I did exactly the same USB conversion to an old (and similarly damaged) Commodore calculator I found on eBay for less than £3. It now looks great sitting on my desk plugged into the back of my Mac.
Glad you like the VIC and C64! I am actually glad they weren't working and will require repair. More content! Many things from the same recycler were horrendously yellowed as well, must have been a storage thing. He told me most of the vintage stuff had come out of an outdoor shed, so that explains the rust, as here in florida we have a very humid climate year round. I have not gotten around to checking out the other machines in detail, but I assume they have some sort of corrosion damage to the metal parts as well.
I've seen it on some late 80's - early 90's non IBM PC cases at my local recycle drop off over the years, but it's rare, seems these early Vic machines had more flame retardant in the plastic mix, so when mixed with UV, and heat helped it get that yellow/orange color faster.
That's what I thought when I saw that sticker residue. I have a few things that have come from schools that have that style of residue from the property sticker. That would also explain the LEDs being missing and the yellowing. Children are hard on machines and they likely sat next to an open window for a long while.
@@IkarusKommt Better than waiting 97 years for the disk for Summer Games to load on an Apple II GS! By the time that thing loaded free computer time was over and we had to go back to normal class! I haven't used one since the 80's so I don't know how slow I would find it now but I still have nightmares of the sound of that 3.5" drive going on, and on, and on, and on....
Thanks to this video I repaired the only thing wrong with my C64....that power led. I bought a perfect condition unit to relive my childhood. I’ve almost no electronics repair know how to speak off but love this channel. And now my C64 is flawless. THANK YOU!!!!
regarding the SNES: The USA version with the purple buttons do have the AB convex and XY concave, while the EU SNES and JP SuperFamicom do have the 4 different colors, but always all convex. No idea on the reason why tho.
@@gregjarvis1232 trivia: japanese Super Famicon and US SNES (only the regular ones, tho) accept european controllers, but european SNES do not accept non-european controllers unless you mod either the controller or the console. I've heard that the first scandinavian models do accept non-european controllers (mainly because the scandinavian market used a different import route, if true). European controllers are a great way for Super Famicom users to get all that extra cable length without breaking the colour motive.
@@CanuckGod Not quite, the North America SNES controllers had concave X and Y buttons as well. Canada & Mexico had the lavender & purple buttons, but they didn't have the concave part.
That was a fantastic idea to modify that cable for the calculator! I've had my fair share of leaky batteries so fining alternatives to them is definitely very helpful!!
I'm definitely stealing that calculator hack- that's brilliant! I don't know how I'm ever going to repay you for all these wizard-level retro hacks- I'm going to have to do some serious thinking on that one! As an aside, I have an old C64 that was formerly used in an industrial setting as a controller for some sort of machinery. I was told it was used in a metal shop, but that's the extent of my knowledge on it. What's interesting is that this one has an almost identical checkered sticker/marking on the side as the C64 in this mail call. It could just be a coincidence, but it struck me how similar yours is to mine. Again, awesome show sir! Rock on!
BTW: the “chain/const” switch on the calculator normally belongs in the “chain” position. The “const” position is if you want to add/subtract/multiply/divide the 1st entered number by lots of other numbers. So if you wanted to make a 25x times table, you would clear, put the switch in “const” mode, then enter 25 x (1st number) =, then enter the 2nd number and =, 3rd number and =, etc... This would be useful in a small store where the owner wanted to apply a 10% discount on sale items; he (or she) could the multiply all the price sticker amounts by .9 (90%) and write down the new amounts on the price sticker. You might have to consult the manual though; this is just my educated guess. 🙂
Yup, I had some old disks stored in the cubhole of an SX64 riddling of oxide and grooved disks that SX and my good RF512C drive. I moved from 90% to 99% IPA, cottonbuds and then a cleaning disk just to be sure, and now they are shipshape again. Of course after using the cottonbuds the cleaning disk was more an ultimate test of how clean they came out. Now the Cleaning disk rests in a special bag of goodies with a clean brush and some microfiber cloths :) Very, very useful, and I'm glad you always show me new things, or new ways to do the stuff I do ^^
Cleaning Disks! Oh, I remember my elementary school, early 90's... Had a box full of them in the library. Stored under the Laserdiscs. I think I was the only person who tried to maintain our Apple IIs. Being called to classrooms during the middle of the day to fix their "broken" computers was the highlight of my day. Loose cables, dirty drives, and general kid destruction. Taught me a lot about maintenance.
Very cool items again. Awesome! As for the TI-2500: If they used a design similar to what they used in the TI-57 battery packs, then the AC adapter may be correct. In the TI-57 they used a circuit that not only boosts the battery voltage to 9V DC in portable mode, but also uses the AC voltage in two separate ways. One half wave is used to power the calculator, while the other half wave is used to charge the battery pack. That may be the reason why this calculator doesn't work without batteries inside. I learned this when restoring a TI-57 that had leaky batteries that ate away the circuit board in the battery pack. The charge controller was gone but still available as a spare, the inductor was still intact. Got lucky there. :) Your USB mod is a nice idea. Turns it into a cool desk calculator. :)
I love the red/purple of those old magnified 7-segment calculator LEDs; it reminds me of my childhood, when a - posh - friend had a Sinclair Black Watch and used to show its amazing digital display to all of his friends.
