After my last post, things have moved on… Apaft from the amazing smoking BBC model B, everything survived science week. And tonight I brought home the repaired power supply for the MZ80K, plugged it in, and it all works again – some of the keyboard switches are a little sticky, but it didn’t take very much work to revitalise them – I love old robust technology.
At one time I tried to build an add on graphics board for the MZ80K, and my soldering skills were a little less than perfect when I was at school. I soldered directly onto a static RAM chip, and ended up blowing the chip slightly – 8 cursors on the screen at a time, and an upset machine. It was a little worrying, but I was able to order a replacement chip, and a socket to mount it in ( I learned that lesson ) . I soldered the socket onto the board, inserted the chip, and everything worked again. The socket can be seen on the large version of the right hand photo – it’s blue, and near the middle of the circuit board.
Another time, the lid of the machine came down when I left something on top of the power supply, breaking the corner off the tape deck control circuit board – half a dozen wires now jumper the 2 halves back together, and it still works well today. Try doing that with your modern PC! Mind you – the games are not exactly the height of technology.