Huzzah, after putting a solid state hard drive in, the Libretto has jumped back to life. Now I need to figure out how to fashion a drive bay cover
A Toshiba Libretto 50CT. It currently does not POST, but it does boot into the bios recovery screen. I’ve read that these machines require a hard disk to POST, so I guess we’ll see when one arrives in the mail tomorrow
The C128 system guide I ordered arrived today! It seems the original owner never sent in for their Commodore magazines
Debating whether or not to buy / make a serial cable for my Z88. It has a DB-9 port, but the pin out is proprietary 🙄. Might be nice to have a portable word processor without internet…
Acquired a WiModem64 for my C128. Wasn’t expecting it to be this small, it’s the size of about two Apple Watches. Now I just need to wait for my SD2IEC to arrive from Eastern Europe, and I’ll be online. Sadly there are no terminal programs that run off tape!
it seems the cats do not appreciate me noodling with the SID chip in my C128. they abstained from eating dinner until I finished
oh no, the counter on my datasette seems to have started jamming! can’t say I am surprised though, I haven’t done any maintenance on it since I got it, and I am pretty sure it was stored in a barn before I picked it up at auction
Cost of having the C128 System Guide printed and bound from a PDF: ~$60.
Cost of buying an original used copy: $4.99.
Well that’s a no brainer.
The C128 seems to be working fine with the new fuse, so I put the RF shield/heatsink back on. Now I need to figure out how to repair the junked up F5 key, and the plastic on the power supply which was damaged during shipping
I did not realize how yellowed my datasette is until I put it next to the C128. I might have to do something about this 🤔
Plot twist: after replacing the fuse in the power supply, my C128 powers on. Used it for an hour without any weirdness, fingers crossed I don’t need to do any fixing for now
The video cable for my Commodore 128 arrived today and… there’s no video output. Turns out the fuse in the power supply is blown. Guess I’ll have to replace that and see where I am at after
Now that my last project is done, time for something new! My Commodore 128 arrived today. It seems to be in decent shape overall, but no video over the RF modulator. Guess we’ll see what we get with a composite connection when the cable arrives…
and so, my TI 99/4a repair saga comes to a close for now. I’ve installed a new old stock replacement keyboard, and I can finally use Basic! The new keyboard was too big, so I had to remove some of the shielding. Hopefully I don’t need it…
Yesss, after trying for 3 months, I was able to purchase a Commodore 128 for an almost reasonable price
while decidedly not authentic, or even good looking, relabeling the top keys on my TI 99/4a at least makes it so that programs telling me to press back or redo makes sense
Quite pleased with my new acquisition, a Cambridge Computers Z88. It fits 3 criteria I’ve been looking for: 1) it has a Z80 processor; 2) it’s British – it has BBC Basic; 3) it’s an early “laptop.” On top of that, I got it for a good price. Now to take some silly meeting notes!
got an Atari joystick adapter for my TI-99/4a. really enjoying the games on this platform – they’re just the right level of primitive
maxed out my titanium PowerBook G4’s ram at 1GB! while I already had more than enough memory for retro Mac OS games – 768MB – this should hopefully make Leopard run Not Like Total Crap
ahh I can’t wait for the joystick adapter for my TI-99/4a to arrive. I can’t imagine what possessed Texas Instruments to not use the “standard” Atari connector