It's good to know that PadSwitcher64 will work with NTSC SNES pads. I did all my development with a original PAL controller (coloured buttons, not concave, just like the Super Famicom version). The reason I say this is that apparently it is said that Nintendo went as far as to implement region lockout with the SNES controllers. Supposedly NTSC controllers are not supposed to work on PAL consoles and I guess I was worried the reverse would be true and affect the interface somehow. I kinda feel a little guilty sending you that clone controller though. That said, I'm not exactly swimming in originals. Glad to see that you are getting good use out of the interface though!
That AMD 4200+ is the original S939 Toledo core release, the very first generation of dual-core desktop/consumer grade CPUs, so somewhat historic I guess
It’s a harvest gold Vic-20! My introduction to retro computing on TH-cam was the 8-Bit Guy’s Vic-20 repair video and I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since. Can’t wait to see this one running and looking pretty again!
That close SNES controller you have is based on the European/Japanese controller with the coloured convex buttons, as I understand it, on the North American version of the SNES had concave X and Y buttons.
It has been my experience that if they are yellowed by cigarette smoke that the internals collect dust that when it sticks almost looks like fur. I never even have to smell it if I am inside it. You can just tell, very characteristic. The dust like stands on end like hairs.
Re: Smoker computers, a lot of people don't realize it but there are like 3 different common ways plastics yellow, all are via oxidation. First, and for a very particular time in the 90's when electronics were cheap and plentiful and indoor smoking common, is by contact with tobacco smoke residue, which among its vast number of chemical constitutents, apparently contains at least one oxidizer. This is fast acting, and that's why everyone knows about it. That one kid with two 2-pack-a-day parents, and the 1 year old computer in their house was the same color as the bottom of that VIC20 and... weirdly sticky. Second, is UV light - most commonly from the sun. The oxidation is catalyzed by UV light. Third is just time. The oxidation happens because it's in contact with oxygen in the atmosphere.
Well done for the calculator power supply! I would also put a sticker on its back saying what the desired potential and current are, and specify VDC, and whether is is tip positive or tip negative. Just in case the power cord ever gets broken is separated.
On the SNES pad, the buttons on my official controller are the same colour as that knockoff controller and has no concave buttons, so it must be mimicking a PAL controller rather than NTSC. The PAL console also has much different outer case design.
You are quite right what you said about the head cleaners. Regarding the calculator, you need to try the lever or chain switch and const, I am left with the doubt I also put cell phone batteries that are very small and do not leak, some are 3.7v but there are others 4.8v
I love the mod to the calculator - I think I may track one down and do the same. Actually, I found one on eBay that has the label in the battery compartment intact, and it confirms what you suspected - "USE AC ADAPTER/CHARGER AC-9130 ONLY. TWO (2) NICKEL-CADMIUM BATTERIES MUST BE IN PLACE WHEN USING THE ADAPTER/CHARGER. WHEN REPLACING RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES USE A GOULD-BURGESS 475 SCB OR EQUIVALENT" Also only the top two spots were for the rechargeable, the bottom two are for the regular AA batteries, and you can only use one or the other. I think just throwing out the whole mess and using the 5V USB was the smart decision, for sure.
I had the desk version of this calculator, my first ever in the early 1970s, used it extensively in my math/science early education. They are well-made devices and you would likely find the history of the CPUs on these devices interesting.
I like that calculator mod. I much prefer the idea of keeping things usable rather than simply relics to display in a museum. Back in the day people used to repair stuff, and keep it running as long as possible. Lets bring that back.
I was in Toronto once (I'm from Europe) and I have to say it seemed quite depressive to me. Than I have visited Boston and it was so refreshing, it has charged back my batteries.
Thanks for another nice video Adrian! I don't think the TI uses leds. I think it's a vacuum fluorescent display with a red colored plate in front of it.
You can see the tiny dots when he gets it up close to the camera. Definitely early LED. FranLab did a video on these early early LED seven segments and how they make each segment with a few dots. Now - of a similar vintage you would find VFD ones in that telling bluey turquoise colour. Those calculators can't be LED because they didn't have LEDs in those colours back then. And you don't see the individual dots up close in them either. (I have just such a scientific calculator from the '80s with such a VFD screen, though it's currently in storage so I can't check the model number.)
@@kaitlyn__L I see. Didn't know about those. It looked very similar to my little Canon pocket calculator from around the same vintage, which has the turquoise VFD. Love those old beasts. Very durable 👍
A long time ago I modded my old Elektronika MK-61 calculator (Soviet programmable RPN calc). It didn't suffer any leakage corrosion or anything like that, I was just tired of always looking for batteries to put in when I needed it quickly (and original PSU is awfully cheap and flimsy, but that's a different story)... I've replaced original PSU socket with a micro USB, built in a ubiquitous cheapo TP4056 charger board, along with a small li-ion battery. This calculator works over wide variety of voltages, including USB's 5V all thae way down to li-ion discharge whereabouts of 3.3V. I can use this calc on USB power and charge it simultaneously, since I'm feeding it power from USB and battery through Schottky diodes, which allows to take off calc's load from charger's output and let it do the charging properly. Just my two cents, that's what I would've done :)
my dad had an old calculator similar to that, but it had green digits instead of red. it was really reliable, he had it for many years and used it regularly
Another interesting video. Almost a "field find" Vic20 there, I am sure you can make it work again, and the C64 almost did work. My granddad had calculator like that with LED digits. He always called it an "adding machine", which amused me.
