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Alan Cotterill
เข้าร่วมเมื่อ 28 ต.ค. 2013
NEC APC - Advanced Personal Computer from 1982
I walkaround one of my four vintage computers - the NEC APC. I've owned it for over 15 years. Got it for free and it needed little to get it working again. Much appreciated help from people on VCFED forum. The NEC APC was released into the Japanese domestic market in 1981 and the western marked around 1982. It was advanced for its time - way ahead of IBM's XT which appeared around the same year. The base model had green monochrome display 128KB RAM and a single 8" floppy drive. Mine is a mid-level example with colour screen and twin high density floppy drives. These machines were extremely well built. Weighs around 30Kg when its all together. Hope you enjoy the tour...
มุมมอง: 602
วีดีโอ
Intertec Superbrain Troubleshooting uIDE
มุมมอง 623 ปีที่แล้ว
A video documenting the current behaviour of my Intertec Superbrain with uIDE device installed.
Repaired Intertec Superbrain QD
มุมมอง 2854 ปีที่แล้ว
Apologies for my quiet voice - phone pics up everything else, except me - as I'm behind it. After over, off and on, 10 years of trying - I finally have a working Intertec Superbrain QD Microcomputer! Thanks to JonB at VCFED for his tireless input and patience! I was given this machine by an ex Cardif Uni employee, perhaps 12 years ago. Was DOA - power supply dead. I have many spare parts left f...
Superbrain QD Current Behavior
มุมมอง 444 ปีที่แล้ว
Intertec Superbrain QD Repair - ongoing Saga. I've put IC Z87 back to being soldered directly to the board. Also replaced its associated resistors/capacitors. I've tested / replaced the resistor / capacitors associated with Z50 - the keyboard encoder. The Strobe delay cap was out of spec at 62nF - should be 47nf. I replaced with one from spare board that read 42nF on my tester.
Ford Probe GT Engine Bay - terrible sound!
มุมมอง 974 ปีที่แล้ว
Ford Probe - trying to locate source of harsh sound - for ukpoc.co.uk
Ford Probe GT - hydraulic lifter noise and oil pressure response
มุมมอง 3464 ปีที่แล้ว
hydraulic lifter noise and oil pressure response - for ukpoc.co.uk
Seagate ST 4038 settings
มุมมอง 2325 ปีที่แล้ว
Troubleshooting an ST 4038 MFM hard drive - a run through my settings and method. 15 mins of your life!
Seagate ST 4038 mfm hard drive
มุมมอง 5605 ปีที่แล้ว
Trying to resurrect an old Seagate ST-4038 MFM hard drive. WIll it Work?
SuperBrain QD Fixed?
มุมมอง 735 ปีที่แล้ว
Recently I've been throwingl my every feeble skill at getting this Intertec Superbrain working again. I've had it for 12 years now although the logic board I have in the machine is one I've had for over 30 years. This is as far as I've come - CP/M loads, block cursor on the screen and keyboard response with beeps per character. Am I nearly there?
Intertec Superbrain Nearly Working?
มุมมอง 735 ปีที่แล้ว
I've been working on my Intertec Superbrain QD for YEARS now - recently got it to load a boot disk and now respond to key presses with a bleep which is expected behavior for a working system. Just need to sort out the lack of characters on the screen and a lot of non functional keyboard keys
Intertec Superbrain repair - replaced inverter, can now access and boot from floppy
มุมมอง 485 ปีที่แล้ว
After replacing Z71, a 7406 hex inverter, the drive motor now spins and it appears to be loading the boot tracks.
Intertec Superbrain Z71 all pins logic test
มุมมอง 425 ปีที่แล้ว
Z71 SN7406 Hex Inverter - all pins tested. Pin 10 says high or floating. That being the case, pin 11, the input to that particular inverter should be low, but it isn't! Its high. If pin 11 is being driven high by something else - then Pin 10 should be low, Motor On?
Intertec Superbrain Repair Disk Boot Activity!!
มุมมอง 265 ปีที่แล้ว
Intertec Superbrain QD Repair - to boot or not to boot!? With MX (Multiplex) option switched on on the A Drive, I get what looks like a disk boot every time I close the floppy door on a boot floppy or depress the red reset keys. Only works with a know good ROM plugged into the socket - am I kidding myself?
