It always hurts to see a refurbishment go wrong. 8bit guy's PET, that other guy's Atari ST, ugh. Luckily your little disaster isn't visible from the outside. But maybe you should've put some coating on the metal. It's going to rust very very fast now.
Yeah, thought about that. I think I'll have to do that, but I'll also have to protect the key sockets. If I spraypaint it, the paint might make the keys hard to move. Same for the RF shield on my Amiga.
I would have used some form of paint on the metal keyboard back plate. Something like Hammerite smooth (thinned out and then applied with brush). It should help stop the rust from getting a grip on the metal again and treat any rust that you could not get to.
When I was 14 years old (back in 1985), my parents bought me a CPC464 with color monitor for school classes, and it was a great introduction to gaming, learning BASIC and Assembler and Logo and FORTH, and a little electronics. Mine still works fine too!
I wished I lived closer - I have a garage full of computers and unused and or working parts and computers from the 1960s to the 1990s that need a good home. Including some Amstrads...
@@roybixby6135 Send it to David Jones for mailbag! Or to me in Canada! I'd love to get myself a Tandy CoCo again but can't find any around here and ebay is a scam for shipping!
@@roybixby6135 hi roy, i'm also in Melbourne, would you consider parting or selling any of these old computers from the 80's. I would love to get my hands on a Apple IIe, Amstrad CPC464 or Commodore 64! Please feel free to get in touch with me! thanks
Believe it or not, I have this one (with a green monitor) up and running right now in the next room. :) If I remember correctly, my father got this computer because PCs were extremely expensive back in a day especially in Yugoslavia (now Serbia, ofc). Anyway, my dad, being a civil engineer (designing bridges), needed something to run some programs for physics (and other things) calculations, so he bought a used Amstrad back in 1988. for something like 600 Deutsche Marks. :) In any case, I spent a good few years playing on it as a kid and actually writing my first ever program in Basic. Then it was, what I like to call, a natural progression - from 8-bit Amstrad and C64, to 16-bit Amiga 500, to first PC (a 386) back in 1994. Then Pentium-based machine came along in '96. and Voodoo Graphics in '97. :) But I digress, sorry. :) Enjoying your channel thoroughly. :)
Very cool story. I never actually had any 8 bit (or even "real" 16 bit) machines as a kid. Got a decade old 286 in the 90s. I envied my friends who had a C64 or Amstrad.
@@flashmeback Heh, I envied my friends with Commodore when I had only Amstrad CPC because of the fact they had a floppy disk drive, which seemed infinitely more advanced than a lowly cassette tape drive. :) I was lucky because, as I mentioned, my father was a civil engineer and my mother was an architect by profession, so they always needed faster and more powerful machines once their respective companies, where they worked, switched to AutoCAD software (instead of pen, paper, rulers and rapidographs) sometime in 1994, I think. I managed to convince them that they actually needed Voodoo Graphics for CAD to work better :) But yeah, I digress again... cheers :)
Almost the same story for me... ;) CPC464 -> 386DX -> P1... Somewhere along the line I was donated ZX spectrum too. I still keep both ZX and CPC ll in my "plakar" in my old room back home...
What is the ruler on the cassette door used for? I'm particularly curious why it spans from one edge to the other. It kind of makes sense it might be suggesting how far out the tape is, but that's kind of very coarse ballpark information... 100 as in minutes?
Your family must be very happy because of the bathtub occupied every time you work on something :D Love your videos and all the detailed description you give on every subject!
I too have a CPC464 on my bench currently. Difference being it's a model with coloured keys and the refurbishment is a repair and not quite as easy. Some IC is faulty somewhere and I've not yet located the issues. My current hunch is a fault in one of the DRAMs. So I developed a DRAM tester that I gonna throw at it soon. If that doesn't work, I'll get serious and throw the logic analyzer at it. The 12€ one from ebay that is.
Oh, that sounds cool. You made your own DRAM tester? I had something similar in mind, but I shied away from all the small details like DRAM refresh. Do you have something about that online somewhere?
