Thanks for sharing these mistakes with us. It's so helpful for anyone who wants to do this mod themselves, and just for anybody who's struggling or hit a snag in their own project.
That mistake of soldering that wire to the wrong pad on the drive would not blow the RAM. Either there is a mistake elsewhere or it's coincidental but from my experience, these retro computers are extremely reliable compared to other makes.
Yup, simpler machine but more robust. Thats why we cant go to the moon right now, new computers are so so so so much more fragile because of the super miniaturised componants. Far easier to screw up by radiation unless very heavily shielded. Its like comparing a scalple to a broadsword.
Oh man, Broken hearted for you. I hope it works out ok. I had a CPC 464 as a kid in the 80's. I would love to own one but they are not easy to find, and my home is now on the other side of the ocean so I doubt I could get one to work here. I look forward to your next update and hope it is happier. Good Luck.
Did something similar in my PC when I built it. My power supply only come with 3 SATA power cables, whereas I needed 4(a hard disk, 2 SSDs and an optical drive), and is modular, so I plugged in a molex and fitted a SATA adapter. I plugged the molex into the wrong socket on the power supply(I think it may have been graphics card 8 pin) and it killed the optical drive(it made a sound like a train leaving the station) when I turned it on. I panicked at first, but thankfully, after taking the offending drive and cable out, I was okay except down an optical drive. Not massively important, as it's only used for making my quarterly secondary backups(primary backups are kept on a Raspberry Pi with USB hard disk acting as a NAS) of my work documents. Was 70 quid down(price of a USB Bluray writer), but considering the computer was(and still is) the most expensive piece of equipment I ever bought, the loss of 70 quid was almost a relief. ...and that somehow turned into my life story.
Damn! You'll get there with part 3. 🙂 I'm surprised that you needed the DIN mod though: a cheapo car cassette tape adapter plugged into a mobile phone did the trick for me till I later bought a DDI-5.
if i remember correctly, the CPC was able to start and stop the tape motor when it needed to, so you need to run a start/stop signal to an external "cassette deck" to provide that functionality - a simple car cassette adapter can't provide that feature but that cassette emulator thingy he showed in the video can do it (that's what the 2.5mm phone jack is for) for a quick test of the internal tape drive, i think a car adapter is just fine if you don't have a cassette tape handy
I was just wondering about those adapters. I forgot about the start-stop thing though. Lots of computers could start and stop the drive. It seemed great at the time, but not quite so great now. :)
Well that sucks, and having made my fair share of mistakes, I feel fully qualified to says so. Thank you for sharing it and helping to make my own foibles feel in good company.
One of those days when you were further along with a project before you got out of bed than you were at the end of the day. I get those sometimes too. The "rubber wheel" is called a pinch roller by the way, and can fail for various reasons resulting in uneven speed or even tape damage.
For troubleshooting the issue, I would first unsolder the cable completely. It does not look very safe soldering. Looking at the green wire, it can actually make contact to the pin next to it (which is not supposed to do it (even not responsible for the issue). Also I cannot see how soldering the white wire to +B would lead to a RAM issue ... it is not shorting it to GND or anything alike. For better troubleshooting I do recommend to use the correct colors, as you have most of them available (e.g. green to green, blue to blue and white to yellow.). So desolder everything and check if it then works again. If you still got the white screen, check the Amstrad Diagnostic ROM.
Head cleaner fluid can be different stuff depending on where it came from! I've seen commercially made stuff being either meths or IPA and upto 30% deionised water. I just use IPA, I bought 5 litres of IPA about 10 years ago for a few quid and refil my metal ipa can and use it for everything from head cleaning to removing sticky labels to degreasing the oven!
Unless I’m misunderstanding the schematic, can’t see how connecting that wire up incorrectly would do any damage to the system. I think it’s just a coincidence and the presence of MT RAM.
That was my take on it too - it's a non-connected pin so can't see how it would have affected it - but some people say there's no such thing as coincidence :) I'd love to think it wasn't my mistake that killed it though :)
I'm a huge fan of the 464, but with the best will in the world, that refurb looked like an exercise in pure frustration. I hope you get things working.
