Originally, sort of. But also to work around limitations in GIF (which is palette-based; but see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF#True_color) and because people didn't always have true-colour monitors (or ran the monitor in a different mode due to VRAM restrictions) anyway.

In today's context, more for the aesthetic, presumably.

Author answered below, but dithering techniques like these were common on old computers like the C64 and others, due to the limited ammount of graphics colors available ( 16 colors on C64 if I remember correctly), plus there were usually limitations on how many colors you could use within one 8x8 block , commonly 2 - 1 foreground , and one background color. C64 had a multicolor mode with 1 background, and 3 forground color. But that was still just 4 colors (out of 16 available ) usuable for each 8x8 character block. However switching to multicolor mode took you from high resolution ( 200x320 px) to low res ( 200x160 px) - and yes thats for the entire screen (25 x 40 chars)

it seems obvious for nostalgic reasons

I'm hoping mine shows up in time for me to get in a little Maniac Mansion. It sounds so good on a real SID chip!

> set to channel 36, natch

Was that specific to C64? I recall old consoles and VCRs using either channel 3 or 4.

Fwiw, the c64 is pretty robust, if you don't use the original power supplies.

I'm surprised that people find this to be an example of clickbait. If I cared about views, I'd imagine an honest title like - "I turned my c64 into a digital fireplace" - would have probably been more appealing, no?

I recapped a C64C I bought second hand recently, using premium Japanese 105C capacitors off the shelf on akihabara, minus the huge axial one I ordered a modern, extremely durable replacement for.

I tested every cap I removed, all of them nichicons from the mid 80s. They all measured to spec.

So it was kinda pointless at the end. Sure, it is going to be good for a few more decades, alongside the 1571 Ultimate II-L.

(yes, I replaced the original PSU. I bought separate modern, safe 9vac and 5vdc PSUs and an adapter to join them into the C64 power connector)

I think not enough people today have ever seen the message "printer on fire".

Not GP, but I was expecting to read about a C64 on fire and was disappointed when it was just a post about an unoptimized fire demo

Cool, that 8bitdo one would have been a perfect holiday gift. Look so good.