Hi, not yet. I plan to eventually publish it. So far the hardware side is dead simple, an Arduino Nano is enough, output via serial console through USB. But I plan to make a proper stand alone tester unit with a display, a ZIF socket and a few buttons to push. There are others on the net, but none I have seen implements refresh. Mine does via an interrupt. It took me a while to get all the timings right and I'm not quite content with it yet. So far I only have 64k x 1bit DRAMs to test it with, but it's not hard coded for that. The DRAM size can be set in a header file at compile time. I basically implemented functions to read and write single bits at a given address, as well as writing nibbles, bytes or whole 16 bit words in one go using the fast page mode of those DRAMs. The test routines just make use of those. If you need it, I could send you my current version.
I think I'll eventually make my own version of it. I like figuring such stuff out. Interesting to hear that you don't actually need to refresh the DRAM too often. I should read up a bit more on the details.
I needed a 4164 DRAM tester for a project a few months ago and i found a github page by someone who made one along with a whole suite of other good stuff intended for C64 repair. It's meant to be used with an arduino Uno, but i only had a Nano which is pretty much the same. You just run wires from the arduino to the corresponding pins and its good to go: github.com/jamarju/c64_test_tools/tree/master/c64_dram_test On the subject of rust, i've seen a guy here on youtube recommend citric acid instead of vinegar. You just dilute a few spoons of it in water and submerge the metal piece, no smell or anything.
Definitely paint the keyboard plate. I wouldn't worry about the spray paint making the plastic stick to the keys. You can go about it a few different ways -Paint the bare metal with a rust paint from the hardware store using a brush. Not sure if you have Tremclad but they make a decent paint and it won't be very expensive. -Paint the entire plate with a rust inhibiting spray paint. Really any paint is going to be many times better than bare metal. You saw how fast the rust came back after its vinegar bath. That's what's happened by now to the metal in the case as you left it bare and totally untreated. The key to not having it make the keys sticky is to leave it over the weekend to fully cure. Then assemble the keys. Make sure you focus your attention on the metal parts and do only a couple light coats. Just enough to cover and protect the metal, you don't want it dripping wet or that will more than likely interfere with the key movement -Paint the entire plate with a rust inhibiting spray paint but mask off the plastic key holders with some tape. This will be more tedious but if you're not confident that you can be precise enough with your spraying than it will be well worth it. A coat of paint is typically only 25 microns thick (or 1 mil) and i'm not versed in the CPC but I doubt very much that the tolerances are that close that a mil or 2 will cause interference. -If you have access to an air brush, you can easily paint the areas around the keys with that as you can focus the paint into a very precise spray. Then you can paint the bigger areas with a wide spray and job done. I have a lot of spray paint experience so I would be more than confident to spray it all down but if you don't have much experience, go with the brush route as others have said. It's a bit messy but you will be doing the CPC a favour rather than (frankly) the travesty that you did to it on your first go. Would definitely make a great follow up video as well. I'm really liking your content, my friend but do remind me not to get you to refurbish my E36 as I'd rather not like to have its body to turn to dust in a matter of weeks.
Yes, I thought about that, but it would have meant I'd have to protect the key sockets from the paint each individually. But it might be worth it anyway.
Is it OK if i use a Q-tip (cotton buds) dipped in diluted Phosphoric acid, carefully rubbing onto rusts until it came off? + How to protect it from rusting further?
Honestly, no idea. Any kind of acid will help against rust, but I don't know if it would do any further damage. You can coat or paint stuff you want to protect afterwards.
quick run", under enter key and shift is little yellow key use that with the other key on numberpad side and it will do the command for you. No need to type it in :P, unless you wish to run |Disc LOL
Dieses Schätzchen war mein 1ster "eigener" Rechner wenn man das überhaupt so schreiben kann, ca. 1989 war das zu diesem zeitpunkt natürlich schon total veraltet. Gebraucht gekauft mit grünen Monitor ein grausiges Teil ist das gewesen. Noch im selben Jahr bin ich auf den A500 +512Kb umgestiegen nagelneu gekauft, war das ein unterschied.
It's an antistatic wristband. It is also connected to the mat I put stuff on and then both together to the common ground on my power outlet. That way any static electricity that is building up through friction or similar processes is slowly removed from my body and the mat. You know sometimes when you walk over a carpet and then touch a door handle, you get a small electric shock. Those can be several thousand volts. They don't really hurt you, but imagine that going through an electronic chip. You can irrepairable damage them. This wristband reduces the risk. In professional environments you need to wear even more protection to have special chairs and floors and other fun stuff.
