Description
Finally, the first project designed by me is for sale! I have much more in the works, but this was a fun one to figure out and solve a small problem with the Nano SwinSIDb for the Commodore 64. Hope you like it!
Have a faulty 6581/8580 SID chip and need a replacement? The Nano SwinSIDb is a great (though I will admit, not best) choice, but it has one fatal flaw: lack of paddle support. Using this revision on the original Nano SwinSIDb design, you can “piggyback” your original SID chip with a faulty audio circuit and use some of it’s secondary functions to add back in support for reading analog paddle inputs, external audio input, and random number generator while synthesizing music using the tried-and-true Nano SwinSIDb circuit.
If you don’t have a faulty SID chip with working paddle inputs, you can still grab this board to restore your Commodore’s voice! Maybe someday you can pick up a faulty SID chip for cheap online to pair with it…
For more information or if you’d like to make this open hardware kit yourself, check out the project on Github and the original article that the hack was based on. If you’d like to learn more about the Nano SwinSIDb, check out this tutorial by tolaemon.
Note: These boards have all been hand-soldered and tested by yours truly. The only small issue with them is that the SID socket I picked out doesn’t fit quite as I hoped and sits at a slight angle. This shouldn’t have any affect on the performance of the board or the SID chip socketed into it. There is plenty of clearance in my SX-64 for both the SwinSID and a SID chip with a tall heatsink (see the attached photo), but a breadbin 64 may have some trouble depending on your heatsink. If you have any questions or any issues with this product, please contact me and I’ll see how I can help you and even improve the product.