I thank Simone B. for the donation. The donation was made through the Blog.
Donated item:
The Prism QL 14 is a Color Monitor for Sinclair QL. The monitor has an Scart input (RGB) but unfortunately that is not fully compatible with other devices that use the Scart output as video.
Some photos of the monitor cleaning: 
I thank my friend Giacomo Vernoni for having given me this console that i was looking for a long times. This the link of the Giacomo blog where you can find a complete review of this console with some beautiful photos.
Gallery:
Following Commodore’s acquistion of MOS technologies (famous for producing the later 6502 chip for the PET), the Pong-like TV Game consoles 2000K and 3000H made their appearance.
The 3000H console features two paddles (sliders), one internal and one connected by wire (with 2 additional optional sliders); 9VDC or battery power (6 AA batteries required, yes it can run on batteries!). It generates its own sound with the built-in speaker and can play 4 games: Tennis, Target (with an optional light gun), Football and Squash. There is also a gage for difficulty level (handicap), and another for the number of players and other settings.
The cool thing is that the core chip, the MOS 7601 (the last of MOS’s Pong-chip line) read game instructions from a special ROM which appears to be internal to the chip, making it stand out from the other Pong-clones that had the game hard-coded into the system’s logic
However, because graphics and sound are also generated directly by the 7601 and are hardwired into the chip’s logic, it meantthat special variants had to be created if a special display was required for an arbitrary application. Thus, the 7601 in the TV Game series, while being programmable in a crude sense, is hardwired to generate the graphics for the TV Game series’ internal games only and cannot be used into drawing other kinds of shapes.
Games available were the following four:
source: computinghistory.org.uk
Gallery:
Epson PX-4+ Easy Repair
Defect:
Replaced parts:
Removed the internal Backup Battery (RB 301) 4.8v 90mA.
These are my two Commodore PET 2001-8C (Chiclet). They are two different models, below i will list the differences.
On the left:
On the right:
This Commodore PET 2001-8C also includes a homemade Power Amplifier to hear the sound of some games that use the pin CB2 of the User Port as audio output.
Also is included a reset button and two mini-led (Red / Green) that display the data (Save / Load) when using the tape recorder.
Some photos of the Commodore PET 2001-8C:
Copyright label on the motherboard:
Some photos of the repairing and cleaning:
Commodore PET 2001 (Chicklet) Repair datassette.
Defects:
Repair:
Thanks to Manosoft for the spare parts (white datassette, the same model of the black one)
Commodore PET 2001 (Chicklet) Repair.
Defects:
Repair:
Video of Galaxy Invaders with Sounds:
from Wikipedia homepage:
The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) was a home/personal computer produced in 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.
Hi all, like one year ago Manosoft amazes us again, this time he did a great job of merging the ITS TAP Player module with the C64SD and from this merger comes the Princess, an interface with both previously released interfaces.
The Princess interface is elegant as only Manosoft can do, the box color has changed and is a white sand that matches perfectly with the whole 8-bit Commodore Home Computer series.
In addition to the color were also added new controls and visual led. Below the instructions of each command on the front/back side of the Princess interface.
Front side:
Back side:
Like the previous C64SD v2.0 interface, the Princess has a pass-through connector for the cassette recorder and one for the Floppy Disk Drive.
I don’t forget to speak about the nice addition, a small Piezo Speaker to hear the sound of the bytes that are loaded with the TAP Player and also a nice “beep” that warn if the interface on power up working correctly.
Damiano alias “Manosoft” is a good manufacturer of 8 Bit peripherals and also a great friend. I take the opportunity of this article to greet Damiano and congratulate for this new interface for the 8-bit Commodore Home Computer series.
Soon will be available on the Manosoft website two new software packages (C64 and AIO)
“AIO” is an innovative system that will allow the creation of the SD Card of 4GB or higher in a few minutes from an image file created ad hoc.
On the Commodore 64 side was also written a new program called “MENU” with some utilities like the initialization of the SD Card for the Princess C64SD v3.0 interface.
The development of the TAP Player firmware with the SD2IEC protocol has been made possible thanks to the collaboration of Hawui1 promoter and developer of the ITS Module and some other things.
The Princess C64SD v3.0 interface will be available for sale in the next months on the Manosoft site.
Princess C64SD v3.0 Video Preview:
Gallery:
This is a disk interface system made by Micro Peripherals Ltd which was later badged by Sinclair as their “official” disc system.
It used its own software (written by Richard Miller) and did not conform to the QJump “FLP” system used by most companies at the time (it used the name FDK to access the disk drives). The fact that the device name was not “FLP” put a lot of users off. The unit does not support direct sector access.
The interface had an 8K onboard EPROM providing the device driver and toolkit extensions, which included:
Plus several other extensions similar to those in other disk interfaces, and some utility programs such as a disk and memory editor were supplied on disk.
The interface was supplied with either one, or a pair of DSDD 720KB drives, the first of which took its power from an external transformer via a 6-way power connector, and the second took its power from the DC output of the first drive via a 5-way connector, plus a ribbon connector from one drive to the other.
The interface had switch-selectable options via a series of jumpers to format single or double sided, and 3ms or 6ms track to track time. Another jumper could be set to make the QL boot from an ‘mdv’ named disk.
Powersupply Pinout:
Download:
source: rwapadventures.com
Gallery:
Thanks to Paolo Pascolo and Carlo Pascolo (founder of Co.r.el) i have received more information about this interface.
This interface was designed and distributed by Co.r.el in Italy and assembled by Asem or Computer Control, two Italian companies.
This is a small article of an old Italian magazine (MCmicrocomputer) where they speak of what are sold under the name Co.r.el (see picture)
This interface is a converter from IEEE-488 Bus to RS-232 to be use with the Watanabe plotter, the data are send via a device number from the Commodore PET (CBM).
Gallery:
The Palladium game distributed under Magnavox licensed offers 4 ball games, 2 shooting games and 2 car games, all games are in color. The core chip is the TMS-1965 from Texas Instruments.
The paddles can be moved vertically with the sliders found on each controllers. There are also two “speed-up” buttons on the controllers.
Gallery:
The Sharp MZ-2500 (SuperMZ) series was launched on the Japan market in 1985, the computers in this series all used a Z80B processor running at 6MHz. They included a data recorder and at least one 3.5 internal floppy disk drive, as well as a YM2203 FM sound chip, hardware scrolling, and a palette of 256 colors (upgradable to 4096) and it takes from 2 to 8 seconds to define P.C.G (user generated characters, similar to sprites).
This makes them among the most powerful 8-bit machines ever released for home use. Some models are also compatible with the MZ-80B and MZ-2000.
Sharp MZ-2500 (SuperMZ) Advertising:
Sharp MZ-2500 (SuperMZ) RGB cable pinout:
This cable provides an RGB video signal from a Sharp MZ-2500 to a SCART television set, which is the highest quality signal achievable from your Sharp MZ-2500.
I thank Fabio Bovelacci (Frater Sinister) for the donation.
Donated item:
Gallery:
Commodore 16 ASSY 251789-01 REV B Empty PCB
Gallery:
Commodore VIC-20 ASSY 251040-01 Empty PCB.
I have to thank my friend Andrea S. for having warned me that he had seen a Commodore VIC-20 near the trash loot.
Short gallery:
Recent Comments