Year: 2021

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The CPC lives!

I was meant to post this a week ago but was busy building up the new display unit, so it got forgotten.

Anyway, the good news is the CPC464 lives again! I stripped it all down and checked the temp of all the chips on the board and found one of the memory chips was getting very hot so that was the first job, removing all the current chips, replacing them with sockets and then fitting the new memory chips.

After this, I powered it back up but unfortunately, there was still no picture. No other chips seemed to be getting very hot but maybe the Z80 was getting a bit warmer than I expected. I swapped this over with the Z80 from my Speccy +2 though and found that wasn’t the issues either.

So at this point, I dragged out the oscilloscope and after watching some youtube videos I started to check things like the clock signal for the Z80. That checked out fine, but the data lines on the Z80 were dead and I was seeing weird 1Mhz signals dotted over various different pins. After some discussions on forums, it seemed like the Z80 was getting stuck in a loop and not running correctly. But the Z80 only runs what it is told, and that is the job of the ROM chip.

So next step was removing the ROM from the board, at this point, I placed it into my EPROM programmer and read the contents of the chip to see if it matched the original ROM file. The result of this was a chip apparently filled with “FF”. So no ROM code on there whatsoever. This chip is fried!

A new blank EPROM chip was purchased next and then programmed with the original ROM file A socket was then fitted to the board and the new ROM chip inserted. And the result of this? a working CPC464!!!

I still need to give the computer a proper clean so will be stripping apart again soon. I also hae a new drive belt for the tape player to go on (although the current one is actually still working). The tape counter button is also jammed so will look at this and may need to 3D print a new part on the resin printer to get this bit fixed.

All in all, I was pretty happy with my first computer repair. I have now placed the CPC on my new display unit and am actually going to use it with the green screen monitor as it really seems to add to the experience. The only issue with this setup was the cables are not very long from the monitor to the computer so I ordered an extension for the video and the power which I am still awaiting the arrival of the video extension. But everything else is in place and ready to go 🙂

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New custom-built display cabinet

I was starting to run out of places to put new computers/consoles so I busted out SketchUp and put together a 3D model for a new display cabinet which would give me some storage space and some extra slots to fill with retro goodness.

I drew the unit to scale so I could take all the measurements I needed to put it all together. I also 3D printed some jigs for all the holes so I didn’t have to keep measuring where I needed to drill. After around a day of drilling holes, I basically ended up with a flat pack kit that I could easily assemble.

After a few days of work, I finally had the unit fully assembled. The next step was to wire everything up which involved another OSSC unit (Open source Scan Converter) attached to a full size Hydra scart switch. Not the cheapest of equipment but I believe it’s definately the best currently available for this purpose.

And here is the finished unit in all its glory! I’ve currently placed some shelf fillers on there just so it doesn’t look empty but I actually have 3 of the large shelves available for usage and have a couple of other empty shelves elsewhere now as I moved the Jaguar and CD32 onto this unit.

I’m pretty happy with the result. So what do you think I should put on these new shelves???

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Cambridge Z88

I’m currently running low on places to put new systems until I build my new display unit (hopefully next week). So until then any system I bought needed to be small and easy to store. What better system than the Cambridge Z88 from Clive Sinclair. This system couldn’t be branded as a Sinclair system because Clive had already sold the Sinclair brand name to Amstrad at the time this was released (1987).

Managed to grab this one of eBay as untested so was expecting it to be broke and was going to try and revive it. But surprisingly it is in fully working order.

I look forward to seeing what I can get this thing do do with its built in serial port and BBC Basic.

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Amstrad CPC464

So here we have my first donation to the archive. An Amstrad CPC464 with the GT65 green screen monitor and a nice box of games. The CPC464 itself was nonworking so this was my first attempt at bringing an old computer back from the dead. I will put together a small write-up soon of how that went.

If you have any old computers that I am missing from my collection and wish to donate them, then please get in touch 😁

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Roland MT-32

Back in the days of DOS-based games and mainly point-and-click adventures, when you set up a game you had to choose your soundcard. Most people had a Soundblaster Compatible, some had the Adlib soundcard. However, there was also an option of the MT-32 or MPU401. I didn’t know anyone who had one of these and for good reason, they cost around £500 back in 1987 when they were released. I remember paying around £50 for a Soundblaster card and CD-ROM drive so the cost difference was quite substantial!

