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
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
Modifying a PC-6001 cassette tape image to work from a ROM cartridge.| Leaded Solder
Repair of an NEC MultiSync 3D CRT with green interference on the screen.| Leaded Solder
