Ben Heck's Commodore 64 laptop mod: like 1982 without the feathered hair

Benjamin J. Heckendorn seems unusually enthused by his latest hack'n mod, calling the Commodore 64 laptop "probably one of, if not my favorite project I have done." That's saying something from the man who brought the "Benheck" finesse hammer down upon just about every modern and classic PC / game console and accessory you can think of. The C64 lappie features a C64C motherboard, a Gamecube power supply, and special 1541-III DTV device that emulates a floppy drive using a FAT-32 formatted SD card -- all while keeping true to the beige 8-bit spirit of the original. And if we're not mistaken, he's controlling it with an Atari joystick seen in the video posted after the break. Then again, there could be an Xbox 360 controller hiding in that joystick knowing Ben.

[Via Nowhereelse]

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[loopyoyo @ Apr 6th 2009 5:14AM]

cool as hell..way to go Ben!

[Darkroom @ Apr 6th 2009 8:54AM]

this is shit-hot! just imagine having that back in the 80s, right?

[Frostblade10 @ Apr 6th 2009 5:16AM]

Lol this guy is a character.

"How did we use this joystick? My hands are already cramping up! Maybe my six year old hand was more... nubiiiiile!"

[joshua @ Apr 6th 2009 5:24AM]

ahh ben heck, the guy that shoves old things into new things

[Oli D @ Apr 6th 2009 5:46AM]

Thats... what she said?

[seacow @ Apr 6th 2009 5:50AM]

Bamn!

[Oscarv77 @ Apr 6th 2009 10:59AM]

seacow @ Apr 6th 2009 5:50AM

Bamn!


And a new internet meme is born... Bamn! - the combination of "bam!" and "damn!"

[KazamaSmokers @ Apr 6th 2009 3:03PM]

" the guy that shoves old things into new things "

That's James Woods.


Anything that pays homage to Commodore is cool.

[Pete W @ Apr 6th 2009 5:30AM]

Oh man. That really is one of the coolest things he's done!

Does anyone remember Ghostbusters on the C64? I seem to think that was the tits at the time, but after seeing Angry Video Game nerds rundown of it (and most of the other games...) I'm starting to think gaming years ago was a whole sack of gash.

I love retro things but I can't get enough Xbox 360...

[yuriythebest @ Apr 6th 2009 6:10AM]

Xbox360 doesn't support S3D

[Smoke_me_a_Kipper @ Apr 6th 2009 6:52AM]

First computer game I ever bought. Loved it, I think I almost wore out my space bar "GHOSTBUSTERS!".

[mr_happy @ Apr 6th 2009 10:57AM]

Don't forget Impossible Mission. First time I ever heard speech on a computer.

"Another visitor. Stay awhile. Staaaaay foreverrrrrrr!"
"Destroy him, my robots!"
"Aaaarrrrrrgghhhhh!"

[Geir E @ Apr 8th 2009 4:11PM]

This is THE Ben Hecks mod I would want. The c64 was my big venture into computing, was too yong to get anything out of my dads vic 20 beside try to play a bit. but the c64 will be running when the grandkids are wondering what the heck we did back in the 1980s.

[Smoke_me_a_Kipper @ Apr 6th 2009 6:15AM]

Instead of a 64C mothrboard, He could have used a C64 plug-n-play and modded it to a much smaller system.

[j_g_puff @ Apr 6th 2009 6:32AM]

Yes, but that would have resulted in a reduced level of awsomeness (unlike your name, which results in an increased level of awesomeness for all who observe it).

[Nate DiDonato @ Apr 6th 2009 6:40AM]

I'll be back for breakfast...

:)

[Kelmon @ Apr 6th 2009 7:00AM]

Quiff not included.

[Aprime @ Apr 6th 2009 6:53AM]

No one cares.

[Aprime @ Apr 6th 2009 1:46PM]

Welp, I guess the comment I was replying to got deleted.

[AVG @ Apr 6th 2009 8:23PM]

I'd say your comment still works, though.

[Matthew C @ Apr 6th 2009 11:25PM]

I voted you up for irony.

And truthfully, I really don't care, but thats probably because this was way before my time. I'm way more excited that my new i7 is running at 3.5 ghz quietly with factory cooling. (I'm 2 hours in... no errors yet).

[Kelmon @ Apr 6th 2009 7:05AM]

For that fully retro feel the system needs to come with a cassette deck that you will use to load games from a strange contraption known as a "cassette tape". This ensures that your games will take about 30-minutes to load (i.e. the cup of tea break) and will drive you nuts when the game fails to load, which is signified by the tape running to its end and "popping", and you have to start again. Ah, good ol' Shift + Run/Stop...

[Jon Acheson @ Apr 6th 2009 10:28AM]

And then for the fully retro feel, said cassette tape will fail to function after 5-10 trips through the tape drive, causing the absolute loss of your circa-1982 masterpiece.