Adrian - re-plate those calculator battery contacts with nickel - it is cheap, easy and totally worth it to bring corroded contacts like these back to life. There's a few Instructables showing how to do it easily at home, along with lots of TH-cam videos as well. Once you've seen how easy this is, you will probably use it on lots of the types of repairs you do for neglected or corroded terminals. It may also make a fun video... Best wishes.
Loved what you did to the Texas calculator. With a bit more work you could fit a lithium cell and a small micro usb lithium battery controller and make it battery powered and future proof again. I would definitively do it.
I'm weary of putting batteries into things as those have limited shelf-life no matter what type. So if 10 years from no I go to use it, it might be destroyed.
Is the accessport on the memory expansion for the Vic 20 hand-cut? If so, I did the same thing (to configure the dip switches with out disassembling) when I had my Vic20 in the late mid-80s mid-eighties 83-84 The copper on those cartridges was a plate of silk screen aluminum stuck to the plastic cartridge
I bought the Vic 20 when it first came out. When I was remodeling a room a few years ago I enclosed it in a wall. Someone in the future may do some remodeling and find it. An ancient artifact of home computer history. :)
I can't tell that VIC20 apart from that C64! Both of them look like they're made from those 1970s mustard yellow Tupperware containers that everybody's mum or mom had back in the day.
Ive got a lot of ram but boy do I wish I had as much as you do! Time to get creative with that junk. Id love to pave a table top with em and capture them in acrylic. Maybe back light it.... hmm
That yellow case may not be from a smoker's house, but I've seen smokers with teeth that yellow. Anyway, I always love to see old Commodore machines get repaired and restored so I'm looking forward to their repairathon. Considering they came from a computer recycling center, I shudder to think of how many Commodores are in recycling places, never to get fixed up and used again, or how many are in landfills because people didn't see any value in them and threw them out. Same for disk drives, floppies, monitors, etc.
I have a white dehumidifier that sat in a room with compact florescent light bulbs. Non smoker. The cord was draped over the top and the top has darkened except where the cord was. I now have LED lights throughout the entire house.
@@kaitlyn__L I agree. Although, they weren't cheap no name brand. They were " Philips ". Changing to all LED's a few years ago has made a difference to my electric bill that you can see.
@@Steve_R oh dear, even Philips' CFLs were doing that? I'm so glad we've moved onto LED. Better quality light, even less energy, no mercury or leaking UV to worry about.
@@kaitlyn__L Not really, standard glass filters UV pretty well. The edge is around 350nm, which only is near UV-A. Enough energy to trigger some decomposition in plastics, but not really dangerous. "Black light" is in this region and doesn't hurt you. To "leak" hard UV, you would have to use quartz glass, which is way more expensive in both material and usage.
You could have probably installed a couple CR2032 holders in series in the back of that calculator and run it that way. Those should handle the mA's required to run that calc for a few hours. That old thing looks to be in museum-displayable condition!
As crazy as it sounds, I think these mail call type videos are more fun than the restore projects :). Looking forward to seeing the Vic-20 returned to a somewhat more normal colour. That said, It might be good to leave it as it is for the most yellow VIC-20. IS there a place in the Guiness Records book for that?
The UV is sunlight is blamed for yellowing of plastics, but heat can do it too. I have had stuff thats been in a dark loft for 15-20 years badly yellow. The sign to look for is if it is yellowed all over. I think its the heat in sunlight that does mosr of the damage to computers left by a window too, as glass is a good UV filter.
That was the first time I've seen the color be so unmistakably that of bromine. When it's faint, and even in some moderate states, a lot of different kinds of yellow can be hard to tell apart. But bromine brown is quite specific.
I think why the calculator doesn’t work off AC power adapter is that it is sending over pulsed DC (a simple rectifier) and using the batteries to smooth it out, like a capacitor. The calculator is flashing when connected to adapter alone is because it is resetting every time at 0v. A solution to accommodate this is to connect a capacitor bank to when the NiCd are connected originally so that the calculator can work off its original adapter.
Just a thought, well, to actually; 1. The yellow (orange?) VIC20: has it been sat, outside (hence the rust), face down? and 2. Has someone tried to "clean" its discoloration, hence the striping on the underside, that look like sweeping marks with a cloth?
Florida humidity and sunlight would definitely cause such yellowing without the combustion and tar of smoke! Even in my elementary school I remember LCIIIs getting that yellow in 97-98 only 4-5 years after they were released. My school was like a tenth of a mile from the Gulf of Mexico so I'm sure that didn't help them either.
