MEGA65 Welcome Guide

Hello! You’ve reached the MEGA65 Welcome Guide. This Guide is intended for new owners of the MEGA65 personal computer. It contains answers to common questions not (yet) answered in the official documentation, and recommends best practices for continued enjoyment of your new computer. It was written as an unofficial supplement to the MEGA65 User’s Guide included with the computer.

I’m Dan, known as dddaaannn#7325 in the MEGA65 Discord and @dan_sanderson on Twitter. If you notice anything in this guide that needs updating, or if you discover a topic not covered by the official manual that you feel new owners should know about, please report an issue. Thank you!

The contents of this Welcome Guide:

• Welcome!
  • Why a Welcome Guide?
• Things you’ll need
• Try this first!
  • Connecting peripherals
  • On-boarding
  • The reset button
  • Demonstration menu
  • The Freeze menu
  • Disk images
  • Loading and running a program from disk
  • Commodore 64 mode
  • Other bundled software
  • Configuring your MEGA65
• Important concepts
  • SD memory cards
  • Cores
  • ROMs
  • The Hypervisor
  • PAL and NTSC
• Determining the versions of things
  • The MEGA65 core version
  • The MEGA65 ROM version
  • Bundled releases
• Opening the MEGA65 case
• Accessing the MEGA65 Filehost
• Setting up the microSD card
  • Preparing the microSD memory card
  • Installing the SD card files
  • Optional: reinstalling bundled software
  • Installing the microSD card and re-running configuration
  • Upgrading from a previous version
• Updating the core firmware
  • Installing the MEGA65 core
  • Symptoms that you’re using the wrong MEGA65 core
  • The C64 core
• Using disks
  • Listing a disk directory
  • Using the SD card from BASIC
  • Using 3-1/2” floppy disks
  • Booting from a disk
  • Using an external disk drive
  • Converting a D64 to a D81
• Using the JTAG connector
  • Acquiring a JTAG adapter
  • Installing the JTAG adapter
  • Using M65Connect
  • The m65 command line tool
  • Finding other JTAG tools
• Joining the community
• Video display compatibility
  • HDMI (DVI)
  • VGA
  • 4:3 flat panel displays
  • Video capture cards
  • Resolution and aspect ratio
  • A List of Monitors
• Recently added features
  • New features
  • New BASIC commands
• Known hardware issues
  • The Real-Time Clock doesn’t advance the time
  • Failure to boot, and keyboard lights glow when off
  • Case fit issues
  • Keyboard slouching and sticking Help key
  • Jammed floppy disk pathway
  • C64 cartridge and peripheral compatibility
  • Boot failures with blinking blue LED lights
• Questions and answers
  • Does the cartridge port work?
  • Does the Ethernet port do anything?
• Resources