Posts tagged "Homemade Hardware"
Contains all my attempts at making my own computer hardware, ranging from simple adapters to full clone systems.
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PaPICOm
One of the hot new trends in the 8-bit computer community is the development of “Pico carts.” By using a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller instead of a ROM, you can make a cool software-defined cartridge that can do basically anything. For instance, it can load a ROM. I decided to make a prototype one for my beloved NEC PC-6001 series of home computer.
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Lord of the Sord
Even after so many years of delving into Japanese 80s computers, there’s still some undiscovered frontiers waiting for me. Early on in my studies, I had heard stories about the Sord M5 and its Western VDP. Through the help of a good friend, I was able to get ahold of one, and then the first of many clone projects began.
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The VTech Socratic Method
We’ve had a lot of fun with VTech’s computers in the past on this blog. Usually, they’re relatively spartan computers with limited functionality, but they did make something very interesting in the late 80s. The Socrates is their hybrid video game console/computer design from 1988, and today we’ll start tearing into it.
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Let's say scram to SCART
Back when I was putting together the Minigun supergun, my project progress was halted for months by lack of a cable. Of course, that Mega Drive 2 SCART cable did eventually arrive – the fourth one I ordered – but in the meantime, I got frustrated. And when I get frustrated, I tend to build PCBs.
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Building my own mechanical keyboard for the CoCo 1
Yep, it finally happened. The backwoods repair that I did to my Tandy TRS-80 Colour Computer’s keyboard membrane failed. Turns out that garden-grade self-adhesive copper tape and some electric paint is not a lasting replacement. Let’s do something that will last a little longer.
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Oya, I've heard of mega-ROMs
Konami made some of the best games for the MSX computer platform. Unfortunately, the market being what it is, those cartridges have become expensive collectibles rather than cheap games, which takes all the fun out of it. Before we can build a bootleg cart, we need to understand Konami’s unique mapper.
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Giving my PC-6001 a LIFT
Most software for the NEC PC-6001 was sold on tape cassettes. Tapes are great, but they require a lot of patience. I do strongly prefer the modern conveniences of floppy disk and ROM cartridge. What do you mean those aren’t “modern?”
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The Origin of the Species
NEC moved into personal computing relatively quickly. After the hobbyist and industrial success of the TK-80, they produced a handful of “better TK-80s,” which didn’t do as well as the original. Ultimately, they developed a whole new system: the 1979 NEC PC-8001. And boy, did they ever nail it.
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Flat Panels Aren't MultiSync 3D
While I adore my NEC PC-TV151, there is one monitor that NEC shipped to our shores that may be the ultimate CRT. This one was cheap, and this one is also very, very sick. Can I cure it so that I can enjoy CGA the way it was meant to be?
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LJN Video Art Appreciation 101
In order to understand someone, it helps to learn how they think. To understand an obscure 1980s video game console, it helps to learn how it thinks. And how does it think? With cartridges. We’re gonna buy a cartridge for the LJN Video Art system, and build a dumper for it.
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Dick Smith's Wizzard-ry 8 (Bit)
Sure, I’ve cloned TI TMS99xx-based systems before. There’s the ColecoVision and the Sega SG-1000. But those were all Z80s, and it’s important to diversify my interests a little bit. Luckily, VTech released a little 6502-based system called the CreatiVision, and let the schematics get out.
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Mouse in the Artdink House (Travelling to Tokio, Part 3)
With the NEC PC-9801RA2, I’ve fought bad power supplies, battery corrosion, case rust, weird NEC design decisions, and flaky floppy drives. The only thing that’s keeping me from enjoying my quirky Japanese space-simulation game, Artdink’s Tokio, is the lack of a mouse. How can “just go buy a mouse” turn into an entire article? You’re about to find out.
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Breaking out of the Snail Maze
Snail Maze. Either you know what it is, or your video game system didn’t come with a free video game hidden deep within its logic board. Or you bought a later Sega Master System, which didn’t have it. But what if we could bring Snail Maze to those later Master Systems? What if, indeed?
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How Test Suite It Is
You can always tell when it’s the holidays. The days are getting shorter, I’m always going out to shovel snow off the sidewalk, and I have a hankering to build a Famicom cartridge. Or, more specifically, a blog friend asked me to put one together, so I’m using my Tengen Tetris piracy skills… for good?
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Becoming Mr.PC's Type
Like the Sharp X1turbo, the Mr.PC is also not very usable without a keyboard. It’s yet another way in which NEC copied Sharp.
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The Soggy-1000 turns a page
For version 3 of the Soggy-1000 SG-1000 clone, I wanted to make it more useful as a general-purpose computer. Building a new keyboard is going to cost a fortune in parts, so it’s fiscally prudent to find more reasons to use said keyboard. There are only so many SG-1000 games out there, the SC-3000 software library is kind of small, and I was using only 2k of the 32k of RAM that I had on the board. These are all problems that can be solved with a suitably large application of hubris.
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I don't know you from Adam
No self-respecting Coleco owner’s collection is complete without the machine that was their ultimate undoing: the Coleco Adam. Adam’s a game console. Adam’s a computer. Adam’s a bizarre hash of over-engineering and under-manufacturing. It’s all of those things, and more, which would make it perfect for this blog even if I wasn’t knee-deep in ColecoVision construction.