Intertec Superbrain VDU timebase scope readings
มุมมอง 225 ปีที่แล้ว
Intertec Superbrain VDU timebase scope readings
Intertec Superbrain Repair HP Logic Probes
มุมมอง 2135 ปีที่แล้ว
Intertec Superbrain Repair HP Logic Probes
Intertec Superbrain Repair available test equipment
มุมมอง 675 ปีที่แล้ว
Intertec Superbrain Repair available test equipment
Intertec SuperBrain QD Repair Tour and Spare Parts
มุมมอง 1245 ปีที่แล้ว
Intertec SuperBrain QD Repair Tour and Spare Parts
ABI Electronics DDS-40XP Logic IC Chip tester - Faulty :(
มุมมอง 5348 ปีที่แล้ว
ABI Electronics DDS-40XP Logic IC Chip tester - Faulty :(
Acer Travelmate 253E Laptop smashed screen repair
มุมมอง 2.5K10 ปีที่แล้ว
Acer Travelmate 253E Laptop smashed screen repair
❤❤❤ Sweet setup ! #merry2024Christmas
I was doing 8085 design and firmware in the early 80's. Our Intel ICE was the size of a kitchen stove and I seem to recall the 8 inch floppy was 40kb, but that might have been each side. Does anyone recall? We upgraded to the 360 kb 8 inch around the time your APC came out. Great fun!
Love the screen on this one :)
Gotta love those old NEC APC's
The diskettes are not high-density (HD), they're double density. They store around a megabyte, which was standard for 8" double-sided MFM diskettes. Also, all the references I've seen say that the system uses an 8086, not a V20.
Hi Alan. I'm following your Superbrain troubleshooting videos and caught one document that accompanies the z80 trainer you have. Would it be possible to get a scan of the "concepts and fault finding on microprocessor circuits" document ? Thanks much. John - N0HJ
Hi John - have you got the same trainer board then? I could find nothing on the internet about it when i last looked. The whole kit is at work atm - I return from some annual leave on monday so i'll try and scan it all for you then.
@alancotterill2750 hi Alan. I do not (yet) have that trainer but my daughter lives in the UK now and has a line on some, so maybe that Polaris model is in there. Regardless, I'd love to build one from the schematic and add it yo my collection. I was also hoping to gain some insight into troubleshooting from the document. I did just receive the Superbrain so I need to dig into that. Thanks.
Will it run a alien organism armageddon program?
Used one of these for work from about 1982 for a few years. 64k of RAM, discs were about 160k each drive. Was still able to do a lot with them even though minimal hardware and software compared to today. Software was Wordstar, Datastar and Supercalc runn8ng CP/M which was like DOS, but commands were back to front.
Reviving great memories! (Have still floppies from that time... unfortunately had to toss the HW due haveing to move...)
Alan, please Tell us more about this magical uIDE modern device you have hooked up here!
I used one of these computers back in 1979. It did not have IDE though haha.
I had the same problem in my st-225 . When i chenge PCB from diffrent st 225 drive formatted correctly .
Yea, got one and now, what to do with it?
Get a 486 or older and get a controller card that supports it.
Please keep up making these videos on your Intertec SuperBrain! I do enjoy seeing these... (Oh, I like that you started operating the keyboard with your feet...very creative!)
I just found one today and it turns on but doesn’t boot. And the screen is wonky. Can you lend some advice on how to repair it?
@deepspacepilot, can you record a video showing what it is (and what it isn't) doing? I love to see these machines...
Congratulations, it's great to see another 70's computer brought back to life. I hate to say it though: I couldn't hear you! Between your whispering and the rubbing of the mike I made out about 1 out of every 8 words.
I think your accomplishment here is fantastic! Congratulations, and thanks for sharing!!!
Thanks for your comment - I'll try and share a bit more as I do more with the SB.
Hi how much for the HP 547a?
I'll never understand wives and their seemingly universal desire _not_ to have the coolest stuff around. Meanwhile oh yeah sure guess we need another fake nautical tchotchke. Or so I've heard
Buy , +48 608 344 email . polkoks@op.pl - Poland
Mind-blowingly awesome! Thank you for sharing (although would have liked it much more if you recorded in a higher resolution).
Hello I am in the need of a copy for the cpm system disk , would you or anyone you know be able to send me a copy ?
Hello I am in the need of a copy for the cpm system disk , would you or anyone you know be able to send me a copy ?
Hi Alan, it's great to see one of our early systems still around. It's been now nearly 30 years since we decided it was time to move onto developing more advanced IC testers, specially for in-circuit analysis. We've definitely come a long way since the DDS-40XP days. Have you ever been on our TH-cam channel? Have a look and send us an email to sales@abielectronics.co.uk to see how we can help you. We look forward to hearing from you. Regards.
Thanks for your comment - I have had a look at your channel, I have also sent an email to your sales team on the address you mentioned. No reply unfortunately.
Hi Alan, we're very busy here when we got your email last week. I understand that you received a reply from our manager over the weekend. Regards.
Hi, yes - thankyou for that. He said he would get back to me this week. Very kind of him.
can you take a photo of motherboard next to dc adapter please?pleaseee