Disk notchers - I remember when I found out about notching the corner of a disk and suddenly having a whole other side of the disk free to use. Blew my mind! Well doesn’t take much to blow the mind of a 9-10 year old kid. I spent an afternoon carefully measuring and notching all my disks with a single hole punch. I was so nervous doing it. Saved me having to beg and convince my non tech parents that I needed another box of floppy disks. Birthdays and Christmas never came around fast enough.

@jeffreyphipps1507

3 жыл бұрын

I got hold of a notcher at the time and was so excited to double my storage. Mine was like a hand hole punch, but had a guide and square punch. I like the one he shows better.

@johnpossum556

3 жыл бұрын

I remember being surprised that the disk companies actually had the media coated on both sides despite labelling them as being "Single Sided". Companies sure know how to con people.

@dazberry

3 жыл бұрын

I used a nail clippers, not the neatest solution as every cut had a slight curve

@mal2ksc

3 жыл бұрын

@@johnpossum556 There was a difference -- they didn't bother to test the back side of the ones rated for single-sided use. This meant occasionally you'd get one you couldn't use both sides of, but it passed the tests on the "approved" side. This basically stopped mattering once the defect rate got low enough.

@johnpossum556

3 жыл бұрын

@@mal2ksc Now that you mention it I do recall getting a bad second side every once of a blue moon.

Yes, the problem with all of the MOS NMOS chips is the passivation layer. It has too much boron in the glass. Over time the boron migrates into the chip substrate poisoning the transistor junctions.

Welcome to the basement where we tinker with Commodores and other ancient computers to allow them to continue their lives.

@bionicgeekgrrl

3 жыл бұрын

A very worthy endeavour and interesting videos too.

Arrrgh, you smooth toned geek! 04.30 here in NZ, off to bed but clicked a refresh! All the best from your Oceanic listeners!

@sammy61187

3 жыл бұрын

Yep always watch before bed in Australia

I seem to recall a video by Jan Beta, who works a lot on PAL systems (being German), and he had a board he was able to buy and install that had, if I recall, 3 different pots that could be adjusted to get rid of the jail bars issue.

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

The Lumafix is for the 64 -- and I've tested that and honestly found no improvement. I read the 128 version which recently came out does not improve the picture quality at all. (From all reports I've seen online.)

@brianv2871

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah, same as Adrian, I've had no visible improvement with lumafix on the c64. That said, I've only used them on the better c64s (425?) with the better vic chips. maybe there is more noticeable improvement on the older boards with the older silver chips. I've not tried one for the 128, i assume it's not very good either but i guess it can't hurt to try (can't make it any worse.. haha).

@jeffg.445

3 жыл бұрын

You're thinking of a LumaFix. It seems there is now a C128 version which appears to be a recent development: sharewareplus.blogspot.com/2019/01/lumafix128-for-commodore-128.html

@christiankolinski1563

3 жыл бұрын

@@adriansdigitalbasement One of the main factors of the lumafix working or not - at least in my limited experience - is the TV it's connected to. On my Samsung TV the Lumafix on my C64c would do bugger all - no matter how the pots where adjusted. Switched to the bigger Toshiba in the living room and -- woo it worked, trimming the pots changed the picture, and I was able to minimize the lines (can't make the vanish completely). My guess is the A/D conversion and upscaler - and whatever else picture "enhancing" the Samsung does - is very sensible to the ARC bleeding into the luma, and intensifies the effect while the other TV is more relaxed about it. As far as I understand, the Lumafix only dampens the bleeding, but can't get rid of it completely. As your converter box seemed to be a bit iffy with the signal it receives at large (guessing by some older videos of your's where you showed some artifacts produced by it) this may be one reason you don't see any improvement.

if you have a scope, you could set the background color to grey and look at the video signal on the scope with trigger on the h-sync and make the signal bigger in ac-mode. on channel 2 you could look for other signals around the vic-II that looks similar to the jailbar-noise in the video signal. that would be super cool

When using a Floppy Head cleaner in a single sided floppy drive, you should not use one made to clean a double sided head. The spinning disk cleaner is rubbing on the felt head clamp. SCOTCH made floppy drive cleaners with a punch out on the topside of the cleaner disk that is left in place for single sided drives. One cheat you can do is to cut part of a tyvek sleave and make a patch to cover the topside opening so that the felt pad slides over the tyvek patch you have made. This will save and prolong the felt pad clamp.

