A Game Changer for the Commodore 64

If you were looking for a game back in the heyday of the Commodore 64, that most likely meant flipping through a few dozen disks in a storage case or two until you spotted the right one. Times have changed, and those of us that still get our retro gaming fix from a Commodore frequently do not use an original disk drive anymore. There are a number of modern-day alternatives that are far more convenient and that can store hundreds or thousands of games on a single piece of storage media, like an SD card.

But that convenience comes at a cost with respect to the user interface. Scrolling through so many games on the low resolution display of a Commodore can be a real chore. And let’s be honest — you downloaded most of those games in bulk and have no idea what 80 percent of them actually even are. This makes it tough not only to find the game you are looking for, but also to explore the options and find something that is new to you.

Instructables user RaspberryPioneer recently described a very interesting hack that could help out a lot with storing and organizing a digital game collection. RaspberryPioneer’s solution uses a modern web browser to display a list of all of the games in your library. It can also show box art and other relevant information (like the joystick port the game uses — who can ever remember that?).

So far, so good, but what really makes this project interesting is that you can select a game and load it onto your Commodore. This is achieved by leveraging the Web Serial API that is supported by virtually every modern browser to interact with an Arduino development board, such as the popular Uno (only 5 volt logic level boards need apply for this project). The Arduino is also wired into the Commodore’s serial port, where it acts as a sort of minimal 1541 disk drive emulator.

After a game has been selected in the web interface, a user acts just like they popped a disk into a real drive. It is possible to get a directory listing and, of course, run the software. With a little extra work, this setup even supports the Epyx Fast Load cartridge, so you will not have to wait all day for a game to load.

As previously mentioned, this is a minimal implementation of a disk emulator, so not every game will work with it. The 1541 drive was a computer in itself, sporting its own 6502 processor and RAM, which some developers made use of for a lot more than just loading software. This is the same restriction you will find with other drive emulators, like the popular SD2IEC devices, so it is not that big of a problem, really. The majority of games will work just fine.

The project write-up has step-by-step instructions and source code to help you get your own web-based game loader up and running quickly. But remember to quadruple-check those connections (and then check them again!) before firing the system up. You definitely do not want to fry your precious Commodore.