deskthority

Turned my C64 mini into this little thing that I can mount in a 3.5 inch floppy bay.

When floppy drives themselves are insufficiently retro!

But those pics have me thinking. Did the real C64 need a heat sink?

Muirium wrote: 25 May 2021, 20:22 Did the real C64 need a heat sink?

Nope.

But isn’t modern stuff meant to be efficient and low power and LEDs run cooler than lightbulbs and aaaaaargh make it stop!

Well, those 8 bit computers were pretty low powered

ddrfraser1 wrote: 25 May 2021, 20:27

Muirium wrote: 25 May 2021, 20:22 Did the real C64 need a heat sink?

Nope.

Actually, some chips do get hot and can overheat and die, especially in earlier revisions of the C64. On early motherboards, some chips even use 12V!

Most C64s have pretty bad airflow inside but all of them came with a RF shield covering the motherboard, that did impede airflow more or less. Many RF shields have holes placed over some chips to let hot air through, and some sheet-metal shields even have bent parts that touched chips and thus served as a heat sinks for them.
C64 enthusiasts use to remove the RF shields and mount proper heat sinks directly on the chips to make them last longer.

The horizontal stripes on top of the case are air vents. The C64C lower-profile model which came after the breadbin got fewer and lower-powered chips and more air-vents. There are also air vents on the bottom of the case.

This is the coolest thing I've ever seen!
Do you have a project log or in-progress pictures?