Received a Commodore 64 that I ordered today, to replace my missing one, so I've been playing around with this all day.
Keys are a bit yellowed, but otherwise it is in pretty reasonable condition for the low price I paid compared with many eBay listings. This was a gamble really, as I had no idea if it was working or not. Thankfully it was.
Came with an original PSU (which I haven't used or tested yet) & some games on cassettes + 1 Cartridge containing 4 games which I'd been specifically looking for as it contains Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun. I didn't relish the idea of running the disk version of that game due to the long loading times so having it on cartridge is fantastic.
Also came with a joystick I didn't recognise, but after some research is simply a rebadged Quickshot II Turbo. I quite like those joysticks so now I have 3 of them. 😎
My Datasette units, as expected, aren't working. Waiting on new drive belts to arrive. Was going to try aligning the heads, but I'll wait until I've installed the new belts. For a laugh I tested out 1 of my Datasette units and the results were as expected -
Reeled it back in but tape is pretty ruined. No big deal though, I have a couple of 100 more copies of this game in my loft. 🤣
Until my SD2IEC arrives, I'm currently using a Cassette Adapter connected to my PC soundcard to load the games across via TAP to WAV conversion. It will suffice for now and at least I can actually play something in the meantime.
I couldn't find my Composite Video cable, so I tried the RGB Scart Cable from my ZX Spectrum and luckily the pinout matches and it outputs Composite to my TV. That will do until I get the SVideo cable at some point.