I have received two Computer Apricot F1e without accessories and aesthetically destroyed so i have decided to recover all that was possible.
This gallery shows some stages of the repairing of the Floppy Drives of the Commodore SFD-1001 & Commodore CBM 8296D.
Defects found on the Floppy Drives:
The difficulty was rebuild the tracks of the pcb and remove the most of the leaked acid of the capacitors. Unfortunately on the aesthetic level this type of repair are not perfect, but i’m glad that all drives now work.
To test the correct operation of the Floppy Drives i have used a working SFD-1001 with a ZoomFloppy Interface through the IEEE-488.
Replacing bad capacitors (Floppy Drive #1):
Replacing bad capacitors (Floppy Drive #2):
Replacing bad capacitors (Floppy Drive #3):
The reason of the replacement is the leaky capacitor.
The Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors (SMD) used in these machines eventually exude their conductive contents onto the mainboard causing short circuits and corrosion of the pcb tracks.
Replacing the capacitors on an Apple Macintosh Classic II:
As you can see from the first photo i had to replace the cathode ray tube (CRT) of a Macintosh SE/30 because has a “ghost image”.
The replacement is very simple but you have to replace also the deflection yoke because the yoke connector is different between Classic and SE/30.
The replacement of the deflection yoke obviously also involves the calibration of the image. The calibration of the image is not simple and should be done with the computer on. Be careful there are very high voltages on the cathode ray tube (CRT).
Gallery of the replacement:
Below a short description of the repair.
Commodore PET 2001 (1977) Chiclet Keyboard (#1)
Defect:
Diagnosis/Repair:
Gallery of the repair:
Commodore PET 2001 (1978) Chiclet Keyboard (#2)
Defect:
Diagnosis/Repair:
Gallery of the repair:
Ikari has released a new firmware for the SD2Snes Flash Cartridge (Super Nintendo/Famicom). The upgrade instructions can be found here.
Download: SD2Snes Firmware v0.1.7 Beta/Preview Rev 4 (1311)
Full Changelog:
Forth, the Language.
Forth is a different language. It’s aged and a little weird.
What’s cool about it? It’s a very low-level and minimal language without any automatic memory management. At the same time, it easily scales to become a very high-level and domain-specific language, much like Lisp. Compared to C64 Basic, Forth is more attractive in almost every way.
It is a lot more fast, memory effective and powerful. Compared to C, specifically cc65, the story is a little different. It’s hard to make a fair comparison. Theoretically Forth code can be very memory efficient, and it’s possible to make Forth code that is leaner than C code. But it is also true that cc65 code is generally much faster than Forth code.
Download: durexForth v1.4 + Manual (1370)
source: noname.c64.org
Jean-François DEL NERO (who’s behind the HxC SD Floppy Emulator) recently has released a version of the HxC emulator firmware that is compatible with the STM32 chip used in the Gotek floppy emulators.
This means that the great functionality of the HxC SD emulator is now available on cheaper and more widely available hardware.
The bootloader to convert the Gotek floppy drive in HxC compatible must be purchased on the website HXC 2001 by sending an email to Jean-François DEL NERO. The price of the bootloader is one-off 10 Euro per Gotek that you want to update. Future updates of the software are free and can be made from a USB stick
The HXC Usb (Gotek) firmware supports: 
Release notes Firmware USB HxCFloppyEmulator v3.0.5.4a
Download: USB Stick STM32 (Gotek) HxC Firmware v3.0.5.4a (1863)
source: hxc2001.com
SNDH archive v4.5 released - 355 new/updated SNDH files (1731 subtunes).
Ever since the birth of the Atari ST, different chip music formats have had different ways to use them. If you are coding a chip music player for the Atari ST you would have to use dozens and dozens of special ways to replay music.
But in the mid 90′s, BDC of Aura crew became tired of this inelegant system and decided to fix the issue once and for all. He then created the ‘SNDH’ file format. SNDH is actually the original songfile and replaycode with a header bolted on top of the music and replayer. The header has a unified calling interface no matter what type of chip music is hidden beneath it, and it has extended datas about the music.
Download: SNDH Atari ST YM2149 Archive v4.5 (1476)
source: sndh.atari.org
Some new games or tools (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups.
Titles:
Download: All Games in One Archive (3452)
source: csdb.dk
Jean-François DEL NERO (who’s behind the HxC SD Floppy Emulator) recently has released a version of the HxC emulator firmware that is compatible with the STM32 chip used in the Gotek floppy emulators.
This means that the great functionality of the HxC SD emulator is now available on cheaper and more widely available hardware.
The bootloader to convert the Gotek floppy drive in HxC compatible must be purchased on the website HXC 2001 by sending an email to Jean-François DEL NERO. The price of the bootloader is one-off 10 Euro per Gotek that you want to update. Future updates of the software are free and can be made from a USB stick
The HXC Usb (Gotek) firmware supports:
Flashing the Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware:
Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware (Testing on Amiga Computer):
Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware (Testing on Amstrad CPC computer):
Gotek floppy emulator with HxC firmware (Testing on Atari ST Computer):
Gotek Audio Track Loader:
The schematics is here
Components:
I have to thank Jean-François DEL NERO for the support that he gave me for the bootloader programming.
source: hxc2001.com
In this short article (i don’t like to writing long articles that nobody reads) i share with you the three days spent with some dear friends.
Thursday 25th June at 6:45am i took the train to Rome/Termini, the journey is went well without a hitch on the times. I’m arrived in Rome/Termini at 12:20pm where i met Andrea, from Rome/Termini we took another train that took us to Nettuno.
Arrived in Nettuno we went to eat a sandwich, i was starving :-D, then we went to the “den” of Andrea and we immediately put to work, my initial idea with Andrea
it was to repair more computers possible in three days. In the afternoon we heard at the phone Paolo and Ciro. Thursday evening we went to the Andrea house for the dinner where i have known the wife and the daughter.
Friday morning wake up at dawn and we are back to the “den” to continue the repairs and half morning it came Paolo, could not resist one more day to see me ;-D
the appointment for the barbecue together was scheduled for Saturday, the day after. Friday Afternoon came Ciro and we spent the afternoon together to talking and in the meantime we have made repairs and testing of computers turned off for over 30 years, we never stopped to work. Friday evening with Andrea and Ciro we went out to eat, the photos of the three dishes speak for themselves :-D
Saturday morning with Ciro we are moved from Anzio to Nettuno where we have continued to do repairs and talk. Saturday afternoon/evening they arrived Paolo and Carlo, i had never met Carlo in person, but it’s as if i knew him always, we write and hear at the phone often. The evening is ended with a large barbecue where we talked not only of “Retro” until around the midnight. i had to go to sleep, the next day there was the train from Rome/Termini at 8:45am to back home.
I have spent three wonderful days with a friends which sharing the same passion. Thanks again to all.
Below a gallery of the photos taken in these three days.
The High Voltage SID Collection (HVSC) is a freeware hobby project which organises Commodore 64 music (also known as SID music) into an archive for both musicians and fans alike.
The work on the collection is done completely in the Team and contributors’ spare time and is proudly one of the largest and most accurate computer music collections known.
This update features (all approximates):
Download:
source: www.hvsc.c64.org
Some new games or tools (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups.
Titles:
Download: All Games in One Archive (3248)
source: csdb.dk
This is the official demo party results from Nordlicht 2015 (Top 3 Entries only). See also the CSDB Nordlicht 2015 section for more informations and download.
C64 Demo:
C64 Music:
C64 Graphics:
Productions released outside compos:
Download: Nordlicht 2015 full Party stuff (1084)
source: csdb.dk
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