Crashed

A picture of the latest Gotek bracket installed in the Torch Triple X before the memory problems. There is a silver USB memory stick inserted into the Gotek. An SD card is inserted in a slot at the top and a red LED is lit, indicating that the BlueSCSI is accessing the card.

The Torch Triple X remains inoperable. I've checked all the RAM and it's all OK.🙁

Having reseated all the chips (and RAM obvs) the Limpet board flashes once then immediately gives an error beep sequence which is worse than before.. 🙄

This bloody hobby is the best and the worst sometimes.. 😤

I think the phrase I'm looking for rhymes with "clucking bell".

The Torch Triple X has died.

When booting it stops at the pale blue screen.

Limpet LED flashes four times (normal) then stops (not normal). What. The. Actual.

I'm hoping it's just RAM but, bloody hell. 😤😢😳🤬

Fortunately, my Electron is working fine. Or at least it was until I nicked the 6502 for my Commodore PET. 😁 New 6502s are on the way so the Electron will be revived. 🫡

(OMTI is on the way!)

A picture of an oscilloscope display showing a regular repeating wave. There is a distinct gap between each rising wave.

Ok. So @snuggsy187.bsky.social bio reminded me I have an Acorn Electron which has now been relieved of its 6502...

I now get clock-like signals from pin 39 and pin 3 but should they look like this? Apologies for the terrible photo - single handed photography against a shiny screen on a bright day..

The inside of Rusty with his motherboard removed. A large green capacitor is to the left, behind is the main transformer of the power supply.

The motherboard of Rusty. The seven ROM sockets are empty as I'd the CPU socket to the right.

Pretty convinced now that Rusty has a faulty 6502. There's clock going in at pin 37 and nothing coming out at pin 39 or pin 3. And I actually have nothing else at all that has a 6502 (plenty of Z80s though).

eBay, here I come (again).

#commodorepet

A picture of an Ender 3 3D printer with direct drive and red filament feed mechanism. The printer is printing black filament onto a glass bed. The printer is running firmware from Tiny Machines.

Just started an 11 hour print. Should be the final Gotek bracket for the Torch Triple X but with an added slot for an SD card extender to plug into the BlueSCSI. See you on the other side...or at about 9pm tonight if you prefer.

#3dprinting
#torchxxx

A picture of the front section of the commodore pet motherboard. The front row of eight RAM chips are the original white sockets. The second row, behind the first, are lower profile and black plastic.

Halfway through replacing the evil white sockets holding the RAM in Rusty. They're awful. Even the cheap double wipe sockets I have are a 100% improvement.

Age verification? Pah! I still use octal for serious purposes. 😒

Saved another smart bulb from landfill. One of the low voltage capacitors failed because of the heat (470uf 10v). Not that it's a huge issue - this particular one had been in use for over two years. Just pleased it's a relatively simple fix.

Happy 40th to the legend that is the Amiga computer.

#amiga #retro #nostalgia #tech

I still have a couple of tweaks to make. I have a couple of SD card extenders so I'm going to include a slot for that in the front so I can swap disk images. 😁

And I'm sure the cables inside are pressing on something to do with RAM causing the low res boot.

But I'm pretty pleased with it. 🙂

A picture of the Torch Triple X in its case with Gotek floppy drive and small Sony monitor. The kernel window is displayed but everything is in low resolution for no explicable reason...

A picture of the Torch Triple X in its case with Gotek floppy drive and small Sony monitor. The OpenTop desktop is displayed but everything is in low resolution for no explicable reason...

Torch Triple X looking mighty fine. Just don't look at the back with all the power cables to the ATX supply hanging out...

And, for some reason, the bloody thing keeps booting up in low res, sixteen colour mode which does not play well with OpenTop..

🤔🙄

The joys of retro computing.

Rusty update. Started to trace the clock signals as there is no visible clock at the 6502.

