HCC meeting 17 February 2017

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last Saturday 17 February it was again the 2 monthly meeting of the Commodore HCC club.
on these meetings not only Commodore fans are comming, but also other retro computer fans join.
You will find MSX, Atari and other systems here.
I had a “little” gift to the guy that is starting a computer museum, a Toshiba hard disk from 1980.
I have no clue what capacity it had, but guessing it will be around 5 to 10 MB.
The little 2.5″ pata hd on top is from Jan Derogee (the creator of the Cassiopei and 1541-III). he was sitting in opposite of me.
My collection also grew a little with a oceanic drive, c64 test set, some books and DD floppies and an Amiga 500.
The Amiga has a broken drive and the case is not very nice, but I will use the keyboard to fix my Amiga 500+.
The main board will be stored for spare parts, or for testing purpose.

Visit the Facebook page of the Commodore HCC club to learn more about the meetings

SD2IEC PCB arrived

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2 weeks ago I designed a PCB for my SD2IEC.
Last Friday I received them in my mailbox.

I took the schematics of ShadowWolf and used the online design tools on www.easyeda.com to draw the schematics and design the PCB.

The result is found here and I ordered an prototype ($10,- with shipping).
The SD2IEC uses a micro SD module with build in voltage converter.
The only signals missing from the SD module are Card_Detect and Write_Protect.

I routed those signals to a dip switch so I can still control these signals.
The Card_Detect signal is also routed to the SD module header, so I can modify the SD module to add this signal.

If this proto type works, I will be updating the PCB with RTC and LCD, and will move the micro SD to the main PCB.

 

Finally an update on the kernal selector for the Commodore 16

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I finally managed to create a page on the kernal selector for the Commodore 16.
Last couple of months I was very busy repairing an Amiga 2000.
But last week I made some time to create a schematic of the circuit I created.
The circuit uses an Arduino Nano to listen to the reset line and reacts to it’s use.
this way you don’t need to drill a hole in the case, and the already existing reset button can be used to control multiple mods.

Retrobright

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Vic 20

This weekend I bought some hydrogen peroxide gel from a local store.
And started to retrobight the top covers of an Amiga 1200, C128 and a vic 20.

First I cleaned the case parts very good with a toothbrush so all dirt is gone.
Then I used a brush to “paint” the case parts with the gel, and wrap them in with plastic foil.

A1200 cover drying

After this I left them for some hours in the garden.
It was a warm day, but the sun did not burn as there were a lot of clouds.

After some hours I cleaned the gel from the cases and was surprised by the result.
I will do it another time as I noticed I missed some spots.
And then I will also do the bottom part of the case.

Upgrade the Commodore 16 to 64Kb of ram

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Yesterday I upgraded my Commodore 16 to 64 Kb of memory.
I’m still not sure if I can call my Commodore 16 now a Commodore 64 😛 .

Now it can run most Programs created for the Plus/4.
I wrote a little story on how to do this.
You can find it here.

This is first mod I did on my Commodore 16, I’m already planning to do more mods, like adding the 3-1 function rom of the Plus/4, Jiffy dos and a way to enable/disable and select the rom(s).

 

New Commodore added to my collection

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last month I got a Commodore 16 and bought a Toshiba HC10 (MSX) system.

The Commodore 16 has the same basic architecture like the Plus 4, but misses the 3-1 function ROM, user port and (6551) ACIA serial port chip.
It also has 16Kb of RAM instead of the 64Kb that the Plus 4 has.
The circuit difference of the RAM is only minor and can be quickly modified by supplying the A14 and A15 lines to the multiplexer and changing the RAM chips.
So this will be my first mod (keep you posted).

The Toshiba HC10 I bought is a MSX system. I bought it with two game cartridges and a Philips floppy drive controller cartridge.
Also a (DIY) external drive and monitor was supplied.
I bought it to play a little with the “different technique” MSX is using.
I will probably sell the system when I’m done playing.