Author: Croccy22

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Commodore Plus/4

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.

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Sinclair ZX81

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 🙂

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Philips CD Interactive

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.

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48K Speccy added to the collection

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.

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Sam Coupe HDMI Interface

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 🙂

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Panasonic FZ-1 (3DO)

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?

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Philips CM8833-ii

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.

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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???