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Archive for the ‘Retro Computers and other stuff…’ Category

Apple Macintosh SE

November 29th, 2014 No comments
Apple Macintosh SE

Gallery:

The Macintosh SE is a personal computer manufactured by Apple between March 1987 and October 1990.

This computer marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Macintosh II. It had a similar case to the original Macintosh computer, but with slight differences in color and styling.

Features:

The SE’s notable new features, compared to its similar predecessor the Macintosh Plus, were:

  • First compact Macintosh with an internal drive bay for a hard disk (originally 20 MB or 40 MB) or a second floppy drive.
  • First compact Macintosh that featured an expansion slot (SE stood for “System Expansion”).
  • Used the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB), introduced with the Apple IIGS, for keyboard and mouse interface.
  • Improved SCSI support with faster data throughput.
  • Better reliability and longer life expectancy due to the addition of a cooling fan.

source: wikipedia

Restoration Commodore Amiga 500 (ASSY 312512 – REV 3)

November 25th, 2014 12 comments
Commodore Amiga 500 (ASSY 312512 - REV 3)

I have received a Commodore Amiga 500 to use as spare parts. I decided to restore because it’s a ASSY 312512 (Revision 3) with key-switch like IBM chiclet keyboards.

The cleaning took me a whole day but with a great satisfaction at the end of the work. The Commodore Amiga 500 works fine, the floppy drive reads very well and i have added a memory expansion (FAST RAM) of 512k.

Gallery of images (before and after cleaning):

Read more…

Radio Shack Tandy 4000SX

November 23rd, 2014 2 comments
Radio Shack Tandy 4000SX

I thank my dear friend Ciro (www.ti99iuc.it) for giving me the Personal Computer Radio Shack Tandy 4000SX.

Some photo:

Tandy 4000SX uses a intel 80386SX microprocessor at 16 megahertz, 32-bit CPU Offers true Intel 386 processing in a 286 hardware environment.

Tandy designed and engineered with full IBM PC/AT compatibility. Uses hardware and software compatible with the IBM standard for IBM PC/XT/AT computers.

source: radioshack.com

Texas Instruments Expansion System (Peripheral Expansion Box)

November 9th, 2014 No comments
Texas Instruments Expansion System (Peripheral Expansion Box - PEB)

I thank my dear friend Ciro (www.ti99iuc.it) for giving me the “Peripheral Expansion System” and for making me discover a whole new world of the Home Computer Texas Instruments TI-99/4A.

Gallery:

The Peripheral Expansion Box (aka P-Box or PEB) is a stable, silver/gray plastic and die-cast metal box containing eight slots for peripheral expansion cards and a compartment for a floppy drive or two drives of half height (“slim-line”, slim as understood in the 70ies and 80ies; today it is the normal height of 5,25″ drives for PCs).

The PEB offers space for 8 expansion cards. All slots are wired in parallel, and the power supply is designed to supply all cards including up to two floppy drives. Floppy drives may be put into the right compartment of the box.

With the appearance of hard disk controller cards, users tried to mount hard drives into the box into the floppy compartment. However, the power supply is not designed to sustain the current required for the hard drives; thus, a separate power supply is recommended.

All peripheral cards are expected to provide their own voltage regulators. Therefore, it is not recommended to replace the power supply by today’s PC switched power supplies, as those already provide regulated power which may cause the regulators on the cards to lower the voltage below the acceptable range.

Zoe playing at Ms.Pac man on the TI-99/4A:

source: ninerpedia.org

Atari 7800 ProSystem (NTSC) Repair

November 3rd, 2014 No comments

Atari 7800 ProSystem (NTSC) Repair.

Defect:

  • The console doesn’t power on.

Replaced parts:

  • Replaced 1 x Push Button. Recovered from a PCB of an Atari 7800 that lying inside the box of the spare parts.

Yamaha AX-200M MSX (Arabic) ROM Dump

November 3rd, 2014 1 comment

Yamaha AX-200M MSX (Arabic) ROM Dump (click to enlarge)

Download: Yamaha AX-200M MSX (Arabic) ROM-IC321-27256 (1277)

Perfect – Daewoo MSX 2 (Arabic) Rom Dump

November 2nd, 2014 1 comment

Perfect – Daewoo MSX 2 (Arabic) Rom Dump (click to enlarge)

Download: Perfect - Daewoo MSX 2 (Arabic) Rom Dump (1350)

Spectravideo SVI-728 MSX (Arabic) Rom Dump

November 2nd, 2014 3 comments

Spectravideo SVI-728 MSX (Arabic) Rom Dump (click to enlarge)

Download: SVI-728 (Arabic) ROM-ic48 OKI M27128 Prom (1468)

Commodore CBM 4040 Dual Drive Floppy Disk

October 19th, 2014 No comments
Commodore CBM 4040 Dual Drive Floppy Disk

I must thank Davide M. for the donation.

Gallery:

The Commodore 4040 is the replacement for the previous models 2040 (USA) and 3040 (Europe). It’s a dual drive 5¼” floppy disk subsystem for Commodore International computers. It uses a wide case form, and uses the IEEE-488 interface common to Commodore PET/CBM computers.

These drive models use a similar single density, single side floppy data storage format to that used by the Commodore 1541 drive, but with a slightly different data marker indicating which model originally formatted the disk. The low-level disk format was similar enough to allow reading between models, but different enough that one series of drive models could not reliably write to disks formatted with one of the other model series.

