If you have a Commodore 64, chances are you’ll eventually need to connect a modem or other serial device to it. You’ll find that’s not quite that easy since the C64 doesn’t have a standard RS-232 serial port. What it does have is called the “user port” and it can do serial over this port but it needs to be changed from TTL levels (0 to +5v) to RS-232 levels (-15v to +15v).

If you’ve ever attempted to purchase a VIC-1011a terminal type, SwiftLink or Turbo232 from eBay you’ll quickly find out that the price gets out of hand. Expect to pay upwards of $100 or more for these adapters.

Luckily, there’s an inexpensive way to get a RS-232 port on your C64 and it’ll cost you less than $15. Ready?

You’ll need these parts for the project.

• DFRobot RS232-TTL Module from Jameco.com for $10
• User port edge connector from eBay for $1.75
• Null modem adapter
• Connecting wire
• Soldering iron

Connect the RS232-TTL module directly to the C64 user port edge connector using the table below.

Update! Alwyz from 1200baud suggested that connecting VCC isn’t necessary and potentially dangerous. I’ve had zero problems with mine as listed here. I’m providing this warning so you can make your own decision!

Observe which side of the user port connector is the top (it’s the one with numbers– letters are on the bottom). It’s helpful to write on it with marker. For wire I used female jumper wire that I cut one end off. For GND and RXD you’ll need to jumper two of the pins together on the user port connector. I used a small bit of CAT5 solid core wire.

Once you’ve got it connected, add the null modem adapter and connect your modem. You may need to also use a gender changer and/or a 9 pin to 25 pin adapter depending on your modem.

Fire up CCGMS, Novaterm or Striketerm, set the baud rate to 2400, set the port to the user port and give it a few “AT” commands. You should see “OK” being returned. If it doesn’t, make sure you have a null modem adapter (test it on another machine to confirm) and double check your connections.

As with any tutorial you find online, be responsible and double check my work and your work before proceeding.

It’s a question that pops up from time to time on forums from Lemon64 to Reddit C64.

“Yes! I just got a Commodore 64!! Now how do I get disk images onto disk so I can do something?”

It’s not straight forward. Folks in the Apple II world have a fantastic program called ADTPro that can work over a simple audio cable connected to your laptop headphone and microphone jack (or serial). Doesn’t get any easier than that.

On the Commodore, disc images are stored in .D64 format which is an image of a standard 1541 floppy. Most software you find is available this way. You may also find .D71 and .D81 which are for 1571 and 1581 formats but these are less common. A great place to find C64 software is the CBM8BIT.com Search. Once you have your disk images, you’re ready to make some floppies. Below are some of the options to “burn” disk images for your Commodore 64.


uIEC/SD2IEC ($50-60) is probably the easiest overall solution. With this small device, you can load .D64 images from your Mac or PC onto a SD card. Inserting into the uIEC, it will show up to the C64 as an extremely large volume. But merely having a .D64 image doesn’t get you very far– you need to “burn” the image to a real floppy. Fortunately, there’s D64it which can do just that. It’s a little slow as the author admits, but it gets the job done. Things are sped up considerably if you have the JiffyDOS ROM ($20) installed in your C64 since the uIEC is JD compatible. Don’t forget a 6-pin IEC cable!


64NIC+ ($50-59) adds Ethernet capability to your Commodore 64 as well as a ROM socket that can accommodate up to 256kB ROMs. With networking capability, now you’re able to use WarpCopy64 which can upload and download entire disc images to your PC. There’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem here since you’re going to need WarpCopy64 on disk first before you can create new disks.


ZoomFloppy ($35) is a great solution to connect your Commodore 1541 to your Mac or PC via USB. ZoomFloppy is a modern version of the “X” series cables which required an old PC with a parallel port plus knowledge of IRQ and ports (see below). After installing OpenCBM software on your Mac or PC, you can read and write D64 images quickly and easily– no fuss. Hands down, this is my preferred way to read and write floppies.


If you’re lucky to have a terminal program already on floppy on your C64, you can do the serial route. Of course, you’ll also need an adapter that plugs into the C64 user port to give you standard RS-232 signals. These can be difficult to come by if you don’t have one, like the Commodore made VIC-1011a. One could also build this USB to RS-232 interface for your C64 for $15.


If you have a PC that’s old enough to have a parallel port on the motherboard, you might have good luck with “X” series parallel cables. These cables connect your parallel port to the IEC port of a 1541. From there, you can run Star Commander in DOS mode to read and write files and images. I started using this method years ago but abandoned it for the ZoomFloppy.

So there you have it. There’s no shortage of solutions and every solution is most likely going to cost you something. But each is a great investment and keeps the scene going with folks creating new methods. This list isn’t exhaustive– if you know of one or have experience with any of these, leave a comment!

For the next two weeks, it’s BASIC Week 2 at Reddit r/retrobattlestations. You can participate with your Commodore 64 or at least play along with your favorite emulator. I’ve ported the code to the C64 and you can get the code from the thread on Reddit. Or you can download the D64 image here to make your own disk or to use with an emulator like VICE.

Have fun!

If you’ve ever attempted to repair a dead Commodore 64 beadbin, you know how frustrating it can be. You’re lucky if the machine turns on and shows something on the screen. This at least gives you some clues as to the problem. However, more often and not, you’re stuck with a blank screen. It doesn’t tell you much other than just about any chip in the computer is bad, or even a bad power supply. After checking the obvious things like missing chips, reseating socketed chips and checking the power supply voltages, the next place to go would be one of the two diagnostic carts that were available from Commodore service technicians.

The two test carts that were available are the C64 Diagnostic cart and the C64 Dead Test cart. Together, these carts are very useful in identifying problems. In order to use them, you need them in a cartridge. The diagnostic cart also had a cable harness that would test certain ports– it’s not required but will report false problems if not present. If you’ve followed my posts, you’ll know that I have a tutorial on how to convert an existing cartridge into a EPROM carrier board. In this case, instead of creating a 24 to 28 pin adapter, I’ve purchased the Retro Innovations 2364 Adapter for $5. It’s well worth the price.

In both cases, I’ve used a Commodore cartridge with ASSY # 326173-01. The thing you’ll find odd about the picture is the carts look completely different but have the same ASSY number. The good news is they behave the same way.

There are solder jumpers on the cart labeled J1 through J5. These control certain lines on the cartridge port that tell the C64 what type of peripheral is connected. Below is a table of the settings for the two carts.

C64 Diagnostic Cart Jumpers
J1: Closed (ROMH)
J2: Open (ROML)
J3: Open (GAME)
J4: Closed (EXROM)
J5: Open (I/O 2)

C64 Dead Test Cart Jumpers (Ultimax Mode)
J1: Open (ROMH)
J2: Closed (ROML)
J3: Closed (GAME)
J4: Open (EXROM)
J5: Closed (I/O 2)