When I was younger we had our 48k Spectrum in a big black plastic keyboard shell. So I didn’t have to put up with trying to type on the little rubber keys that people normally associate with the Speccy 48k (This was before the Spectrum+ came out).
For a while, I have wanted to get one of these again as I have no idea what happened to ours. I think it’s probably sat in a loft somewhere well and truly buried!
Well, I finally managed to get one, and it’s also complete in its original box. Not only that but it appears to have never been used as the stickers for the keys haven’t even been applied yet.
Of course, you know what the next problem is. Do I actually use this and apply the sticker set? Or does this one need to stay in its current condition and I now need to buy another one to actually stick a speccy inside!! 🤣
With an estimated 15,000 units sold worldwide, the GX4000 is still quite easy to get hold of. That probably tells you something about how good it is! Although the price of this console does seem to be going up recently.
The console is still a nice looking machine though and there are a few good games that were launched for it. Only around 30 cartridges ever came out for the console. These now seem to sell for more money than the actual console. I have looked around and there is an SD card solution for this console but considering the small size of the library and the quality of most of those games, I have decided to go down a different route.
The user “Chinnery” on the CPC forums has released the designs for a blank PCB for this unit. All that is then needed is an EPROM chip to write the game to and a couple of other components. Stick this in a 3D printed case and we are done.
Considering there is probably a maximum of 10 games that I want then this should be a cheap way of getting them in my collection.
So another new computer added to the collection. This one is a bit weird! After the Commodore 64, Commodore decided their next computer would be worse in pretty much every way. Although it was cheaper and more focused as a business computer with a built-in word processor, spreadsheet, database and graphing functionality. Not surprising that it was a bit of a failure.
Still, it has a bunch of games available as it is essentially a C16. And I do actually like the overall design. Kind of reminds me of an MSX.
As you can see in the photo I’ve connected up an SD2IEC to load the software from SD-Card.
I actually have two of these currently as one was bought for cheap as untested which didn’t work. The second was from eBay and was advertised as fully working. The fully working one didn’t however display the built-in applications so I suspected a faulty ROM. I managed to get a discount on the price I paid and swapped the “3 plus 1” ROM chips over from the other unit which sorted that issue.
Whilst I had it apart I also swapped the CPU over and found that both CPUs are working fine which is a relief as they are pretty rare. So on the faulty unit, I’m going to swap out the TED chip next as I expect that is the reason why it’s not working. Hopefully, I can get it back to full working order in the near future.
I’ve actually had this for a couple of weeks now but hadn’t got around to adding it to the site. I’ve still not got around to connecting it up yet either due to being busy with other projects. I don’t see me spending a huge amount of time actually using this one as the Spectrum was a far better computer, but it will certainly be interesting to see what limitations people had to deal with on the first home micros!
I was always fascinated with the keyboard on these when I was younger, it always looked kind of futuristic like some sort of touch screen device. I expect the reality of actually typing on it will be a very different experience from what I imagined.
The interface stuck out of the back of the is the 16K memory expansion. This was pretty much an essential addon due to the ZX81 only having 1KB on board. The sticky residue on the interface was from a previous owners attempt to tape the interface to their ZX81 due to it being extremely common that if you gave it the slightest nudge when powered on, the computer would crash and you would lose your work 🙂
When I was younger I remember seeing a CD-i in a UK store named Comet. It was running an interactive encyclopedia on the demo unit and I remember navigating around and seeing videos of Whales and various other things. It seemed like magic at the time considering my other encyclopedia was a set of books with photos in it. After seeing this in the store I begged my parents for a CD-i for ages but they were not exactly cheap.
I never did get one back then but mainly because the PlayStation came out and my parents purchased one of those for me for my Christmas and Birthday present (Thank you!!!). But today this changes and I took delivery of a Philips CD-i 210. This is the unit that was less like a games console and more like a piece of Hi-Fi equipment.
The unit is in pretty good condition with just a few light scratch marks here and there. It also came with a selection of CD-i titles and some video CD’s which it can play since it has the optional Digital Video module (MPEG 1).
The only issue with it was the tray wasn’t ejecting but upon opening it I could see the drive belt for the drive was stretched and had come off the wheel. So I replaced this with a similar size belt and now all is good.
So I am fully aware the CD-i isn’t the best machine in the world but it’s an interesting one to have a play around with non the less. I will be on the lookout next for the peacekeeper light gun for the CD-i which is actually an interesting device since it is one of the few light guns that will actually work on modern TV’s. That is because it’s not technically a light gun, it’s actually closer related to a WiiMote where it has an infrared module that sits on the top of your TV and the gun uses that to track its relative position. I have actually come across a DIY project which looks like it will let you use WiiMotes as a controller on the CD-i so I may go down that route as it looks like a fun project.
