I must thank my friends which have contributed to the growth of my Repair Laboratory with donations of spare parts.

For this donation i thank: Andrea Pierdomenico, Paolo M.R, Paolo Cognetti.

The items listed below are in poor condition and they are not working.

Donated items:

• 2 x Atari 800 XL
• 1 x Amstrad CPC 464
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2
• 2 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k
• 3 x Commodore 6499
• 1 x Joystick Spectravideo
• 1 x Joystick Suncom Slik Stik
• 1 x Joystick Competition Pro deluxe version (PC)
• 1 x Commodore VIC-20 RF Modulator
• 1 x Commodore VIC-20
• 1 x Philips MSX VG-8020
• 3 x Commodore 64 Power Supply
• 1 x Commodore Amiga 500 Power Supply
• 1 x Philips NMS 800 Data Recorder
• 1 x SVI Spectravideo 904 Data Cassette
• 1 x SVI Spectravideo 728 MSX Home Computer
• 1 x Commodore 16
• 1 x Commodore Floppy Drive 1541
• 1 x Apple IIc
• 6 x Sinclair Spectrum Microdrive (only the drive)
• 1 x Motherboard XT Clone
• 1 x Motherboard XT IBM 5150
• 1 x Power Supply Clone XT 5150
• 1 x MDA Graphics Card ISA
• 1 x Floppy Controller ISA
• 1 x Motherboard Amiga 600
• Some Floppy Disk.
• Some Tape Cassette.
• Some cables.

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 (2098)

Testing the Floppy Drive with the ZoomFloppy interface:

source: wikipedia

Some new games or tools (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups.

Titles:

• Robin of the Wood +12DG +PIC +MAP
• Camelot Warriors +8DG +Pic +Map
• Wizball USA +2 [ntsc/pal]
• Sergeant Seymour Robotcop +25D
• Tazz HS
• Rasdumje +1D
• Robin of the Wood +33D
• City Champ Preview
• Mario Clone Preview
• Blopp +1ED
• Fireblaster Preview
• Crystal Chamber Preview
• Ciphoid 9 +6DIH 101%
• Tales of the Arabian Nights +32D
• Air Sea Battle
• UFO Attack +J
• Looter 100% +1J
• Air Sea Battle +J
• Looter +
• UFO Attack
• Head-On +2D [onefiled]
• Invader Alert +ED 101%
• Savage Island 101% +1S
• Centipede Junior +1J
• Up’n Down +23D [crazy hack]

Download: All Games in One Archive (2857)

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:

◄12

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

Repair Commodore Amiga 3000 Motherboard with Battery leakage

There was once a motherboard of an Amiga 3000/25 devastated of the Battery acid where missings all the socketed components and others are unsoldered and recovered for other things.

The situation was not exactly the best one, in other words … was going into the box of spare parts.

I made the impossible, i have cleaned, scraped and rebuilt many tracks of the pcb corroded by the battery acid and i must say that with lot of patience i have repaired the motherboard giving a new life to this Amiga 3000/25 that he had no many chance to come back to work

I must thank my friends which have contributed to the growth of my Repair Laboratory with donations of spare parts.

Donated items:

• 2 x Sega Dreamcast
• 1 x Sinclair 128+
• 2 x Amiga 500 Memory Expansion
• 1 x Amiga Powersupply
• 1 x Philips Multi Voltage Power supply
• 1 x Commodore CBM/PET Power supply (complete and working)
• 1 x 8088 Motherboard (Clone)
• 1 x Floppy Drive Controller (ISA Card)
• 1 x MDA/Parallel Controller (ISA Card)
• 1 x PC Clone (8088) Power supply
• 6 x Unknown Adapter/Interface
• 1 x Atari 7800 Motherboard
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k Motherboard
• 1 x Pong Clone Motherboard
• 1 x Amstrad CPC 464 Motherboard
• 1 x Commodore 6499
• 1 x Power Supply C64/VIC20 (Clone)

Some new games or tools (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups.

Titles:

• Bozo’s Night Out +7HDG
• Vallation +6HD
• Foren Huren +Docs [pal/ntsc]
• Mag Max +8DGH +Pic
• Burnin’ Pen ’64
• Zappy Bird +2
• Ugh! +5DGM
• Eelona Preview +2
• Beyond the Night Run +3H
• Spike’s Peak 101% +7DGM
• I Can Remember +D
• Batman – The Caped Crusader USA + [ntsc/pal]
• Space Action 2 Preview
• Game Preview #1
• Game Preview #2
• Mad Ninja Preview
• Slug +30D +Fix
• King’s Valley Preview
• Burnin’ Pen ’64 [bugfix]
• Total Eclipse II -JEWEL-
• Mission Omega +1D

Download: All Games in One Archive (2880)

Commodore VIC-20 Repair

Defect:

• Black screen … then black and white image.

Replaced parts:

• Replaced 1 x 901486 KERNEL ROM (U12)
• To fix the problem of the image in black and white i have adjusted the “RED” trimmer (C48)

Commodore 16 Power Supply Repair

Defect:

• Output voltage in short circuit.