When you're cleaning the CPC it's a good idea to clean the expansion port edge connectors. They often get dirty and they usually oxidise. You can clean with a fibreglass pencil, with IPA, with contact cleaner, with a pencil eraser or with sandpaper. I suggest a pencil eraser followed by IPA. You should also open the keyboard and very gently clean the membrane. Dust and hair etc will have made it's way in most likely and if you start to use the CPC again you'll hammer it into the membrane and it will break. Worth firing some contact cleaner into the power switch too because it's a common one to oxidise and stop working. And the tape head with a bit of IPA and a cotton bud. Amsoft games are probably easier to load than some others which use a more difficult tapeloader if the tape player isn't 100%. I would suggest the USIFAC2 is the best tool to get games on, especially now that Zaxon is no longer making his line of things. Great video though - don't worry about what's probably the RAM. It's nice and easy to desolder on that board and you could socket them all. Hopefully it's only the RAM that's faulty.
08:10 The wheel at the middle of the screen right now, the one with a metal finger out over it, has a rubber ring around it which also perishes, and will mess with playback, producing a similar effect to having a perished main band. Something to look at if you replace your bands and still get lumpy loading sounds or obvious changes in playback speed. If it plays back at all. In two of my five machines this rubber has perished and fallen apart, and so far I have not been able to find a replacement. I like the way you did the Datacorder mod, mine was just a stereo 3.5 jack, mono audio in, data out.
I was worried at first but then I remembered Yoda: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Not sure how that's helping me, but... Yoda! :) :)
The counter belt should be thin as possible, the old one was probably loose but hadn’t become thinner. If the belt is too thick it causes drag on the supply spindle. I would imagine they couldn’t easily find a correct belt and just supplied what they could find.
You can use 4164 RAM chips in place of the 4264s, which you'll probably have some of lying around. Micron Technology RAM is terrible anyway (ask any C64 owner), so it won't hurt to have then swapped out with something a tad more reliable anyway.
Yep, got a load of 4164's lying around - I know the 4264's are backwards compatible but was just doing a bit of research on whether I can stick a 4164 in place of a 4264 in a CPC. Looks like other people have, so I guess I will too :) :)
12:48 Paused the video here, I'm a guessing this is where things went South. Really love these video's by the way, I wish I had the eye sight etc. to do repairs and mods to these old beauties. Ok, presses play again to see what happens.
Micron RAM... Doesn't Jan Beta replace them on sight and doesn't even bother trouble shooting it?? Adrian (Adrian's Digital Basement) intensively dislikes them too...
It’s a shame that something went wrong, but I am confident you’ll fix it in episode 3. If, as someone pointed out, the wire was placed on an unconnected pin, you didn’t cause the problem.
I wish I had videoed the time when I got a mains cable, cut the figure 8 end off, sellotaped the stripped wires to the battery terminals of my Alba Walkman, turned on the mains supply and ooops That Walkman probably wasn’t repairable and probably being well over 35 years ago too, didn’t have a video recorder nor TH-cam haha
Any possible of using a 9 track head that would be used on a Philips DCC900 Tape deck so that you can load/save programs 8 bits at a time and the 9th track as the clock.
These sorts of mistakes come from overconfidence. Always double check where you are soldering wires. The old saying of "Measure twice, cut once" applies here too. 🙂
Brutal. Also, as I'm sure you are aware now, your soldering looks very dodgy. Wires are way too big. Go the distance and use tiny wires on board to a fixed internal connector that is glued on the edge or something, and then from there to the external connector. This is more like how it would be done from the factory.
Already desoldered and socketed :) :) Just sourcing some new chips to go in there. You're not the first to comment on the dreadful state of my hands recently :) :)
Thanks for sharing these mistakes with us. It's so helpful for anyone who wants to do this mod themselves, and just for anybody who's struggling or hit a snag in their own project.
