This is the story of a Commodore CBM (PET) 3032 recovered in a pitiful state.
The motherboard was covered of rust and many IC are in short circuit. I had to replace some IC (broken or full of rust), rebuild some paths of the pcb and clean very well.
I have also restored the inside of the case, using an anti-rust gel painting.
Photos and Description of the work made:
Autopsy:
The Commodore CBM (PET) 3032 is a successor to the Commodore PET 2001, it has a bigger keyboard and 32KB dynamic RAM memory. The larger keyboard means that the first cassette drive now has to be an external unit.
from Wikipedia:
The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International. A top-seller in the Canadian and United States educational markets, it was Commodore’s first full-featured computer, and formed the basis for their entire 8-bit product line.
The PET 2001 was announced at the Winter CES in January 1977 and the first 100 units were shipped later that year in October. However, the PET was back-ordered for months and to ease deliveries, early in 1978 Commodore decided to cancel the 4 kB version (also because the user would be left with barely 3 kB of RAM).
Although the machine was fairly successful, there were frequent complaints about the tiny calculator-like keyboard, often referred to as a “chiclet keyboard” because the keys resembled the gum candy. The key tops also tended to rub off easily. Reliability was fairly poor, although that was not atypical of many early microcomputers. Because of the poor keyboard on the PET, external replacement ones quickly appeared.
In 1979, Commodore replaced the original PET 2001 with an improved model known as the 2001-N (the N was short for “New”). The new machine used a standard green-phosphor monitor in place of the light blue in the original 2001. It now had a conventional, full-sized keyboard and no longer sported the built-in cassette recorder. The kernel ROM was upgraded to add support for Commodore’s newly-introduced disk drive line. It was offered in 8kB, 16kB, or 32kB models as the 2001-N8, 2001-N16, and 2001-N32 (the 8kB models were dropped soon after introduction). Finally, Commodore added a machine-language monitor to the kernel ROM that could be accessed by jumping to any memory location with a BRK instruction. It did not include a built-in assembler and required the user to enter hexadecimal numbers for coding.
Sales of the newer machines were strong, and Commodore then introduced the models to Europe. The result was the CBM 3000 series (‘CBM’ standing for Commodore Business Machines), which included the 3008, 3016 and 3032 models. Like the 2001-N-8, the 3008 was quickly dropped. The change to CBM occurred because of a trademark dispute with Philips over the PET name.
source: wikipedia
This is a Video RGB Hack for the console Sega SG-1000 II (Mark 2).
The Sega 315-5066 Video Chip inside the Sega SG-1000 II (Mark 2) used in the latest version of the console uses two video output formats: NTSC Composite video (converted to RF), and RGB (not connected).
The RGB Video is the stuff from which all other formats are born. Once your RGB is tapped it can be easily converted to Component or S-video, giving stunning output far superior to what the Sega SG-1000 II natively offers (only RF).
There are several caveats, of course. The biggest is the quality of the RGB output – it’s not very bright, and will result in an image without much contrast, so you will probably need to add an amplifier. Even on monitors that display a very good image without the amp you’ll sometimes find the sync signal needs an amp to generate a stable image.
I have used the same RGB/Sync Amplifier used on the PC-Engine, components and the Original schematic are shown below.
Schematic:
Components:
The three photos below show the connection between the RGB Amplifier and the PCB of the Sega SG-1000 II.
Some new games (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups: Laxity, Genesis Project, Onslaught, The Hidden Farts, Antarctica, Underground Domain Inc, Dinasours and Really Proud Lamers.
Download:
source: csdb.dk
Autopsy:
TODO: Modify the console to support RGB output. When is ready i’m going to post the project.
from Wikipedia:
The SG-1000 (エスジー・セン Esujī Sen?), which stands for Sega Game 1000, was a cartridge-based video game console manufactured by Sega. This system marked Sega’s first entry into the home video game hardware business, and while the system was not popular, it provided the basis for the more successful Sega Master System.
The SG-1000 was first released to the Japanese market on July 15, 1983. Coincidentally, this is exactly the day that Nintendo’s Family Computer was released in Japan. The console reached minor success in that market and sold moderately well within Asia until 1985. The system was launched in New Zealand as released by Grandstand Leisure Limited, Australia by John Sands and in other countries, such as France, Italy, Spain, and South Africa. The console in its original form was never launched in North America.
In July 1984, Sega released an updated version of the console called the SG-1000 II. It is functionally identical to the SG-1000, but has a re-styled shell and the connector for the optional plug-in SK-1100 keyboard has been moved from the rear to the front. It was initially priced at ¥15,000. A computer version of this console, with a built-in keyboard, was called the SC-3000, which would go on to outsell the SG-1000.
The SG-1000 runs all SC-3000 games and applications, with the exception of Music and Basic Cartridges. The machine could be used just like the SC-3000, provided one had the keyboard attachment ready. In Japan the console also had an optional game card reader add-on called the Card Catcher that allowed for the use of Sega game card software. Card based software was exclusive to Japan, only cartridge based games were released in Europe and Oceania.
The Card Catcher would become built into the Sega Mark III, as well as the first version of the Master System.
source: wikipedia
Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.