Found that the shift register (74LS164) at H3 has a very odd output at pin 13, which should be one of the clock phases. Probing it with the oscilloscope probe gives a very strange result..

My logic probe does nothing if set to TTL or shows low on CMOS for the clock pins.

And those white sockets are an abomination. If I was feeling brave I'd be swapping them all out but given how fragile the board looks I shall make do - unless it proves that they're the issue! 😆

Yes, reset is high and if I hold my logic probe on pin 40 I can see stay low for a second or two then it goes high so I assume it's coming out of reset.

I need to get my oscilloscope set up for the clock and I'm just making room in the shed! This thing is a beast!

A picture of the PET motherboard showing all seven ROM sockets filled.

A picture of the PET screen. The display shows random characters on slide white and black lines in columns.

Rusty will have to go into the main pile'o'projects for a little bit.

I suspect either the CPU is knackered or there are ROM issues.

There's no data or activity on the address lines of the CPU, and the ROMs get rather warmer than I'd expect after a while switched on, borderline burny.

A picture of the bottom of the PET motherboard. A raised lump is visible on the board indicating that the board is delaminating..

A picture of the entire back of the PET motherboard. There are about fifteen blue circles, some small, some larger, indicating an area where the board has delaminated.

Oh dear. Rusty's motherboard is delaminating. I assume this is probably because it's been unused for a long time, potentially in damp conditions (before rescue by TNMoC) and now I'm throwing electrons at it, it's a bit overwhelmed... 😳

It was not fun doing a middle pin of an 8375 Agnus. 🙂

I'm pretty sure that the PET under the table is the one I brought home. 😁

A picture of a Commodore PET showing garbage characters on screen.

A picture of a 74LS244 integrated circuit on the PET motherboard. The chip has a visible crack around two thirds of the way along to the right.

Annnd we're back in the room. Phew!

Replaced 74LS107 flip flop at H8 as well as the 74LS08 responsible for the 'Video on' signal and a 74LS244 that had an actual crack in it.

Still garbled, but alive..

#commodorepet
#rustylives

Well, shoot. The picture on the CRT has collapsed to a single line. There doesn't seem to be any vertical deflection voltage coming out of the board at J7. The horizontal deflection voltage is about 1.7v - not sure if that's right.

Suspect the flip flops at H8. Gah!

A picture of the Torch power LED. The hole has been filled and a 2mm green LED inserted before the glue cooled.

The rear of the Torch power LED. A small grey cable extends from the motherboard to the LED.

The Torch power LED with power switched on. The LED is lit green.

I might have a new PET but the Torch is still there. The power LED broke so I used hot glue to create a replacement. Don't judge me.

Quite pleased with the results.

@populated not popular 🙄

A picture of the Commodore PET motherboard. It's very dirty. There are sixteen RAM chips in white sockets. Seven ROM chips are also socketed towards the back. A large blue capacitor is towards the front left of the board and there are three round voltage regulators behind the capacitor.

Here's a pic of the board. I've cleaned it since! All of the RAM is socketed - looks factory, and all ROM sockets are popular(I expected a couple to be empty).

A picture of a Commodore PET 4032 screen. The screen is showing random white vertical stripes, peppered with random symbols, letters and numbers.

So Rusty doesn't work correctly. I get a garbled screen but not the sort of normal, briefly shown random garbage. This is very regimented and stays the same, every time. 🤔

@binarydinosaurs.co.uk I heard you say you used to have loads of PETs. Have you seen anything like this before? 🙂

Went to retro electro jumble. May have bought a thing. I shall call him 'Rusty' for that was the description of him on the condition sheet pinned to the board. At least he still has his motherboard...

I've never had a PET so this seemed like a good place to start. 😁

#tnmoc #commmodore

I'm going. 😁 Mrs Crashed is not as excited as I am for some reason.

Really annoyed that my slicer put the seam at the front of the print and I didn't notice until it was far too late. Darnit. 🙄

And I've got no more black filament... Double darnit.

#torchtriplex