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

Good tips guys -- I haven't had an issue but I can totally see this as being not great actually. Yeah just covering it up would likely work fine.

The Tandy CoCo series used MFM drives, and how I notched them as a kid is just used a hole punch on the edge of the disk, and they slipped the hole punch inside punched the sleeve on both sides individually. Originally we would cut the disk open, mull the media out and punch them, but were eventually able to do it safely with the lift and punch method. When I first got a 3.5" 1.44MB computer I started drilling my old 720k 3.5" disks from my 1000HX and reformatted them to 1.44.

Another working machine and much useful information. The holepuncher warmed my heart ... so reminiscent. Greetings from Germany.

A lot of really good info in the video. Nice to see the VIC-II issue illustrated the NTSC C128 to help someone that has that problem. Also, nice background on the disk drive and info on the EEPROM/RAM for JiffyDOS. Oh, and I've seen "Competition" joysticks in that color scheme on eBay, so I guess it's good to know that they may not be worth buying (maybe some of the black ones are bad knockoffs, too)

Germany was and still is quite the Commodore country. I grew up in the 90's but even I used to play on the C64 and Plus4 myself, had a 128 later on and stuff. It's pretty great you get all these machines working again, it's always sad seeing these things going to trash.

I used a 3-hole punch we had laying around the house and adjusted it so the hole was where I wanted it. I also punched the other side as the 'round' hole didn't catch as much on the disk sleeves. I thought I was really cool.

When I bought my C128 in 1985 those bars was there.

@tuff_lover

3 жыл бұрын

were*

@kuro68000

3 жыл бұрын

Probably the original design didn't have enough capacitance. Add an extra cap for the VIC to fix.

@PerBengtsson

3 жыл бұрын

@@kuro68000 Care to explain what you mean?

@kuro68000

3 жыл бұрын

@@PerBengtsson jailbars are usually because of power issues. Some chips are more sensitive than others. Adding capacitance should help.

@Derundurel

3 жыл бұрын

@@kuro68000 Extra decoupling does sound like a good plan. I wonder about the aged 10 uF electrolytic capacitors Commodore fitted. There are other possibilities for coupling digital noise onto the video, such as adjacent traces on the PCB.

22:55 An ISMET made C128 power supply. They also made some of the Amiga power supplies as well.Usually the joints around the transformer crack but this one has obviously smoked its pass transistor ! Those "FRAKO" capacitors love to go bad. Their Amiga power supplies were junk also

The C64's door wedge PSU is a usual fix here in Germany: Just replace the old board with a fitting 5V AC-DC converter, like the NFM-15-5 and you have a reliable PSU in original design.

Personally I would recommend against using one of those cleaning floppies in a single sided drive like that. The cleaning disk is slightly rough and so is mildly abrasive, and over time will wear down the felt load pad on the drive head, the pad on the spring loaded side that presses the disk to the head. If it wears down it can’t press on the disk properly and it’ll look like the drive is going bad with read errors. While those pads look replaceable, they are impossible to find! It’s far better to use alcohol on a Q-tip. The cleaning disk should work fine on a double sided drive, though, since it’s rubbing on a head on both sides and there’s nothing to wear out.

16:12 The Serial Shift IO lines from one of the CIA chips was repurposed on the 128 for burst mode on 1570/71/81 drives. This means the loopback on the harness from Serial shift CIA 1 to CIA 2 will not work properly.

Just cleaned and tested a 1541 I purchased and it seems to be fine. Now I got to watch a new ADB video, what an excellent day!

That half-width font looks remarkably like the Commodore PET font. Probably not a coincidence...

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

Indeed -- the PET font should work fine on a C64 and I once loaded the C64 font on a PET. Both are the same map with all the PETSCII characters. (The VIC-20 font is a single width font too.)

What I did back in the day. Formatted 1/2 of the disk dos. Then flipped the disk over and formatted the other side apple II. So I have a what multiboot? I can't remember if I put ms-dos boot files on one side. But Anyway. I thought I was pretty smart at the time.

nice QWERTZ to QWERTY switch :D

I put in a write protect bypass switch on my 1541 drives. You use DT switch and replace the light sensor with the switch so in one position it writes anything to either side and the other position everything is write protected i.e. sensor always on or always off. Worked good when working with new users so they couldn't accidently erase file or format your disks. In the other position you didn't need to notch the disks, also back then people wouldn't look on the backside of the disk if it wasn't notched so you could hide files in plain sight.

