Commodore 64 Mini-Monitor Is a Work of Retro Art

Using retro hardware and software is something of a balancing act. On one hand, you could hook your Raspberry Pi emulator up to your 70" LED TV in the living room, and while impressive, it’s not exactly the tiny gaming experience you remember. Such was the case with Chris Mills, who as reported by The MagPi, created a beautiful monitor package with an 8” 4:3 ratio LCD screen — more in line with the 13” CRT he recalls, and small enough to fit on his desk.

The enclosure is solid design, housing the monitor itself inside of a space that is reminiscent of a small speaker box. A pair of 2” speakers straddle the display on the sides, and cables for component inputs as well as HDMI lead to the back panel for easy access. A 50mm cooling fan is also placed on the back panel, and while it’s supposed to be ‘silent,’ Mills dropped this voltage down from 12V to 4 in order to keep it from making too much racket.

To finish the build off, the box was sanded and painted with multiple coats of Krylon spray enamel. Mills even took a picture of a Commodore badge, then placed a cropped picture of it on the front of the little monitor for a nice finishing touch. More photos of the project are available on Imgur, and though meant for C64 emulation, given the easy access to inputs, it could make a great platform for any retro-gaming pursuit.