I'm not too far away, in northern Germany. I have a business trip to Rotterdam coming up in June, maybe I can organize a small detour through Amsterdam!
Ah, I thought you were Dutch for sure. :) We can arrange a visit in June for sure. I never ship old CRT's, because there *will* be tears. Also, I have some original Schneider/Amstrad software. Mostly Amstrad games, but I think there might be some Schneider software in there too, I'll have to check it. [I moved about a year ago, and everything is still in complete chaos, boxes, etc !]
During my time of cassettes usage, 1982 to 1984 on TI-99/4A and Apple ][ (yes I used cassettes on the Apple) and later with the Sharp Pocket computers (PC-1350), it was better to use the normal brown cheap tapes. The expensive CrO2 tapes like the Maxell XLII were problematic especially with the Apple, which was extremely picky. The TI was much, much better in that regard. The Sharp had also less failure with the cheap cassettes. YMMV.
Metal tapes need specialised heads, often the player has a switch to turn on/off the head. Most tapes players, ordinary oxide (brown) tapes work best, with stuff like this, remember Alan Sugar was a cheap-ass and that was the cheapest tape deck he felt he could get away with. So oxide all the way.
I have always had a cpc 464 from Europe given to me by one of my mum's friends she didnt see the use of it, and her kids never wanted to play on it, so it was mine lol, then mags came out and i was stuck with having to wait months on end for a new tape lol and like one or two new games to come. I still have 2 cpc's with original displays, one being green and the other color :P. I have all my Amstrad cpc mags as well or at least the ones i was able to collect. Its a shame on this i see no disk drive, Converting that file i should look into that being a windows user, It would be neet to see some games that i didn't get on tape be able to convert to those tapes :P. If you want more emulator files hit me up :P. got about 4000 of em :P. Anyways Great to see another person discovering something different from the normal people out there with those c64 or other consoles :P
I was trying to get a disk interface, but they are seriously hard to get these days. I'm considering building my own, but I'm not sure my electronics skills are up to the task :)
@@flashmeback I have one they are seriously large and long lol. Im not sure how you would get one up and running since the disks the cpc used compared to normal floppys or even 1.44 have this interesting mid section to turn the disk plate. Ill see if i can find one for you shortly if your still up for looking for one :P
LOLOL DDI-1 Clone < a device that plugs right into the keyboard but somehow allows you to use disk images lol. Interesting concept :P apparently theres a 2.0 out there i found one on sellmyretro com and its selling for 40euro's. Anyways :)
I think once you have the floppy controller you can put a Gotek or HxC in there. But getting the controller is the hard part. The CPC664 has it built in if I remember correctly, but not the 464 :-(
It always hurts to see a refurbishment go wrong. 8bit guy's PET, that other guy's Atari ST, ugh. Luckily your little disaster isn't visible from the outside. But maybe you should've put some coating on the metal. It's going to rust very very fast now.
Yeah, thought about that. I think I'll have to do that, but I'll also have to protect the key sockets. If I spraypaint it, the paint might make the keys hard to move. Same for the RF shield on my Amiga.
You can paint it with a brush. It's not visible from the outside, is it? So it doesn't need to be super smooth painted.
I would have used some form of paint on the metal keyboard back plate. Something like Hammerite smooth (thinned out and then applied with brush). It should help stop the rust from getting a grip on the metal again and treat any rust that you could not get to.
@@flashmeback I recommend applying a thin coating of CorrosionX (standard or HD version) on that plate. It's a bit pricey, but worth it.
I don't know why so many people use vinegar to remove rust. Vinegar is acid. I suggest to use for example vertan rostumwandler.
When I was 14 years old (back in 1985), my parents bought me a CPC464 with color monitor for school classes, and it was a great introduction to gaming, learning BASIC and Assembler and Logo and FORTH, and a little electronics. Mine still works fine too!
Very cool! I would not have been able to use an actual computer in 1985... I was born in that year :-p
Cool that yours still works!
Watching refurbishing projects is always so very satisfying :)
I wished I lived closer - I have a garage full of computers and unused and or working parts and computers from the 1960s to the 1990s that need a good home. Including some Amstrads...
I don't know where you're from, but I'm sure there are caring people somewhere close to you as well. TH-cam is full of people like us.