Replaced parts:

• Replaced 1 x 4700uf / 16v Electrolytic capacitor.
• Replaced 1 x 800mA Bridge rectifier.

This is another adapter (here the previous one) to replace the MPS 6550 RAM. This adapter replace a single MPS 6550 RAM chip in a Commodore PET 2001 with a standard 2114 RAM chip.

source: dasarodesigns.com

Commodore CBM 4032 (40 Columns) Repair

Defect:

• “Device not present” error when using the IEEE 488 port (Example Floppy Drive)
• Sometimes the computer show the prompt of the TIM monitor (Machine Language Monitor program)

Replaced parts:

• Replaced 1 x IC 6522 VIA (UB15)
• Replaced 1 x IC 6520 PIA (UB16)

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)

This Commodore PET 2001-8C also includes a homemade Power Amplifier to hear the sound of some games that use the pin CB2 of the User Port as audio output.

Also is included a reset button and two mini-led (Red / Green) that display the data (Save / Load) when using the tape recorder.

Some photos of the Commodore PET 2001-8C:

Copyright label on the motherboard:

Some photos of the repairing and cleaning:

Commodore PET 2001 (Chicklet) Repair datassette.

Defects:

• Doesn’t load any more.

Repair:

• Replace motor.
• Replace belt.
• Azimuth adjustment.

Thanks to Manosoft for the spare parts (white datassette, the same model of the black one)

Commodore PET 2001 (Chicklet) Repair.

Defects:

• Wrong chars on the screen.
• Memory problems.

Repair:

• Replaced all MOS 6550 main ram with an 6550 Ram Adapter by xAD & Manosoft (only 2 x MOS 6550 was faults)
• Replaced 1 x MOS 6550 Video Ram with a spare one from the main ram.

Video of Galaxy Invaders with Sounds:

from Wikipedia homepage:

The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) was a home/personal computer produced in 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.

Read more…

Hi all, like one year ago Manosoft amazes us again, this time he did a great job of merging the ITS TAP Player module with the C64SD and from this merger comes the Princess, an interface with both previously released interfaces.
The Princess interface is elegant as only Manosoft can do, the box color has changed and is a white sand that matches perfectly with the whole 8-bit Commodore Home Computer series.

In addition to the color were also added new controls and visual led. Below the instructions of each command on the front/back side of the Princess interface.

Front side:

• [1] Play/Stop switch for TAP file.
• [2] Reset button.
• [3] Disc Change button. (down/autoswap.lst)
• [4] LED:
  • Yellow – Virtual Motor of the Tape.
  • White – Reading.
  • Red – General Error.
  • Green – Power.
• [5] Floppy Drive Connector (IEC) Computer side.
• [6] Connector Cassette side Computer
• [7] Auxiliary Power 9v.

Back side:

• [1] SD Card slot.
• [2] Red Button – Setpoint tap file / (up/autoswap.lst)
• [3] Dip Switch for selecting the Floppy drive Device (SD2IEC).
• [4] Audio volume (monitor function) TAP Player.
• [5] Mini DIN 8-pin connector to be connected to the tape port of the Commodore 264 series.
• [6] Auxiliary Power 9v.
• [7] Pass-through Floppy Drive Connector (IEC)
• [8] Pass-through Tape connector to use with a Datasette 1530 or 1531 with a another adapter.

Like the previous C64SD v2.0 interface, the Princess has a pass-through connector for the cassette recorder and one for the Floppy Disk Drive.

I don’t forget to speak about the nice addition, a small Piezo Speaker to hear the sound of the bytes that are loaded with the TAP Player and also a nice “beep” that warn if the interface on power up working correctly.

Damiano alias “Manosoft” is a good manufacturer of 8 Bit peripherals and also a great friend. I take the opportunity of this article to greet Damiano and congratulate for this new interface for the 8-bit Commodore Home Computer series.

Soon will be available on the Manosoft website two new software packages (C64 and AIO)

“AIO” is an innovative system that will allow the creation of the SD Card of 4GB or higher in a few minutes from an image file created ad hoc.

On the Commodore 64 side was also written a new program called “MENU” with some utilities like the initialization of the SD Card for the Princess C64SD v3.0 interface.

The development of the TAP Player firmware with the SD2IEC protocol has been made possible thanks to the collaboration of Hawui1 promoter and developer of the ITS Module and some other things.

The Princess C64SD v3.0 interface will be available for sale in the next months on the Manosoft site.

Princess C64SD v3.0 Video Preview:

Gallery:

This adapter replaces all ram installed in the Commodore PET 2001 with a 6264 Static Ram and is useful when one or more ram are faulty. These type of ram are no longer available to purchase.

NOTE: This adapter will only work to replace a chip with a part number starting with MPS 6550. They will NOT replace other RAM types used in Commodore computers other than the original Commodore PET 2001.

The original design was done by Donni of the VCF forum (Vintage Computer Forums).

Unfortunately these pcb have a design problem, below the fix which needs to be done (i always forgot to post this fix, sorry)

Download: Original printable version by Donni (1196)