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I had a quick look for you and I've found this adapter that I think is what you're looking for hobbyretro.com/en/retro/edge-adapter-for-amstrad-plus I don't know the vendor or anything about their site or product. I just did a quick Google search. Make sure that it is what you need before buying it.

Or maybe this is what you need hobbyretro.com/en/retro/adapter-centronics-amstrad-plus again double check before you buy anything.

@@8bitsinthebasement Thank you. That's it.

Yeah, I only played it for the first time 3 or 4 years ago and I found it enjoyable (I can see how a young child would have been disappointed with it though). The whole myth and legend around it is great though and Warshaw's book fleshes it out a little (in fact the first few chapters of the audio book are available on youtube if you want a flavour of the book). As regards my thoughts, take em' or leave em', it seems that a lot of people don't agree with me :) I have however found that episode of the Twilight Zone you spoke of online and I look forward to watching it this coming weekend. Take care ;)

I mean it was only in the United States there was a crash, not so much the rest of the world, especially here in the UK, where most people had 8-bit computers to play games on rather than consoles (other than Arcade cabinets). I mean the first relatively successful console in the UK was the NES, and that didn't get released here until 1987.

You're right, it was only in the US that there was a crash in the early 80s. In the UK and Ireland we hardly (well, we didn't in fact at all) noticed. The UK had a huge game development team made up of school kids that coded in their bedrooms in their free time and for the most part did it for fun (money was welcome but not expected in many cases) so the market for the likes of the Spectrum and the C64 had no shortage of software in the UK. In contrast the US was a market where game development was (as I understand it) mostly for cartridge based consoles, which needed finances and resources to develop for. Which meant that there was no pool of cheap software development resources to draw on.

I like ET for the 2600 a lot. I found an article a couple of years back that explained how to edit the ROM to improve the game (including improving the falling in pits bug) and make it more confortable to play along with a few aesthetic improvements. It makes the game a little better but to be honest even in its original form I find the game fun and it gives you a great feeling if you manage to finish it. Happy New year to you too Tron hope you had great end of year celebrations ;)

I think that it's not very well known at all to be honest, I just thought that it was fascinating that a game that everyone loves to hate so much now, was loved enough back when it was released for someone to take the time to convert it to the Specky, pits and all. A fun game, despite it's flaws. Happy New Year to you Josip, hope you had great end of year celebrations with your friends and family ;)

Happy New Year to you and yours too Rudy and thank you for your kind comment ;)

ET sur la Atari 2600 est un jeu amusant, il a ses défauts mais il est fun et satisfaisant si tu arriverais à le terminer. J'ai trouvé intéressant que quelqu'un ait pris le temps de le porter sur le Specky. Bonne année TOMO5

it has better game play but a horrible concept

Can't really disagree there. But the thing I've heard about ET was that it wasn't obvious what you had to do to complete the game, you had to read the manual to understand how to win at it (and to compound this problem part of the target market was young kids). Games like Space invaders, River Raid and many others including Custer's revenge had obvious goals and were just pick up and play. Add to this the fact that Atari paid upwards of 20 million for the rights to ET (at least I think the price was that high) and you've got your worst game ever. Honestly, ET is flawed but it is fun to play and is a great feeling if you actually manage to finish it. Happy New Year to you and take care ;)

I heartily suggest you build your own computer. It’s a lot of fun and not much more involved then your cartridge project really: processor, ROM, SRAM and a UART. With a few 74 series chips for glue. Trust me, you won’t regret it. 😊

@ I have been fairly deeply involved in the Commander X16 project, but for my own, I actually do build my own computers, starting with building my own CPUs.

@@jimmydansbo7847 oh awesome. What’s your approach? FPGA or 74 logic? I’ve built a couple of processor designs on FPGA myself. Have done the “comp on breadboard” journey too, starting a decade ago with a 6809 and a few chips and ending with a 68030 running Linux. It’s been a load of fun.

