Nah, they probably need the user and expantion port. I hope for their sake the cardridge, diskdrive or tapedrive containing the software is still there. Repairing a C64 is one thing but what about software support.
I do think it is amusing the machine kept running that long. It must be some sort of cardridge based software or an uninterrupted power supply that makes sure the C64 stays on all the time. Otherwise you must load and start the software manually each time the machine is powered off or resetted.
Nice story.
