Retro Coding Blog
Apple Pascal on Apple IIe
Back In August I took delivery of a boxed Apple IIe in excellent working condition. I had used an earlier Apple II at university in 1982/83 to learn Pascal and hoped to find a set of Pascal diskettes which I duly did a couple of weeks later. I didn’t want to try and do too…
Psion Series 3mx Disassembly
A complete guide to disassembling a Psion 3mx and identifying where this can go horribly wrong based this on a recent example which I’d bought as spares/repair from eBay
Towers of Hanoi for Sinclair ZX81 in 1K
My one claim to fame – a short program I submitted to Sinclair Programs magazine in 1983. I was shuffed with this because I’d managed to cram it into just 1K. I hadn’t yet invested in a 16K RAM pack.
Psion Series 3mx SSD door microswitch repair
I recently bought a Psion Series 3mx on eBay but found it didn’t recognise SSDs inserted in either A or B slots and suspected a motherboard fault. Having found a cheap 3mx to test this, and checking that it did indeed read SSDs OK, after swapping the motherboard it didn’t help. Not only that but it also failed in the same back in the original machine.
Psion Series 3 – New Arrival
My existing Psion 3 was suffering from a faulty screen so I’d been on the lookout for a replacement/repair and found this on eBay, boxed with manuals, and it arrived today.
BBC Master 128 – Raspberry Pi Co-processor
I found about about the ability to add a co-processor to the BBC Master 128 when I came across this level shifter on eBay and decided it would be a great project and help make this my ‘go to’ BBC machine.
A BBC Master 128 Bargain?
Having been looking out for a BBC Micro to add to my growing collection of retro computers from the 1980s and 1990s I came across a BBC Master being sold as spare/repairs on eBay. It was complete with monitor and dual disk drives but was for collection only from Somerset, 300 miles away. As it…
ZX81 Keyboard Replacement
My ZX81 clearly didn’t like being taken apart and the keyboard started failing once the ZXvid unit was installed, probably because the old ribbon cables had deteriorated, though they had looked OK.
ZX81 RF SCART lead
After accidentally trashing the original RF lead for the ZX81, I ordered a new one but in the meantime thought I’d see if I had any suitable alternatives knocking around among the random AV cables I’ve kept. Finding a phono to SCART convertor, I thought I’d give it a try:
ZXvid installation
Spent 2 hours on the ZXvid module this afternoon. A fiddly process and I pondered many times on the £15 saving on having this fitted. Ah well, wouldn’t be half the fun.