I’ve been a bit lazy recently and have been buying stuff without adding it to my site, so over the next couple of days I will update it with some new purchases and projects. The first of which is the ZX Spectrum +3.
Like most +3s the drive belt had gone and needed replacing, I also had to do the audio mod so the sound is no longer distorted over RGB scart. But other than that it all works beautifully. The next issue is the orignal games can be quite expensive. You can put a Gotek drive in these but I already have multiple DivIDEs for the spectrum so loading games isnt an issue. What I really want is something to make use of the drive. So, I have purchased some blank disks and a Multiface 3 expansion so i can snapshot games to disk. That should keep me entertained for a few minutes at least.
and here is a photo of it in pieces undergoing an internal refurb
As much as I love my Hydra Scart switches, they are a tad on the pricey side. I’ve got a few of them for the main bulk of my consoles/computers in the lounge, but I have two more TVs in the bedroom that require a Scart switch solution.
I did try building my own a while back and they kind of work, but I get some weird interference sometimes which needs a re-design on the board I made to overcome the issue. But before spending any more time on that I had a look around on Aliexpress to see if there were any new options on the market.
That is when I came across these:
They looked to be exactly what I was after as they are fully automatic and also have some additional output options such as a 3.5mm audio which I needed as the speakers on my CRT are terrible!
The other thing that appealed to me was the fact it uses relays to switch the sources. This may seem like an old-fashioned way of doing it, but it means the system will likely be robust and minimises the chance of any interference as it will create a physical air gap. The hydras come with a warning (my version did at least) that connecting consoles whilst the unit is scanning could result in the chips being damaged. It’s not the end of the world, but I just think the setup on this unit is a bit less likely to fail.
I have connected one of these up already and have it switching between a Playstation 1, PS2, Sony VCR and a Digital TV box. It just works absolutely perfectly, automatically switching when a new console is turned on, then falling back to the previous source when turned off.
I purchased my units from here https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003688535345.html and they took about 3 weeks to arrive in the UK which isn’t too bad really. So far I am extremely happy with them. I’ll be sure to update everyone if I find any additional features or any issues in the future.
And no I don’t mean the A500 Mini! My latest acquisition is non-other than the Amiga A600. Not the most popular machine back in its day but it is pretty cute and it fits onto a small shelf a lot easier than the Amiga 500 did.
This one currently has a fault with its floppy drive which I need to look at (or replace with a Gotek). It also has a bit of yellowing on its keyboard so I will be stripping that down and retro-brighting it over the weekend. But other than that it’s in pretty good condition. Due to a lack of space, I am probably going to retire my Amiga 500 to storage for a bit as I need the shelf for my Archimedes. So hopefully I will find a smaller spot for the 600 to sit.
As well as a general clean and refurb, I will also be fitting a Compact Flash adapter to this one so I can use it with WHD-Load.
Back in my old school, we had a mixture of Acorn BBCs, RM Nimbus PCs, Amstrad PCW Word Processors and even an Amiga. But down in our Design and Technology department, there was also another curious device sitting in the corner that seemed to have no purpose other than to play a 3D spaceship game titled “Lander”.
This device was an Acorn Archimedes A3000. I have always been curious about these devices as I didn’t get much time to play with it back then and have never come across one in person since.
It’s been on my list of computers to add to my collection for a while, but they have one pretty big issue, A little battery sat inside them on the main PCB. The years have not been kind to these batteries and they have pretty much all leaked, destroying various components and PCB traces along the way. If ever you see one of these devices for sale on eBay sold as “Untested”, you can be pretty sure that it has been tested and it’s very much broken. The price difference between a fully tested unit and a broken one is pretty substantial so of course, the seller has spent a few minutes plugging it in to see if he can make a few hundred extra pounds!
The only question left is how badly the board is destroyed and how much work will be needed to repair them.
Well, luckily I came across a sale on a Facebook group for an Archimedes A3020 (Which was the version normally sold to schools). This unit tested as far as it booting up to the desktop so there was a pretty good chance the damage wasn’t too bad.
