This article showcases some of the work I have done on various Sinclair ZX Spectrum computers. It is part of my ongoing efforts to repair, restore or modify the pieces I have collected over the years.
Continue reading
I bought this computer from the son of a retired dealer and repairman at my usual market in November 2011. I remember visiting his father’s shop in the late 1980s and buying a copy of GEOS for the Commodore 64. However, I’m still undecided about whether to continue going to the monthly Sunday market, as even the “basement clearance” sellers are now charging eBay prices. A few years ago, given how often I visited, when I asked the price of a Commodore 64, I was told, “15 euros because it’s you”. The last time I was there, I asked the price of some Game Boys on the counter. The answer I received was “The price is on the back”, without so much as a glance in my direction. Between €80 and €120. In the last six months, I’ve only bought a power supply for a Nintendo DS Lite.
Continue reading
As I’m now short on space for all my retro stuff, I’m focusing on maintaining and repairing what I already have or looking for small items.
I recently bought a pair of non-working Nintendo DSi XLs with the intention of repairing them; the price obviously reflected the consoles‘ condition. The seller wrote in the ad that both consoles would eventually display a generic error screen prompting the user to turn off the console.
Once I had received the consoles, I verified that the error occurred at different times on the two consoles: on one, it appeared only when launching a game from a cartridge (the internal applications worked fine), while on the other, the error appeared when launching any application or game.
Continue reading
The cable of this Sega light gun for the Master System was damaged right under the grip: to repair it I had to teardown the entire unit. I took the opportunity to take a few pictures. Continue reading
My thanks to Ettore for the donation of this complete system: a Macintosh II, a 13″ AppleColor High-Resolution RGB Monitor, a mouse and a keyboard. Ettore wrote to me that he had a Macintosh II upgraded to IIfx that he wanted to get rid of, but he didn’t want to take it to a landfill. Unfortunately not many people have the time or will to send a couple of boxes and often these old machines are dumped. Continue reading