Commodore 64 UART Cartridge

I’ve always been a big fan of serial ports, modems and especially computer-to-computer null-modem communication,

I wanted my Commodore 64 to be able to serve as a serial terminal, but the built-in serial port has extremely low speed.

I found this project, called UART Cartridge, and I knew this is it, of course those carts are not possible to buy, I had to make them myself, so I got to work.

I’ve ordered the PCB’s, all the parts (some still haven’t arrived so I had to find alternative source), and built the first cart already.

The result is amazing, the cart looks great and works really well as well.

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I’ve been using my C64 on a Dell U2410 monitor over Composite cable, and the result wasn’t very good,

as much as games look okay scaled, the small very sharp font doesn’t stretch well, so I had to look for other solutions.

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First, I tried Japan-made EntaVision S-Video->VGA converter, with mixed results, the font is more readable but somehow it doesn’t handle interlacing well and everything looks jittery.

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Then, I tried “UP Empire SD-CSH1” S-Video -> HDMI converter and the result is much better, the font is very readable, although on my Monitor I can’t adjust the 720p/1080p picture to 4:3 aspect ratio, well, with such a small font it might be even better to keep it stretched – makes it even more readable.

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The schematics and design was done by Dennis Kuschel, and are available on his website:

http://mycpu.selfhost.it/otherprojects/c64terminal/index.htm

I have enough parts to make a few more of those carts (and another part order pending), and will happily do so if you’re interested.

I would ship from Japan, it seems that worldwide shipping ranges between $4 and $8 depending on the speed.

Please contact me if you’d like to place an order (for tracking purposes I would recommend registering on my blog and placing a comment – also that other folks can see what is the demand).

Cost for a single unit : $40

Cost for 2-5 units: $35 each

Waiting time from placing an order to shipment – 2-4 weeks (although I will try to keep a small stock of ready-made carts or at least part sets for immediate assembly).

Please note that *your* cartridge may look different, due to supply of certain parts, some of them may be substituted for others.

The cartridges are fully tested on a PAL (EU) Commodore 64.

I have verified that the software itself works on an NTSC Commodore 64 with help of an emulator (VICE), there is no 100% guarantee that it will work on an actual NTSC C64 – and I will not accept returns should that be the case.