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

November 15th, 2011 Comments off

November 14th, 2011 2 comments

October 31st, 2011 1 comment

October 31st, 2011 Comments off

October 30th, 2011 1 comment

October 30th, 2011 2 comments

Unboxing Willem PRO 4 ISP Programmer

October 11th, 2011 11 comments
Willem PRO 4 ISP Programmer

Autopsy:

After ten years of use, i finally decided to replace my old Willem programmer with an updated version of this nice programmer. The Willem PRO 4 ISP.

Willem PRO 4 ISP is the most popular programmer on Europe. Programmer is built on two-sided laminate with metal-plated openings, solder mask complete with description of components.

Willem PRO 4 ISP could be connected into devices directly via ISP (In System Programming) connector.The main advantage of ISP is possibility to program devices directly in place without any need to dismount them. Because of that and high-tech software solutions our programmer is much more useful in various programming tasks. ISP could be powered directly by Willem Programmer or by device’s power supply.

source: programatory.com

September 28th, 2011 Comments off

Macintosh SE/30

August 29th, 2011 No comments
Macintosh SE/30 + Syquest 44 mb removable disk cartridge

Autopsy:

The Macintosh SE/30 is a personal computer that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1989 until 1991. It was the fastest and most expandable of the original black-and-white compact Macintosh series.

The SE/30 is essentially a Macintosh IIx in the same case as the Macintosh SE, with a black-and-white monitor and a single PDS slot (rather than the NuBus slots of the IIx) which supported third-party accelerators, network cards, or a display adapter. Although officially only able to support 32 MB, the SE/30 could expand up to 128 MB of RAM (a ludicrous amount of RAM at the time), and included a 40 or 80 MB hard drive.

It was also the first compact Mac to include a 1.44 MB high density floppy disk drive as standard (late versions of the SE had one, but earlier versions did not). In keeping with Apple’s practice from the Apple II+ until the Power Macintosh G3 was announced, a logic board upgrade was available to convert a regular SE to a SE/30. The SE would then have exactly the same specs as an SE/30, with the difference only in the floppy drive if the SE had a 800k drive. The set included a new front bezel to replace the original SE bezel with that of an SE/30.

source: wikipedia

Macintosh SE/30 Fixing Motherboard Faults

August 27th, 2011 5 comments

Macintosh SE/30 Fixing Motherboard Faults.

I spent many months (eight) to repair some of these macintosh SE/30 motherboard, like you can see in the gallery.

The flaws that i could find and repair are:

  • Some multiplexers (74F253 or like) burned.
  • Some Video Ram burned.
  • Very Dirty Motherboard.
  • Electrolytic capacitors have to be replaced.
  • Reseat the RAM and ROM SIMM.
  • Some track of the PCB broken or corroded by the acid.
  • Replaced the lithium battery with a new one.
  • Cold solder joint on chip: RP4/RP5/RP6 – UI2/UI3/UI4 – UJ2/UJ3/UJ4

The flaw that you see in the first picture and that should be the “Jail Bar Pattern” or “Smile Mac in Jail”, in this case is not been so. For this reason i spent a long time to find the fault.

However, i recovered 3 motherboards and I consider myself quite satisfied.

source: Repair Macintosh SE/30 68kmla.org #1 68kmla.org #2

Atari ST 3rd party Hardware

August 19th, 2011 No comments
Atari ST 3rd party Hardware

Autopsy:

Third Party Hardware for Atari ST.

Hardware Description (start from left to right):

  • Brush Mouse by Golden Image.
  • Steinberg Cubase Dongle.
  • Auto Mouse-Joystick switch for Atari/Amiga.
  • UhrModul Intern (Realtime Clock) by Hard & Soft.
  • XT Expansion Interface.
  • AdSCSI ST (SCSI Interface) by ICD.
  • Drive Master by Pratical Solutions.
  • ST Eprom Bank by Ilfa.
  • Soundtrack Digital HQ Sound Sampler by ACN.
  • Marpet MP210A 4Mb ram board.

Atari SF 354 Floppy Drive (second release)

August 17th, 2011 No comments
Atari SF 354 Floppy Drive

Autopsy:

This is a single-sided 3.5″ Floppy Drive for Atari ST series. This Floppy Drive can hold 360K of data on a disk.

Atari SF 354 Floppy Drive (first release)

August 17th, 2011 2 comments
Atari SF 354 Floppy Drive

Autopsy:

This is a single-sided 3.5″ Floppy Drive for Atari ST series. This Floppy Drive can hold 360K of data on a disk.

Cumana & Power Computing Atari ST Floppy Drive

August 15th, 2011 1 comment
img_9763

Autopsy:

Cumana & Power Computing are two hardware supplier for Amiga, Atari, Oric and so on. Here we present two examples of Floppy Drive compatible with the Atari ST series computers.

Atari Megafile SH 205

August 15th, 2011 No comments
Atari Megafile SH 205

Autopsy:

The SH 205 also known as Atari Megafile 20 has a capacity of 20 MB and a ACSI interface. The Atari SH 205 uses an old 20 Mb 5.25″ MFM (Modified Frequency Modulation) Hard Drives Seagate or Tandon.