// 2024-09-17 // by Elder0010
I have been lucky enough to receive this rare machine from a friend after repairing his Amiga 4000. The keyboard is perfectly working - seems like the Commodore membranes are stiff enough to last! This unit has been bought in Japan in the 90’s. As per the date code XX82, the chipset is still 100% from the factory. There’s not much to say about this machine, is a crippled version of the Commodore 64 designed for Japan market so it’s more about the collecting interest. But hey, it’s beautiful!
The only 2 “unique” chips here are the VIC-6566 and the MOS 6703 PLA. The 6566 is a NTSC NMOS version of the VIC-II, used only on the MAX machine. Since this computer sports a 16k SRAM instead of the usual 64K DRAM of the 64, this version of the VIC-II does not take care of the RAM refresh. The MOS 6703 contains the select logic of the various ICs on board.