I really like that TI-2500 and I really like the modification that you did to it. Would you consider doing an explanation on how you made it work without the batteries and just use the USB?
There wasn't actually anything to it -- I didn't change anything inside other than just remove the crusty wires going to the batter compartment. You can run any of this type of TI-2500 off USB and it'll work just fine.
@@adriansdigitalbasement Thank you so much for the reply. I am going to see if I will be able to do it to the one I have now that I know you didn't have to change anything big.
You know, it's pretty easy to electroplate things like those stripped battery terminals...a little solution and a little DC voltage, and you can recoat them...
Indeed, I was thinking the chemistry really isn't all that different than dealing with leaked electrolyte, and he already has bench DC power supplies and cables handy... it could be done so quick and easy! But, tbf, this is probably the better choice for this particular calculator anyway. But it'd be good for him to give electroplating a go and figure out it's not too hard.
I have one of those AMD athlon ii x2 cpu's, I pulled it out of an old computer I found out for the trash that I rebuilt and used to run linux mint 18.1 mate until the motherboard died when I "fixed" it That PC had a SONY 1x DVD RW drive a dead 320 GB Hitachi hard drive and a ECS nforce6m-a v3.0 motherboard with no RAM PSU and GPU I replaced the case with a different mid tower ATX case, added a evga 1000 watt 80+ gold PSU, replaced the dead 320GB HDD with a 40GB Hitachi drive, added another SONY MPF 920 floppy drive, upgraded the CPU to a AMD Phenom ii x2 550, added a AMD radeon HD 6450 1GB Dell or HP OEM graphics card, put 2GBs of Kingston DDR2 800MHz RAM in, added a diamond 7.1 PCI sound card (the motherboard had stereo sound built in but I wanted 7.1 surround sound for gaming and watching blue-ray movies).
I appreciate that Rammy is making more and more appearances in your videos ♥️
We all live in a yellow Vic-20, yellow Vic-20, yellow Vic-20!
Follow the yellow Vic-20, follow the yellow Vic-20, follow the follow the follow the follow the follow the yellow Vic-20!
Look at the vic, see how it shines for you, despite all you do, it was all yellow.
They used to be WHITE, the brightest white Commodore ever used! HOLY COW!!! You might guess that thing was something else entirely.
That's not a VIC-20 - it's a particularly stale old banana.
Adrian.. from an old VCR repair man, to cancel the smoker smell on electronics, mix Vanilla and water 5050, wipe inside and out. Cancels that smell.
You could lay out a bunch of ram to look like a road and make a 'Rammy takes a trip down memory lane' photo
Down the data highway! Where you could parity like it's 1999!
Rams live on mountains. Make a mountain of memory.
I second this
I did exactly the same USB conversion to an old (and similarly damaged) Commodore calculator I found on eBay for less than £3. It now looks great sitting on my desk plugged into the back of my Mac.
Glad you like the VIC and C64! I am actually glad they weren't working and will require repair. More content! Many things from the same recycler were horrendously yellowed as well, must have been a storage thing. He told me most of the vintage stuff had come out of an outdoor shed, so that explains the rust, as here in florida we have a very humid climate year round. I have not gotten around to checking out the other machines in detail, but I assume they have some sort of corrosion damage to the metal parts as well.
Dang that vic is the first time I've seen plastic turn orange. It's the vic 20 yellow submarine edition
Orange is the new Vic
I've seen it on some late 80's - early 90's non IBM PC cases at my local recycle drop off over the years, but it's rare, seems these early Vic machines had more flame retardant in the plastic mix, so when mixed with UV, and heat helped it get that yellow/orange color faster.
I bet that "warranty" sticker goo is from a "property of" sticker and those were from a school where kids pushed down on the LEDs and popped them out.
Poor schoolchildren who were made to work on that crap...
That's what I thought when I saw that sticker residue. I have a few things that have come from schools that have that style of residue from the property sticker. That would also explain the LEDs being missing and the yellowing. Children are hard on machines and they likely sat next to an open window for a long while.
@@IkarusKommt Better than waiting 97 years for the disk for Summer Games to load on an Apple II GS!
By the time that thing loaded free computer time was over and we had to go back to normal class! I haven't used one since the 80's so I don't know how slow I would find it now but I still have nightmares of the sound of that 3.5" drive going on, and on, and on, and on....
Thanks to this video I repaired the only thing wrong with my C64....that power led. I bought a perfect condition unit to relive my childhood. I’ve almost no electronics repair know how to speak off but love this channel. And now my C64 is flawless. THANK YOU!!!!
regarding the SNES: The USA version with the purple buttons do have the AB convex and XY concave, while the EU SNES and JP SuperFamicom do have the 4 different colors, but always all convex. No idea on the reason why tho.
FYI: only US SNES controllers have concave buttons (European and Japanese have the buttons as with the clone controller)
Also only US SNES controllers had just 2 colours - the rest of the world had 4 different coloured buttons.
