I was originally going to replace the green screen LCD on my PPC512 with a modern LCD colour screen. But there was nothing physically wrong with the built in monitor apart from the horrible motion blur. It seemed a shame to butcher a fully working device. So instead I opened up my CAD program and designed and built a mini “CRT” monitor for it. It holds an 8inch LCD panel and a RGBtoHDMI board for doing the CGA conversion. I will do a write up soon with instructions on how to build your own, including the 3D stl files to print your own.
Along with my collection of computers and consoles, I also collect various other bits of old technology. I recently picked up this “new” portable LCD TV for a bargain price. Obviously, these devices only pick up analogue signals which are no longer transmitted in the UK. But with the help of my HackRF (Software Defined Radio) and a brilliant little program called HackTV, I am able to broadcast analogue TV along with Teletext signals within the walls of my own home.
I know it’s kind of pointless, but I’ve enjoyed playing around with it. And what better show to be broadcasting than the entire series on Games Master 🙂
I can now turn on any of the old CRTs and tune them into GamesMaster whenever I want!
So whilst decorating, the Psion Series 3 decided it wasn’t getting enough attention and jumped off a shelf onto the new laminate flooring. Sad to say, resusitation was not succesfull after breaking several body parts.
So I decided to take a look around for a replacement and came up with two options. Either a Series 3a which was the same computer but with a larger screen or a series 5 which was bigger in size, had a better keyboard and was more powerful.
I chose both of them 🙂 So say hello the Series 3a and Series 5!
This is another computer I’ve actually had for a little while now, but when I purchased it, it had a missing key. I was planning on 3D printing a replacement, which I got as far as designing the model and printing the prototype using my resin printer. But then I came across a unit being sold as spares or repairs so decided to grab that and fit the original key to this machine. So now it’s fully functional and looks in great condition. I’ve added the spares or repairs machine to my repair pile to fix up one day in the future 🙂
The plus series of the 464 had the advantage of having a cartridge slot on the side for loading the cartridge-based games including the games that play on the GX4000 console. I actually prefer the styling on the plus machines too.
I’ve moved the M4 board over to this machine now so I can load games from SD card or over WiFi, which is a lot more convenient than waiting for the tapes to load 🙂
I’ve had this machine for about a week now and am still enjoying tinkering with it. This luggable computer was the first IBM compatible portable PC made by Amstrad. It comes with it’s own backpack to carry it in, and if you want to use it on the go it will quite happily eat 10x C cell batteries in about an hour!
It has it’s own built-in green screen LCD but also has an external CGA monitor output on the back for that high-end gaming experience 🙂
The computer doesn’t have a hard drive but does have two Double Density floppy drives on the side. This is pretty useful since most of the time you will want the DOS boot disk in the primary drive. I have already swapped out drive A: with a Gotek drive to make booting the machine and loading old software a bit easier than constantly transferring stuff onto floppy disks.
I was actually planning on replacing the green screen LCD with a 9inch colour panel, but after using it for a bit I really feel it would spoil the charm of this machine, and the screen is in perfect working order. So instead, as a side project, I am currently building a mini 8 inch CGA External monitor to sit alongside it (Keep an eye on my blog for updates).
I will do a full write up of my experience using this machine once I’ve had a bit more chance to play around with it. I’ve already connected a WiFi modem up to it and trawled around some BBSs 🙂