Download: CBM 2040-3040-4040-8050 Disk Drive Manual (2070)

Testing the Floppy Drive with the ZoomFloppy interface:

source: wikipedia

Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 Data Terminal (DT-1)

October 7th, 2014 No comments

The Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 DT-1 is a video terminal. It is ideally suited for communications with the TRS-80 Model 16 Multi-User Office System or with other host computers. With a low-cost Tandy acoustic coupler it can also access time-sharing information networks.

Gallery:

State-of-the-Art Design:

Unlike many terminals, you can easily set up and change the configuration on your DT-1 from the keyboard. A revolutionary non-volatile memory that retains your terminal configuration even with power off and without battery backup!

Multiple Emulation Modes:

The DT-1 is completely code compatible with four standard terminal protocols.

  • Televideo 910
  • Lear Siegler ADM-5
  • ADDS 25
  • Hazeltine 1410

The 30.5 cm diagonal CRT displays 24 lines of 80 upper and lower case characters per line. Special single-character symbols are used to display control characters.

Dual-Speed Repeat:

Any character can be repeated by merely holding down the desired key. After several characters are repeated, the DT-1 will automatically repeat the characters at a faster rate.

Two Printer Ports:

The TRS-80 DT-1 can be equipped for hardcopy output by connecting a printer to the built-in RS-232C serial interface or parallel interface.

Special Features:

A local monitor mode lets you enable printer ports and position the cursor using local control and escape modes. The carrige return key can be programmed with or without a line feed. Control key termination codes are also user programmable. An electronic bell is standard.

TRS-80 DT-1 Highlights:

  • Data Transfer: 75,110,150,300,600,1200,2400,4800,9600,19200
  • Cursor: Four keyboard-selectable types: Steady, Blinking Block, Steady or Blinking Underline.
  • Video Attributes: Normal, reverse, Invisible, Blink, Underline and Half-Intensity Video.

Download:

Video:

A new donation from Simone B.

September 29th, 2014 No comments

I thank Simone B. for the donation. The donation was made through the Blog.

Donated item:

  • Sinclair Spectrum 128k +2a – Boxed (Black version)
  • Sinclair Spectrum 128k +2  – Boxed (Grey version)

Prism QL14 Monitor for Sinclair QL computer

September 23rd, 2014 No comments

The Prism QL 14 is a Color Monitor for Sinclair QL. The monitor has an Scart input (RGB) but unfortunately that is not fully compatible with other devices that use the Scart output as video.

Some photos of the monitor cleaning:

Commodore TV Game Model 3000H (Pong Clone)

September 21st, 2014 No comments

I thank my friend Giacomo Vernoni for having given me this console that i was looking for a long times. This the link of the Giacomo blog where you can find a complete review of this console with some beautiful photos.

Gallery:

Following Commodore’s acquistion of MOS technologies (famous for producing the later 6502 chip for the PET), the Pong-like TV Game consoles 2000K and 3000H made their appearance.

The 3000H console features two paddles (sliders), one internal and one connected by wire (with 2 additional optional sliders); 9VDC or battery power (6 AA batteries required, yes it can run on batteries!).  It generates its own sound with the built-in speaker and can play 4 games: Tennis, Target (with an optional light gun), Football and Squash.  There is also a gage for difficulty level (handicap), and another for the number of players and other settings.

The cool thing is that the core chip, the MOS 7601 (the last of MOS’s Pong-chip line) read game instructions from a special ROM which appears to be internal to the chip, making it stand out from the other Pong-clones that had the game hard-coded into the system’s logic

However, because graphics and sound are also generated directly by the 7601 and are hardwired into the chip’s logic, it meantthat special variants had to be created if a special display was required for an arbitrary application. Thus, the 7601 in the TV Game series, while being programmable in a crude sense, is hardwired to generate the graphics for the TV Game series’ internal games only and cannot be used into drawing other kinds of shapes.

Games available were the following four:

  • Game mira (playable with an optional optical gun )
  • Tennis
  • Football
  • Squash

source: computinghistory.org.uk

Epson PX-4+ Easy Repair

September 14th, 2014 3 comments
Epson PX-4+ Easy Repair

Gallery:

Epson PX-4+ Easy Repair

Defect:

  • Dead.

Replaced parts:

  • Replaced 1 x Fuse 3A

Removed the internal Backup Battery (RB 301) 4.8v 90mA.

Commodore PET 2001-8C (Chiclet): Brothers of the same father

August 25th, 2014 No comments

These are my two Commodore PET 2001-8C (Chiclet). They are two different models, below i will list the differences.

On the left:

  • Different front Label.
  • PET Motherboard ASSY 320132
  • Different Copyright Label on motherboard (1978)
  • Uses the 2114 ram ic for the Main memory and for the Video ram.
  • CRT tube with green phosphor.
  • The transformer, the big electrolytic capacitor and the power connector are different.
  • Datassette Motherboard ASSY 320275-B (1978)

On the right:

  • Different front Label.
  • Motherboard ASSY 320008
  • Different Copyright Label on motherboard (1977)
  • Uses the MOS 6550 ram ic for the Main memory and for the Video ram.
  • CRT tube with white phosphor.
  • The transformer, the big electrolytic capacitor and the power connector are different.
  • Datassette Motherboard ASSY 320109.E (1977)