Retro can be an expensive hobby. Vintage
micros with custom chips that haven't been manufactured in decades are the biggest fight
we face in keeping these old computers running after all these years. But thankfully, there are
incredibly clever members of this retro community who pour hours of work into creating add-ons
and replacement parts using modern tech. This is something that appeals to me a great deal. The
clashing together of vintage and modern hardware would be my answer to the question, what keeps
you interested in these old computers all these years later. And you don't have to go very far on
the internet before you're tripping over projects using cutting-edge technology to enhance a huge
variety of vintage computers and games consoles. Another thing I find very appealing is not having
to spend huge amounts of cash to get my vintage kicks. There's only so much money in our pockets.
Sure, you can spend hundreds and hundreds of your chosen monetary denomination, if you so wish.
And if you have the disposable income, good luck to you. I've been told by those in charge that
keeping a roof over my family's head is apparently a priority. And so the projects out there that
truly appeal to me generally involve using things like the Pi Pico or similar off-the-shelf boards
that seem to be able to do just about anything you can think of with an 8-bit computer. Blue Scuzzy
is a good example, something that would have cost thousands back in the day can be bought easily or
even built yourself for a very reasonable amount. This one's not blue. Another recent great
example I came across is this A8 Pico Cart by Robin Edwards. I ordered a load of these boards
and some of these special purple Pico's which have more memory on board than the standard ones and
happily put one together to go with my Atari XEGS. It's basically an UNO cart for the XL and XE Atari
8-bits. Sadly, when I turned on my XEGS, it was no longer working and I've not been able to fix it
yet. So the video I was intending to make on these has been shelved until I can either fix my XEGS
or finally add an Atari 800 XL to my collection. These boards, which you can get for almost
nothing from your favourite PCB manufacturer only require a Pico. Even the button is optional.
I have no idea how they managed to make this work but I'm very grateful they did or I will be once
I get to use one. But this isn't about Atari. The Commodore 64 is one of my favourite computers to
repair with its custom chips and readily available schematics. I really enjoy figuring out why each
one has stopped working. This big pile here took me a few days to work through and I had loads of
fun. The first one took as long to fix as all the others combined. And out of these 11 machines,
seven of them have broken SID chips. Some of them have bad PLAs too which are easily fixed with the
GAL PLA board for just a few pounds. But the SID, well the SID is a different story. To replace a
SID you can pay between 25 pounds and 40 pounds for an original. And as they're not the most
reliable chips around you could put that SID in your C64 and it might fail tomorrow. Given that I
worked the last time I put it in my loft 30 years ago, C64 can be bought for around 50 pounds on
eBay. It starts to feel like a bad idea to spend so much on one single custom chip. And it's not
the only one. If you're really unlucky and your untested spares or repairs C64 has a bad PLA,
a bad VIC-2, a bad CIA or two, and a bad SID, you can wave goodbye to all your initial
investment and then quite some more. But those clever people I mentioned earlier have been hard
at work again. And many of these custom chips can now be replaced with modern alternatives which
work in exactly the same way as the originals, sometimes even better. The VIC-2 Kawari probably
doesn't fall into my budget category, but it does add a lot of extra functionality that's
difficult to pull off with an original VIC-2, HDMI for instance. But that particular example is
much too rich for my blood. I can't be spending over a hundred euros on a single chip for the C64.
Let's get back to the SID. There've been lots of different replacement SID options developed using
different modern hardware to try to pull off a tricky job. After all the SID doesn't just deal
with digital signals like all the other chips in the C64, oh no. The SID also has analogue signals,
which is handy when you're trying to generate sounds. Now in researching this video, I started
to read about the inner workings of the SID chip and how it can use three voices to pull off clever
audio tricks resulting in its distinctive and way ahead of its time sound. But that all quickly
went over my head and nobody really watches my videos expecting a deep dive into any technology.
Ask me about the merits of pickled onion monster munch. I can talk your ears off on that subject.