And no, I don't want a Commodore diskette drive either.

[bobbychariot @ Apr 6th 2009 8:26PM]

Used to love the music played while games were loading up, seem to remember Beach Head having some good tunes.

Ah the old days.

[Kelmon @ Apr 7th 2009 2:57AM]

On the subject of loading music, I remember Hawkeye had a sort of music-mixer that you could play with while the game was loading and it wasn't half bad. Mind you, I was about 10-years old at the time and easily impressed.

[tonyopc @ Apr 6th 2009 8:13AM]

don't for get the epileptic fit inducing load screen's.
maybe there was sublimibal messages in them?

[strider_mt2k @ Apr 6th 2009 7:49AM]

I can see why this is his favorite.

If you follow his work at all you can see an evolutionary process happening, not only with his building/modding techniques, but in the area of styling in his custom casework.

This really does look the part completely, and if it's anything like his other stuff works spot on as well.

I so want to be this guy when I grow up.

[nikster @ Apr 6th 2009 8:06AM]

This is totally, absolutely, unbelievably fantastic. I am in awe.

[reisa @ Apr 6th 2009 8:55AM]

BEST HECK EVER! I wish I had a million dollars to buy it. Because it would absolutely be worth every penny to pull that out the next time some self-satisfied Mac fiend pops open his MacBook Pro Air.

[Walt @ Apr 6th 2009 9:26AM]

Gotta love the Commodore's 1-second startup time. We've come so far since then.

[LloydChiro @ Apr 6th 2009 12:24PM]

Yea Walt. It's going to take 30 years to come to that point again. I can't wait for instant on computers again.

[Magallanes @ Apr 6th 2009 9:56AM]

epic win for the keyboard.

[Necrotix @ Apr 6th 2009 10:23AM]

Work of Art! WTG Ben!

[Kelmon @ Apr 6th 2009 10:36AM]

Any chance of putting a BBC Micro into a laptop so that I can play Chuckie Egg again? Ah, that brings back memories...

[Timerider @ Apr 6th 2009 11:23AM]

Ben doesn't have much hair (no offense, Ben).

[M0les @ Apr 6th 2009 7:51PM]

Yep, gadget of the year right there right there in the bag! Everyone else come back in 2010, we're done for this year.

He should play some technologically interesting games like Bounces or I.M. tho!

M0les.

[ZeroCorpse @ Apr 6th 2009 11:36AM]

Now THAT is a mod, Joystiq. It's not some piece of junk PC shoved inside of someone's Yoda doll. It's not a game console with a bunch of glitter and spikes glued to it. It's not a regular device with lots of LEDs added. THIS is a true mod, and it kicks ass.

Give us more of this, and less of the lame "tech shoved in a toy" crap that you keep showing us, and we'll be impressed.

For the record, the C=64 rocked. Whenever I hear people talk about the "great video game crash" of the 80s, I laugh, because we had the Commodore 64, and the game-trading scene was HUGE. Every C=64 owner had dozens or hundred of games. We played games all through the alleged "crash", and there were some great ones. So the only "crash" was with Atari, Magnavox, Coleco, and Mattel. Commodore gaming was going strong.

[ZeroCorpse @ Apr 6th 2009 11:40AM]

And for the record, EA was never better than when they developed for the C64.

Mail Order Monsters STILL deserves to be remade.

[CraigJ @ Apr 6th 2009 1:13PM]

I agree.

I want a TI-99/4A laptop.

[Thomas @ Apr 6th 2009 3:29PM]

This is engadget, not joysitq.

[patrickhuynguyen @ Apr 6th 2009 4:03PM]

If you say you had hundreds of games, I say, ARRRRR! Shiver me timbers. Ahoy matey. Thar she blows! Walk the plank. Hoist the anchor.

[Shunnabunich @ Apr 6th 2009 12:42PM]

Quick! Someone send one of these to Strong Bad!

[Joseph @ Apr 6th 2009 1:46PM]

Commentary was amazing. "nubile hands"

[Ian @ Apr 6th 2009 2:20PM]

I love how all his mods evelolve, but the home depot hinges are always there.

[ambanmba @ Apr 6th 2009 2:28PM]

I'll stick to my SX-64, thank you....

http://oldcomputers.net/sx64.html

-ambanmba

[hemmy @ Apr 6th 2009 3:26PM]

This is officially badass x2.

The c64 was an amazing machine at the time, and there was a metric ton of games to play and enjoy, lots of memories. And I learned assembler on it, got my start on programming.

I could still bust out Bruce Lee (and a mountain of other games for that matter) and have a good time. Some sweet RPGs too.

[tonkawom @ Apr 28th 2009 4:20AM]

Wonder if he would consider making and selling a few. I would love to get my hands on one of those.