1570 is the 1541 with faster Data Transfer on IEC-Bus in 128 Mode. Falls back to C64 Disk speed (or better say disk slow) in 64 Mode. Double sided fast speed came with 1571...

The Y and Z switching is because is the German standard, you can also see that you typed the eszett (ß) too, maybe use smaller characters to fit the extra German letters in the rom?

@raphi_sch

3 жыл бұрын

Switching between QWERTY and QWERTZ

@jenshildenbeutel808

3 жыл бұрын

The label on the Chip says DIN, which is "Deutsche Industrie Norm" and is pretty sure there to enable the german specific characters like öäü and ß

@ShieTar_

3 жыл бұрын

The character width will not affect the number of available characters, that is always 256 since 1 Byte is used to identify the character. The two changes are just randomly combined on the secondary font.

@IkarusKommt

3 жыл бұрын

For some reason, the Europeans needed a special draugher-like typeface available. You can find such font in MS-DOS too.

@pr0wl3r666

3 жыл бұрын

@@IkarusKommt Germans ;)

Everything I've ever read about Jack Tramiel said he was cheap as, and would find ways to reuse everything from calculator keys on the PET, to various C64 motherboards vs cases, etc. It's been amusing to watch you run across so many different variations over time. This drive is especially interesting, because the amount of manual labor involved must have cost more than the PCBs did, even considering PCB costs at the time. Even if Tramiel wasn't involved with this drive decision, it's clear the culture was set :P

That thin font reminds me of vector graphics, which is awesome.

Looking great! Always enjoy your videos! Would love to see a video on c128 versus c64 cartridge incompatibilities.

Adrian, that "single-pixel width font" is the Commodore PET font. Boot up your Commodore PET side by side and they will look identical.

The 220 transformer is actually 2 * 110 in serial if you put them in parallel you'll get 1x110.

@starsundsternchen802

3 жыл бұрын

You should never put voltage sources (as the transformer) in parallel!

@SomeMorganSomewhere

3 жыл бұрын

@@starsundsternchen802 umm, no, this is standard practise. A great many transformers have 2x110V primary windings which you combine in either series for 220V use or parallel for 110V use, allows the manufacturer to use the smallest gauge wire in the primary reducing the cost of the transformer, otherwise they'd need to wind a double-thick 110V primary to allow it to support the necessary current when run on 110V. Ditto the secondaries, you'll frequently come across transformers with say 2x15V windings which can either be connected in series for a 30V (or +/-15V) output or in parallel for twice the current output at 15V. In both cases though you need to be aware of phasing because if you connect the windings out-of-phase you've made an effective short, in-phase they're 100% fine, generally the diagram on the transformer will have a dot to indicate which connections go together for parallel wiring.

@starsundsternchen802

3 жыл бұрын

@@SomeMorganSomewhere You are right! I mixed it with galvanically linked sources!

A disk with double notches where named flippy disks.

@SomeMorganSomewhere

3 жыл бұрын

I thought that term was reserved for double sided disks that had two different formats, one on either side. e.g. might have a C64 version of something on one side and an Atari version of it on the other side?

@CptJistuce

3 жыл бұрын

@@SomeMorganSomewhere Nope. That was the common use for commercial game distribution, but any such reversible disk was a flippy. (We had a bunch of "flippies" in the disk box for my old 99/4a. They were all Wabash disks, and failed dramatically in short order.)

0:00 Well hello Adrian!

@dhgodzilla1

3 жыл бұрын

OOOOOOOOHH HEEEEEEYYZUES!!!

Adrian, I loved it! I have a new video, releasing tomorrow morning, about upgrading the 1541-II power supply to SMPS, modern 5V and 12V supplies. Thanks for all your hard work and entertaining content!

My notch puncher was home made and used a wood template and one of those metal nibbling tools. Did an awesome job.