So what made it so special? Will the MT-32 is a MIDI Device that was connected to your PC via an MPU-401 hardware interface. This gave your computer access to the audio hardware that most of these tunes were actually written on back then. Songs like the theme tune to Monkey Island were actually composed on the MT-32 and therefore you would get to hear the music exactly like the musician intended it to be heard.

So after seeing some videos about this device, I knew I needed one in my collection, and it really doesn’t disappoint. Listening to Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Simon the sorcerer though this module adds a whole new atmosphere to the games.

I will do a write up on this soon. I will also put up some videos showing it working, and the difference between this and what we had to listen to back then.

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Greaseweazle F7 – Retro USB Floppy Writer

One issue people have these days is writing floppy images back to 3.5inch floppy disks so they can be used in retro computers such as the Amiga, Sam and Atari ST etc.

The first mistake people make is they just go out and buy a USB floppy drive. The problem is these devices don’t give direct access to the floppy drive hardware so none of the applications designed for this purpose work with them.

So now you have two options. You can either put together an old PC which has a floppy disk interface on the motherboard (I do already have one of these for this purpose). Or you can buy yourself a Greaseweasel interface! This interface links to a modern PC via USB and then connects up to an old flopppy drive. Combined with the software available from here: https://github.com/keirf/Greaseweazle you will now be able to read/write and format floppy disks in the correct format for retro computers.

I have designed and 3D printed a nice enclosure for this to all sit in which can be downloaded here if you want to print one yourself.

I purchased this device directly from Kier and it cost me £22 inc postage to the UK which I think is a brilliant price for a device that is going to be very useful for any retro computer collector. Head over to his Facebook page to find out more information on how to purchase one.

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3D Printed Dizzy!

I got bored so broke out Sketchup and drew this model of the Spectrum Dizzy sprite. It prints in two parts, the black part has cutouts so the white parts can push fit inside it (or in my case I used a hammer! I guess I still need to calibrate my printer a bit more).

If anyone wants to print one for themselves you can download the STL files here:

http://localhost/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Dizzy_3DSTL.zip

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The C64 Mini

So I had a small space on one of my units where a speaker used to sit. It wasn’t a big space so fitting a full-size computer in there wasn’t an option. The space was also longer than it was deep. So the solution? Fill it with a C64 Mini!

The fact I had some space, along with a £37 price tag on Amazon meant I couldn’t resist adding this one. Even though I have a real C64 and also a raspberry pi powered conversion, this thing just looked so cute.

I will do a full write up sometime in the future but it’s actually a really nice little device and comes as standard with the ability to load games direct from USB so no hacking required.

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Sam Coupé originals

I’m not a collector of software usually as with the number of systems I own that would become a very expensive hobby. But there was no way I could pass on grabbing these original Sam Coupé titles. With not much Sam software being released I hopefully won’t go bankrupt trying to get a complete set! I already have a selection of games including Lemmings and Oh No! More Lemmings so these are a nice addition.

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3D Acceleration from 2002

My old Shuttle xPC Windows XP PC has needed a little more grunt for a while. The motherboard has an 8x AGP slot so my choice of cards was slightly limited. After a bit of research I found the best AGP 8x card available and then discovered they fetch £150+ on eBay. So i started reducing my specification until I found some cards for a reasonable price. However, even at that point I came across an issue which I haven’t had for a long time, the Shuttle xPC only has a 230w power supply and this was no where near enough for the higher end AGP cards of the time.

I eventually settled for this little beauty. The GeForce 4 MX440. With a staggering 64mb of RAM and both VGA and DVI ports it’s an amazing piece of hardware for £15. Well maybe not amazing but it runs the orignal GTA at a frame rate that is far too fast to be playable so I have to turn the frame limiter on.

This PC is never really going to be used as a gaming machine, but it’s nice that it can run the old classics of which some don’t work very nicely, or at all in Windows 10 on modern hardware. Time to run up some of those old talkie editions of point and click adventures like Simon the Sorcerer and Day of the Tentacle.