@@lawrencemanning So far it has been 74 logic, but I have thought about starting with FPGA simply because it would be so much easier (if I ever learned to program it ;-) )

@@jimmydansbo7847 it certainly saves a load of time and sore fingers. My limit is 6 or 7 slabs, but a working processor surely takes dozens? Give VHDL or Verilog a look. If you have a reasonable understanding of digital logic, and you must have to have built a processor, you’ll be able to pick up either. And of course there is an important distinction; you are not programming FPGAs any more then placing wires in your 74 breadboards is programming. It’s closer to writing pre JavaScript HTML than traditional programming.

Don't expect too much from the Spectrum version. It's a nice little game sure, but it has it's flaws. I found it intriguing that a game that people love to hate these days was given the time and effort it took to convert by a guy in his bedroom back when it was released. I figure that it was a lot more loved back then than they say. Happy New Year Ken.

@@pattygonzales9605 you're very welcome, I'm glad that it was useful for you.

No, some meters have a setting that will check a battery properly. The thing is that there are a bunch of cheap meters available that work great for testing voltages etc. but don't have a way of properly testing batteries (I've got 3 of them).

Thank you for watching, I'm glad that it's helpful!

Thanks for your great comment ;) This method is not great for testing rechargeable batteries as they can charge fully and retain their charge even at end of life (so they would show up good with a resistor test such as this one). The problem is that an old rechargeable battery doesn't hold its charge for very long under use... so, it might test as good but provide power for just a few minutes before needing to be charged again. Hope this answers your question

@@8bitsinthebasement okie so basically rechargeable batteries would show reduced usage time and that will be the sign that need to be rested in peace✌️. Thank you again .

Thanks Josip, A very happy new year to you as well buddy ;)

Thank you, programming is something I just started in the last year or two. I've found that it can be as much fun as fixing these old computers (and a lot cheaper too). Thanks for stopping by and Happy New Year!

@@motto666 if your multimeter has built in resistance then yeah it's much more convenient, the problem is that the cheaper meters don't have this option.

@@8bitsinthebasement I see. So 100 ohm resistor, how many watts? Is 1/4 w ok for 1.2v to 9v batteries?

@motto666 1/4 watt is exactly what I used in the video

Thanks, I'm just adding the finishing touches to the PCB design but I don't think that I'll venture into flex pcb. The PCB as it is at 0.6mm is working quite well. You've done a great job on your MO5 PCB project, now if someone could just implement a fpla design for it's gate array we could have an all new MO5 made in 2025 ;)

@@8bitsinthebasement some guys nicknamed fool-duplex and whitebird have already remade the gate array in fpga

@@sporniket I didn't know anything about that. That's great news, well not that a gate array replacement is available (it's pretty solid) but that a new gate array can be made for a system that has none. It means that your PCB has given everyone the ability to keep the MO5 alive forever. Really very well done you. I'll look, into the fpga design and try to build a whole new MO5 in 2025 if possible.

@@8bitsinthebasement just a little addendum, by "fpga", I meant "cpld" instead. Anyway, still a VHDL core.

Aaah man, I'm done collecting. I've got way more than any one person should have. I'm just content keeping what I've got in working order... Anyway if I put a Dragon Rom in the Coco I've got a Dragon, all be it a really crappy Dragon with a keyboard that don't work right and a serial port instead of a parallel port. You know what? It might be a nice project to make a device that could switch between the two ROMs and the two keyboard configs with a key press on power up, wouldn't change the serial to a parallel port though. Still, food for thought...

I'm still working on it at the moment. The first version (seen in the video) has one or two errors that I'm repairing and I hope to have a good solid design for the new year. When it's ready I'll put the gerber files online so that anyone can have PCBs made and build keyboard replacements them themselves. I may also sell boards and kits when I'm happy with the design myself but don't hold me to that. Check back here in Jan or Feb and you'll find more information in the description.