@@flashmeback Melbourne Australia
@@roybixby6135 Send it to David Jones for mailbag! Or to me in Canada! I'd love to get myself a Tandy CoCo again but can't find any around here and ebay is a scam for shipping!
@@flashmebackI will look for them...
@@roybixby6135 hi roy, i'm also in Melbourne, would you consider parting or selling any of these old computers from the 80's. I would love to get my hands on a Apple IIe, Amstrad CPC464 or Commodore 64! Please feel free to get in touch with me! thanks
ctrl and small enter is a shortcut for run" You've made me want to look for a CPC. Used to love mine.
Ah, thanks for the hint! I never used a CPC back in the day. Easy to miss such useful details :)
My first computer!
My first homecomputer. Hope to get it back into my collection someday.
That is a beautiful machine. Amstrad's products have a rough look to there designs in my opinion like a "serious dark" futurism.
A tip: you can watch movies at Flixzone. Me and my gf have been using them for watching lots of of movies recently.
@Kyree Brixton yup, been watching on Flixzone for months myself :)
Believe it or not, I have this one (with a green monitor) up and running right now in the next room. :)
If I remember correctly, my father got this computer because PCs were extremely expensive back in a day especially in Yugoslavia (now Serbia, ofc). Anyway, my dad, being a civil engineer (designing bridges), needed something to run some programs for physics (and other things) calculations, so he bought a used Amstrad back in 1988. for something like 600 Deutsche Marks. :) In any case, I spent a good few years playing on it as a kid and actually writing my first ever program in Basic. Then it was, what I like to call, a natural progression - from 8-bit Amstrad and C64, to 16-bit Amiga 500, to first PC (a 386) back in 1994. Then Pentium-based machine came along in '96. and Voodoo Graphics in '97. :)
But I digress, sorry. :) Enjoying your channel thoroughly. :)
Very cool story.
I never actually had any 8 bit (or even "real" 16 bit) machines as a kid. Got a decade old 286 in the 90s.
I envied my friends who had a C64 or Amstrad.
@@flashmeback Heh, I envied my friends with Commodore when I had only Amstrad CPC because of the fact they had a floppy disk drive, which seemed infinitely more advanced than a lowly cassette tape drive. :) I was lucky because, as I mentioned, my father was a civil engineer and my mother was an architect by profession, so they always needed faster and more powerful machines once their respective companies, where they worked, switched to AutoCAD software (instead of pen, paper, rulers and rapidographs) sometime in 1994, I think. I managed to convince them that they actually needed Voodoo Graphics for CAD to work better :) But yeah, I digress again... cheers :)
Almost the same story for me... ;) CPC464 -> 386DX -> P1... Somewhere along the line I was donated ZX spectrum too. I still keep both ZX and CPC ll in my "plakar" in my old room back home...
What is the ruler on the cassette door used for?
I'm particularly curious why it spans from one edge to the other. It kind of makes sense it might be suggesting how far out the tape is, but that's kind of very coarse ballpark information... 100 as in minutes?
Your family must be very happy because of the bathtub occupied every time you work on something :D Love your videos and all the detailed description you give on every subject!
Hehe, I'm living alone, so my bathtub is all mine :-p
i found an old computer magazine and saw this thing on it, never heard of it, looked it up... seems interesting
Yea the keyboard plate will have already rusted. Some corrosion prevention is essential. His restoration has caused more damage than good !
Die Welt brauch mehr Kanäle wie deinen und jan Betas mach so weiter Grüße aus Hamburg
Wow, danke! Ich würde mich jetzt nicht mit Jan Beta vergleichen, der ist eines meiner Vorbilder. Grüße zurück aus Bremen!
I too have a CPC464 on my bench currently. Difference being it's a model with coloured keys and the refurbishment is a repair and not quite as easy. Some IC is faulty somewhere and I've not yet located the issues. My current hunch is a fault in one of the DRAMs. So I developed a DRAM tester that I gonna throw at it soon. If that doesn't work, I'll get serious and throw the logic analyzer at it. The 12€ one from ebay that is.
Oh, that sounds cool. You made your own DRAM tester? I had something similar in mind, but I shied away from all the small details like DRAM refresh. Do you have something about that online somewhere?
Hi, not yet. I plan to eventually publish it. So far the hardware side is dead simple, an Arduino Nano is enough, output via serial console through USB. But I plan to make a proper stand alone tester unit with a display, a ZIF socket and a few buttons to push.