Autopsy:
from Wikipedia:
Techno Source was one of the pioneers of the ‘retro gaming’ market, creating TV Game systems that plug directly into your TV. Their products were one of the reasons for the increased “popularity of these devices from a 30 million dollar industry 4–5 years ago to over 500 million dollars” today.
After entering into a licensing partnership with Intellivision in 2003, Techno Source introduced the Intellivision 25, which features 25 original Intellivision games in one plug-and-play unit. With the success of the Intellivision 25 and its follow-up, the Intellivision 10, Techno Source sold over 1,000,000 units and received the National Parenting Center Seal of Approval in 2004.
This line now includes the 2-player Intellivision X2 and the Intellivision 10 2nd Edition. According to the Blue Sky Rangers, the original programmers of the Intellivision games, Techno Source has sold more Intellivision games today than Mattel Electronics originally sold in the 1980s.
source: wikipedia
WAV-PRG is a program able to create a .TAP file or Commodore 64 tape from a C64 emulator file (.PRG, .P00, .T64), and create emulator files (.PRG, .P00, .T64) from a Commodore 64 tape. The latter can only be done if the tape is in a format supported by an existing plug-in.
Download: WAV-PRG v4.0 Alpha5 (1131)
source: wav-prg.sourceforge.net
Autopsy:
Cabletronic ESP 329 is a 2 MB Fast RAM expansion for Amiga 500/1000 (no passthrough port).
source: amiga.resource.cx
Autopsy:
from Wikipedia:
The CDTV (an acronym for “Commodore Dynamic Total Vision”, a backronym of an acronym for “Compact Disk Television”, giving it a double meaning) was a multimedia platform developed by Commodore International and launched in 1991. On a technological level it was essentially a Commodore Amiga 500 home computer in a Hi-Fi style case with a single-speed CD-ROM drive. Commodore marketed the machine as an all-in-one home multimedia appliance rather than a computer. As such, it targeted the same market as the Philips CD-i. Unfortunately for both Commodore and Philips, the expected market for multimedia appliances did not materialise, and neither machine met with any real commercial success. Though the CDTV was based entirely on Amiga hardware it was marketed strictly as a CDTV, with the Amiga name omitted from product branding.
The CDTV debuted in North America in March 1991 (CES, Las Vegas) and in the UK (World of Commodore 1991 at Earls Court, London). It was advertised at £499 for the CDTV unit, remote control and two titles. Commodore chose Amiga enthusiast magazines as its chief advertising channel, but the Amiga community on the whole avoided the CDTV in the expectation of an add-on CD-ROM drive for the Amiga, which eventually came in the form of the A570. This further hurt sales of the CDTV, as both it and an A570-equipped A500 were the same electronically, and could both run CDTV software, so there was very little motivation to buy it. Commodore would rectify this with CDTV’s successor, the A1200-based Amiga CD32, by adding the Akiko chip. This would enable CD32 games to be playable only on the CD32.
The CDTV was supplied with AmigaOS 1.3, rather than the more advanced and user-friendly 2.0 release that was launched at around the same time. Notably, the CDXL motion video format was primarily developed for the CDTV making it one of the earliest consumer systems to allow video playback from CD-ROM.
Though Commodore later developed an improved and cost-reduced CDTV-II it was never released. Commodore eventually discontinued the CDTV in 1993 with the launch of the Amiga CD32, which used which again was substantially based on Amiga hardware (in this case the newer Amiga 1200) but explicitly targeted the games market.
source: wikipedia
Some new games (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups: Antarctica, Nostalgia, Genesis Project, The Hidden Farts, Bad Taste, Dinasours, On Risky Ice and Really Proud Lamers.
Download:
source: csdb.dk
This is a Commodore SX-64 Keyboard which i will use as spare parts.
CBM prg Studio Version 2.5.0 is released. There are a lot of new features in this version. I’d really appreciate it if you report any bugs you find or have any suggestions/comments.
CBM prg Studio allows you to type a BASIC or Machine Code program in using a nice Windows environment and convert it to a ‘.prg’ file which you can run on an emulator, or even a real C64 / VIC20 or PET if you’re feeling brave and have the right kit.
CBM prg Studio is the result of merging C64PrgGen and VIC20PrgGen. Adding new features and fixing bugs in two apps which were 95% similar was a bit of a nightmare so merging them made sense.
It was also a good opportunity for a face lift and to add some new features, such as:
What CBM prg Studio isn’t is a front-end for tok64, cbmcnvrt, bastext or any other tokeniser / detokeniser / assembler. It’s all been written completely from scratch.
Major new features:
Bugs fixed:
Download: CBM prg Studio v2.5.0 (871)
source: ajordison.co.uk
Autopsy:
from Richard Lagendijk Homepage:
This cartridge makes it possible to use hardware with a IEEE 488 interface with a Commodore C64. This could be a disk drive, printer or hard disk from the CBM / PET computer models.
source: richardlagendijk.nl
A new Platform/Adventure game for Amstrad CPC has been released by ESP Soft.
Download: Imaginario Colectivo (Tape / Disk) (1356)
source: espsoft.amstrad.es
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