The “35-cent” Commodore 64 softmodem

The Old Vintage Computing Research (VCR) blog posts about making a soft modem for the Commodore 64.

Rockwell famously used 6502-based cores in modems for many years, but that doesn’t mean other 6502s couldn’t be used. If only there were a way to connect a Commodore 64’s audio output directly to an RJ-11 plug.

Of the many interesting posts from Usenet’s more golden days, one of my favourites was John Iannetta’s “35-cent modem,” where the SID chip provides one-way data modulation to a receiving modem connected via the C64’s sound output.

I figured this would be a great challenge to see if John’s old program could let my Commodore SX-64 talk to my WorkSlate. Spoiler alert: it works!

Check out the thorough explanation of the methodology and implementation in the post here.


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