What I'm interested in here is bringing this pile of C64s back to life. Without a working
SID, they're no good to anyone. In fact, some of these have been sat here in my workshop
designated as spares machines. In other words, they were scrapped. So can we replace the SIDs
in these broken C64s without spending a huge pile of cash? Let's go worst case scenario. I need to
replace them with the current best solution which I think is arguably the Arm SID. Seven machines
at 34 euros each. That's 238 euros and that doesn't include the postage from Poland. Ouch. I
should probably mention the current budget option, the Swin SID. These can be had for around 10
to 15 pounds on eBay, but they don't have the best reputation with some compatibility problems
and people often saying they just don't like the way they sound. So imagine my surprise when I was
told of another option, one that would give great results is highly compatible and with the option
to do some fancy stuff like stereo audio output and dual SIDs. And all this at less than a third
of the price of an original SID. And best of all, using my favourite gadget, the Raspberry
Pi Pico. The SID Kick Pico was created by frenetic or frantic or maybe fornicate. How do
you pronounce that name without vowels? You can find a link to their GitHub and this project in my
video description. If I forget to put it in there, shout at me in the comments. The SID Kick
Pico is compatible with everything. It will work as a replacement to the original 6518
in the C64 breadbin and C128. It will also with no modification replace the later 8580 SIDs
found in the short board C64s. As I said before, it can be set up to emulate a single or dual SID.
It has full paddle and mouse support, a built-in configuration menu, and the option of a DAC output
for high quality stereo audio. All of this, and this is the best bit, for around eight pounds. You
can soon buy these fully assembled for a little bit more from restorestore.de, but I chose to go
the homemade route and build them myself because that's what I'm like. Ordering these boards from
PCBWay is simple. This isn't a sponsored section, so no need to skip. And it's nice to know a slice
of the fee goes to the creator, Frenettatrick. You can also get PCBWay to install the SMD components
for you for not a lot more money. For those that don't find soldering SMD parts fun, this might be
a good option. I ordered the rest of the parts on the bill of materials from DigiKey. I'm sure it
would be cheaper to get some of this from the likes of AliExpress, but to keep things simple,
I wanted to buy everything from a single vendor. And it helped it was free shipping after adding 10
pie picots to my cart. All the parts are here now, and it's time to put one together for your
delectation. I'm gonna go through this build step by step as there's a correct order to put
this together. First off, these two chips. These are the level shifters that allow the 3.3 volt
pico to interface with the five volt workings of the C64. Before I try to solder anything to
this board, it's a good idea to give it a good clean with IPA to remove any contaminants and
oxidization. I was recently gifted some of this MG Chemicals Flux Paste, thank you, Andy. I see so
many other YouTubers use and I wanted to give it a try. For comparison, I'll install the first chip
with this flux and the second with my old Topnik Type Liquid Flux. With the chip roughly in place,
I need to apply some flux to each row of legs. And here I run into the first problem.
The flux is so thick and sticky, it's making it difficult to see the
alignment of the chip on the pads. On the plus side, the chip
doesn't want to float around. Now with my soldering iron in my right hand,
I add the smallest dab of solder to the tip. And with my left hand, use my tweezers to hold the
chip in place. Then very carefully, I touch the solder to the base of the pin and the pad in one
corner, giving it time to heat the pad underneath. That's one corner fixed in place. Next, I need to
check everything is still lined up. If it's not, I can reflow that one corner and nudge the chip
into the correct place. The good thing about this MG Chemicals Flux Paste is it doesn't immediately
burn off like the Topnik Liquid. I'm happy with the alignment now. So again, with another tiny
dab of solder, I can fix the opposite corner in place. Don't worry about the bridges at this
stage. They can be sorted out in a bit. Another check to make sure nothing has moved. A bit of a
bigger blob of solder. It's a feel thing. You get used to how much you need for each type of job.
And then it's just a case of dragging that solder over those legs, making sure they each have time
to heat and the solder can flow onto the pads. The same for the other side. This MG Chemicals stuff is really good
for not boiling away. I'm impressed. Let's try the other chip using the Topnik
Liquid. Same process. Add the flux, align the chip, tack one corner, tack the other. Now the big difference is the flux is now
gone and I need to brush more onto the legs. This small bottle lasts ages, so
it's not a problem in terms of wastage, but it's another step each
time. That's one side flowed. And again with the flux. And that's the other side. I like both
types of flux in different ways. I think time will tell which I end up using
the most. And to remove a bridge, I just make sure my tip is clean of old solder,
heat the bridge and slide the tip away from the legs like this. Some of the solder will always
want to stick to the iron if it's clean and some will stay on the legs. If it doesn't remove the
bridge, I clean the iron again and repeat till it does. If the flux is all burned away, it's
worth adding some more to help this happen. Right, now the chips are in place.
