Join me as I attend 2025’s RetCon Retro Computing Festival in London. The event promised a strong hand, including Iain Lee, 90s video game TV show host, Roland Perry, the godfather of the Amstrad CPC, to the Spectrum Next team overflowing with HOT HOT news. Join me as I head in to see what the event holds, it was a lot of fun, I hope you agree!
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Can This Amiga 3000 Be Saved From Disaster?
This Amiga 3000 has serious battery damage to its real-time clock circuit. The area was obliterated. I’m going to attempt to get the clock working again, replace its PSU fan, and backup its hard disk and replace it with a BlueSCSI. Lets see how I do…
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Rocking an Apple IIe INSIDE my vintage Macintosh LC475!
The Apple IIe Card, the last great product of the Wozniak/Jobs era? By 1991 Apple wanted everyone to use Macs, this card allowed schools to get LCs with Apple IIe’s within. The card is a grail device for many But, does it work? Lets find out!
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Commodore 1541 Disk Drive: Dual Kernal ROM Adapter
Want to MASSIVELY speed up your 1541 Disk Drive? Yes, so lets make a Dual-ROM adapter, allowing us to install two ROMs in the drive. This will allow us to have BOTH JiffyDOS, speeding up the drive, as well as the Commodore Kernal ROM, as a fallback.
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Commodore 1541 Disk Drive: Make a ROM adapter and Install JiffyDOS ROM
Let’s make an adapter to install JiffyDOS in my recently repaired 1541. I’ll also show you how to burn the EPROM and of course assemble the adapter. The Commodore 1541 was notoriously slow. But it can certainly be faster! Installing JiffyDOS in a 1541 is an upgrade everyone can do, as JiffyDOS also gives you improved DOS commands, allowing for MUCH easier interactions with you drive.
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MARCHintosh: The LC475 or… is it a Quadra 605?
In 1993, Apple got seriously creative with branding, releasing the exact same machine under three different names! We’re diving into the legendary “pizza box”, the Macintosh LC 475 / Quadra 605. Was this machine a true “Low Cost” LC, or did it live up to the powerful “Quadra” badge? It’s a fascinating look at a time when Apple was fighting hard against the PC dominance.
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MARCHintosh: Exploring Two 2006 Mac Pro’s
Ready to dive into the world of high-end retro Macintosh workstations? Join me as I explore the iconic Quadra/Power/Pro line’s, featuring the legendary 2006 Mac Pro – a model that has a cult following. So, why do I have TWO of these bad boys? Let me tell you…
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Badly battery damaged Amiga 3000: Can it be repaired?
I received an Amiga 3000, what many consider the pinnacle of the legendary Amiga range of computers. It has pretty bad battery damage. But just how bad is it?Just how much work will be required to get this machine back on its little rubber pads.
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Retro Magazines Ep:03 – Computer & Video Games – February 1982
The frenzy of Christmas 1981 has passed, but there is still plenty going on in the budding UK micro computing scene. This month sees the debut of arcade classics such as Scramble and Galaga. A reader gets inside an Atari BattleZone machine, and gives us the low-down on its cutting edge hardware. And of course… Basic listing are a major draw and readers would spend hours, even days typing in “the next blockbuster game” into their shiny new micros.
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Repairing my sadly ailing Commodore 1541 Disk Drive
I got this Commodore 1541 disk drive at ZZap! Live 2024, but it’s got a common failure: it spins constantly when powered on! That’s a sure sign the logic board is borked. Join me on the workbench as I dive into this vintage hardware! Using my oscilloscope to diagnose chips, tracing signals, and hunting down the exact component failure. Will I save this drive? Find out in Chapter 3 of my epic quest to finally play Wasteland on my C64/128!