C64 Direct-to-TV

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The C64 Direct-to-TV, called C64DTV for short, is a single-chip implementation of the Commodore 64 computer, contained in a joystick with 30 built-in games. The design is similar to the Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Game.

The C64 Direct-to-TV computer-in-a-joystick unit.
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The C64 Direct-to-TV computer-in-a-joystick unit.

Tulip Computers (which had acquired the Commodore brand name in 1997) licensed the rights to Ironstone Partners, which cooperated with DC Studios, Mammoth Toys, and The Toy:Lobster Company in the development and marketing of the unit. [1] QVC purchased the entire first production run of 250,000 units and sold 70,000 of them the first day they were offered. Coincidentally, QVC's West Chester, Pennsylvania Studio Park headquarters once were Commodore's offices.

The circuitry of the C64DTV was designed by Jeri Ellsworth, a self-taught computer chip designer who had formerly designed the C-One.

Contents

[edit] Specifications

The C64DTV runs on four AA batteries. It has two fire buttons, four function buttons, and composite video and monaural audio outputs. The internal hardware is a clone of the C64 and thus has the same features and limitations, but it lacks the keyboard and I/O ports. The internal circuit board has exposed solder points for floppy-drive and keyboard ports, and detailed instructions for adding them are available.

There are two versions of the C64DTV. The first appeared in late 2004 for the American market (NTSC television type), and has these features over the original C64:

  • The palette is reprogrammable, with 4 bits of luma and 4 bits of chroma
  • There is 128 KiB of RAM, and a 2 MiB ROM for the built-in games
  • It has DMA engine that can be used to copy data between system RAM and the game ROM and extra RAM

In late 2005, a revised version for the European and world markets (PAL television type) appeared with these additional features:

  • There is 2 MiB of RAM, and a 2 MiB reprogrammable flash memory for the built-in games
  • Much improved graphics modes, including a "chunky" 256 color mode.
  • It has a blitter for fast image transformation
  • Improved CPU with fast and burst modes, additional registers, and support for undocumented opcodes.

Unfortunately the PAL version of the C64DTV suffers from a manufacturing fault, which results in poor colour rendering (the resistors in the R/2R ladder DACs for both the chroma and the luma have been transposed). Details on fixing this can be found at http://www.kahlin.net/daniel/dtv/colorfix.php, but note that surface-mount soldering skills are required.

The Radio Shack "HUMMER Off-Road Racing Challenge Video Game" [2] is based on the C64 DTV, and can be modified to work like an original C64.

[edit] Built-in games

The official games for the unit are mostly a mix of Epyx and Hewson C64 games.

[edit] EPYX

[edit] Hewson

[edit] Image Works


[edit] External links

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