortcomings, many SID musicians prefer the flawed 6581 chip over the corrected 8580 chip, some even seeing the flaws as actual 'features' that made the SID chip distinct from other sound chips at the time. The main reason for this is that the filter produces strong distortion that is sometimes used to produce simulation of instruments such as a distorted electric guitar."

[@JoakimKanon]

4:28 Theme from Donkey Kong Country, if anyone was wondering. 😅👌🏼

[@lightmagick]

I just got my first Commodore 64 from eBay and it had never been opened, I could tell because the screws had that distinctive crack as I took them out the first time and it was perfect inside. I was honestly kind of disappointed because I wanted something to fix. 🤣 I did end up replacing the 7805 regulator because the chips were getting 5.96 volts and that seemed a little high.

[@stevethepocket]

It definitely does, especially considering it's a volt more than the power supply ought to be providing. Now I wonder if a failed regulator is partially responsible for why an over-volting power supply can be so disastrous.

[@lightmagick]

@@stevethepocket yeah I knew the old regulators were not as efficient as even the cheap ones we can get today and over time they definitely can go bad so I always keep some on hand for old electronics like that.

[@Nickword1]

Hey buddy i just got a quick question for you. I own a IBM P200 20 inch CRT monitor and it's been working good for the past like 8 to 9 months than all of a sudden a few days ago the image does not want to appear on the screen. i have to put a small blanket on the back of the CRT to let it heat up a bit than in like 30 to 45 minutes the image will appear. Do you know if this is a fixable problem? Let me know thanks.

[@colinstu]

Would be interesting to see a audio waveform when testing those SID chips

[@Dave-PL]

Thanks for your work! I have strange issue with mine C64, board 250425. When you put it away for a longer time and then turn on, it's not turning on at all. The LED is also not turning on. I can see Voltage 5V and 12V on Voltage regulators using my multimeter. And after 3-5min it's turning on. Dead Test passing well. Also got new power supply with good voltages on pins. I think it might be kind of issue with power line. What do you think guys?

[@lexluthermiester]

Adrian gets his groove on in this one! LOL! @Adrian Tip for making chip legs shiny and workable again; re-tin them. Brush some flux on all of the legs and then use solder to re-tin them, making sure run the soldering iron tip from the tip of the leg to the point where the leg bends into the package so the solder doesn't pool down on the leg tip. This procedure will restore conductivity and even strengthen up the leg a little.

[@blackIce504]

I did not know they had Wireless displays back then lol....... :) you should do a video of all your favorite test equipment for trouble shooting naughty chips

[@jaimecosta2966]

Happy new year

[@suzakule]

I NEVER ever want to see or touch another C64 product in my life, I have had enough of repairing the damn things to last a lifetime in my first job, never want to see another one.

[@davidshoemaker1056]

When cutting legs and pulling them out, instead of tweezers (which can act as a heat sink making it harder to remove) use a small magnet on a stick, the legs are ferrous so they will be attracted by the magnet and pulled out of the board.

[@paulsoni7409]

nice moves there