If you'd rather use the real hardware, you're in luck! Since they sold so many systems, there are still quite a few out there and you can probably find one locally or on an auction site. Check out the myriad of Commodore user groups, meetups, and vintage computer festivals.

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Ports of the C64
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The 1541 Floppy Disk Drive

There are also tons of mods and modern hardware devices for the C64. Everything from joystick adapters to storage adapters to complete reimplementations on FPGAs:

Pi1541 - a 1541 floppy emulator for the Raspberry Pi

Ultimate 64 - a complete C64 motherboard replacement with HDMI, Ethernet, USB, and more

FPGASID - an FPGA implementation of the SID sound chip

BreadBox64 - mods and modern hardware for the C64

Syntiac FPGA-64 - an FPGA implementation of the C64

C64 Reloaded - a brand new C64 motherboard, BYOC (bring your own chips) to build your own C64

Retro Innovations - adapters, cables, boards, etc.

VR64 - yes, VR for the C64!

This guide was first published on Sep 25, 2019. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (The Real Thing + Modern Mods) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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