The third Microbee was now nominally “working” insomuch as it was booting reliably to the command prompt. Only thing is, I couldn’t test anything further without a keyboard. The keyboard was partially working, and having removed the keycaps I could see a mix of 3 different keyswitches. White stemmed with a horizontal bar, Black stemmedContinue reading “Repairing Microbee No3 Keyboard”
Author Archives: ilike8bits
Three Bee, Three Bee!
For anyone trying to follow along at home, last we saw the Microbee computers, I’d managed to make the cable for the Microbees, and proven the base 32k “Communicator” model was working fine. I’d resurrected the PC85 and upgraded it to an 85b model complete with a bunch of embedded games. Now back to theContinue reading “Three Bee, Three Bee!”
Fixing the Amiga 2000 (Part 1)
EDIT: See the new final paragraph for some updates. When I got the Amiga 2000, the initial fault reported was “Dead Power Supply”, but as it had been in storage for a long time, I suspected a secondary fault of “Battery damage” may have joined the original fault. The Amiga 2000 has an onboard rechargeableContinue reading “Fixing the Amiga 2000 (Part 1)”
Another Amiga
Yes, you read that right. I just got another computer. Yes I know what I said about peripherals. The TF1260 counts as a peripheral and I hope to be ordering more in the next few days. Meanwhile, I got offered this so how could I say no? Thanks to Stewart Greenhill for his prized Amiga!Continue reading “Another Amiga”
Have I mentioned how much I like having a 3D Printer?
One of the other things I picked up at the PAUG meet on Saturday was a ROM Switcher for my Amiga 600. This simply comes with a pair of small switches to choose between 4 different possible ROMs. (It’s currently set to switch between Kickstart 1.3, 3.1, 3.2 and DiagROM but I want to swapContinue reading “Have I mentioned how much I like having a 3D Printer?”
Shaving Amiga Yaks
So last night there was a Perth Amiga Users Group catchup I attended, which was awesome fun. I, er, may have gone a little insane in all the excitement. See, I bought something. Something terrifying and powerful and… No, not the one ring! It’s called a TerribleFire TF1260 and it’s a VERY fast, VERY powerfulContinue reading “Shaving Amiga Yaks”
Trying not to get discouraged
So it’s been a frustrating week of stuff not getting fixed. The kind of week where the hobby feels more like a “job” than “something fun”. Firstly the Archimedes is still having problems with the floppy disk, despite me swapping out the 74HC574. I will need some time to put it on the bench andContinue reading “Trying not to get discouraged”
A week of leave, a week of retro goodness!
What a wonderful thing a week of leave is, especially if you have nothing planned, except your hobby. I deliberately left myself plenty of time for just mucking around. I set myself three project goals, with some option “stretch” goals. Work out what was wrong with the floppy drive on the Archimedes. Decap the AmigaContinue reading “A week of leave, a week of retro goodness!”
Broken Archimedes, Working 3D printer
No post last week. I got busy with non “retro nerd” stuff and didn’t have anything to post. So far this week has been a lot more exciting. Poor Archie My Archimedes 440 has decided that, no, it no longer wants to read Floppy Disk images. This has kept me occupied for most of theContinue reading “Broken Archimedes, Working 3D printer”
Achievement Unlocked: 3D Printing
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been accumulating all the “bits and pieces” to finally properly use my 3D printer. Today everything came together and I finally printed my first 3d print! It’s a little holder for the rotary encoder and OLED display for a Gotek drive. I often mount them externally on some cable,Continue reading “Achievement Unlocked: 3D Printing”
I Like 8 Bits 