Anyway I will do a full write up on the system after I have had some experience using it. I was also do a write up of the controller mod if I go down that route.
So I have actually had a 48k speccy sat in a box for quite some time but it is in pretty bad shape so didn’t consider it as part of my collection. Recently I was given a bundle of retro bits and included were another two 48ks. One was a board only and one was cased. Again the case wasn’t in great condition but it was a fully working Issue 2 board inside. So I decided to rehome this one in a brand new reproduction case with a new keyboard membrane too.
In the bundle I recieved there was also an brand new in box VTX5000 modem for the speccy (unfortunately the ribbon cable was missing from the box though so I will be making my own adapter to plug it in). This gives the 48k a nice stand to sit on and I will be looking to see if I can use this to connect to something in the future.
I’ve not got this one wired up permanently yet as I need to do the composite video mod on it then I will probably actually move it next to the CRT screen.
Some of you may be familiar with RGBtoHDMI project (https://github.com/hoglet67/RGBtoHDMI) Which uses a raspberry pi board to convert the RGB signals from old computers into a HDMI signal for modern TV’s.
It was originally designed for the BBC Micro but was then extended to include other computers such as the Spectrum and the Amiga.
I popped over to the GitHub one evening and posted a message to see if in theory, the project would work with the Sam Coupe. A couple of messages later and IanSB had already implemented theoretical Sam support into his fork of the project.
So my next step was to build up one of the 12bit boards and wire it up to the Sam to see if it worked. And it did!!
It all powered on first time and the picture quality was absolutely perfect. All I had to do was center the image on the screen.
Once I had proven it was going to work I then made a prototype of the interface board that would connect this up to Sam. I am planning on designing a proper PCB for this part now it is all tested.
I then knocked up a quick case design in Sketchup and printed it out on the 3D Printer to give it a slightly more professional look. I even fired up the Vinyl sign cutter to give it a Sam style logo 🙂
And there we have it. The worlds very first (As far as I know) Sam Coupe HDMI Interface! Once I have the PCBs made up I’m probably going to build up a few of these as there are a number of people interested. But I will be releasing all the files so anyone can construct their own as I don’t want to spend the rest of my life soldering boards and the SMD components on the RGBtoHDMI board are a bit fiddley. Hopefully, I will get a bit better at them the more I do 🙂
Another new edition to the collection. The Panasonic FZ-1 3DO console. This console launched in 1993 in the UK at a price of £400, which is roughly around £830 in today’s money. Safe to say I have never owned one of these before now!
This only came with one game called Striker, and I am really not a fan of football games. Luckily copy protection wasn’t a thing back then so burning ISOs to a blank CD works fine with this system. The one issue I did have though, is my modern PC won’t write discs any slower than 24x. At this speed, the discs were not readable in the 3DO. So I had to bust out the old retro PC and use the Sony CD writer in that which can do a 4x write. These work well in the 3DO but with some occasional skipping usually on the opening video scenes.
I expect an optical drive emulator will be on the cards for this system in the future but is it one of the more expensive systems to mod in this way (http://3do-mnemo.com/USB_Host_for_FZ1.htm)
Have you ever owned one of these? What games should I try out?
One of the issue with having all these computers is having a display screen to use them on. I don’t just want to collect computer, I want to be able to play on them, so every system I have is hooked up and usable.
Most of my devices go through OSSC’s and then plugged into modern TVs via HDMI. But since I built my new unit I figured I had space for an old CRT monitor for the CPC464 and Spectrum.
My original plan was to buy an Amstrad CTM640. But when the person I bought it off packaged it in a cardboard box with a single layer of bubble wrap, you can imagine how well that turned out!
Luckily a friend of mine from school still had this beauty sat up in his loft. So we dragged it out, tested it, and now it sits on my unit displaying the CPC and Speccy in glorious picture quality. It’s also a 15Khz display so should work fine with the Spectrum Lightgun.
I didn’t realise that this monitor also has built-in speakers so that has saved me a lot of hassle with the wiring. Now both computers just plug into a scart splitter and I can turn either computer on by voice using WiFi switches (I have tried to do this with all the systems so I don’t have to mess around with plug switches).
Needless to say, I am very happy with this purchase so thank you Shaun for keeping it in such good condition over all these years.
I have just finished putting together a guide on how to build and connect an ESP8266 based WiFi Modem to the BBC Micro so it can be used to visit old BBS’s and the Telstar system.
Check it out here: http://localhost/wordpress/getting-the-bbc-micro-online-via-wifi/
