Sporniket's log on hardware stuff

[sporniket]

Well, the H5 is pre-ordered and I have pleeeeenty of time before having receiving. And that's good, because I have other ongoing projects on the software side.

Anyway, I already have a little todo list.

• find some place to put my project when not working on it - DONE
  01-making-space.jpg
• do some soldering practice (a little audio switch 1 input / 3 output, stereo 3.5'' jack) - DONE
  02-doing-some-soldering.jpg
• study schematics of the H5 and the STE (even printed on A3, the magnifier is mandatory) - DOING
  03-studying-schematics.jpg
• The STE schematics is a PITA to decipher, I'm feeling like learning Kicad to make a clean rewrite of it
• Buy the list of parts from Mouser - DONE
• Buy some parts from Exxos
• Find a donor STF - DOING (waiting for PhilC to post the pictures in his thread)

[sporniket]

This is not the donor machine I'm looking for...

2020-10-23--new-gear.jpg

I got a little bit side-tracked. BUT unexpectedly won a bid at a fair price for it, with reasonable postage (because not from another countries)...

More pics later, I plan to do a checkup, recap as needed, ditch the floppy drive for a goex (later). This machine ought to be for testing my programs on real hardware.

[sporniket]

So, I disassembled the STE to see what's inside. It's a CA401177 motherboard with a Mitsumi SR98 psu, and I was surprise do discover that I have a component video output ?? (The one I had when I was young did not have that).

I struggled a little bit to remove the top shield, until I understood that I had to take the whole (shield + motherboard) out of the case before being able to separe them without problem.

2020-10-23--inside-01.jpg

2020-10-23--inside-02.jpg

2020-10-23--inside-03.jpg

2020-10-23--inside-04.jpg

2020-10-23--inside-05.jpg

2020-10-23--inside-06.jpg

[exxos]

So, I disassembled the STE to see what's inside. It's a CA401177 motherboard with a Mitsumi SR98 psu, and I was surprise do discover that I have a component video output ?? (The one I had when I was young did not have that).

I think if it has a RF box it probably has component output.. though some machines may still have it anyway.. can't remember off-hand.

[JezC]

:coolpics:
Looks like it has an AJAX chip in there instead of a 1772?

All 3 of my STEs have TOS in EPROMs...looks like you have mask ROMs. Any idea whether it's 1.6 or 1.62?

[sporniket]

I think if it has a RF box it probably has component output.. though some machines may still have it anyway.. can't remember off-hand.

Anyway, it means that I can try to plug it to my TV set and see how it looks.

:coolpics:
Looks like it has an AJAX chip in there instead of a 1772?

All 3 of my STEs have TOS in EPROMs...looks like you have mask ROMs. Any idea whether it's 1.6 or 1.62?

I got it without any cable, I have to look in my things for a spare one, if I still kept one. So cannot say for now. And in the motherboard section of the forum, it mentions the AJAX chip.

For now, I will give the plastic case a good scrub...

[tzok]

I was surprise do discover that I have a component video output ?? (The one I had when I was young did not have that).

Component Video (Y, Pb, Pr)? Are you sure? All STEs, except french (SECAM) ones, have RF output, and Composite Video.

[sporniket]

I was surprise do discover that I have a component video output ?? (The one I had when I was young did not have that).

Component Video (Y, Pb, Pr)? Are you sure? All STEs, except french (SECAM) ones, have RF output, and Composite Video.

ha sorry, you're right, "composite" not "component". A.k.a. "the yellow plug" :D

[tzok]

Composite video is on DIN-13 (Monitor) socket, extra RCA socket is for RF (TV) out.

[sporniket]

Today, a bit of unboxing :

2020-11-04--st-vga-001.jpg

2020-11-04--st-vga-002.jpg

2020-11-04--st-vga-003.jpg

2020-11-04--st-vga-004.jpg

Unfortunately, my TV set does not supports the 15kHz color mode, as well as my computer monitor... anyway, let's continue with high resolution...

2020-11-04--st-vga-005.jpg

I tried to adjust some settings to get rid of the stripes (+ going into 4:3 mode).

2020-11-04--st-vga-006.jpg

It seems I have TOS 1.06 on this one, if i believe the copyright year extended to 1989 and a little check on this page

So, all in all this little one is operationnal, before undergoing some of the mandatory fixes. Since I have a soldered CPU, I obviously will let it be.