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Soaking it in with the SK-1100 Keyboard
If you’ve been following the Soggy-1000, my clone of the Sega SG-1000, then you know what it needs most of all is a keyboard. The original Sega SK-1100 keyboard is hard to find, but I still managed to luck out and get one at auction. Let’s plug it in and find out if it still works.
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Sanyo Triple Five
Even though I seem to have terrible luck with x86-based computers, that doesn’t mean I have to take it lying down. I can go out there and cause even worse things to happen to me. Like, for instance, buying a broken super-budget PC-incompatible from 1982.
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A Supergun for All Seasons
Playing arcade games at home. That’s the dream, isn’t it? Maybe get a little Columns action on the desk you usually use to do taxes? Perhaps you can even make a little test bench, get a bit of board fixing going? Yeah, that’d be really cool. Too bad nothing like that exists, and especially not well-tested and open-source. Wait, it does? And it is? Well, then, we’re just gonna have to build one.
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Soggy-1000 ][
![Thumbnail for 'Soggy-1000 ]['](/thumbnails/soggy-1k-v0.2-assembled-boardshot.jpg "Thumbnail for 'Soggy-1000 ]['")
Once I got the Soggy-1000 playing SG-1000 cartridges, the next thing to do was to extend it. In this phase of the project, we’ll take that leap from “interesting” to “slightly ridiculous,” by adding the feature I’m most excited about – at least until I get excited about a different one – the SK-1100 keyboard connector.
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SG-1000 Ways To Leave Your Original
The SG-1000, being Sega’s first home console, has appreciated quite a bit over the years. Its price is now faintly ridiculous, especially when you consider its successor, the relatively inexpensive Mark III. Luckily for us, this console is made out of off-the-shelf components, virtually all of which are also found in the ColecoVision. If only we knew someone who’d cloned the ColecoVision…
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Call In The PROs When You Need Power (X68000 PRO Part 2)
Now that I had a reasonably clean X68000 PRO to work from, I set about restoring power. Rather than doing things the cheap way and strapping up my Meanwell four-voltage test supply, I decided to go whole hog and lay out a brand-new power supply PCB.
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Tengen-trifying the Neighbourhood
Years ago, I was offered a copy of the Tengen version of Tetris for the NES, and passed it up because $60 was way too much for a boxed NES game. I regret that. Let’s make one.
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Make Your Own ColecoVision At Home (Part 4 - Quadrature Controllers)
We got conventional ColecoVision “hand” controllers working well in the last entry. I’ve never used any of the ColecoVision’s more exotic controllers before; will they work properly on my clone machine, even though I didn’t really understand them?
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Make Your Own ColecoVision At Home (Part 3 - Joystick Fix)
In the last entry, I was left with a working ColecoVision-compatible board, albeit one with a very stuttery controller that would only work when connected to what I thought was the second controller port. Let’s fix that, and then enjoy the cheapo ColecoVision games that I spent all this effort building this thing for in the first place.
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Do you want to come for a ride in my Jaaaaaaaag?
One of the most unloved machines in my
hoardcollection is the Atari Jaguar. It’s not because I don’t have good games for it, or because it’s not working. No, it’s because the Jaguar came used with only the RF adapter, and I hated setting it up with a TV. After testing it out, and collecting a few games for it, it ended up getting boxed away for a move about a decade ago and hasn’t come out since. And that’s a crying shame. -
Revenge of the Famicom composite video mod
When we last read about the Famicom composite mod, there were a bunch of changes I wanted to make, but left tragically undone in the name of getting in some Mario time over the holidays. Now I’m going to make a solid effort at producing a more production-ready version of the modification.
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All A-Keyboard for the Sharp X1turbo
Even though the X1turbo is working again, it’s not enormously useful right now. Sure, the boot screen is pretty, but there’s so much more to the entire experience. In order to take another step along the road to it becoming a functional computer, I’ll build a keyboard adapter.
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The X1turbo can see again
Now that the Sharp X1turbo has been convinced to start up again, it’s time to get some video out of it by constructing a cable so it can talk to a more modern monitor. Yeah, that’s right. No ugly dongle PCB this time!
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Adding composite video to a Famicom
Since I’ve been reading I Am Error, I’ve been getting more and more interested in the technical aspects of the Famicom. Turns out all you really need to get me interested in your console is prose explanations of how a pattern table works. Also, I get to drip some molten lead into it so I can use a modern TV! Everyone wins.
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Let's visit Portopia
In order to get to the bottom of a mystery, I had to put a lot of other mysteries in my way first. And then also build some hardware. At the end of this entry, I’ll have actually used old hardware to play a videogame. I’m scared too.
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Make Your Own ColecoVision At Home (Part 2 - Assembly)
The boards for the homemade ColecoVision clone project have arrived. It’s been a long haul of finger-burning fun to get the console assembled, but will it ever be able to play a cartridge?
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Make Your Own ColecoVision At Home (Part 1 - Design)
When I found some cheap ColecoVision cartridges in the junk bin at the flea market, I knew I had to save them from whatever fate awaited them after the junk bin. How would I play them? Today’s old-ColecoVision prices are ridiculous, so I started building one instead.
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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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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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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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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.