Leaded Solder
Posts
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Guest Project - a Model M refresh
A few years ago, my friend Grant completed a refresh of one of his Model M keyboards (I know, right?) Here’s his writeup on the process.
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Atari 1040STF mouse repair
I popped open my “good” Atari ST today. As you might remember, I have two 1040STFs: a very battered one I got from a flea market, and a nice-condition one that was owned by a guy who really cared about it, but had passed away. The only thing that was really wrong with this machine is that the mouse didn’t work.
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Attempting dual Goteks in the PC-8801mkIISR
I got another couple of Gotek floppy emulators from China, and now the SR has dual floppy drives. Unfortunately, I can’t use them both at the same time.
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PC-8801mkIISR opening and Gotek setup
I’ve been wanting to get back to the SR for quite some time. I figured the Gotek adapter PCB and the HxC-flashed Gotek would be a direct drop-in to the new machine, and I was right.
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Sony HB-101 and NEC PC-8801mkIISR pickup
Japanese Santa dropped by my house earlier this week and left behind a back-shredding 40lb box of microcomputer goodness. Let’s investigate.
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Mini-updates 2 - A501 battery, PC-98 Gotek update, SparcStation 1+ debugging
I’ve been up to a bunch of little projects while waiting on parts and time for the big jobs, so here is another mini-update on three of those projects.
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The last ride of PC88 colour video
After a respin of the PC88 colour video board, the PC8801mkII now has excellent digital colour video out.
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Apple IIe keyboard repair attempt
I’ve had my Apple IIe for a few months now, and it’s been great. One of the things that’s kept it from getting more use has been the spotty “I” key, which the seller warned me about.
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The PC98 can remember lots of things
Just as I was beginning to lose hope that the hard drive I had ordered back in August from Yahoo Auctions Japan would ever arrive, my doorbell rang. Inside a beat-up but functional Suruga-ya box sat the hard drive, done with its international journey.
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Exploring the PC98 software catalogue
Now that the PC98 can load software off of a USB stick instead of floppies, I decided to explore the software catalogue a bit.
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A mystical journey to PC8801mkII colour video
I’ve been using the monochrome video cable on my PC88 ever since I built it. Colour video was a little more complicated, so I ended up designing a bunch of adapters to try and get it to work. I’m happy to announce that one of those adapters has finally worked!
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PC98 - New floppy board, sound 'fixed,' more testing
Now that the PC98 can load a game off a flash drive, there’s a lot more parts of it I can test. Today, I spent a few minutes putting together a new revision of the floppy board and inspecting the computer.
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Floppy adapter board works for the PC98!
After I designed the first version of my PC88 floppy board, I thought it would be fun to put one together for the PC98 as well. Why do I need an adapter for a computer that already has 3.5” floppy drives? The PC9821AP2 I own has a 26-pin floppy drive connector, like a mid-90s laptop, and most standard IBM PC style floppy drives have 34.
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Revenge of the PC-8801mkII floppy adapter board
In the last entry, I found myself with a working adapter board to allow a 3.5” floppy drive (like a Gotek) to work with the NEC PC8801mkII. This liberated me from having to source, organize and maintain 5.25” floppy disks, and opens a large library of software for this computer without having to hunt through the used market. However, like all good things, there were a lot of bugs with the old adapter.
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PC-8801mkII floppy adapter board
I wanted to get a Gotek working on my PC88, and after seeing that there were a lot of Japanese hobbyists who had managed to get an HxC floppy emulator working, decided it must be possible - even if not simple.
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