The MSX in my experience is a good solid system. If you get a MSX 1 then I think that you should check out "Attack of the zombie monsters" and "Ghost" which are just 2 among a host of fantastic games that the MSX 1 has to offer. If however you manage to get yourself a MSX 2, then you've got yourself a truly fantastic system. In any case I wish you the best of luck with your new (to you) MSX and thanks for watching ;)

@@8bitsinthebasement raking notes ere, thanks a lot man :)

You'll find it on page 209 of this pdf good luck typing it in ;) colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Books/Dragon/Sixty%20Programs%20for%20the%20Dragon%2032%20(R.%20Erskine,%20H.%20Walwyn).pdf

No I haven't, I don't have a problem. Anyway I can give up any time I want, I just don't want right now is all. Now I got to get back to more pro... doin' stuff You were right Ben, it does start to become a bit of an obsession after a bit :)

@@8bitsinthebasement But it is SO much fun, seeing the results of what you type, on screen... And having people use and enjoy it! (and if you the physcial route, interefacing with the REAL World too! :) )

Thanks ;)

I wish you luck with it. Read and watch all you can about 6809 assembly and don't let yourself get too overwhelmed by the command list. You can do quite a lot with just the load, store and compare commands. It can be hard going at first, but once you've managed to get one or two programs working the way you want them to you'll find that it starts getting easier and easier. Also you'll find a whole bunch of books about assembly on the MO5 here dcmoto.free.fr/index.html I found " MO5 Programmation en assembleur" par Fagot-Barraly to be really helpful.

I've not yet shared the gerbers anywhere because the board has one or two small errors that I want to repair before I make them available. I will make them available along with a list of needed parts and an assembly guide in both English and French as soon as I'm sure that the new revision is correct.

The design is not yet available as there are one or two minor Issues I'd like to iron out in a version 1.1. As soon as the new version is tested I'll make the gerbers, BOM and assembly documentation available for download.

Thank you very much. To answer your question, I think that I read somewhere (it would have to be verfied) that there are differences in the wiring on the gomme and mechanical keyboards of the MO5. If this is the case then no, my PCB replacement will not work as a replacement for a mechanical keyboard. But in fact, even if the matrices on both versions were the same, I don't think that my replacement PCB could be made to fit inside the mechanical keyboard case.

Thank you very much. I'm still pouring through the sources of Evil Dungeons 2 and although I would be lying if I said that I understood much of how it works, I've already learned quite a lot from it. Mostly as regards displaying text on screen on the MO5 as well as displaying accents on letters. I really was blown away by what you all achieved with Evil Dungeons 2 and I've spent a good few hours playing it so far. I'll surly have a few questions for you as I progress in my understanding of assembly but for the moment I really am just a beginner and still figuring out just how the basics work. Keep up the fantastic work and I hope that you might give my MO5 game a try and let me know what you think when I've finished it. Or maybe you would be willing to beta test it for me before release ;)

@@8bitsinthebasement Sure! As soon as you've got a beta, send it to Thom MO5 and he will forward it to me. He may also give you my email, if you like.

ps: I wouldn't hold your breath though ;-)

Hey Etcher, how are you keeping? T'was yourself that first told me about the existence of assembly way, way back in 1988. We played the heck out of Nemesis on the C64 that summer and you filled me in on the reason that it was so different than the "10 print" basic stuff we were fooling around with. That was fun :) The code you listed is more optimised than mine, using the BLO to get around branching to the RTS I see what you did there ;). That's 6502 assembly though isn't it? I had to look up the CPX command you used, I'd not seen it before. I'll try either 6502 or Z80 assembly next. Fooling around with a Vic 20 or ZX Spectrum would be a lot of fun ;) Oh, If you want to play Bob in 6809 assembly without all the downloading and configuring stuff head on over to www.6809.org.uk/xroar/online/ and choose Bob from the "games" dropdown menu. I wrote Bob for the Coco 2 first and changed a few things to make it work for the Dragon 32 and Ciaran Anscomb was kind enough to add it to the games list on his online Dragon emulator. Since then I've been working on a Thomson Mo5 version (again 6809) I wanted to see how much difference there was between two systems that use the same processor (turns out that they can be exactly the same and hugely different at the same time). Anyway, thanks for dropping by, take care and tell everyone I said hello :)

​@@8bitsinthebasement Hey Pete, haha I remember playing that game and Erebus if you remember? We got pretty far in both those games! It was around that time you told me all about the C64 approach to sprites (I think you were doing a dev course back then - I was well jealous!) I'd say we were filling in a lot of blanks and pretending to each other we knew what we were talking about :) The cpx instruction is available in both 6502 and 6809 assembly as far as I know. Actually, this video has inspired me to have a tinker around with Z80 assembly. There's still a strong ZX Spectrum demo scene on TH-cam and you should see some of the insane things people are doing with the processor in terms of assembly tricks and hacks to get it to do stuff that would have blown our minds when we were kids. I'll check out Bob now, that's great that its online on Ciaran's website! I've often wondered about the difference between systems even though the processor is the same. That would be a very interesting video actually, perhaps you could explore that one day?

