I Like 8 Bits and I cannot lie

Being a blog about my adventures in Retro Computing

  • Ticking along

    Ticking along

    First, let me lead by saying I’ve started a new job, so posting will drop down to a less regular schedule from here on out, I’m afraid. I’ve been working on all sorts of projects without much success on many of them. Meanwhile I have had some wins! Microbee CGA to VGA Adapter Firstly, after […]

  • New Pickups

    New Pickups

    Picked up two new items this fortnight. Commodore 1804S This is often considered the “holy grail” of Commodore monitors. It supports just about any signal you can throw at it, including composite, s-video and RGB. This one I found while at my local maker space, Artifactory, in the “Virtual Recycling” pile. It wasn’t quite “in” […]

  • Power Supply Build for the CreatiVision

    AKA the Dick Smith Wizzard So I recently built a replacement PSU for my CreatiVision. I have a working PSU, but it’s always best to have a spare on hand. The original needs 9V 1A and 16V 250mA. Thanks to some help from another collector (Hi Tim!) and some basic research, I was able to […]

  • Bits ‘n Bobs

    Bits ‘n Bobs

    Wherein I potter for 2 weeks. Lots of little projects this time. I kept working on the BBC Micro. I made up one of my Microbee ROM switchers and installed it. I now have 16 different ROMs to choose from. I also made a “Atari to BBC” joystick adapter for all those games where I […]

  • BBC Micro – An Update

    As per the last post, my BBC Micro lived again, thanks to a replacement PSU. Unfortunately with more testing, it became obvious that it was unreliable. Some times it would boot to BASIC. Sometimes it would hang on a cursor prompt. Some times it would hang on an error about a Drive Fault and some […]

  • What else have I been up to?

    What else have I been up to?

    So, other than converting my CoCo to NTSC, I have been working on a while bunch of smaller projects, before and after. GBS Control Case I decided to put the GBS Control in a “real” case. To that end, I literally photocopied the base of the GBS Control, imported the image into CorelDraw, and started […]

  • Converting a PAL TRS Colour Computer to NTSC

    Converting a PAL TRS Colour Computer to NTSC

    When I got my CoCoSDC, I was surprised how many of the games out there relied on NTSC Artefact colour to generate either some or all colours. It was close to 80%, and even higher in the more commercial games. After a while I decided I wanted an NTSC system. As I had 3 CoCos, […]

  • Total Joystick Madness

    Total Joystick Madness

    I have been busy ๐Ÿ™‚ Now I have all the different computers working, it was time to get interfaces for them so they can fulfil their prime purpose. To wit: Video Games! Texas Instruments TI 99/4A I have a PCB design ready to go for this, but in the meantime, I decided to make a […]

  • Hippo Gnu Ear

    Hippo Gnu Ear

    Well, it’s a new year and I’m still waiting on things I ordered in November ๐Ÿ˜€ Firstly, you’ll most likely have noticed I moved to a new host. There are a few “goodies” I can get with the new host, including plugins, so I have moved. Last year featured a LOT of PCB design and […]

  • A Whole Lotta Nothing

    A Whole Lotta Nothing

    I’m not dead. Honest! It has, however, been a long time between posts. Unfortunately I haven’t been working on project work as much as I would have liked, and I spent a long time waiting for parts to arrive for projects. CreatiVision Controllers (AKA the Dick Smith Wizzard) The new PCBs arrived. It took me […]

I am always interested in your old systems! Consoles and Computers.