Yep, always good to salvage cables, was going to refurbish my old Amiga 500 PSU, but, parts of it were toasted (hot resistors resisting with futility) on the PCB, caps leaking and I'm just lazy, so harvested the in & out cables and am building a more compact PSU with a 60w 12v PSU from banggood & a knockoff PicoPSU inside a nice light grey PSU enclosure, should look the part when finished... :)

A couple of thoughts: I remember just using a hole puncher or a bread knife to make the second side. Also I distinctly remember times when a diskette stopped working for some reason we had a trick we used to try and that was to cut the upper/top part of the diskette 's "enclosure" and "take out" the disc+ flip it, making side A side B. I don't know why, but some(not very often) times that made it work again. You mentioned your "joystick"(not the fake competition pro), but the other one with a black D-pad and two red A+B buttons and I can't recall ever seeing that one for the C64 or the 128🤭🤣. Awesome video 👏😄

I've seen strong jailbars like that on PAL C128s. On one, I fitted a board that was supposed to help reduce them, but no amount of adjustments improved it.

Those disk notchers also worked with drives for the BBC Micro. I remember when I first learned u could do that, it was a revelation!

Got hooked on German Haribo after getting a large bag with my Prusa 3D printer. Luckily you can find German Haribo in large packs on Amazon.

Just another awesome video!!

Really cool having a German/Pal 128 and 64!! Congrats on troubleshooting them and getting them working... Too bad about the poor video on the 128!

The brown wire at 6:08 is normal on some C128 revisions (all 3 of mine have this), if you're looking closer on the cap above the color ram (chip right to the char-rom) you'll probably see a cut in a trace. Fun fact: there are 1571 drives out there, having a modified 1570 board inside. How can you tell? 1570 is written on the board. I have two of this drives.

That alternate font looks to be very similar, if not identical to the VIC20/PET font.

@JanneTompuri

3 жыл бұрын

Yes, I was thinking the same. PET had 40 an 80 col versions. Commodore increased the width of the font for the C64 as the thin lines get blurry on regular TV sets.

20:08 Oh boy, I remember those power bricks (called "Elefantenfuß" or "elephant foot" here in Germany ;) ). If they are at least a little bit similar to the C64 ones, they are prone to failure and even thus prone to damaging the Commodore because of overvolting it in the process. :(

Cannot wait to watch!

0:03 good way to start with an "up yours" 😏 ✌🏻

The vertical bars are quite prominent in both of my flat C128 and my C128D. The German versions of the C128 use the QWERTZ layout, hence it switches between Z and Y when you press that key.

To test the burst mode in the 1570 just load a program in the C128 mode, all other commands sent on channel 15 to the drive using the regular C64 -style data transfer. Load/Save uses the handshake of the two involved 6526s.

The brown wire is for switching between character sets, the caps lock key is repurposed for switching between US-ASCII and localized (ÅÄÖÛé, etc). Edit: looks like you found that out on your own.

To make "flippies" we had to cut the protect notch and sector index hole both, and I would generally just use scissors and a ruler to mark where to cut the write protect notch, and for the sector hole again with the ruler to make where the hole should go, and a simple hole punch (remember to do both sides!) would do the trick. The problem with that was flipping the disk reversed the direction of the disk, and disks in those days had a white "fuzzy" dusk collection pad that sat on the disk and flipping the disk and reversing the direction would dump all the collected dust onto "side 1" often trashing the disk, so I stopped making flippies.

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

I think every 1541 and Apple II person flipped their disks to maximum the storage potential. I never personally noticed any issue with the dust on the fuzzy inside -- but I generally always kept my disks in the sleeve, so they didn't accumulate much dust I guess.

Hey Adrian. I wanted to note a couple of things: 1. In my original C64 I had in the early 80s the power supply broke down. It was a fault in the 5v linear regulator. My dad figured it out. He actually drilled it out and replaced it with a new one. It worked forever after that repair, just like you mention in the video. I remember him being very sceptical about the repair. He was surprised it worked but it did. I think it still does. maybe I can find it and picture it for you, if you want. 2. I never had a C128. Not many of us Commodore fans did. However, a good friend of mine did have one. He had the cringy looking video output, just like you show in the video, since day one. I dont think it's a failure. I think it was shipped out of the factory looking like this. I remember it clearly, wondering why it was happening. maybe it is more distinct in PAL versions of the machine (I live in Israel, we have PAL over here). Please please please keep the Commodore content up and coming. it is addictive! I can't stop watching. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into filming the process of repairing these soulful machines. I noticed you never let any assumption go without checking it and cross checking it until you validate it is correct (like with the slow rise time of that c64 in part 1 of this video). I really appreciate your work. Cheers from Israel, Sephy.