@@Fifury161 that's why I like the European pal snes controller the best
@@gregjarvis1232 trivia: japanese Super Famicon and US SNES (only the regular ones, tho) accept european controllers, but european SNES do not accept non-european controllers unless you mod either the controller or the console. I've heard that the first scandinavian models do accept non-european controllers (mainly because the scandinavian market used a different import route, if true). European controllers are a great way for Super Famicom users to get all that extra cable length without breaking the colour motive.
@@Fifury161 To be fair, rest of the world refers to everywhere outside North America (Canada and Mexico had the same SNES as the US).
@@CanuckGod Not quite, the North America SNES controllers had concave X and Y buttons as well. Canada & Mexico had the lavender & purple buttons, but they didn't have the concave part.
That was a fantastic idea to modify that cable for the calculator! I've had my fair share of leaky batteries so fining alternatives to them is definitely very helpful!!
I've been getting ADB withdrawal symptoms. You can imagine my instant joy when I got the notification that a new video was posted.
Hello from Alma Lac-St-Jean!! Never knew you were a MTL native!! Keep up the great work sir!
I'm definitely stealing that calculator hack- that's brilliant! I don't know how I'm ever going to repay you for all these wizard-level retro hacks- I'm going to have to do some serious thinking on that one!
As an aside, I have an old C64 that was formerly used in an industrial setting as a controller for some sort of machinery. I was told it was used in a metal shop, but that's the extent of my knowledge on it. What's interesting is that this one has an almost identical checkered sticker/marking on the side as the C64 in this mail call. It could just be a coincidence, but it struck me how similar yours is to mine.
Again, awesome show sir! Rock on!
BTW: the “chain/const” switch on the calculator normally belongs in the “chain” position. The “const” position is if you want to add/subtract/multiply/divide the 1st entered number by lots of other numbers. So if you wanted to make a 25x times table, you would clear, put the switch in “const” mode, then enter 25 x (1st number) =, then enter the 2nd number and =, 3rd number and =, etc... This would be useful in a small store where the owner wanted to apply a 10% discount on sale items; he (or she) could the multiply all the price sticker amounts by .9 (90%) and write down the new amounts on the price sticker. You might have to consult the manual though; this is just my educated guess. 🙂
Yup, I had some old disks stored in the cubhole of an SX64 riddling of oxide and grooved disks that SX and my good RF512C drive.
I moved from 90% to 99% IPA, cottonbuds and then a cleaning disk just to be sure, and now they are shipshape again.
Of course after using the cottonbuds the cleaning disk was more an ultimate test of how clean they came out. Now the Cleaning disk rests in a special bag of goodies with a clean brush and some microfiber cloths :)
Very, very useful, and I'm glad you always show me new things, or new ways to do the stuff I do ^^
That battery compartment in the calculator would be a perfect storage compartment for the usb cable!
Cleaning Disks! Oh, I remember my elementary school, early 90's... Had a box full of them in the library. Stored under the Laserdiscs. I think I was the only person who tried to maintain our Apple IIs. Being called to classrooms during the middle of the day to fix their "broken" computers was the highlight of my day. Loose cables, dirty drives, and general kid destruction. Taught me a lot about maintenance.
SNES controllers are the Nokia 3310 of video gaming peripherals.
Very cool items again. Awesome!
As for the TI-2500: If they used a design similar to what they used in the TI-57 battery packs, then the AC adapter may be correct. In the TI-57 they used a circuit that not only boosts the battery voltage to 9V DC in portable mode, but also uses the AC voltage in two separate ways.
One half wave is used to power the calculator, while the other half wave is used to charge the battery pack. That may be the reason why this calculator doesn't work without batteries inside.
I learned this when restoring a TI-57 that had leaky batteries that ate away the circuit board in the battery pack. The charge controller was gone but still available as a spare, the inductor was still intact. Got lucky there. :)
Your USB mod is a nice idea. Turns it into a cool desk calculator. :)
I knew these old systems could yellow, but wow! That Vic is jaundiced!
I love the red/purple of those old magnified 7-segment calculator LEDs; it reminds me of my childhood, when a - posh - friend had a Sinclair Black Watch and used to show its amazing digital display to all of his friends.
It's good to know that PadSwitcher64 will work with NTSC SNES pads. I did all my development with a original PAL controller (coloured buttons, not concave, just like the Super Famicom version). The reason I say this is that apparently it is said that Nintendo went as far as to implement region lockout with the SNES controllers. Supposedly NTSC controllers are not supposed to work on PAL consoles and I guess I was worried the reverse would be true and affect the interface somehow.
I kinda feel a little guilty sending you that clone controller though. That said, I'm not exactly swimming in originals.
Glad to see that you are getting good use out of the interface though!
you should get a color chart from the spray tan, beauty parlour. see which matches those commodore cases
This series has become the highlight of my youtube week :D
That AMD 4200+ is the original S939 Toledo core release, the very first generation of dual-core desktop/consumer grade CPUs, so somewhat historic I guess
It’s a harvest gold Vic-20! My introduction to retro computing on TH-cam was the 8-Bit Guy’s Vic-20 repair video and I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since. Can’t wait to see this one running and looking pretty again!
41:50 Next mod, USB receptacle and LiPo battery!
