Demonstration - C64 Direct-to-TV (C64DTV)
7I recently acquired a C64 Direct-to-TV. This was a Plug 'n Play joystick released in 2004 with 30* built-in games. Like the Atari Flashback 2, the C64DTV was built around an ASIC designed to simulate the C64 in hardware. The eight-way joystick has two action buttons, four buttons identified as A-D to function as keyboard keys (as does the right action button), an on/off switch, a reset switch and yellow/white RCA cables for video and audio output. In this video I will turn the device on, show the boot sequence and show off a few games.
The built-in games come from Epyx and Hewson (and one contribution from Image Works). In reality there are only 23.583 unique C64 games on this device, two of the events were taken from California Games (which has six), two from World Games (which has eight) and World Karate Championship's first and second journeys were split into separate entries to pad the list out to 30.
I have tried five games in this video, Cybernoid, Impossible Mission, Uridium, Tower Toppler and Jumpman Jr. Cybernoid, Tower Toppler and Uridium were developed in the U.K., the others are from Epyx in the USA. I found the three PAL-original games to be fairly reflective of the others in this device, they seem to play too fast at NTSC speeds. Tower Toppler I could give a slightly better account of myself because I've been playing a fair bit of it recently. If I could have used a gamepad instead of a joystick, I think I could have gotten past the first level in Cybernoid. These games are almost completely without mercy at 50Hz let alone 60Hz. I never really understood Impossible Mission, but Jumpman Junior is easily one of the few games on this device I want to play and has fair (if hard) difficulty.
I edited out the full reset sequence, which boots into C64 BASIC every time you press the reset button, after I reset the console once.
I am not a huge fan of the joystick, it uses membrane carbon contacts like the Atari Flashback 2 joysticks and the NES Advantage. The device runs on 4xAA batteries and no AC adapter input, but seems to last a good amount of time on a fresh set. The terminals in my device were hit hard by battery leakage, had I known about it I would not have bought it. Fortunately white vinegar saved the terminals enough to revive them.
I know this device can be less than a perfect simulation, not unlike the Flashback 2. The video has a shimmer that I have never seen from my C64s VIC-IIs. The simulated SID makes no attempt to simulate the analog filters. Uridium does not have a constant buzz on original hardware as it does here. I know you can mod these things but I prefer to keep things stock, especially when I only have one of them.