Afzer quite a long time, I have found time and motivation to install the retroFuzion Mechboard64 in my Ultimate 64 elite (without II). The CBMstuff keycaps were transplanted from the C64 keyboard, that was in there before.

Yesterday was π day. I have updated the os of my ultimate 62 elite II from 3.12a to 3.14. Just some minutes after Gideon announced the new version on facebook. C= and RESTORE now calls the ultimate menu. Cool :-)

I wish you a happy weekend.

Happy New Year, y‘all. As long as I am alone at home, the Ultimate 64 will stay in the living room. Just did a joystick cord repair with UV activated glue. The stuff is as good as Lee @morefunmakingit.bsky.social said in his video. Glad, that I have mine for two or three months now in use.

Y‘all have a Merry Christmas. We habe the tradition of xmas ass. Who gets the xmas ass has to drink a beer. #merryChristmas #tradition #xmasAss #xmasArse #beer #xmasTree

This was quite a bit of fun during the days, when twitter was a thing. I did not find everybody in there on bluesky, yet. I remember, I have used a demo maker for this.

Omnifixo, good for my nerves. It ist still no fun, though.

My new PC. I need a Win11 computer to use my development tool from January 2026 on. I already hate Windows 11!

Never solder with a blunt soldering iron! Wow… a marketing department running wild. Life would be dull without.

The nano sponge cleaned #PET #keyboard is now pretty low impedance. I would still not call it a verified method, because I have screwed up the „before measurement“. I need to find another bad keyboard. #nanoSponge

The neighbor‘s cat is Lee‘s latest fan 🙂 youtu.be/XJB2_IaeUM4?...

Dinner. That FLIT in the Armor 28 ultra is just too much fun. Actually, that was the reason, why I have bought this smart phone.

I wanted to test, if cleaning the conductive rubbers of a keyboard reduces their impedance significantly. The keyb was so high impedance, that it might show something. After rubbing the rubbers, I noticed, the bridges on the PCB were not really great anymore 🤣

I am a bit lazy, so I want to use a double screwdriver😉 Actually, it is a spanner for camera lens repair etc. For unscrewing threaded rings with opposite slots. I sometimes had this requirement.

Two of 200 connectors were soldered in the wrong orientation. The solder bath was a great help. Used some masking tape and carefully pulled them out, after the solder joints melted simultaneously. It was a flux mess. The nano sponges were good to clean up after the rework.

I am doomed!

Nano clones are such a mess. Some have an ATmega328p, some have a 328pm, some accidentally bought ones have a 168 as a processor. Arduino IDE cannot program a bootloader for the 328pm without modification. The ATmega168 is a bit underwhelming.

I have tackled the #BMP280 temperature/pressure #sensor on the #picoCalc. Byte level I2C programming (actually normal) in #MMBasic. 24 byte of calibration data and a lengthy calculation procedure included. And I have learned about weather service and actual air pressure:

I was watching a live stream of @morefunmakingit.bsky.social some days ago, when I have seen this tool on his desk. I didn’t know that it existed, before. I then did a short research and had ordered it, before the live stream was over. #goatsFoot #pryBar #Wera #Wera127456

Birth of some C64 keycaps. I have made the trays to speed up the process. If you screw up, you screw up 9 key caps at once 🙂

Last weekend, I have found Raspberry Pi Pico 2W and I intended to upgrade my PicoCalc. I was aware, that the display might break, if I am not careful. When I finally assembled it, I have moved the mainboard a bit, pulled the display out of place and it broke. A replacement is already on its way.

Testing the latency in USB keyboard mode with VICE and David’s Midnight Magic. This succss when there is latency. 120/sec scan rate feels as good as the regular keyboard. I have also added VICE soft and hard reset and attach disk and cartridge image to the additional two buttons.

The broken Pro Micro is good enough for practicing with the solder pot. Quite nice for desoldering multi pin components. You need to mask with kapton tape, what you want to keep. Flux is helpful, too.

Bought the C64 style key caps from Crazy Ali in January in the hope, I could do something meaningful with it. I have also ordered this keyboard, recently, because I really need a US layout keyboard. Now I have put the keycaps on. Nice keyboard. The original keycaps were not any bad.

So, today, I have finished the USB keyboard work package for a positional US keyboard layout for vICE and quickly added the German layout, too. It was fiddly to find some special keys, like the pound sign. When the thing is not connected to a C64 and does not detect scanning, it acts as a usb kbrd.

If you are making a USB keyboard, it is easy to screw up your source code. I have done that three times today. If the keyboard does not find scanning by a C64, it switches to HID USB keyboard (for VICE). I don’t know a few scan codes, yet. The rest works.

AliExpress has pissed me off massively! In early September, I have bought a Pencil for my iPad for about 30€. It was defective. So I wanted to return it. They were not able to send me a return label, although I contacted the service twice. Now, they have refunded 10€ 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

Whereever I go, I have to do tech support for other people, usually for computer or tv. Is it a rule, that people older than me have the most complicated setups :-)

The curse of the pro micro. This is at least the fifth on which I have broken off the USB micro connector. They are just attached on SMD pads. The version with the usb C looks more reliable. The holding latches are through hole.

I could not sleep, so I tidied up the lab after midnight. Found a little display in my Arduino box. So I hooked it up to my C64 keyboard project to try it out. Made a little logo. Of course, it did not work instantly. It was past 3am, when I finally have slept.

Sunday noon fun: connecting a #dht22 to the #picoCalc and calculate the dew point from the temperature and humidity. It is a nice thing to just write a short BASIC program for trying out such a thing.

Went shopping at Lidl and found this. I was thinking of getting a 20m hose for compressed air, already. Maybe, this works. I always have a strange feeling with supermarket brand tools. The step-drill bit was good.

Now, I can use the USB-serial converter for programming the ESP8684 module on my project pcb. The status LED is blinking. I have used the schematics of the ESP8684 devkit m1 as a base. No buttons (reset & boot) required for programming. DTR & RTS do that job.

I got my #ESP8684 Devkit M1 blinking. Of course, it was not supported by the Arduino IDE, so I had to download the ESP-IDF, which is a shell/DOS like application of only 1.5 GB download size. The target to select is ESP32C2, not ESP8684. Things you have to find out…

The #Omnifixo is such a handy thing! Here, I am just using the clamps, which have a magnetic foot, to hold a display for testing in front of the case. The construction of the clamps makes it easy to position them. And it is perfectly stable. It is worth every cent!

After 3 months, my #picoCalc arrived. It was an easy build. Even if you have two left hands and five thumbs on each (like me). It is a Raspberry Pi pico based mini computer, which runs e.g. a BASIC interpreter (picoMite) and has accessible GPIO pins. Let the distraction begin! 🤣🤣🤣

Social media is full of moon eclipse images. I went out, waited an hour until the clouds were almost gone. Took a time lapse and kind of failed. This is by far better than my time lapse 🤣🤣🤣

I prepared food with tweezers. It did feel right. 🤣🤣🤣

@morefunmakingit.bsky.social did some nice SMD repair work. Great Sunday morning video to watch.

I actually like the nano sponges for cleaning up the flux after soldering. They absorb the flux, that is solved in isopropanol. And the glass bottle with the wide base is my first good one (I had two smaller plastic bottles before, which I have dumped after a short time).

My „all new parts C64“. Ultimate 64 elite II + RetroFuzion clear case + my home made mechanical keyboard.

Some progress with the 2nd prototype of the #C64 #keyboard. I had printed the stiffener, so I have installed it, but the construction is actually not any wobbly without. The software for the pro micro requires some work. I only did some fun work 6 months ago.

The black frame for the C64 keyboard looks so much better 🙂 no soldering tonight, though. I need to do some work.

My 3D printer didn’t work for weeks. The PEI build plate wasn’t sticking enough anymore. At least, the last attempt screwed up my print head. Fixed the thing with another broken head and it works again. This is the so much required black frame for my C64 keyboard project.

Sorry for being more astrophotography than electronics, recently. I did solder, but well… boring stuff. This is from last night. Andromeda galaxy and the veil Nebulae. I was trying EQ mode and mosaic on my #Dwarf3 for the first time. And I did some trickery with #GIMP.

The joy of rentware. No Windows 10 for #fusion360 after January 2026. You fucking bastards, #autodesk! I have paid until April 2026, but well... anybody knows a 3D cad software, that can import Fusion360 projects? I don't want to buy a new computer.

This battery powered blower is good enough to blowing off the isopropanol after washing (the flux off) the assembled PCBs. One more cool AliExpress find. There are different versions for the different 18V batteries. Mine is Makita, I have also seen Dewalt, Bosch, Ryobi, Milwaukee battery versions.

The Andromeda Galaxy. Taken from my backyard with a little device (Dwarf III). Sure, there are better pictures. This is my first and I am impressed, what the Dwarf III is capable of.

Almost monochrome :-)