There are others on the net, but none I have seen implements refresh. Mine does via an interrupt. It took me a while to get all the timings right and I'm not quite content with it yet. So far I only have 64k x 1bit DRAMs to test it with, but it's not hard coded for that. The DRAM size can be set in a header file at compile time. I basically implemented functions to read and write single bits at a given address, as well as writing nibbles, bytes or whole 16 bit words in one go using the fast page mode of those DRAMs. The test routines just make use of those. If you need it, I could send you my current version.
I think I'll eventually make my own version of it. I like figuring such stuff out. Interesting to hear that you don't actually need to refresh the DRAM too often. I should read up a bit more on the details.
I needed a 4164 DRAM tester for a project a few months ago and i found a github page by someone who made one along with a whole suite of other good stuff intended for C64 repair. It's meant to be used with an arduino Uno, but i only had a Nano which is pretty much the same. You just run wires from the arduino to the corresponding pins and its good to go:
github.com/jamarju/c64_test_tools/tree/master/c64_dram_test
On the subject of rust, i've seen a guy here on youtube recommend citric acid instead of vinegar. You just dilute a few spoons of it in water and submerge the metal piece, no smell or anything.
That commercial in the intro just killed me off :D
Such were the 80s :D
Definitely paint the keyboard plate. I wouldn't worry about the spray paint making the plastic stick to the keys. You can go about it a few different ways
-Paint the bare metal with a rust paint from the hardware store using a brush. Not sure if you have Tremclad but they make a decent paint and it won't be very expensive.
-Paint the entire plate with a rust inhibiting spray paint. Really any paint is going to be many times better than bare metal. You saw how fast the rust came back after its vinegar bath. That's what's happened by now to the metal in the case as you left it bare and totally untreated. The key to not having it make the keys sticky is to leave it over the weekend to fully cure. Then assemble the keys. Make sure you focus your attention on the metal parts and do only a couple light coats. Just enough to cover and protect the metal, you don't want it dripping wet or that will more than likely interfere with the key movement
-Paint the entire plate with a rust inhibiting spray paint but mask off the plastic key holders with some tape. This will be more tedious but if you're not confident that you can be precise enough with your spraying than it will be well worth it. A coat of paint is typically only 25 microns thick (or 1 mil) and i'm not versed in the CPC but I doubt very much that the tolerances are that close that a mil or 2 will cause interference.
-If you have access to an air brush, you can easily paint the areas around the keys with that as you can focus the paint into a very precise spray. Then you can paint the bigger areas with a wide spray and job done.
I have a lot of spray paint experience so I would be more than confident to spray it all down but if you don't have much experience, go with the brush route as others have said. It's a bit messy but you will be doing the CPC a favour rather than (frankly) the travesty that you did to it on your first go. Would definitely make a great follow up video as well.
I'm really liking your content, my friend but do remind me not to get you to refurbish my E36 as I'd rather not like to have its body to turn to dust in a matter of weeks.
Yeah, I'll look into ways to preserve the metal :-)
You should have applied some sort of paint to the keyboard backplate. The paint is a preventative measure to keep the metal from rusting over time.
Yes, I thought about that, but it would have meant I'd have to protect the key sockets from the paint each individually. But it might be worth it anyway.
Is it OK if i use a Q-tip (cotton buds) dipped in diluted Phosphoric acid, carefully rubbing onto rusts until it came off?
+ How to protect it from rusting further?
Honestly, no idea. Any kind of acid will help against rust, but I don't know if it would do any further damage. You can coat or paint stuff you want to protect afterwards.
I see the main difference with the Amstrad is the bare plate inside the keyboard, isnt it?
Love these kind of videos!. I've suscribed, this is cool and wise guy
Replacing the drive band in the tape drive may be a good idea.
Good point. It made a rather okay impression so far, but it might be a good preventive maintenance step.
quick run", under enter key and shift is little yellow key use that with the other key on numberpad side and it will do the command for you. No need to type it in :P, unless you wish to run |Disc LOL
Dieses Schätzchen war mein 1ster "eigener" Rechner wenn man das überhaupt so schreiben kann, ca. 1989 war das zu diesem zeitpunkt natürlich schon total veraltet. Gebraucht gekauft mit grünen Monitor ein grausiges Teil ist das gewesen. Noch im selben Jahr bin ich auf den A500 +512Kb umgestiegen nagelneu gekauft, war das ein unterschied.
