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The LEGO Commodore 64 – with working keyboard – is complete

Back in October Christian Simpson, the person behind the channel Perifractic’s Retro Recipes, unveiled his plans to create a 1:1 Commodore 64 out of LEGO that could either be a desk toy replica of the computer, or act as a case for the working PCB and keyboard of the real thing.

Then, in November, he released part two of the story which was creating the shell of the build to hold those functioning electronics.

Now finally, just a few hours ago in December the trilogy is complete with the fully-LEGO version jumping from the original render into real life.

As a quick refresher this build was originally planned to use 2 191 pieces weighing in at just over two kilograms.

The secondhand marketplace Bricklink was used to source the parts which came to $170 (~R2 332) which, while expensive, is a decent price considering the amount of pieces used and the age and rarity of some of the parts.

One such example of that is the piece used to make the keys. The spring-loaded part was originally used as a shock absorber in the set 6933 which came out in the early 90’s. It happens to work perfectly in a keyboard to make the keys spring back as they should.

The working power light and battery box are similarly old and difficult to get, driving up their prices.

That being said, the finished product looks worth the wait and the money, and you can see it come together in the video below.

While this third part does stand alone quite well, we do recommend at least watching episode two as it covers the building of the shell of the Commodore 64. Part one can be skipped, but it is a very interesting look at how this was planned out using fan software.

If you want to make your own full instructions for both versions should be coming out soon, but there’s a way you can inch closer to obtaining one right now.

The project is currently up for voting on LEGO Ideas. As we’ve covered in the past Ideas is a platform where the community can vote on fan creations to be turned into official sets that will be available for purchase on store shelves and online.

To even be considered by LEGO the campaign for the Commodore 64 needs ten thousand votes and it’s sitting at around 1 200 at the time of writing.

With 565 days to go it may seem like there’s plenty of time for the rest of the votes to come in, but it will depend on how much momentum this final video will create. We’ve seen many Idea hopefuls have a huge surge of votes after the initial unveiling only to taper off and never reach the magical 10K.

If you want to prevent that, head on over to LEGO Ideas and leave your vote. You will need to register for an account to do so, but we think it’s worth the effort.

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