You're welcome! I like to be transparent when things go wrong and hopefully that might stop someone else making the same mistake :)
That mistake of soldering that wire to the wrong pad on the drive would not blow the RAM. Either there is a mistake elsewhere or it's coincidental but from my experience, these retro computers are extremely reliable compared to other makes.
Yup, simpler machine but more robust.
Thats why we cant go to the moon right now, new computers are so so so so much more fragile because of the super miniaturised componants. Far easier to screw up by radiation unless very heavily shielded. Its like comparing a scalple to a broadsword.
Oh man, Broken hearted for you. I hope it works out ok. I had a CPC 464 as a kid in the 80's. I would love to own one but they are not easy to find, and my home is now on the other side of the ocean so I doubt I could get one to work here. I look forward to your next update and hope it is happier. Good Luck.
Thanks! I’m sure everything will work out :)
The music and graphics for your opening titles - I love them!
Thanks! :)
Did something similar in my PC when I built it. My power supply only come with 3 SATA power cables, whereas I needed 4(a hard disk, 2 SSDs and an optical drive), and is modular, so I plugged in a molex and fitted a SATA adapter. I plugged the molex into the wrong socket on the power supply(I think it may have been graphics card 8 pin) and it killed the optical drive(it made a sound like a train leaving the station) when I turned it on.
I panicked at first, but thankfully, after taking the offending drive and cable out, I was okay except down an optical drive. Not massively important, as it's only used for making my quarterly secondary backups(primary backups are kept on a Raspberry Pi with USB hard disk acting as a NAS) of my work documents. Was 70 quid down(price of a USB Bluray writer), but considering the computer was(and still is) the most expensive piece of equipment I ever bought, the loss of 70 quid was almost a relief.
...and that somehow turned into my life story.
Lol - thanks for sharing! Easy to do, especially when you're getting eager :)
Damn! You'll get there with part 3. 🙂 I'm surprised that you needed the DIN mod though: a cheapo car cassette tape adapter plugged into a mobile phone did the trick for me till I later bought a DDI-5.
Sounds far too easy and uncomplicated and cheap and reliable and, oh… hang on. :) :)
if i remember correctly, the CPC was able to start and stop the tape motor when it needed to, so you need to run a start/stop signal to an external "cassette deck" to provide that functionality - a simple car cassette adapter can't provide that feature but that cassette emulator thingy he showed in the video can do it (that's what the 2.5mm phone jack is for)
for a quick test of the internal tape drive, i think a car adapter is just fine if you don't have a cassette tape handy
I was just wondering about those adapters. I forgot about the start-stop thing though. Lots of computers could start and stop the drive. It seemed great at the time, but not quite so great now. :)
The "head cleaning fluid" that came in my 1980s Bib cleaning kit is labelled Isopropyl alcohol
That's good to know, every one I've ever had just says "head cleaning fluid"
Sometimes they used to include Freon with the IPA, but that's clearly frowned upon today.
Well that sucks, and having made my fair share of mistakes, I feel fully qualified to says so. Thank you for sharing it and helping to make my own foibles feel in good company.
One of those days when you were further along with a project before you got out of bed than you were at the end of the day. I get those sometimes too.
The "rubber wheel" is called a pinch roller by the way, and can fail for various reasons resulting in uneven speed or even tape damage.
You can 3D print your own drive belts with TPU. All you need is experience with CAD like FreeCad to design the correct size and export it to STL.
That’s a really good tip - thanks!
_Translator:_
I love movies like this.
Thanks and regards.
Very welcome!
We've all been there. I don't want to count the times things took a turn...
I learn mores from my "mistakes" than anything else. Looking forward to part 3. Cheers!
No biggy it just gives you more video content buddie👍
Well I guess that's a good way to think of it :)
For troubleshooting the issue, I would first unsolder the cable completely. It does not look very safe soldering. Looking at the green wire, it can actually make contact to the pin next to it (which is not supposed to do it (even not responsible for the issue). Also I cannot see how soldering the white wire to +B would lead to a RAM issue ... it is not shorting it to GND or anything alike.
For better troubleshooting I do recommend to use the correct colors, as you have most of them available (e.g. green to green, blue to blue and white to yellow.).