@little_fluffy_clouds

Ай бұрын

Interesting, I had a PAL C128D back in the day and I don’t remember those weird jailbars in the output. Perhaps Commodore had fixed whatever was causing it for the 128D models.

128s are pretty much bullet proof. Except the ones with the "MT" Ram chips. In most of my repairs these were the issue. Very nice to see something different :D

@stefanweilhartner4415

3 жыл бұрын

MT - Mostly Trash

@eDoc2020

3 жыл бұрын

I always thought Micron Technologies was one of the best memory manufacturers. I wonder what the failure rates were on different RAM brands back in the day. Perhaps Micron had lower early failure rates.

@stefanweilhartner4415

3 жыл бұрын

@@eDoc2020 that probably changed over time. that also changed with process of manufacturing.

That PSU must have gone with a flash and a bang! LOL.

@JohnWojt

3 жыл бұрын

⛈⚡🌩⚡⚡🌩⛈⚡

Quite many have suggested LumaFix or similar mods for improving the picture quality. I have used LumaFix and ClearVideo64 and bypassed the RF modulator. The picture was great on Commodore 1084S, but quite bad with plasma and LCD TVs. Now I use c0pperdragon’s C64 component video mod with OSSC scaler and the picture is perfect using 4x line multiplication on a 1920x1200 monitor.

I don't know if it was required but I definitely hand-cut a notch and an index hole into my TRS-80 CoCo 2 disks.

There were new produced warranty stickers that matches the original ones. That could explain how an Character-EEprom have found its way in the C128.

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

Possibly -- but I have to wonder if that was a factory installed option in Germany? (For localization)

@ognjennastic70

3 жыл бұрын

@@adriansdigitalbasement definitely factory-installed. I have the exact same machine, wires, DIN ROM adapters and all, that used to be sealed.

Adrian, that transistor released his magic smoke lol

14:10 welp now I feel old :p can't hear a thing. Love this series, especially how you just dive right into fixing stuff!

@theannoyedmrfloyd3998

3 жыл бұрын

I didn't hear anything either but that's not because I can't hear it. The limitations of KZread media compression and the device I used can also affect perceived results.

@spagamoto

3 жыл бұрын

@@theannoyedmrfloyd3998 Whew!

@ct92404

3 жыл бұрын

No, only whiney Millennials complain about supposedly hearing it. Cathode ray tube tvs and monitors have been around forever, and yet no one ever seemed to notice or care, even kids. But then the Millennials came along...and suddenly "waaah! my ears!!"

@blitzroehre1807

3 жыл бұрын

@@ct92404 Harhar.. Let them sit in front of an old B&W tube TV with a disintegrating flyback transformer, harhar

Back-in-the-day, using the back side of the disk wasn't 100% reliable. First, some disks failed QA on one side and if you used the back side would run into issues. This was a problem early on, but disk manufacturing quickly became good enough that bad sides were extremely rare. The other problem is, because flipping the disk caused it to spin in the other direction, it was possible that dirt and grime that had been pulled off the disk by the felt lining, could be pulled back out and run under the heads -- this would result in the need to clean the heads more often. But in general, flipping you disks gave you twice the value for your disk purchasing money -- and that was big because back-in-the-day disks were expensive. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Great video, Adrian! Write protect notches... Maybe more appropriately "write-enable" notches. I remember when little kid me was introduced to those without a full explanation of how they work, so my 6-or-7-year old brain put together this idea that the notch in the disk was how the data literally flowed into disk to be saved... If you covered the hole it prevented the data from getting "inside" and on to the disk. Maybe covering it with medical gauze will keep computer viruses from spreading? Very cool about the ASCII/DIN key... I noticed that this gives you access to umlauts and other characters that make spelling in languages-other-than-English possible. Unless I'm overlooking it, I don't think I've ever seen you do a video covering the Commodore 1701/1702 monitors? Would love to see you go through one of those units... When you pair up a good C64 with a good 1702, it's pure heaven.

You could compare the differe t video signals between the different chips with your scope. Possible this can be a slight variation in the raise and fall times of the video signal. If I remember correctly I saw a video comparing different versions of the video chip regarding jailbars.

Very good thanks 👍😎

Pure MEK works well for a lot, including the circuit boards as well.

