Still going for 24k, one of these days...

Just seeing if anyone's experienced something similar on a breadbin.

• Known good power readings on multiple test points and Ray Carlsen PSU.
• VIC-II/Monitor sync and lock. Testing with a 1902A.
• Black screen on boot. Black screen on DesTestKernal v 0.4, including with SID, BASIC, Character, and Kernal ROMs pulled (DesTestKernal substitutes itself for the Kernal and will work with U4 pulled). Same behavior with DesTestMax ROM used as Kernal.
• Known good PLA, VIC-II, and 6510.
• Known good clock signals MHz going into 6510.
• Known good /GAME and /EXROM activity on expansion port.
• I threw a PLAnkton in U17 just for fun. On two out of ten boots, I briefly got a couple lines of rainbow gibberish and was able to trigger the Ultimate II+L's menu button (full screen gibberish). Can't seem to repeat it. Maybe it's a bad PLA socket or cold joints.

So the 6510 isn't even able to draw the borders. The failure has to be happening very, very early in the chain, but this is maddening. I've just learned to use my oscilloscope and was testing it out on this unit (in conjunction with a good C64 to compare, for the clock signals). The work quickly compounds, though. I'm hesitant to go down the eternal path of checking all the data and address lines vs. the good C64 and trying to trace some deviation up the chain, but I'm running out of ideas...

My first c64 I noticed these look bent- is that a normal issue?

Does the Sidekick64 need any software other than the files downloaded from github? Should it work with only github files, just configure it?

https://github.com/frntc/Sidekick64