Interfacing old Commodore 64 printers with Arduino

This article explains how to use an old Commodore 64 printer in Arduino projects. A simple schematic for an adapter between the printer and an Arduino is presented, as well as a software driver for easy printing from Arduino code. Arduino is a popular open-source electronics prototyping platform based on Atmel Atmega 168 microcontroller. Commodore 64 is a classic microcomputer from the 80’s that still has many fans. The printer that is here used with Arduino is Brother HR-5C thermal matrix printer, but other CBM-64 compatible printers should work as well.

Motivation

I still remember that long-awaited day when my dad brought home a Commodore 64 microcomputer! That device became to be my first computer, and I spent countless hours playing with it in my youth – mostly gaming, but also a little bit of programming with BASIC. I still have it, although it doesn’t work anymore… We used to have many peripheral devices, too: the famous 1541 floppy disk drive, 1530 tape player, joysticks, paddles, cartridges, and even a printer!

In fact, that printer (Brother HR-5C) was a wonderful little thing: battery or AC powered, printing on thermal paper and other paper types too with a ribbon cassette, supporting full CBM-64 character set and custom characters. The printer is still working just fine, and I happen to have a lot of thermal transfer paper in my storage (unused fax machine paper). However, since my CBM-64 is dead, I cannot actually use the printer

I’ve been thinking about building an adapter so that I could connect the printer to modern PCs. I just couldn’t find any proper reason why would I want to print with that device instead of my much better quality and faster laser printer…

Until, I got an idea…

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Using Arduino in Eagle schematics with Ubuntu Linux

In electronics projects it is a common task to draw schematic of a circuit that you have designed. For simple circuits, it may be tempting to draw them on paper with a pencil. However, CAD programs are definetely worth learning! One of the best tools is Eagle, which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. There is even a freeware Light version available for hobby projects. This article briefly explains how you can use Eagle on Ubuntu Linux for drawing schematics especially for your own Arduino projects.

Installing Eagle on Ubuntu Linux

Obviously the first step is to install Eagle on your Ubuntu Linux computer.

The easiest way to install Eagle in Ubuntu is via Applications->Add/Remove…, where you can simply type “Eagle” in the search box to find Eagle from Ubuntu software repository. In Ubuntu 8.04, Eagle is located in the multiverse repository, which must be enabled before installation.

Unfortunately, the version in Ubuntu repository is rather old: 4.16r2-1. You probably want to install the latest version, which can be downloaded with a web browser directly from Cadsoft: http://www.cadsoft.de/download.htm. You should choose the Linux version, right click the download link, and select “Save Link As…”. After downloading is finished, you can install the package (the file you downloaded, e.g. “eagle-lin-5.6.0.run”) by opening a console and running the installation script as follows:

sh eagle-lin-5.6.0.run

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