Caution on using a hole punch or tool to notch the other side of a single-sided disk... After ~ 25 or 30 years, I converted my old C64 disks to PC ".d64" files, and found MANY second sides failed to copy properly. I'm led to believe the single-sided disks started out as double-sided, but failed quality standards and were therefore not certified as double-sided. FYI, I built a cable and had PC software to connect my 5-pin DIN serial cable to a PC parallel port, which is how I performed the transfers.

3:45 Perhaps this a very rare Dwarvish C-128?

In the 1541, notching the disk meant having to put the Write protect tape label on it to prevent overwriting the disk. That was an issue because the label tended to come off and hang up in the drive mechanism. So i put a switch inline with the sensor so i could trick the drive into thinking the notch was covered.

00:45 ... One thing I never liked about the C128 was how much desktop realestate it covered. I wish the case & board designers hovered the keyboard more above the pcb. This would in effect reduce the depth measurement (length front to back) by about 3-4 inches, I think, thus the only thing keeping it from getting more shorter is the pcb. But I'm sure there was a reason to pancake out the square footage to what the C128 had become, besides thermal dissipation factors. 11:55 ... Have you tried a component cooler spray on the Vic-II chips when turned on to see if cold temperature affects the video output? 15:25 ... I have always preferred single pixel width characters on my C64. I designed new characters that way & uploaded them into ram to replace the original character rom, just to see how they looked. That was in the mid-late 1980's. I wanted to make my own replacement char ROM chip then but didn't know how or was too busy with other things. To me, the thinner characters looked more professional too. 24:45 ... What could have killed that regulator? A power surge, such as lightning? 43:33 ... Yup, I still also have my disk notcher, bought in the mid 1980's. Of course, not every uni-sided floppy disk had a reliable 2nd side due to factory quality check, since most likely the 2nd side was never meant to be used. The same was true for 3.5" floppies, but it was more about density, not sides. Still, for the most part, probably 90% (my guess) of all 5.25" disks in its heyday had good 2nd sides. And back then, I had also sometimes confused this disk notcher with the Suncom C64 Icontroller joystick because they almost look alike.

Have you tried adding extra capacitance to the VIC chips that are bad? Some PC Engines have a similar problem but it can be fixed by adding an extra cap to the video chip.

Hello, nice video as always :-)

adrian, as a motivational speaker, i have been introducing positive thoughts into the rainbow lobster harvesting community for a long time, they dont even know...my tenure of involvement is extensive & comprehensive...its for the lobsters adrian...the lobsters...

Commodore filter the supply to the VIC to reduce digital noise on the video output. On this schematic (probably not the right version) the most likely failure is C63. See: www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/schematics/computers/c128/310378-2-right.gif C62 performs a similar function for the colour generator. Try holding a good capacitor across the suspect ones to verify this. Low ESR types are best. The value isn't critical. Edit: for the digital RGB output, try C88 and C61. All of these capacitors are 10 uF, so testing and potential replacement should be straightforward.

For mechanical keyboard sets at least, a lot of times the spacebar and other longer keys are made out of ABS instead of PBT, since PBT plastic warps more easily (which can be more noticeable for longer lengths). Maybe that has something to do with the uneven yellowing?

So how do you like your transformer pc board, regular or extra crispy?

WOOHOO! We need an 8-bit dance party!!

The video is normal for PAL. Normally if used on a CRT the persistence of the phosphor and the bandwidth of the video circuitry in the monitor would smooth out the display. (still noticeable). The problem with converting to LCD for all retro computers is that the level steps in the colour ADC's are too fine thus it digitizes the noise. The retro converter would work better if they used less bits in the ADC or they bin the samples and normalize them (a bit like auto-tune for colours)

@danielmantione

3 жыл бұрын

I'm not sure. I have several C128s and alltough some of them have really bad jailbars, I don't think my machines do display as poorly as Adrians one.

Have you tried adjusting the trimmer capacitor next to the clock chip ? It's possible that theres some process variation in the clocks that the VIC generates that could be trimmed out with this

This is weird, I made one 1570 from a 1541 case without knowing that Commodore already did it and I came out with the same adapter plate idea... but mine is two sided :-)

Very interesting video! Glad to see pal machines in your basement. Btw, did you have heard about a French classic, like the Thomson MO5?

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

No, I haven't! Those types of machines are just a real mystery here in the US!

