exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Went over to Kingston upon Thames this morning to collect a BT Tonto (One Per Desk) colour monitor and an Epson HX-20.

The house clearance company's warehouse is the equivalent to the Barry scrap yard for steam locos... loads of stuff.

I picked up a couple of Apricot Xi base units (keyboards had gone missing since the machines failed to sell on eBay last week somehow) for a tenner each. Useful spares, especially the floppy drives. I can upgrade the Xi I have ready for the show to a double sided drive (more useful) and replace the corroded one in the F1 now.

The monitor was filthy on the outside, covered in pigeon poo. I've cleaned it up now. The case is fibre glass and not ABS so it's got a far rougher surface. Next is the RIFA-ectomy on the power supply.

I can look at the HX-20 another day.

So, after de-pooing.


and de-RIFA-ing


And, the false start where I put the monitor together without the OPD power supply plugged, oops!

It works!.


It took about a minute for the green gun to come on-line but it's stable now.

Back to preparing for the Portable event in Cambridge next weekend.

I've created the signage today, so that's one thing off my back.

I had a look at the drives in one of the "scrap" Apricot Xi machines I picked up on Wednesday, swapping the front carrier with the one in the working machine. The hard drive spins up far better than the working machine one but seems to have gained some bad blocks. The double sided floppy drive works but needed some exercise to get it working reliably, especially the eject/load mechanism.

Anyway, I swapped the floppy drives over between the two frames and so the working machine has a 720K drive, making it far more useful.


I think I'll test the other scrap machine's floppy after next weekend.

Had a look at the second "scrap" Apricot Xi last night and tonight.

The problem with the lines on the display and giving ROM checksum or RAM errors finally tied down to a bad RAM chip...


Don't you love it when piggybacking RAM chips works?


Took the chip out and it fails the test in a RAM tester. Fitted a socket and a new chip and the machine's happy.

Finally checked out the floppy drive. Unfortunately the upper head is wrecked. Looks like a disk got stuck and someone yanked it out, ripping the top head off. Unfortunately I got the machine mostly for the floppy drive. I may be able to use the top head from the original F1 drive, maybe.

The power supply in this machine needs some work. Not only the two spent smoke generators but the 12V output caps (and probably the 5V ones as well) need replacing.

Being reasonably productive the last couple of evenings.

Replaced the 4164 chip in the Apricot and tested the floppy drive the machine had in it. I can see why it was wrecking disks. Someone had ripped the top head off the arm. This is a pain as I was wanting to use this drive as a replacement in the F1. I may be able to make a frankenfloppy drive from parts from the two drives though.

This evening I installed the replacement NiCD battery in the Epson HX-20. Slight issues getting it in but it works. Another machine where the power input just charges the battery so you need a working battery for the machine to work.

Then, as the new feet for the BT/Merlin Tonto monitor have arrived I fitted them and tried setting it up with the OPD in front, as it should be, rather than side-by-side as I had it for testing....


I need a deeper desk!!!

stephen_usher wrote: 15 May 2024 21:01 I need a deeper desk!!!

Move it forward a bit :lol:

exxos wrote: 15 May 2024 21:05

stephen_usher wrote: 15 May 2024 21:01 I need a deeper desk!!!

Move it forward a bit :lol:

:D

That's an interesting screen, looks a bit different to my OPD display, nice image though.

Finished the first day of the portables event in Cambridge and as suspected it's the Apple Portable which has been the least reliable machine, mostly caused by the charging circuit bouncing and causing the machine to crash when the battery became totally full.

The Two Apricot machines just sat their and did their thing without complaint.

Just got back from Cambridge. Fun weekend.

Unfortunately, as I was expecting, the Macintosh Portable didn't last the weekend. It got more and more unhappy as the weekend went on. I suspect the power management sub-system.

Anyway, as I say, fun weekend.