Connecting to the Commodore 64 or 128 expansion port like a “normal” cartridge, TeensyROM from Sensorium adds ROM emulation, Internet, and even USB MIDI to some of the 1980’s most popular 8-bit machines.

We love seeing Teensy boards being used to give old hardware new superpowers, and the TeensyROM is a fantastic example of this!

TeensyROM emulates ROMs loaded from a USB thumb drive (via USB Host port), the Teensy’s mSD slot, or internal flash. USB Host is also used for MIDI in/out, allowing you to for example play the C64’s legendary SID chip with a MIDI keyboard using Cynthcart software.

An RJ-45 jack means you can connect to your favorite Telnet BBS via 38.4k modem emulation, as well as update system time using an Internet Time Server, like modern OSes. You can even load games via NFC tags, as shown in the video below! Source, schematics, and more can be found on the project’s GitHub repo.