BlueSCSI Goes Outside | Leaded Solder
Building an external-SCSI variant of the BlueSCSI v1 hard drive emulator for old Macs, and debugging the SD transfer utility for copying StuffIt files to the Mac from the SD card.| Leaded Solder
Sony doesn’t like to talk about their SMC-777 very much, but this unloved middle child represents an entire parallel universe of Japanese 8-bit computing. Today, we’ll take an extremely battered example and get it working again.| Leaded Solder
Even after so many years of delving into Japanese 80s computers, there’s still some undiscovered frontiers waiting for me. Early on in my studies, I had heard stories about the Sord M5 and its Western VDP. Through the help of a good friend, I was able to get ahold of one, and then the first of many clone projects began.| Leaded Solder
We’ve had a lot of fun with VTech’s computers in the past on this blog. Usually, they’re relatively spartan computers with limited functionality, but they did make something very interesting in the late 80s. The Socrates is their hybrid video game console/computer design from 1988, and today we’ll start tearing into it.| Leaded Solder
Back when I was putting together the Minigun supergun, my project progress was halted for months by lack of a cable. Of course, that Mega Drive 2 SCART cable did eventually arrive – the fourth one I ordered – but in the meantime, I got frustrated. And when I get frustrated, I tend to build PCBs.| Leaded Solder
I picked up a complete Nintendo Family BASIC package for my freshly composite-modded Famicom. Let’s see if I can remember enough BASIC to take advantage of this package and build a horizontally-scrolling space shooter game. Oh, and fix the cartridge first, of course.| Leaded Solder
Building an external-SCSI variant of the BlueSCSI v1 hard drive emulator for old Macs, and debugging the SD transfer utility for copying StuffIt files to the Mac from the SD card.| Leaded Solder
Way back in May of 2018, I was unable to get the SparcStation 1+ to stop returning “Illegal Instruction” errors for any attempt at booting. This made absolutely no sense to anyone I asked about it, and they suggested replacing the PROM battery, because at least then we’d have fewer known-broken parts in the computer. I ignored this advice, and just stuck the computer in a corner with the other broken machines for awhile so it could think about what it did.| Leaded Solder
When I got the CoCo, one of the big problems was the super-smeary, snowy video on the RF-out. Even though composite video is generated internally by the video circuitry of the computer, Tandy didn’t end up breaking it out to an actual port. Lots of other 8-bit machines of the era are in the same boat. Luckily, adding a composite video port to the CoCo is very straightforward! So straightforward, in fact, that I did it twice.| Leaded Solder
A PC-6001 ROM cartridge is made that displays Claude Monet’s “Meules” impressionist painting on the screen. Z80 assembly language and the memory map of the 6847 video controller are discussed.| Leaded Solder
One of the hot new trends in the 8-bit computer community is the development of “Pico carts.” By using a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller instead of a ROM, you can make a cool software-defined cartridge that can do basically anything. For instance, it can load a ROM. I decided to make a prototype one for my beloved NEC PC-6001 series of home computer.| Leaded Solder
