Tiny C64 PSU Rejects Tradition, Embraces USB
The Commodore 64 has traditionally required a bulky iron-core transformer for its power needs. A new product, the PD-64, utilizes USB-PD technology to provide a more compact power solution. This innovative design includes a circuit that effectively converts and isolates the necessary voltages for the C64.
- ▪The PD-64 covers the power port of the C64 and is significantly smaller than traditional power supplies.
- ▪It requests 12 VDC and steps it down to 5 VDC while also inverting it to 9 VAC.
- ▪The design includes a circuit that provides galvanic isolation between the outputs.
2 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 22 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: centre. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.
- ▪ Tidy PSU – PD-64 C64 PSU Brings USB PD to Commodore 64 — The Oasis BBS
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| Original publisher | Hackaday |
| Canonical URL | https://hackaday.com/2026/05/26/tiny-c64-psu-rejects-tradition-embraces-usb/ |
| Publication time | Tue, 26 May 2026 18:30:40 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-26T18:32:53.545Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-26T18:32:53.545Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | xFW58_VoAQki · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Tiny C64 PSU Rejects Tradition, Embraces USB No comments by: Tyler August May 26, 2026 Title: Copy Short Link: Copy The Commodore 64 has, by modern standards, the interesting power requirement of needing both 5 VDC and 9 VAC. Traditionally, one would use an iron-core transformer to step-down the wall current — be it 220 V or 115 V, 50 Hz or 60 Hz — to produce the low-voltage AC. That’s how Commodore did it, and that’s how most of the aftermarket replacements do it, too. That iron-core transformer is bulky, though, and [Side Projects Lab] decided that in this day and age of switching supplies and USB-PD he could surely do better. Which he did, with the diminutive PD-64. As you can see, it just covers the power port of the C64, and not much else.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Hackaday.
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