May I ask you, why are you sometimes wearing a cable on your wrist? I'm just curious.
It's an antistatic wristband. It is also connected to the mat I put stuff on and then both together to the common ground on my power outlet. That way any static electricity that is building up through friction or similar processes is slowly removed from my body and the mat.
You know sometimes when you walk over a carpet and then touch a door handle, you get a small electric shock. Those can be several thousand volts. They don't really hurt you, but imagine that going through an electronic chip. You can irrepairable damage them.
This wristband reduces the risk. In professional environments you need to wear even more protection to have special chairs and floors and other fun stuff.
@@flashmeback Oh. I didn't really know, that this actually exists. But thanks for explanation.
I have a fully working one, somewhere, you can have it if you want.
Edit: including monochrome monitor.
Oh wow! That's unexpected. If you want to donate it, I'll gladly accept it :-)
You'll have to come and collect it tho. Are anywhere near Amsterdam?
I'm not too far away, in northern Germany. I have a business trip to Rotterdam coming up in June, maybe I can organize a small detour through Amsterdam!
Ah, I thought you were Dutch for sure. :)
We can arrange a visit in June for sure. I never ship old CRT's, because there *will* be tears.
Also, I have some original Schneider/Amstrad software. Mostly Amstrad games, but I think there might be some Schneider software in there too, I'll have to check it. [I moved about a year ago, and everything is still in complete chaos, boxes, etc !]
Yeah, it's better to protect the old hardware. Logistics companies cannot be trusted with old veteran hardware.
That’s awesome.
Is there any benefit for using metal tape within data recording?
Honestly I don't know much about the physics behind magnetic storage and different coatings. I'll have to do some research.
During my time of cassettes usage, 1982 to 1984 on TI-99/4A and Apple ][ (yes I used cassettes on the Apple) and later with the Sharp Pocket computers (PC-1350), it was better to use the normal brown cheap tapes. The expensive CrO2 tapes like the Maxell XLII were problematic especially with the Apple, which was extremely picky. The TI was much, much better in that regard. The Sharp had also less failure with the cheap cassettes.
YMMV.
Metal tapes need specialised heads, often the player has a switch to turn on/off the head. Most tapes players, ordinary oxide (brown) tapes work best, with stuff like this, remember Alan Sugar was a cheap-ass and that was the cheapest tape deck he felt he could get away with. So oxide all the way.
That was really interesting.
Thanks!
Why didn't you at least put a rust protector on the keyboard while you had it apart? You could have just sprayed it right over the plastic...
I have always had a cpc 464 from Europe given to me by one of my mum's friends she didnt see the use of it, and her kids never wanted to play on it, so it was mine lol, then mags came out and i was stuck with having to wait months on end for a new tape lol and like one or two new games to come.
I still have 2 cpc's with original displays, one being green and the other color :P.
I have all my Amstrad cpc mags as well or at least the ones i was able to collect.
Its a shame on this i see no disk drive, Converting that file i should look into that being a windows user, It would be neet to see some games that i didn't get on tape be able to convert to those tapes :P.
If you want more emulator files hit me up :P. got about 4000 of em :P.
Anyways Great to see another person discovering something different from the normal people out there with those c64 or other consoles :P
I was trying to get a disk interface, but they are seriously hard to get these days. I'm considering building my own, but I'm not sure my electronics skills are up to the task :)
@@flashmeback I have one they are seriously large and long lol. Im not sure how you would get one up and running since the disks the cpc used compared to normal floppys or even 1.44 have this interesting mid section to turn the disk plate.
Ill see if i can find one for you shortly if your still up for looking for one :P
LOLOL DDI-1 Clone < a device that plugs right into the keyboard but somehow allows you to use disk images lol. Interesting concept :P apparently theres a 2.0 out there i found one on sellmyretro com and its selling for 40euro's. Anyways :)
I think once you have the floppy controller you can put a Gotek or HxC in there. But getting the controller is the hard part. The CPC664 has it built in if I remember correctly, but not the 464 :-(
Awesome
re. all the comments about rust, look at a product called ACF50, used on motorbikes to protect against corrosion, would probably be useful here too.