Andrew's Tech Break

The old SCSI Quantum needed a little physical help to get spinning. But even after spinning up the drive is not detected. So I guess this SE/30 is getting a BlueSCSI going forward. #retrocomputing #macintosh #se30 #vintagemac #MARCHintosh #bluescsi

Evidence of broken solder points on the Analog board. So a pass across all them is a good idea to get this SE/30 restored. #retrocomputing #macintosh #se30 #vintagemac #MARCHintosh

The SE/30 board is re-capped. Time to move on to cleaning and re-assembly. Definitely this Mac was well used. #retrocomputing #macintosh #se30 #vintagemac #MARCHintosh

Most of these caps just popped off the board. All pads look good and tested to their respective vias. So time to re-cap this SE/30 board. #retrocomputing #macintosh #se30 #vintagemac #MARCHintosh

Looks like I scored with the board in the SE/30. It is a survivor with no battery leakage and no battery damage. And other then a little fuzziness around the caps it looks good. Time to clean it up and change those caps. #retrocomputing #macintosh #se30 #vintagemac #MARCHintosh

Got a new toy in the mail today! #retrocomputing #c64 #c64u #c64ultimate #commodore

Just in time for #MARCHintosh I picked up a system I’ve been looking for a while – a Macintosh SE/30. Fingers crossed the motherboard is a survivor and not eaten away by leaking battery and caps. #retrocomputing #macintosh #se30 #vintagemac

Manufacturers of laptops back in the day really didn’t give them much of a chance with minimal plastic reinforcements to hold the screen. The pegs were completely cracked past the reinforcements. These plastic blocks should hold the screen a lot better. #retrocomputing #pc5700

Grabbing a backup of this Sharp PC-5700 while the HDD is still working in case there is any original software on it. This hard drive has a had a tough past. #retrocomputing #pc5700

Another hole in one of my classic computer keyboards filled. My Commodore CBM now has a proper Shift Lock key. #retrocomputing #commodore #commodorepet #commodoreCBM

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Gotek assembled and installed. CPC6128 buttoned up and cleaned up. And I got a proper SCART cable and converter. Time to explore this machine. #retrocomputing #amstrad #cpc #cpc6128

A few games

Although tape loads might be nostalgic for some people, they are unnecessarily painful these days. So first upgrade for the CPC 6128 is a Gotek. For this the 3” drive is going away. Finding a CPC on this side of the planet is rare. Finding a 3” disk is close to impossible.

SUCCESS!! One dead memory chip and a dodgy socket for the PAL replaced and this CPC 6128 looks to be all fixed. All tests good and program loads from tape still work. #retrocomputing #amstrad #cpc #cpc6128

IT’S ALIVE! I used the jumper trick to bypass the PAL and hardcode only the first 64k and the machine works. I was even able to read some programs from tape. So this basically means I have a failure in the upper memory or the PAL. #retrocomputing #amstrad #cpc #cpc6128

@gordoslair From what I read they use analog. Unfortunately I don't have the analog board for my RGBtoHDMI.

@AndrewsTechBrk RGB analog or RGBi (digital).

I figured since the CPC 6128 output is RGB the easiest way to get video out for now is a VGA cable. So wired one up. Unfortunately first power on and I get a grey screen. So the system is outputting something. Let the diagnostics fun begin. #retrocomputing #amstrad #cpc #cpc6128

Just noticed they kept the board edge connectors under the bulky connectors but no fingers on the connectors. Too bad it’s going to make it more difficult to use any CPC add-ons.

Exterior inspection of this Schneider CPC 6128 looks good. Very clean and no signs of wear. #retrocomputing #amstrad #cpc #cpc6128

Inside is just as clean. Except for a little dust everything looks really good. I don’t see any worries to try and power it on. Time to tackle the video output.