After collecting the computer, the first thing I did was removed the old battery and neutralised the alkaline gunk on the board using lemon juice (No white vinegar in stock at our local supermarket and I was too impatient to wait!). Once this was done, I then wiped down the area with IPA and finally gave it all a good wash with distilled water.
One component was damaged next to the battery but it was just a resistor so I replaced that one. Also, I later found the floppy drive was intermittent and found a trace on the bottom of the board that was broken, so I replaced this with a thin wire. Apart from that the computer all boots up, the floppy drive works and it all seems happy!
So my plans moving forwards? I have already given it a good clean and retro-brighted the keys as they had yellowed a bit. I have also put a Gotek drive in it so I can use disk images from a USB pen. I am now currently designing a mount to hold an OLED display and buttons to navigate the disk images. This is being designed to also conveniently hide the security markings etched into the top of the case. I also want to look at an internal hard drive solution since this version has the onboard IDE port.
So, here it is! Ladies and Gentlemen, the Acorn Archimedes A3020!
I was offered this device untested for a price I couldn’t refuse. From a photo, I could see the TV part would power on but nothing else was displayed.
Having picked up the computer, I got it home and started testing, first I plugged the PC part into another monitor and apart from the CMOS battery is dead, it looked good. Then after a bit of research, I found you could switch the inputs by pushing the two volume buttons at the same time. Everything sprang into life and it all works!
These devices seem pretty rare these days, I can only find a few brief mentions of them on the internet. The device is from 1995 and was sold exclusively in Toys ‘r’ us. It’s basically a 486 DX2-66 based PC with a TV/Monitor built in and a TV Tuner on board.
The only issue I have is it didn’t come with a remote control, so currently, I am unable to switch the video input to the Scart or composite inputs on the back. On initial investigation, these seem to be controlled via a DOS executable on the PC combined with a Windows DLL file that sends commands internally via the I2C protocol. Maybe one day soon I’ll dig a little deeper and see if I can call some of the DLL routines without relying on the remote control to trigger them.
This is going to be a fun one to mess around with!
After pre-ordering back in July last year and then patiently waiting (which I’m not very good at). My steamdeck has finally arrived. So the first thing I did was tested the performance to the absolute max and played Monkey Island on it 🤣
Funnily enough the deck managed to play this at full frame rate with no issues 👌
I did try go on and test some less well known games such as Grand Theft Auto 5. It is pretty amazing to see this game running with high settings at 60fps on a handheld PC. This truly is a VERY capable handheld gaming machine.
I’ve also spent a brief amount of time messing around with emulators and currently have it emulating PS2 games pretty well. I will be spending more time on that side of things in the near future.
If you are still waiting for yours to arrive, you will not be disappointed!
This allows you to plug up to three 8bit ISA cards into the PPC512. I built up the board with just one ISA slot to start with (There was only one available on eBay and I can’t find them for sale in the UK anywhere at the moment so have to wait for some to come from China).
My first experiment was to connect a Soundblaster sound card. This is possible thanks to the Unisound DOS driver which is a driver and config utility for Plug and Play sound card under DOS.
As you can hear in the video above, this worked perfectly. A much better gaming experience than the internal beeper 🙂
The next test was to plug in an external EGA Graphics card. Luckily the wiring for CGA is the same as EGA, so I didn’t have to change any cables. Also, the RGBtoHDMI board in my monitor already supports EGA. So all I had to do was flip a couple of DIP switches on the PPC512 to tell it to use an external video card and voila!
I now have 16 glorious colours on screen at the same time and my Lemmings are the right colour as opposed to their weird pink and cyan CGA versions.
I am really impressed with what I’m being able to get out of this 086 8Mhz PC with 512k of memory.
I now need to wait for the other ISA connectors to arrive so I can get both cards connected at once. In the meantime, I think I’m going to design a 3D printed case to hold the expansion board and the ISA cards securely in place.
I’ve had quite a lot of people interested in my mini CGA monitor build so have put together a build guide to show what components I used. I have also uploaded the 3D printable files so anyone with access to a 3D printer can build their own.
I do still need to complete the wiring diagram for one of the cables which I will do shortly, I just forgot to take a photo of it before I put everything back together!
Click the link below to find out more, or head over to the “Projects” section of my website.
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!