Thank you, I'm a little apprehensive about making any videos on ASM as there are so many out there that are really good with people who know exactly what they are talking about. I made this one as it was truly the kind of video I searched for and never found when I started.

Great, I hope that you enjoy it. There's a version for the Coco as well if you wanted even more Bob in your life ;)

Thanks, I started with it a year or so ago and it was hard going at first, but once you figure out how things work with it, it gets easier and easier.

For the moment the 6809 is the only processor I know. I choose it as I was advised that it was the easiest and best to begin with and I think that I would have to agree, it's been fun and not too hard 75% of the time ;) I have my sights set on the 6502 or Z80 next, I've still not decided which. Any advice?

Thank you, I've not made any videos in French... yet. pour être honnête, elles sont déjà assez difficiles à faire en anglais :) mais peut-être dans la nouvelle année. Thanks for watching

Thank you very much... assembly is fun :)

Thanks Rudy, we'll see if I manage to put any more together in the future. Assembly is easy to learn in small steps but it's not an easy subject to make interesting in a video. In any case thank you for watching buddy :)

Thank you very much, it's nice to know that the effort is appreciated :)

I've been asked this question quite a few times since I posted this battery test video and to be honest I thought that the method shown here was really not up to scratch for battery testing in a car or truck. But I found this all about it the resistance is provided not by a resistor but by running the engine. Let me know how it works out for you and thanks for watching ;) www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/how-to-test-a-car-battery-with-a-multimeter

@@8bitsinthebasement Running the engine is not quite the same as the alternator will start charging the battery. A battery starting at lets say 12.5v will jump up to 13-14v's if the alternator is working, this I how I do fast and dirty test to see if alternators are working/charging. I do vehicle dismantling for parts/scrap so most of the time the vehicle will not turn over and so a test of the battery outside the vehicle after its been charged up is very useful. I will try out a 50 ohm big ceramic resistor and see how it works out.

Battery tester with a cold cranking amps test, a lightbulb will probably give a quick and dirty go/no go test however.

Merci, je pense que la comparaison entre ASM et basic rend l'ASM beaucoup moins effrayant ;)

@@8bitsinthebasement Oui, tu as vraiment fait une bonne initiation à l'ASM et la comparaison est juste génial.

It is, to be honest I didn't really notice it was as fast as it is until I read your comment. I set it up to check. Strange that they set it to blink so wildly. I'm sure that there is a poke to set the blink speed but little good that is without hacking the rom. Sorry about that ;)

@@8bitsinthebasement I'm pretty sure I've seen it on non-Thomson computers too. Maybe us old Commodore guys are just used to the almost lethargic blink speed of the C64 :)

You may well be right, but I'm inclined to agree with you that the slow blink or even a solid bar as a cursor in my opinion is by far better. Maybe it's just our old weary eyes :)

Thanks for watching Matt. It was Greek to me just a little over a year ago, fun to learn though :)

I'm getting ready to jump to another processor soon. I wanted to write a game in 6809 then convert it to another 6809 platform to see first hand what that took. The conversion's almost done and I was thinking that I might like to dip my toe into the ol' Vic 20 next. But I may regret that yet ey? :)

@@8bitsinthebasement it’s about what you are used to I suppose. The 6809 is more 16 bit then 8 bit in my view; instructions like LEAX basically let you do 16 bit arithmetic. It’s also highly, though not completely, orthogonal. The post increment makes 16 bit long arrays easy. For fun, I wrote a fairly complete multitasking OS with a dynamic memory allocation and other “complex” stuff. I wouldn’t like to have written the same for the 6502, though it obviously can be done.

Been thinking about some 6502 learnings for the C64... Now I'm worried ;)