Beaten to the suggestion 😁
That close SNES controller you have is based on the European/Japanese controller with the coloured convex buttons, as I understand it, on the North American version of the SNES had concave X and Y buttons.
I loved the honey-glazed VIC20. Leave it like that!
That VIC-20 is straight up cinnamon, I have never seen old plastic darken that much in my life. Wow!!
I am from Brazil and here it is difficult to find a vic-20 or commodore 64 I am impressed that people can send so many to you. Very cool your videos.
It has been my experience that if they are yellowed by cigarette smoke that the internals collect dust that when it sticks almost looks like fur. I never even have to smell it if I am inside it. You can just tell, very characteristic. The dust like stands on end like hairs.
If you didn't input 80085, did you really test a calculator?
Go one step further and make it fully portable and rechargeable. Using a keyring LED light would provide a battery and charge circuit.
7734 yeah!!!
Well since I'm Finnish I do 715517 instead.
53045 3080
Love that calculator refurb. The USB mod was a great idea.
Re: Smoker computers, a lot of people don't realize it but there are like 3 different common ways plastics yellow, all are via oxidation.
First, and for a very particular time in the 90's when electronics were cheap and plentiful and indoor smoking common, is by contact with tobacco smoke residue, which among its vast number of chemical constitutents, apparently contains at least one oxidizer. This is fast acting, and that's why everyone knows about it. That one kid with two 2-pack-a-day parents, and the 1 year old computer in their house was the same color as the bottom of that VIC20 and... weirdly sticky.
Second, is UV light - most commonly from the sun. The oxidation is catalyzed by UV light.
Third is just time. The oxidation happens because it's in contact with oxygen in the atmosphere.
Nice job fixing the calculator. My grandmother had a newer model that ran on a 9 volt. Wish I still had it. The buttons on hers were narrower.
That USB-powered calculator is so cool, top work!
Well done for the calculator power supply! I would also put a sticker on its back saying what the desired potential and current are, and specify VDC, and whether is is tip positive or tip negative. Just in case the power cord ever gets broken is separated.
Thank you for the inspiration to get my SR-52 and TI-59 going again
My father was a blood transfusion specialist, so that "Be nice to me, I donated blood today" sticker was a real nostalgia jolt!
Looking forward to anything Vic20. I've got my childhood Vic20 that I need to eventually work up the nerve to try to repair.
Happy Thanksgiving Adrian!
I think your USB power solution for the TI was great. A much better solution than leaky batteries.
The USB power cord for the calculator... looks like the cord was salvaged from a early/mid 2000s Microsoft mouse or keyboard. Did I guess correctly?
Yeah, that is the USB cable from a Microsoft wireless Keyboard/Mouse receiver or wired one.
@@knightcrusader That's what I thought. I worked in that group for over a decade which is why it looked so familiar.
@@ChrisDreher Yeah I've been using Microsoft wireless sets for 15 years, and currently using a newer Natural 4000, and they all had the plug.
I believe I have seen my package on the floor for the past 3 videos! So much backlog Adrian!!
On the SNES pad, the buttons on my official controller are the same colour as that knockoff controller and has no concave buttons, so it must be mimicking a PAL controller rather than NTSC. The PAL console also has much different outer case design.
I wonder where in Wichita Cardco was. The chief engineer now works in the electronics lab at Comet Industries up in Kansas City.
You are quite right what you said about the head cleaners.
Regarding the calculator, you need to try the lever or chain switch and const, I am left with the doubt
I also put cell phone batteries that are very small and do not leak, some are 3.7v but there are others 4.8v
I love the mod to the calculator - I think I may track one down and do the same. Actually, I found one on eBay that has the label in the battery compartment intact, and it confirms what you suspected - "USE AC ADAPTER/CHARGER AC-9130 ONLY. TWO (2) NICKEL-CADMIUM BATTERIES MUST BE IN PLACE WHEN USING THE ADAPTER/CHARGER. WHEN REPLACING RECHARGEABLE BATTERIES USE A GOULD-BURGESS 475 SCB OR EQUIVALENT"
Also only the top two spots were for the rechargeable, the bottom two are for the regular AA batteries, and you can only use one or the other. I think just throwing out the whole mess and using the 5V USB was the smart decision, for sure.
I had the desk version of this calculator, my first ever in the early 1970s, used it extensively in my math/science early education. They are well-made devices and you would likely find the history of the CPUs on these devices interesting.
I know EEV will appreciate the shout-out!
The back of that VIC20 is actually beautiful
RAMS brings all the memories together :D
I like that calculator mod. I much prefer the idea of keeping things usable rather than simply relics to display in a museum. Back in the day people used to repair stuff, and keep it running as long as possible. Lets bring that back.
I was in Toronto once (I'm from Europe) and I have to say it seemed quite depressive to me. Than I have visited Boston and it was so refreshing, it has charged back my batteries.
Thanks for another nice video Adrian!
I don't think the TI uses leds. I think it's a vacuum fluorescent display with a red colored plate in front of it.
You can see the tiny dots when he gets it up close to the camera. Definitely early LED. FranLab did a video on these early early LED seven segments and how they make each segment with a few dots.
