Leaded Solder
Posts
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Foiled again by the Tandy 1000SX
We fixed the 1000SX’s power supply, and tested the motherboard for shorts. There’s nothing left to do but put the computer back together again and see if it works. And take it apart again. And to wish I had a fully-operational chip fab and precision schematics of every custom IC. Yeah, this one is gonna take a little more time.
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A Game Boy Macro
There are a lot of broken Nintendo DS consoles out there. A shattered screen there, a broken flip hinge here: it would be nice if someone could do something to save some of those wounded machines. Someone did do something!
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Making my SC-3000 become a useful member of society
I was disappointed to find out that my “not working” Sega SC-3000 was in fact not working. However, I had a hunch that it was a common flaw: cold solder joints on the cartridge slot. It also has a more subtle flaw: it smells kind of bad.
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The circle of life - an NEC PC-6001 arrives, breaks, is fixed
Sure, I’ve got NEC PC-88s, I’ve got NEC PC-98s, but didn’t NEC make anything that was a little friendlier to the home user? By now, you should know better than to doubt our friends at the Electric Company. The NEC PC-6001 has a thriving homebrew scene around it in Japan to this very day, and is still fondly remembered. Let’s rip one open and stuff it with hot molten lead.
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Tandy 1000SX power supply is back from the dead
When we last encountered the Tandy 1000SX, it decided to bravely blow itself up rather than face us in battle. With a lot of elbow grease and a little bit of solder-slinging, this testament to 80s shopping-mall computing will live again.
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Mini updates 4 - X68000 battery removal, PC-98 window accelerator, PC-8801MH keyboard arrives
I removed the clock battery from my X68000 ACE, sped up my PC-98’s video, and got a keyboard for my PC-8801MH. Come enjoy this bite-sized collection of what’s going on with my machines.
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Will It Short? A Tandy 1000SX motherboard inspection
Last time on the Tandy 1000SX show, I blew a hole in a power-supply capacitor without even getting the machine to boot. Talk about ungrateful! At least it gives me an excuse to buy more tools.
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Tandy 1000SX power supply has an oops
I picked up a Tandy 1000SX recently. My plan is to use it for experimenting with Tandy graphics and sound, and maybe even port a few hobbyist games to the platform. As per usual with my pick-ups, this one needs a little bit of work before it can be usable.
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More Japanese exchange students arrived
Another postie-threatening crate arrived on my porch this week. There’s a lot of projects in this one; I’m not even sure a single one is “usable” as-is. This one sort of got away from me, but those are the fun kind!
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VA2 "for parts" Genesis fixed
The more questionable of the three “for parts” Sega Genesises I traded for in the previous entry is now fixed. It didn’t take too much effort - just some attention to detail, a few games of Columns, one cheap spare part, and a soldering iron.
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Rounding up some "parts" Sega Genesises
As part of a project to repair a badly-hurt JVC X’Eye, I’ve been looking for “parts” Genesis IIs to harvest a 315-5660 VDP chip from. Unfortunately, the Genesis II seems to be quite the tough customer. I keep fixing the parts machines before they can be sacrificed.
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NEC PC-8300 pickup
When I was much younger, one of the first portable computers I was exposed to was a Tandy TRS-80 Model 100. It was a surprisingly useful 80s portable machine. A real mechanical keyboard, modem capability, real ports, an okay screen, 20 hours of battery life on a set of AAs: it had everything. As a result, they were really popular with journalists (upload your story from a payphone!), scientists (take readings of your instruments at the site!), and industrial use (what’s wrong with this plane?)
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Mini updates 3 - PC98 A-Train III, Atari ST keyboard fix, FM-7 video adapter
Some more mini updates for things that weren’t big enough to merit a full update on their own. In this entry, we’ll finally get A-Train III running on my PC98, fix an Atari ST keyboard, and ship new hardware for a whole new brand of Japanese 8-bit computer.
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Fixing the HB-101's keyboard
When I first got the HB-101, its combination of small RAM and lack of any way to get software on it was a problem, sure. There was a bigger problem waiting, though: the grim spectre of an inconsistent keyboard.
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Dual Goteks in the PC-8801mkIISR at last
In my previous entry, I found out that my old IBM PC “DOS” floppy adapter was not sufficient when trying to read from two drives at once. Somehow, they confused the floppy controller enough that nothing could be read from the second drive.
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