I am very happy to have repaired for my friend four PCB Commodore in one and half hour.

The defects are:

• Motherboard Commodore 64 ASSY 250466 with IEC bus broken. (replaced ic 7406 – U8)
• Motherboard Commodore 64 ASSY 250407 with a Video Output problem with some programs, like FIBR File Manager. (replaced ic 6526 – U2)
• Motherboard Commodore 64 ASSY 250425 with strange character at startup. (replaced ic 4264 – U12)
• Motherboard Commodore Floppy 1541 ASSY 1540050 REV C with IEC bus broken. (replaced ic 7406 – UB1 and ic 7414 – UA1)

Today a friend has donated to me some nice things. Thanks Damiano (Manosoft).

Things that have been donated:

• Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2 Boxed.
• Commodore CD32 Joypad Brand new.
• VIC-20 Expansion Cartridge.
• Commodore C2N old model.
• Joystick Microswitch – The Bug from Cheetah.

Autopsy:

I found during my moving house a few boxes of unopened Floppy Disk 5.25 of Olivetti.

My Modern PC with a 5.25 Floppy Drive (Epson SD-600).

This Floppy Drive model works perfectly with the programs: Omniflop / winImage / raWrite.

Download: Diskette Configuration Guide (1379)

Here you can find the photos that show how is easy to install the interface Ultimate 1Mb module by Candle’o’Sin.

About the latest fix (RD4 & RD5) i have chose to put the resistors in the ribbon cable.

source: spiflash.org

After many years, i’ve finally re-found in a box one of my USRobotics Courier HST Modem v34 upgraded to 33.6Kbps.

I used this modem for my BBS ‘Hidden Power’, before this version of USRobotics i had the first  model that was much bigger and slower.

Autopsy:

from Wikipedia:

The iMac is a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers built by Apple. It has been the primary part of Apple’s consumer desktop offerings since its introduction in 1998, and has evolved through five distinct forms.

The announcement of the iMac in 1998 was a source of discussion and anticipation among commentators, Mac fans, and detractors. Opinions were divided over Apple’s drastic changes to the Macintosh hardware. At the time, Apple was trying to improve its retail strategy. Apple declared that “the back of our computer looks better than the front of anyone else’s”.

Apple declared the ‘i’ in iMac to stand for “Internet”; it also represented the product’s focus as a personal device (‘i’ for “individual”). Attention was given to the out-of-box experience: the user needed to go through only two steps to set up and connect to the Internet. “There’s no step 3!” was the catch-phrase in a popular iMac commercial narrated by actor Jeff Goldblum.

Another commercial, dubbed “Simplicity Shootout”, pitted seven-year-old Johann Thomas and his border collie Brodie, with an iMac, against Adam Taggart, a Stanford University MBA student, with an HP Pavilion 8250, in a race to set up their computers. Johann and Brodie finished in 8 minutes and 15 seconds, whereas Adam was still working on it by the end of the commercial. Apple later adopted the ‘i’ prefix across its consumer hardware and software lines, such as the iPod, iBook, iPhone, iPad and various pieces of software such as the iLife suite and iWork and the company’s media player/store, iTunes.

source: wikipedia

Autopsy:

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from Wikipedia:

The Power Macintosh 4400 (also known as the Power Macintosh 7220 in some markets) was a mid-to-high-end Macintosh personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from 1996 until 1998. The Power Macintosh 4400 was rather different from most other Macintosh models, in that the floppy disk drive is on the left rather than right, and like the Centris 650, the casing is made of metal rather than plastic. Apple did this to reduce production costs, and in addition also used more industry standard components.

It was also available in a PC compatible system with a 166 MHz DOS card containing 16 Mb of RAM. The first 4400 model was only sold to the Europe market, an updated 200 MHz 603e model was released in the United States in February 1997 as the Power Macintosh 4400.

The Power Macintosh 4400 is known as the Power Macintosh 7220 in Australia and Asia, where the number 4 is considered unlucky. The machine was always considered a bit of an oddball, and had a reputation as being one of Apple’s less well designed and performing machines.

source: wikipedia

Autopsy:

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from Wikipedia:

Bondwell was a US manufacturer of personal computers during the 1980s. In the early 1980s, Bondwell sold a line of Z80, CP/M-80 based Osborne-like luggables such as the models Bondwell-12, Bondwell-14 (1984) and Bondwell-16 (1985). An exceptional feature in these was an inbuilt speech synthesizer.

Their prices were exceptionally affordable for the time, although significant trade-offs were made in regard durability, for instance the chassis was rather flimsy plastic, falling far short of the ruggedness usually expected of luggables. The fanless power supply unit, located under the motherboard, often caused trouble. The choice of peripheral I/O devices made the use of interrupts virtually impossible.

The Bondwell-12 was a “luggable” portable computer with a built-in 9 inch (23 cm) monochrome CRT display, equipped with 64 kiB of internal memory, CP/M 2.2 and two single-sided, double density, 5.25 inch floppy disk drives (180 kiB). The Bondwell-14 had 128 kiB of memory, CP/M 3.0 and two double-sided drives (360 kiB). The Bondwell-16 had CP/M 3.0, one double-sided drive and a hard disk drive with a capacity of a bit less than 10 MiB.

The Bondwell-2 (1985) was a laptop computer with 64 kiB of memory, CP/M 2.2 and one single-sided, double density 3.5 inch floppy disk (360 kiB). 256 and 512 kiB memory extensions were available. It was one of the earliest laptops, as well as one of the few battery-powered CP/M computers.

source: wikipedia

Autopsy:

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from Wikipedia:

The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International. A top-seller in the Canadian and United States educational markets, it was Commodore’s first full-featured computer, and formed the basis for their entire 8-bit product line.