I need to install the resistors, a couple of capacitors and a diode. These are 0805
parts, which mean they are 0.08 by 0.05 inches, or in post 1960s measurements, two millimetres by
1.25 millimetres. That sounds small, but with a good set of head mounted goggles, I find these
pretty manageable, even without a microscope. I'll show you how I install this capacitor
and the rest are exactly the same. (clicking) Using tweezers, I get the part roughly into the
right place and then dab a drop of liquid flux onto it. I tried with the flux paste, but that
makes everything too sticky and the capacitor would just stick to my tweezers. Next, I moved the
component into the right spot and then with a tiny touch of solder on my iron, while holding the part
in place with light pressure from my tweezers, I touch the solder to the pad and the component
on one end. Then before the flux evaporates, I do the same for the other end. If
it doesn't flow into a nice fillet, another drop of flux and a dab
of the iron will sort this out. (clicking) And that's all of the passives installed. This
side with the SMD components is actually the bottom side of the board and will face
down in the C64 when I'm finished. The header pins to mount this in the SID socket
need to be installed here and here. First, I need to install just this row of
14 pins in the middle. (upbeat music) (clicking) Next, the instructions on the GitHub talk
about either soldering a socket for the Pico or directly soldering the Pico in place. It says
if you want to solder the Pico direct to cut the pins here to allow it to lay flat. But I tried
that and even cutting them flush to the board, the Pico doesn't sit flat enough to bridge
the connections on both sides. So instead, I'll just solder a standard pin header to the
Pico and then solder back to the SID kick board. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (clicking) The final part I need is the other side of
the pin headers that will be going into the SID socket on the C64. This side only has 10 pins
with the last four being optional for the DAC. If you want to use a DAC with this, you can solder
four pins on the other side of the board here. These two pins here are only required if you want
to emulate dual SIDs and are only used to connect additional wires to the CPU if that's the case.
For my use, I just want this to be a bog standard SID. With that in mind, I need to program the
Pico to do just that. Using a suitable USB cable, I attach it to a handy nearby PC and press
the button on the Pico. An explorer window will pop up showing the contents of the Pico
flash memory. Programming it is as simple as dragging and dropping the appropriate file onto
this window. It took me a few minutes to find the zip file containing the firmware. There
isn't a direct link on the body of this main page and nothing I could find if I downloaded
the whole repository. I scratched my head for a while and then noticed this releases section
on the right. Clicking this reveals the latest version along with the zip file link. To a GitHub
noob like me, that was a tough find. The file I want is the standard PWM version without fancy
LED or RGB stuff. Dropping that file onto the Pico window should make it disappear and that's it
programmed. This is now if I built it properly, a fully working SID replacement. Let's plug it into
a C64 and try it out. Taking a completely random C64 out of the pile, I first need to replace
the missing PLA with a GALPLA I made earlier. And then watching for pin alignment in the socket, gently push the SID kick Pico into
the SID socket. (keyboard clicking) Now, Adrian has his signature
dance party Donkey Kong music which he knows exactly how it should
sound for testing SID's. For no reason other than this is the one I've
always used. I tend to use 1943. The menu music comes up right away and
is for me a good test. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) And there it is. Just for your benefit,
I can run the diagnostic test too. And a quick thank you to Mark of the Retro Channel
for his recent C64 videos in which he showed this no-ram check diagnostics. This has made
testing all these custom chips a breeze. Well, look, I don't think you can argue with the
results. I worked out the costs of buying 10 of these SID replacements and it came out
at around 80 pounds, which is a lot for one, but if you have 10 C64s that are in
desperate need of a sound synthesizer chip, then I think this is the only reasonable option.
I don't need dual SID's or stereo in my C64, so I can't show that side of things, but all the
instructions to make that happen are on the GitHub if that's something you feel you need yourself.
Thank you for your patience while I took a break from making videos. Things are slowly returning
to normal here, so I hope to be able to make more regular content. If you need a more fun fix
in the meantime, hop over to my second channel where my more casual content is, or come and chat
on my Discord with all the other lovely members there. Everything is free here, no paywalls or
tears. Right, next project is awaiting. Bye. Do we think you'll mind? (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Oi, stop it. (upbeat music)
