A Little Ray of (Retrochallenge) Sunshine

Another short post, another little bit of progress to report…

As per my Retrochallenge 2016/10 Half Time Report, I hadn’t had much luck firing up my new favourite europlus, even after replacing the 6502, the ROMs and several logic chips.

A couple of nights ago I decided to press on with the next machine along on the table tennis table (motherboard 8109, see my Updated Census)…and didn’t get much further. Similar issues to my early motherboard – no boot or garbage on the screen.

This is one of the two I picked up during my Retrochallenge Roadtrip, and is the one with a funny case, umm, “adjustment” (read “butchering”) around the keyboard and a missing PSU, so maybe it was only being used for parts or was a “project”.

I’m not doing deep analysis of the faults at the moment, I haven’t had the time. But, there I was this early Friday evening, listening to the RCR Podcast Episode 139, enjoying a quiet beer with machines behind me screaming for attention and feeling guilty about not doing much on my entry while Head Judge John Linville is saying kind things about my blog posts in his half time report (apparently, I’m a “pace setter” – let’s not talk about what pace, however). So I thought I’d check the next machine along, motherboard 8237.

It booted successfully into the Apple ][ Dealer Diagnostics disk! It passed Motherboard RAM and ROM Test! It passed the Keyboard Test! I found a Silentype Interface Card Test amongst the menu options! (OK, that last one is not related to my Retrochallenge 2016/10 entry, but I have one of those and knowing I can test it is A Good Thing™.)

So, that’s a win (albeit an admittedly small one). Given I’m now enjoying my second quiet beer, I question the wisdom of doing any more Retrochallenge-related work tonight, but I’m sure the third (possibly) quiet beer might talk me ’round.

Let me know in the Comments below what alcohol-fuelled work you’re getting to in your Retrochallenge entry (you did enter, didn’t you?!).

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