Now - of a similar vintage you would find VFD ones in that telling bluey turquoise colour. Those calculators can't be LED because they didn't have LEDs in those colours back then. And you don't see the individual dots up close in them either. (I have just such a scientific calculator from the '80s with such a VFD screen, though it's currently in storage so I can't check the model number.)
@@kaitlyn__L I see. Didn't know about those. It looked very similar to my little Canon pocket calculator from around the same vintage, which has the turquoise VFD. Love those old beasts. Very durable 👍
If Adrian wears the Lumberjackshirt you know Winters here :D
He started a grunge band.
Love that line “this smells like old computer”
Best smell
@@dparks256 EVER!
A long time ago I modded my old Elektronika MK-61 calculator (Soviet programmable RPN calc).
It didn't suffer any leakage corrosion or anything like that, I was just tired of always looking for batteries to put in when I needed it quickly (and original PSU is awfully cheap and flimsy, but that's a different story)...
I've replaced original PSU socket with a micro USB, built in a ubiquitous cheapo TP4056 charger board, along with a small li-ion battery.
This calculator works over wide variety of voltages, including USB's 5V all thae way down to li-ion discharge whereabouts of 3.3V.
I can use this calc on USB power and charge it simultaneously, since I'm feeding it power from USB and battery through Schottky diodes, which allows to take off calc's load from charger's output and let it do the charging properly.
Just my two cents, that's what I would've done :)
That oxide failure also occurs with audio and video tapes. So quickly transfer them to digital while the tapes are still somewhat readable.
my dad had an old calculator similar to that, but it had green digits instead of red. it was really reliable, he had it for many years and used it regularly
MMMC, easily the best part of a Wednesday! As we all know, VIC stands for Very Intense Color. VIC-2🟡!
Another interesting video. Almost a "field find" Vic20 there, I am sure you can make it work again, and the C64 almost did work. My granddad had calculator like that with LED digits. He always called it an "adding machine", which amused me.
Adrian - re-plate those calculator battery contacts with nickel - it is cheap, easy and totally worth it to bring corroded contacts like these back to life. There's a few Instructables showing how to do it easily at home, along with lots of TH-cam videos as well. Once you've seen how easy this is, you will probably use it on lots of the types of repairs you do for neglected or corroded terminals. It may also make a fun video... Best wishes.
Maybe exposure to ozone from an electric motor nearby. I've seen that happen.
Gotta watch those Teflon coated discs - the technology is known for frying chips!
Badum-tish!!! :P
Loved what you did to the Texas calculator. With a bit more work you could fit a lithium cell and a small micro usb lithium battery controller and make it battery powered and future proof again. I would definitively do it.
I'm weary of putting batteries into things as those have limited shelf-life no matter what type. So if 10 years from no I go to use it, it might be destroyed.
@@adriansdigitalbasement You're not wrong.
i use my Teflon floppy disk cleaner all the time on my c64 for years never been replaced and works great
Cool! Looking forward to that VIC-20 repair video.
Holy moly those cases are approaching burnt sienna levels !
Is the accessport on the memory expansion for the Vic 20 hand-cut? If so, I did the same thing (to configure the dip switches with out disassembling) when I had my Vic20 in the late mid-80s mid-eighties 83-84
The copper on those cartridges was a plate of silk screen aluminum stuck to the plastic cartridge
I bought the Vic 20 when it first came out. When I was remodeling a room a few years ago I enclosed it in a wall. Someone in the future may do some remodeling and find it. An ancient artifact of home computer history. :)
I can't tell that VIC20 apart from that C64! Both of them look like they're made from those 1970s mustard yellow Tupperware containers that everybody's mum or mom had back in the day.
70's Orange on that '20. Just slap a confederate stars and bars with a big 01 on it, and you'd have a General Lee VIC-20.
@Critter Hunter Really? They were just some good ole' boys.
Ive got a lot of ram but boy do I wish I had as much as you do! Time to get creative with that junk. Id love to pave a table top with em and capture them in acrylic. Maybe back light it.... hmm
That yellow case may not be from a smoker's house, but I've seen smokers with teeth that yellow. Anyway, I always love to see old Commodore machines get repaired and restored so I'm looking forward to their repairathon. Considering they came from a computer recycling center, I shudder to think of how many Commodores are in recycling places, never to get fixed up and used again, or how many are in landfills because people didn't see any value in them and threw them out. Same for disk drives, floppies, monitors, etc.
Looking forwards to those repairs!
I have the Vic 20 that lived at my grandfather’s. He smoked like chimney, and that Vic is almost in pristine condition.
I have a white dehumidifier that sat in a room with compact florescent light bulbs. Non smoker. The cord was draped over the top and the top has darkened except where the cord was. I now have LED lights throughout the entire house.
@@Steve_R that suggests they were leaking UV, which would be out of spec! Not surprising for cheap CFLs though.
@@kaitlyn__L I agree. Although, they weren't cheap no name brand. They were " Philips ". Changing to all LED's a few years ago has made a difference to my electric bill that you can see.