@Retrocatone

3 жыл бұрын

Adrian's Digital Basement Even in France, its now a very confidential machine, I guess w/ the take off of Pc’s not so far after, many were send to the land fill.... I’ll catch you by mail, it’ll be more simple as I had few links and stuff

That CompetitionPro doesn't look fake. The clear one was the 3nd model that was released, when there only had been the previous two black models (first with metal leaf contacts instead of microswitches even on all directions and a black handle, 2nd black with a red handle, with microswitches only at the directional contacts, 3rd one with microswitches only at directions but not in the fire buttons, red handle and transparent case), still using the rubber ring instead of springs and it was the 2nd most popular. It was about 3 years later, that they switched to springs instead of rubber, first seen with the (originally dark blue) CompetitionPro-Star and then later with all models. Amongst sophisticates the rubber-ring ones with leaf-contact fire buttons where the best CompetitionPros ever made because you could control way more precise and sensitive and much faster than with the way too stiff spring loaded models and they also didn't bother you with that super annoying clicking so extremely as their still where leaf-contacts in the fire buttons. Also you could fine tune the fire buttons' leaf contacts so that even slightly blowing at the button would result in a registered push. The possible fire rate was MUCH higher than with the microswitched fire buttons of the later models, because the microswitches didn't return the fire button fast enough. You can tell later of the terrible clicky and unprecise black models from the better and older ones by the clicky ones having a visible stamping on the joystick's upper edges, where the CompetitionPro would usually have had it's small xtra fire buttons, as they obviously used the same mold. But sadly not all of the clicky models have this 'feature', as they probably used some remaining older cases after switching to the fully-microswitched-spring design. I can still remember the gaming magazines reviewing the CompetitionPro after these changes. they all praised it to heaven and claimed the microswitches being so great, and how they wished that even their wife had microswitches on her body - I think this was a bit weird, as no one that I knew of (including myself) actually liked the newer ones better than the older ones, and when we did mixed 1:1 matches for testing, the newer sticks' design clearly proved to be a disadvantage. Also a metal spring being cheaper than a massive lump of rubber seemed to be the main reason behind the change.. Problem is, that the rubber didn't age well, since. That's why I prefer the ZipStick nowadays, as it had a spring but isn't as notchy as the spring using CompetitionPros.

Thanks for sharing this pic.

Would a similar fix to the 128k speccy jail bars fix be effective? By changing the smoothing disc caps to a different rating?

28:43 The CIA in the 1570/71 is only there for the Serial Shift ability. I believe it is also a 2MHz chip, so you could put it in the 128, but not vice-versa.

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

I read those don't work in the 64/128 -- but maybe that's incorrect. like they were neutered in some way -- will need to investigate more.

im going to get some desolering gear and want to deside between the same desoldering gun adrian has and a hot air station or a better desoldering gun. wich is a better coice?

Instead of using 9VAC for the power supply, you should be able to use 12VDC. 9 x 1.414 = 12.73, so probably close enough. You have to get polarity correct if it doesn't feed a full bridge rectifier

Hi Adrian what does Pla chip and sid cheap stand for? Also have you done a video or going to do a video for the nes controller to c64 conversion or have you already done 1? also is there any difference between the c64 and Amiga 500 controller pinout? Ty Greg

@JohnCena-iw2vk

3 жыл бұрын

PLA means Programmable Logic Array, SID means Sound Interface Device. PLA is like a Chipset, while the SID is the sound chip.

31:00 Ditch the stupidly hot internal transformer and regulators. Install a 4pin DIN socket and use a 1541-II power supply.

Commodore macht Kinder froh!

@starsundsternchen802

3 жыл бұрын

Reimt sie sich aber nicht!

@blitzroehre1807

3 жыл бұрын

@@starsundsternchen802 naja, so-la-la

Love your videos, and I've never even owned a Commodore, I'm an Atari nerd :)

Did you notice @ 8:14 it only said 30719 bytes free, not 38911?

@Adrian - Why did the Commodore 64 require the RESTORE key to be smashed to make it function?

@danielmantione

3 жыл бұрын

There is a small protection on the mainboard to prevent multiple NMI interrupts in a row. If I remember well, there was a poor chocie of capacitor in that protection. You didn't need to smash, but the restore-press had to be reallly short, and people made the wrong conclusion that you had to smash the restore.