The PET 2001 was announced at the Winter CES in January 1977 and the first 100 units were shipped later that year in October. However, the PET was back-ordered for months and to ease deliveries, early in 1978 Commodore decided to cancel the 4 kB version.

Although the machine was fairly successful, there were frequent complaints about the tiny calculator-like keyboard, often referred to as a “chiclet keyboard” because the keys resembled the gum candy. This was addressed in upgraded “dash N” and “dash B” versions of the 2001, which put the cassette tape recorder outside the case, and included a much larger keyboard with a full stroke motion. Internally a newer motherboard was used, along with an upgrade from static RAM to dynamic RAM and 8, 16, or 32 KB, known as the 2001-N-8, 2001-N-16 or 2001-N-32, respectively.

Sales of the newer machines were strong, and Commodore then introduced the models to Europe. The result was the CBM 3000 series (‘CBM’ standing for Commodore Business Machines), which included the 3008, 3016 and 3032 models. Like the 2001-N-8, the 3008 was quickly dropped.

The final version of what could be thought of as the “classic” PET was the PET 4000 series. This was essentially the later model 2000 series, but with a larger black-and-green monitor and a newer version of Commodore’s BASIC programming language.

Commodore tried to update the PET line with a new redesign called the CBM-II series (also known as the B series). These were not as successful and were ultimately abandoned. However, due to demand, the original PET machines were revived and the CBM-II case style was retained. These were known as the SK’s (due to the separated keyboard). They also had a swivel monitor. Originally, standard 8032 boards were retrofitted into these cases. Later the SK models got a new mainboard that already included the 64 kB extension directly on the board and were sold as 8296 or, with a built-in 8250 dual disk drive, as 8296-D.

source: wikipedia

Autopsy:

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from Wikipedia:

The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International. A top-seller in the Canadian and United States educational markets, it was Commodore’s first full-featured computer, and formed the basis for their entire 8-bit product line.

The PET 2001 was announced at the Winter CES in January 1977 and the first 100 units were shipped later that year in October. However, the PET was back-ordered for months and to ease deliveries, early in 1978 Commodore decided to cancel the 4 kB version.

Although the machine was fairly successful, there were frequent complaints about the tiny calculator-like keyboard, often referred to as a “chiclet keyboard” because the keys resembled the gum candy. This was addressed in upgraded “dash N” and “dash B” versions of the 2001, which put the cassette tape recorder outside the case, and included a much larger keyboard with a full stroke motion. Internally a newer motherboard was used, along with an upgrade from static RAM to dynamic RAM and 8, 16, or 32 KB, known as the 2001-N-8, 2001-N-16 or 2001-N-32, respectively.

Sales of the newer machines were strong, and Commodore then introduced the models to Europe. The result was the CBM 3000 series (‘CBM’ standing for Commodore Business Machines), which included the 3008, 3016 and 3032 models. Like the 2001-N-8, the 3008 was quickly dropped.

The final version of what could be thought of as the “classic” PET was the PET 4000 series. This was essentially the later model 2000 series, but with a larger black-and-green monitor and a newer version of Commodore’s BASIC programming language.

source: wikipedia

Autopsy:

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from Wikipedia:

The Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (also marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and affectionately nicknamed CoCo) was a home computer launched in 1980.

It was one of the earliest of the first generation of computers marketed for home use in English-speaking markets. While the model was eventually eclipsed by the onset of the IBM PC clones, enthusiasts have continued to affectionately tinker with the “CoCo” to the present day.

The Tandy Color Computer line started in 1980 with what is now called the CoCo1 and ended in 1991 with the more powerful yet similar CoCo 3. It was one of the more powerful 8 bit computers of its day. All three CoCo models maintained a very high level of software and hardware compatibility, with few programs written for the older model not running on the newer.

The converse cannot be claimed, obviously, due to the greater capabilities of the newer CoCo models. The death knell of the CoCo was the advent of lower cost IBM PC clones, the same event that spelled the end of other models competing in the home computer market.

source: wikipedia

Today a friend has donated to me some nice things. Thanks Igor.

Things that have been donated:

• Amiga 1200 in nice cosmetic condition.
• Amiga 1200 Powersupply.
• Amiga Mouse (never used)
• Phase5 Blizzard 1260 / 80Mhz with SCSI Module and 4Mb of Ram.
• Commodore Amiga Video cable.

About the Amiga:

The A1200 offers a number of advantages over earlier budget Amiga models. Specifically, it is a 32-bit design, the 68EC020 microprocessor is faster than the 68000 and has 2 MB of RAM as standard.

The AGA chipset used in the A1200 is a significant improvement. AGA increases the color palette from 4096 colors to 16.8 million colors with up to 256 on-screen colors and an improved HAM mode allowing 262,144 on-screen colors. The graphics hardware also features improved sprite capacity and faster graphics performance. Additionally, compared to the A600 the A1200 was considered to offer greater expansion possibilities.

About the Blizzard 1260:

The Phase5 Blizzard 1260 is an accelerator which plugs into the trapdoor slot of the A1200. An optional SCSI-II controller is also available for this board. Includes a battery backed up clock. The card was also manufactured by DCE when Phase 5 went bust.

source: wikipedia amiga-hardware

Autopsy:

After many years of use i have decided to replace my pfSense IPCop firewall installed on a Pentium III 500MHz / 512MB RAM with an embedded system like the “PC Engines Alix”.

The PC Engines ALIX series of system boards gives OEMs a higher performance replacement for the WRAP series of system boards.

Applications: Thin clients, kiosks, industrial user interface, wireless routers, firewalls, special purpose network devices…

source: varia-store.com

These are some of my old PC cards that i bought over the years and i have discovered in a box during the moving house.

Full List: