Posts tagged "sharp"
Turbo Typin'
Times are tough for the Sharp X1turbo community. While keyboards used to be thriving in the used market, nowadays whole families of hungry junk hoarders can go years without a single ping on their Yahoo! Auctions watch lists. We gotta do what we can to save the keyboards that we have.
MZasters of the Universe
This poor Japanese Z80 computer is literally screaming out for someone to come and fix it. With the some troubleshooting and a little luck, I got it back on the open seas and pumping out its fantastic chunky colour graphics once again.
Call In The PROs To See Things Clearly (X68000 PRO Part 4)
A small update on the X68000 PRO that was saved from an inglorious death over the course of the last three articles. It’s gotten a video configuration that works properly. I know, that’s way cooler than painting the case, right?
Call In The PROs When You Can't Flop (X68000 PRO Part 3)
With a new power supply and the entire insect population of Honshu removed from its case, the swamp-bogged X68000 PRO can finally start up, but can it boot floppy disks? In this exciting conclusion to the series, we’ll jump through a frankly ridiculous number of hoops – many of them ultimately proving to be unnecessary – in order to make some disks and find out.
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.
Call In The PROs When It Gets Dirty (X68000 PRO Part 1)
What happens when you bid on a Sharp X68000 PRO without looking too closely at the photos? For one thing, you win the auction. What also happens is that the computer spends a while in your garage, waiting for all of its little tenants to be vacuumed out.
Look, mom! X1's on TV!
One of the coolest selling points of the Sharp X1turbo is the built-in “telopper” board. With this board, you can superimpose computer graphics on live TV, and smear dithered-colour games across my tiny Sony CRT. Guess which of the two I’m planning on using it for?
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.
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!
Sharp invites you to enter the Turbo Zone
Before the X68000, Sharp had a Z80-based 8-bit personal computer that tried valiantly to compete with the PC-88 and MSX. Actually, they had a couple, but the one that I’m most interested in is the Sharp X1. It combines flash VCR-esque styling, sturdy construction, decent graphics capabilities, and AY-3-8910 sound. What more could you want? Well, you could put the word “turbo” on the front.
Unleashing the Power of the X68000 ACE
You might recall that I own a Sharp X68000 ACE, the world-beating, sprite-spitting computer of everyone’s dreams. So far, though, the ownership experience hasn’t been the most fun I’ve ever had. Repairing the battery damage in mine has been challenging, as the damage goes deeper than I first thought, but I have accomplished one thing so far: installing a more reliable power supply.
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.
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!