Category: Computer System

After buying one of these as spares or repairs to try and fix up, I hit a bit of a stumbling block when I discovered the internal DC-DC converter seemed to be dead. I looked around for the schematics but didn’t have any luck. So I decided to get a second one and combine the two using the best parts of each, and now I have a fully working one I can measure the voltages and maybe resurrect the other one in the future.

But for now I have this one fully functional with the 40mb Hard Drive and a 4MB Ram expansion. Looking at the contents on the HDD it seems it once belonged to Woolworths! I guess they didn’t have proper disposal procedures back then.

Whilst I had it in pieces, I also fixed the common issue with the Dallas RTC chip being dead. This means it doesn’t remember any of its settings after you turn it off, and you then have to boot it from floppy to configure the HDD.

I’ve replaced it with a modern alternative so now the battery is easily replaceable in the future.

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

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!

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 🙂

I have wanted one of these in my collection for ages but at around £200-250 for an unboxed one, I had decided to wait to see if a better offer came along. Typically two then came at once so I had to buy both of them!

The first of which arrived today. This one was the first purchase and I took a bit of a chance on this one. It was from an online shop that deals with retro computers/consoles. They advertised it as not working and said it may require a new ULA. I actually have a poor condition grey +2 sat in a cupboard somewhere so a new ULA wasn’t going to be an issue. So for £120 including next day delivery, I went for it as I thought it would be fun troubleshooting the issue and hopefully bringing it back to life.

Not only is it in great condition. But I plugged it in and it works perfectly! No issues that I can see whatsoever. I have no idea how they came to the conclusion that it was broken. The only thing I can think of is that maybe the RF output doesn’t work? I will have to test this as I am currently (and always will) using an RGB Cable.

So I think I ended up with a pretty good deal on this one. Hopefully, the second unit should be here in a couple of days and that one was fully working but needed a new keyboard membrane.

I have replaced the membrane in this one also as it is almost certainly going to die in the near future, they all do!