ilike8bits

The final MicroBee is complete!

Thanks to uBee and Brad, I now have all the parts to finish off my 16k MicroBee. It’s a beauty! Yes, it’s yellowed. Yes, there’s engravings in the top cover. Yes, the keys look like the teeth of a chain smoker, but that is exactly the type of character I like in my systems. SomeContinue reading “The final MicroBee is complete!”

Go. Go. Go. Gotek!

In my last big order from a ubiquitous Chinese e-commerce site, I ordered FIVE Gotek drives, earmarked for a variety of systems, including my Amiga 1200 (when it gets built), my Amiga 600 and the Atari STᴱ. I had a cunning plan, and one of the reasons I’ve been so quiet recently was that I’veContinue reading “Go. Go. Go. Gotek!”

Upgrades, Problems, Parts

It’s been an exciting few weeks. Archimedes The Archimedes continues to confound me. I finally got a replacement 1772, plugged it in and… No change! At this point I have swapped out all the chips that feed the floppy disk. If you look at the schematics, I have socketed and tested IC29, IC30, IC38, ICContinue reading “Upgrades, Problems, Parts”

Repairing Microbee No3 Keyboard

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”

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”