So desolder everything and check if it then works again. If you still got the white screen, check the Amstrad Diagnostic ROM.
Head cleaner fluid can be different stuff depending on where it came from! I've seen
commercially made stuff being either meths or IPA and upto 30% deionised water. I just use IPA, I bought 5 litres of IPA about 10 years ago for a few quid and refil my metal ipa can and use it for everything from head cleaning to removing sticky labels to degreasing the oven!
Thrifty! 10 years from one bottle - nice job!
@@TheRetroShack 5 litres is a lot of IPA though! Its saved alot of plastic!
Unless I’m misunderstanding the schematic, can’t see how connecting that wire up incorrectly would do any damage to the system. I think it’s just a coincidence and the presence of MT RAM.
That was my take on it too - it's a non-connected pin so can't see how it would have affected it - but some people say there's no such thing as coincidence :) I'd love to think it wasn't my mistake that killed it though :)
@@TheRetroShack Have you checked there are no solder bridges or shorts between pins or to via holes in the area of the new wires?
@@sio2groper410 Yep - always check continuity with a multimeter. Doesn’t help with soldering the wrong pins in the first place unfortunately :) :) LOL
Have you checked there are no loose globs of soldier or bits of wire floating around
I'm a huge fan of the 464, but with the best will in the world, that refurb looked like an exercise in pure frustration. I hope you get things working.
When you're cleaning the CPC it's a good idea to clean the expansion port edge connectors. They often get dirty and they usually oxidise. You can clean with a fibreglass pencil, with IPA, with contact cleaner, with a pencil eraser or with sandpaper. I suggest a pencil eraser followed by IPA.
You should also open the keyboard and very gently clean the membrane. Dust and hair etc will have made it's way in most likely and if you start to use the CPC again you'll hammer it into the membrane and it will break.
Worth firing some contact cleaner into the power switch too because it's a common one to oxidise and stop working.
And the tape head with a bit of IPA and a cotton bud.
Amsoft games are probably easier to load than some others which use a more difficult tapeloader if the tape player isn't 100%.
I would suggest the USIFAC2 is the best tool to get games on, especially now that Zaxon is no longer making his line of things.
Great video though - don't worry about what's probably the RAM. It's nice and easy to desolder on that board and you could socket them all. Hopefully it's only the RAM that's faulty.
08:10 The wheel at the middle of the screen right now, the one with a metal finger out over it, has a rubber ring around it which also perishes, and will mess with playback, producing a similar effect to having a perished main band. Something to look at if you replace your bands and still get lumpy loading sounds or obvious changes in playback speed. If it plays back at all. In two of my five machines this rubber has perished and fallen apart, and so far I have not been able to find a replacement.
I like the way you did the Datacorder mod, mine was just a stereo 3.5 jack, mono audio in, data out.
Oh dear! To err is human. Warts and all is good. I'm sure you'll fix it! I know that annoyed feeling! 🤣
I was worried at first but then I remembered Yoda: "Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." Not sure how that's helping me, but... Yoda! :) :)
ouch .. def recommend 'noels retro lab' diagnostic program for checking ram (maybe you can stick it on that expansion card you have.. ??
Already got his diagnostics rom, but you need a working CPC to load games onto the Dandanator - argh :) :)
@@TheRetroShack From memory, you can also just drop it onto an EPROM and swap out the onboard ROM.
Serves you right for disrespecting Harrier Attack!
Was one of my favourites to! On my 6128!
You’re right - I’m sorry! :) :)
The counter belt should be thin as possible, the old one was probably loose but hadn’t become thinner. If the belt is too thick it causes drag on the supply spindle. I would imagine they couldn’t easily find a correct belt and just supplied what they could find.
I replaced mine with a loom band, works a treat
You can use 4164 RAM chips in place of the 4264s, which you'll probably have some of lying around. Micron Technology RAM is terrible anyway (ask any C64 owner), so it won't hurt to have then swapped out with something a tad more reliable anyway.
