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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