Afternoon from Finland!
Newbie here at this forum; threshold to sign in was passed,
when i realized, that i might find some difficult to find spares for my commodore disk drive.
My first touch to the wolrd of computing was at age 9, when i had my first computer: vic 20. That was in 1985. I just had one game in it, the Omega race, and couple of other modules, that seemed a bit useless to me that time.
I soon grew tired of that one game, and got interested in programming my own game. What a frustration it was, when i was just beginning the coding... and the massive 3,5 kilobyte memory run out on me.
icard
That started the need for a better computer and later i did move on to amstrad cpc 464. With more memory, better basic and graphics, it was indeed quite a jump from the old vic.
Never had a c64, in its golden time, but acquired some units much later.
Last christmas, 2013, i hooked up c64 and loaded my favorite, wizard of wor there. Played against my brother and it was still as fun as before. Looking at our kids, now at ages between 9 and 13 i noticed, that time has not killed commodore. Kids, that are used to handle pad devices and modern computers with internet can still be attracted to play with commodore for hours.
Then i decided to start a little preservation project myself. This 8 bit stuff is over 30 yrs old and they don't make new ones. I already had several broken units at home. Started to practise repairing faulty motherboards by replacing chips, that might be broken, with new ones. Surprisingly to me, small logic chips were easily available. First attempts, the chips, that were soldered to motherboards, did not survive me removing them so i had to make sure before, that I had a new replacement chip and socket available. After a lot of practise, i was able to remove big chips, like 6510, 6526 or PLA in good, working condition, even if they were soldered on motherboard. Obviously i could check them in another working computer and prove, that this chip is ok and move to the next one. Always soldered a socket back to motherboard.
Successfully fixed one c64 with bad 7406 logic chip, one c64 with bad pla and one c64c that had bad power switch. I also had some broken 1541 drives. They were very poorly storaged, probably in cold and wet conditions, before I got them two years ago. The corrosion was so severe, that one unit had long 6522 chips, that's feets were so corroded, that they dopped out! These drives needed extensive amount of trial and error in finding all of the problems (there were many on each drive), but finaly i was able to repair two of them. Still got two, that need spares for bad drive head.
This introduction to me became quite technical in the end. But it is part of the hobby and part of the reason for me signing in, so i consider it more OK than off-topic.
Today I work in managing it dept. Sometimes I think back and remember how it all started with a little 8 bit Vic 20...
Newbie here at this forum; threshold to sign in was passed,
when i realized, that i might find some difficult to find spares for my commodore disk drive.
My first touch to the wolrd of computing was at age 9, when i had my first computer: vic 20. That was in 1985. I just had one game in it, the Omega race, and couple of other modules, that seemed a bit useless to me that time.
I soon grew tired of that one game, and got interested in programming my own game. What a frustration it was, when i was just beginning the coding... and the massive 3,5 kilobyte memory run out on me.
icardThat started the need for a better computer and later i did move on to amstrad cpc 464. With more memory, better basic and graphics, it was indeed quite a jump from the old vic.
Never had a c64, in its golden time, but acquired some units much later.
Last christmas, 2013, i hooked up c64 and loaded my favorite, wizard of wor there. Played against my brother and it was still as fun as before. Looking at our kids, now at ages between 9 and 13 i noticed, that time has not killed commodore. Kids, that are used to handle pad devices and modern computers with internet can still be attracted to play with commodore for hours.
Then i decided to start a little preservation project myself. This 8 bit stuff is over 30 yrs old and they don't make new ones. I already had several broken units at home. Started to practise repairing faulty motherboards by replacing chips, that might be broken, with new ones. Surprisingly to me, small logic chips were easily available. First attempts, the chips, that were soldered to motherboards, did not survive me removing them so i had to make sure before, that I had a new replacement chip and socket available. After a lot of practise, i was able to remove big chips, like 6510, 6526 or PLA in good, working condition, even if they were soldered on motherboard. Obviously i could check them in another working computer and prove, that this chip is ok and move to the next one. Always soldered a socket back to motherboard.
Successfully fixed one c64 with bad 7406 logic chip, one c64 with bad pla and one c64c that had bad power switch. I also had some broken 1541 drives. They were very poorly storaged, probably in cold and wet conditions, before I got them two years ago. The corrosion was so severe, that one unit had long 6522 chips, that's feets were so corroded, that they dopped out! These drives needed extensive amount of trial and error in finding all of the problems (there were many on each drive), but finaly i was able to repair two of them. Still got two, that need spares for bad drive head.
This introduction to me became quite technical in the end. But it is part of the hobby and part of the reason for me signing in, so i consider it more OK than off-topic.
Today I work in managing it dept. Sometimes I think back and remember how it all started with a little 8 bit Vic 20...