Yep, got a load of 4164's lying around - I know the 4264's are backwards compatible but was just doing a bit of research on whether I can stick a 4164 in place of a 4264 in a CPC. Looks like other people have, so I guess I will too :) :)
12:48 Paused the video here, I'm a guessing this is where things went South.
Really love these video's by the way, I wish I had the eye sight etc. to do repairs and mods to these old beauties.
Ok, presses play again to see what happens.
What I felt was most grievous was you calling 'Harrier Attack' a terrible game. The Amsoft gods had their revenge.
You may be right there! I’d better be nice to all the other Amsoft titles :) :)
Harrier attack is actually one of the best games ever
The mark (pun intended) of a tinkerer is the number of small cuts and bruises in their fingers :)
Guilty as charged! :)
Micron RAM...
Doesn't Jan Beta replace them on sight and doesn't even bother trouble shooting it??
Adrian (Adrian's Digital Basement) intensively dislikes them too...
The more I read about this brand, the more I think potentially it just blew of it's own accord! :)
You managed to not whoops a whoops stopper? Skills.
It’s a shame that something went wrong, but I am confident you’ll fix it in episode 3. If, as someone pointed out, the wire was placed on an unconnected pin, you didn’t cause the problem.
Mmmmmmm. New tea towel action
Why thank you!
I had a 464 with a ram issue and I was able to replace the many smaller chips with I think 1 or 2 larger ones as the issue of MB supported either or.
I wish I had videoed the time when I got a mains cable, cut the figure 8 end off, sellotaped the stripped wires to the battery terminals of my Alba Walkman, turned on the mains supply and ooops
That Walkman probably wasn’t repairable and probably being well over 35 years ago too, didn’t have a video recorder nor TH-cam haha
Ermmm... Probably not, no. :) :)
I did exactly the same with my Acorn Electron when I was 8. Lol! How devastated now 34 years later knowing I can fix it now. Lol!
Any possible of using a 9 track head that would be used on a Philips DCC900 Tape deck so that you can load/save programs 8 bits at a time and the 9th track as the clock.
Have you heard of our Lord and saviour "the shielded audio cable"? 🤣
Harrier Attack wasn't too bad lol primitive but addictive lol
Swap your Z80 for a test before RAM arrives.
Already done that :)
Where did you get the belts and how did you know what size you need?
I bought a 'CPC 464 Replacement Belt Kit' :) Got it from a seller on eBay if I recall. Someone I've used before and usually good stuff.
Dataserve Retro are a good place to go.
Simple mistake but we live and learn from them .
Absolutely! And the more I look into this, it may just have been a coincidental memory failure, although I’m not convinced :)
I blame Terry Venables!
What, for everything? :)
9:00 i guess money flows easily in your bank account if you even have a Mercedes-branded sink? 🤔
These sorts of mistakes come from overconfidence. Always double check where you are soldering wires. The old saying of "Measure twice, cut once" applies here too. 🙂
If stored correctly the cassettes will be good for another 20 years. #ifitaintbroke
RAM chips made in the USA. They could be silicon from Silicon Valley. Imagine that.
why so dram? ohhhhhh, ya fricked it. lol!
Brutal. Also, as I'm sure you are aware now, your soldering looks very dodgy. Wires are way too big. Go the distance and use tiny wires on board to a fixed internal connector that is glued on the edge or something, and then from there to the external connector. This is more like how it would be done from the factory.
in the meantime desolder and socket......oh and stop punching hedgehogs its ruining your fairy soft hands🤣🤣
Already desoldered and socketed :) :) Just sourcing some new chips to go in there. You're not the first to comment on the dreadful state of my hands recently :) :)
That was more disappointing than the last episode of Lost!
😉
OOPS !
bummer
Couldn't have put it better myself! :)
Whoops lol
MT RAM, extremely unreliable. Probably nothing you done, just coincidence.
I'm looking at alternatives... Suggestions welcome :)
look exactly like the ones fitted to my Apple IIe and yes I have a least one bad one - need to get a RAM tester or just replace them all
TH-cam showing a video of your channel on my home page. I like the more "sober" side of your videos, without the need to put on a clown show 😂