@@Steve_R oh dear, even Philips' CFLs were doing that? I'm so glad we've moved onto LED. Better quality light, even less energy, no mercury or leaking UV to worry about.
@@kaitlyn__L Not really, standard glass filters UV pretty well. The edge is around 350nm, which only is near UV-A. Enough energy to trigger some decomposition in plastics, but not really dangerous. "Black light" is in this region and doesn't hurt you.
To "leak" hard UV, you would have to use quartz glass, which is way more expensive in both material and usage.
You could have probably installed a couple CR2032 holders in series in the back of that calculator and run it that way. Those should handle the mA's required to run that calc for a few hours. That old thing looks to be in museum-displayable condition!
Throw the controller in a zip lock with a handfull of fabric soften sheets for a few days, should take out like almost all the smoke smell
Of course we all know MMMC stands for Midweek Monster Mail call. 😉
@40:00 That idea works, of course, but why didn't you just get 4 diodes and make a bridge rectifier?
As crazy as it sounds, I think these mail call type videos are more fun than the restore projects :).
Looking forward to seeing the Vic-20 returned to a somewhat more normal colour. That said, It might be good to leave it as it is for the most yellow VIC-20. IS there a place in the Guiness Records book for that?
The UV is sunlight is blamed for yellowing of plastics, but heat can do it too. I have had stuff thats been in a dark loft for 15-20 years badly yellow. The sign to look for is if it is yellowed all over. I think its the heat in sunlight that does mosr of the damage to computers left by a window too, as glass is a good UV filter.
It went beyond yellow. That’s more like the old dark CGA yellow before they modified it to brown!
That was the first time I've seen the color be so unmistakably that of bromine. When it's faint, and even in some moderate states, a lot of different kinds of yellow can be hard to tell apart. But bromine brown is quite specific.
My VIC 20 wasn't far behind that one you got, it's blue now because I never know about Retrobrite.
I think why the calculator doesn’t work off AC power adapter is that it is sending over pulsed DC (a simple rectifier) and using the batteries to smooth it out, like a capacitor. The calculator is flashing when connected to adapter alone is because it is resetting every time at 0v. A solution to accommodate this is to connect a capacitor bank to when the NiCd are connected originally so that the calculator can work off its original adapter.
nice video with rammy as guest ! i think you could insert a little lion battery with its charge controller in the battery holde,
Just a thought, well, to actually; 1. The yellow (orange?) VIC20: has it been sat, outside (hence the rust), face down? and 2. Has someone tried to "clean" its discoloration, hence the striping on the underside, that look like sweeping marks with a cloth?
Florida humidity and sunlight would definitely cause such yellowing without the combustion and tar of smoke! Even in my elementary school I remember LCIIIs getting that yellow in 97-98 only 4-5 years after they were released. My school was like a tenth of a mile from the Gulf of Mexico so I'm sure that didn't help them either.
Each of those processors truthfully can say...
"Ken sent me!"
I could see on the TI-2500's Calculator's Power supply that it was stamped with date code "8-73" for August, 1973. :)
I really like that TI-2500 and I really like the modification that you did to it. Would you consider doing an explanation on how you made it work without the batteries and just use the USB?
There wasn't actually anything to it -- I didn't change anything inside other than just remove the crusty wires going to the batter compartment. You can run any of this type of TI-2500 off USB and it'll work just fine.
@@adriansdigitalbasement Thank you so much for the reply. I am going to see if I will be able to do it to the one I have now that I know you didn't have to change anything big.
I got a VIC20 with more yellow I still use it in my garage got some car diagnostic software/hardware I still use.
You know, it's pretty easy to electroplate things like those stripped battery terminals...a little solution and a little DC voltage, and you can recoat them...
Indeed, I was thinking the chemistry really isn't all that different than dealing with leaked electrolyte, and he already has bench DC power supplies and cables handy... it could be done so quick and easy! But, tbf, this is probably the better choice for this particular calculator anyway. But it'd be good for him to give electroplating a go and figure out it's not too hard.
Sure that ain't just a faded C64? Man, that Vic-20 is so yellowed, it's approaching brown! XD
I have one of those AMD athlon ii x2 cpu's, I pulled it out of an old computer I found out for the trash that I rebuilt and used to run linux mint 18.1 mate until the motherboard died when I "fixed" it
That PC had a SONY 1x DVD RW drive a dead 320 GB Hitachi hard drive and a ECS nforce6m-a v3.0 motherboard with no RAM PSU and GPU
I replaced the case with a different mid tower ATX case, added a evga 1000 watt 80+ gold PSU, replaced the dead 320GB HDD with a 40GB Hitachi drive, added another SONY MPF 920 floppy drive, upgraded the CPU to a AMD Phenom ii x2 550, added a AMD radeon HD 6450 1GB Dell or HP OEM graphics card, put 2GBs of Kingston DDR2 800MHz RAM in, added a diamond 7.1 PCI sound card (the motherboard had stereo sound built in but I wanted 7.1 surround sound for gaming and watching blue-ray movies).
Thumbs up for Linux Mint.
That VIC 20 must have been used in the Cheez-It factory 😂