The Bonami retro game computer museum asked me for a banner, so I changed the header of this blog a bit and created a small one for Bonami.
It should be on their site shortly ;)

Hi all,

It's definately not the situation that I'm doing nothing. On the contrary: it seems I'm succeeding in more and more, also when it comes to hobbies.
So it's logical some people I communicate with 'order' me to update this weblog ;)

Bonami
Here in Holland we had a computer community under a payed organisation, called the HCC. It had dozens of sub-communities, and also one for Sinclair.

For years this HCC-Sinclair community was the hotspot for everything about Speccy and friends here in Holland.

But in just a few years it has vanished from the earth...
I think mainly because the people who organised the Sinclair community were just not enthousiastic enough. They even do not respond to my emails anymore...

But anyway, there are still people like me, who like using retro-computers, as it's called nowadays ;)
Even young people are starting a hobby within this retro-computing range, and so there are slowly rising some new communities.

Last year an organisation, or better: a retro-computing museum, called Bonami, offered to organise small events on this topic.
;)
Don't ask me that twice!
:-)
So in March I'm getting over to the north of Holland and visit my first Bonami Retro Game Computer event!
I will tell you about it when I return.

If you want, you can read more about Bonami here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?h ... &tl=en
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MB02

I must be the luckiest man on earth, buying an eBay auction at an excellent price, including an MB02!
It also included a nice modded Spectrum, floppy, joystick, Kempston Mouse Turbo, and I think an internal PC keyboard interface, but I'm not sure.

This is my second MB02, and believe me: they are both being used!
One of them (Ingo's prototype) is going to be mounted with Spectrum inside a transparent ATX miditower as you may have read before.

The other one will be used without modification: it's boxed and I think I'm going to put it behind a nice ZX Spectrum 128K+ (black model with heatsink).
Then I also have a DivIDE to use with another Spectrum, maybe 128K, maybe 48K.
This all will be showed to the public in March as described above.


Oh yes, and then... I blew up an MB02 in the meantime...
I wrongfully connected an IDE cable... I should have double checked.

Luckally I remembered others that blew up their MB02 and only the GAL (part of the IDE circuit) did not survive on their exemplar.
But of course also the 2.5A fuse on my MB02 went to heaven...
So I was a bit scared as you can imagine!

I had a homemade GAL programmer and tried that, but at least 3 GAL's did not survive that attempt..
At last I ordered a real universal programmer from somewhere from the east ;)

It arrived a couple of days ago (I had to pay extra taxes!! Blast!), I programmed a GAL succesfully, replaced the (hard to get) fuse, did some measuring, powered it up, and it started working again!
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Programming

I will start programming again soon.
Now I have my dream setup (or two, to be correct), which I just have to 'complete', I'm ready with the hardware and can focus on the stuff that drives it.

Some things I want to experiment with in time are:
1. Playing video using the MB02's power
2. Playing midi files
3. Playing audio using the MB02's 3 parallel ports
4. Writing demos
5. Having lots of fun!
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TEA2000

I bought some spare Spectrum board on an auction, and found out one had a probably defective TEA2000.
I had the incorrect thought I still had some.

So yesterday I put a request on one of those chip-wholeseller sites, and I'm flushed at the moment with companies who sell them.
I think it will not be hard to get a couple ;)

Anyone interested?
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Repair requests

I'm not an expert on repairing Spectrum's and interfaces.
I'm just someone who likes to write everything about this hobby that's in my head ;)

I try to get people to contact the correct person if needed.
So please keep sending all your request!
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Lot's and lot's more...

You can imagine I can go on for hours ;)
The current community is great: people who survived the last years when organisations and clubs ended, and also don't care about collegues that wonder why the hell I spend money and time on these machines - I wonder why they say that, I think they never had a hobby, and are just jealous - every computer can still be used, maybe not for businesses, but for creativity even more!
And to finish what I was saying: if you're still here, reading with pleasure, you are most likely a social person, who never gives up what he thinks is important and what gives you fun in your life!

There are more important things in life, but they do not rule out a hobby like this one!

C ya next time!

Ow, please send me pictures of your setup, I will post them here!

Stupid me, I forgot to descibe a huge part of the advanced functionallity of the PC keyboard interface in the manual.

So I updated the manual, here it is !

One of the most important new things is how to record macro's on the Function keys.

Have fun!

Here are some pictures of my work on building a ZX Spectrum 128K+, PC Keyboard Interface, Kempston Mouse Turbo and MB02+IDE into a transparent PC case:





I've made some minor changes on the power supply to the Spectrum; I got rid of the 7805 and feed the 5V from the ATX supply directly to the 5V of the Spectrum.
The 12V line of the ATX supply is converted simply to about 10V by some 4448 diodes; if I'm correct there will be very little power consumption on the 12V line, so I've used switching diodes instead of e.g. 1N4001's (because I didn't have them at home...).





I'm using a silver dvd-rewriter as cdrom player ;)

More pictures soon!

I've put the PC Keyboard Interfaces for sale on eBay, item number: 180300275208.

I also still accept direct orders, especially if you want a discount when buying more than one interface, or combine an interface with a US layout PC keyboard.

If you want to order directly, here are the details:
One interface: 30 euro (+ post&packiging).
Every next interface: 25 euro (+ post&packiging).

So 2 pieces will be: 55 euro's (+ post&packiging).
Three pieces: 80 euro (+ post&packiging).

Post and packaging is:
- 10 euro for Europe
- 15 euro worldwide

Payment can be done by Paypal or by bank transfer. Mail me for details by the contact form.