If you want to breathe new life into an old C64, there’s no better toy than a MSSIAH. In a nutshell, the MSSIAH is a naughty cartridge loaded with a bunch of synth and sequencing apps that tap into the 64′s legendary audio chip, the SID. And it’s got a MIDI in port too, giving you full control of the SID via your sequencer/VST of choice (more on MSSIAH VSTs in a future post).
MSSIAH is a fantastic piece of kit, but there are a few catches. If you want to tweak all those on screen knobs, you have to peck your way around the keyboard to highlight a control, then operate it with the joystick. Doable, but… nah. There are mouse options, but they’re expensive. Lastly and bestly, you can connect up to four potentiometers direct to the joystick ports. Many MSSIAH disciples go out and buy all the components, surface mount the pots on their C64, and wire them internally (find some of these projects here). I thought a bunch of old Pong paddles would be more fun.
Be warned, this project involved dismantling several innocent pieces of classic hardware. Their families have been notified. Here are the bits I started with.
- Commodore C64-C with 8580 SID (rev unknown) and missing “4″ key
- MSSIAH synth/MIDI cart, just out of sight (back right)
- uIEC/SD interface, hanging naked on the right
- 7″ LCD TV, picked up for a steal on the ‘bay
- On the left, an empty box. It used to be a Scitec Asynchronous Line Driver. Fascinating!
The aforementioned empty box will be the center of the action. It’s probably not the perfect box for the job, but who could turn down consistent styling like that? The things you find in the shed!
First stage complete; the world’s hugest SD card reader. The uIEC is incidental to the actual pot installation, but it’s a start. And it couldn’t have happened without the brave C64 cassette player that gave up its own worthless existence to provide me with a power cable, and a dashing gold panel label. Thanks, Serial No.870147.
Enter the paddles.
The polarity of the paddles first needs to be reversed so the on-screen controls rotate the right way. This just involves swapping around the two wires on each pot. I also picked up some little red buttons, to replace the original side triggers.
uIEC in the bottom half, pots in the top half.
Fin! Presenting the KnobJockey64:
(Originally posted here.)