If you connect a 220V transformer to 110V, you simply get out 4.5V instead of 9V. The transformer has two 9V outputs, one connected directly to 9V pins, the other to the 5V regulator. As you would replace the 5V part by an switching power supply anyway, the second 9V output is free. So why not simply put both 9V outputs in serial? So on 110V input you get 2*4.5=9V, exactly what you need. So you can reuse the transformer...

How did you get these three plastic covers out of the holes of the 128 psu without destroying them? I have an early German market 128 which has a lot of bodge wires too. Let me know if you’re interested in a photo. Thanks!

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah they really just fell out in the case of this PSU

I notice the keyboard buttons return and restore become less yellow, but weird, maybe those keys are made of a different alloy plastic. I myself have been a plastic processor for 24 years, so that some things remain a mystery. Like your video's Greetz

@mal2ksc

3 жыл бұрын

I have a MIDI keyboard from the early 1990s that is still in good working order (aside from the pitch bend having a massive "dead spot" but that's a design flaw, not an age issue) and its keys are unevenly yellowed as well. But I noticed that all the F keys are the same shade of yellow, all the D keys are the same shade of yellow, and so on. It could be that the C128's keys were made similarly -- run a batch of a thousand "A" keys, swap the dies, and make a run of "B" keys, etc. Natural variance in their plastic supply (which was, at the time, masked by dyes) could explain the rest.

@eddielegs344

3 жыл бұрын

@@mal2ksc Wouldn't surprise me, Commodore was known to use different parts and brands, just what they had available with the electronics. The fact that they would use tricks with plastic manufacturing to be cheaper or smarter will certainly use that or even distribution can play a role in the wider use of semi-product manufacturing. But find your story difficult to follow because my English is not good enough, that is not your fault. But to me. I used to be able to copy / paste the text from KZread and translate it somewhere else but KZread has forbidden that, now I can't translate answers very sad KZread why not necessary for anything not everyone is good at languages, especially the older ones not like me :(! ! Grz from Holland buddy ;)

@mal2ksc

3 жыл бұрын

@@eddielegs344 On a musical keyboard, all the white keys are shaped a little different because of the pattern of two, then three, black keys per octave. But this pattern repeats at the octave, so every C key (except the highest one) will be the same, every D key will be the same, etc. It makes sense they'd make these keys in batches, and apparently that is the case for mine because the key for C -- in all four octaves -- is the yellowest, the D is not as bad, the E is better still, and then the keys from F to B have almost no yellowing at all. I just figured the economics of running the molding machines favors running large batches for typing keyboards just as much as musical keyboards, so they probably batch their jobs in a similar manner.

2:20 "I expect this thing to work perfectly" Wonderful sentence, don't expect everything to work first try :D

My guess is that different letters were made in separate batches with different amounts of bromine in the plastics

i didnt know the command "New" thanks :-)

Does anyone know what the hat is on the Raspberry Pi that shows up around 41:44? It kind of looks like some kind of MIDI interface but it's hard to tell. I'm curious what it's used for.

@adriansdigitalbasement

3 жыл бұрын

It's a Pi1541 -- cycle exact disk drive emulator :-)

25:30 The back grille part of that drive looks like your camera is focusing and defocusing on it. Or something. On my 4k smart TV it looks like its rainbowing through various colors.

My NTSC c64's vic-ii is a weird one. Every time I power it on, the jailbars are different. Yours seems to be some sort of other weird video fault, but it seems to still behave similar in that it looks different when rebooting. Sometimes when I power it up, the jailbars are completely gone, and it looks damn near like an emulator with the retrotink and my 75in 4K TV. I've got a homemade set of massively overkill double shielded AV leads, so when it behaves, the image is absolutely astounding. Also, every key on my machine needs to be pressed extremely hard to register. I've tried cleaning the pads and contacts with alcohol, no change. Any suggestions?

Methinks there's a way to de-pot that compound. I don't think anyone wants to bake it out. Takes a while and stinks. Those disk notchers also worked for Atari 8-bit drives like the 1050. Rather irked you forget Atari.

@CptJistuce

3 жыл бұрын

They also worked for the original IBM PC 5150, which came with single-sided drives. Single-sided was the standard on TI 99/4a setups as well. There's a LOT of stuff from that time period that benefitted from disk notchers.

So, what is the point of using the potting compound? Was it just to keep little fingers from poking in where they shouldn't?