I’ve set out to write a simple blackjack game in Basic with the goal of it running on the unexpanded VIC-20 eventually. I’m cheating a bit and writing it on the C128 – its coding environment is massively improved over the VIC-20 and C64. We’ll see how this goes…
Picked up a dead test cartridge. The C128 has been acting a little odd lately, figured it’d be good to test that its parts are doing ok
I think the VIC-20’s case came out well. I was able to scrub off most of the marker and paint. I wouldn’t say it’s like new, but I’m quite pleased with where it’s at
I hit a bit of a snag in my plan. The “known good” VIC-20 main board I had turned out to be not so good. When I plugged it in to test it, the video output was garbled! Fortunately, the original main board turned out to be ok. Just had to adjust the potentiometers controlling the video signal
The keys dried nicely over night, I was able to put them all back on this afternoon. I’m quite pleased with the result, they feel clean to the touch. I didn’t realize what a horrible sound the caps make when being reattached though, it sounds just like they’re snapping!
Although I got this VIC-20 with the intention of putting my working main board in it, it seems there are signs of life in the one it came with. Might be worth attempting to fix 🤔
Case is looking much better after a scrub with soapy water. This must have been a kid’s computer in its previous life. Need to get more cleaning supplies, and I’m hoping I can get this in like new condition again
Washing the key caps in soapy water was extremely satisfying, the keys make the same noise as LEGO bricks. They’re now out to dry overnight
Never realized how much effort it takes to get all the caps off of a keyboard. This is the first time I’m going to try individually cleaning key caps instead of doing a surface cleaning with the board fully assembled
New power supply arrived for my Commodore machines today. I was finally able to try out the Vic 20 motherboard I got a few months back – it works! Still need to get a keyboard and case for it heh
Got a set of drawers and tidied up my retro corner. Still a work in progress, but most of my collection is now in one easy to access place. Thinking I need some theme appropriate stuff on the walls next 🤔
Decidedly not the most aesthetically pleasing mod, but now I don’t have to deal with flaky double density floppies to use the ST
Floppy extension cable arrived in the mail today, looks like I should be able to finish installing the gotek into my ST this weekend
Finally got around to trying out the flashfloppy hacked gotek I ordered for my ST. It works! However the pin header is mounted upside-down, which means I won’t be able to finish installing it until I get an extension cable
I’ve been thinking it might be a good idea to proactively replace the hard drive in my PowerBook 2400 with a solid state drive. I finally got around to looking at the repair manual, and nope – not going to happen until it absolutely has to! I’m very glad it’s the only moving part inside the machine
I have 4 double density floppy disks. It seems that only two work reliably. One is questionable, and the last is completely broken. This will make getting software on the Atari ST challenging…
Now that I have a permanent setup for retro computing, I think I will cycle through my wedges so that I can get quality time with each. I’ve put the Commodore 128 away for now, let’s see what interesting software the Atari ST has
Ack! I know I haven’t really played since I was a kid, but I don’t remember being this bad at Q*BERT
Thanks to Jan Beta’s YouTube series on repairing a C128, I was able to finally put the power LED back correctly after disassembling my machine to clean it several months ago. The light no longer intermittently goes out, and is flush with the case once again
Reopened the ST, and managed to get the RF shield off this time. Turns out you just need to slide the board out. I opened it thinking I’d remove the Tweety stereo mod since there was some nasty feedback on the audio out. Turns out the mod is glued to the board! I found the source of the feedback at least, the cable that taps into the sound chip was falling off. Everything else looks good, so I think I won’t have to take it apart again until the floppy drive needs service
It’s amazing how different an experience gaming on a CRT monitor. It feels so much more nostalgic – like what it felt like to play video games growing up