This video is extremely helpful! It came days after I cranked my own X68k up for the first time. My wife is still tired of hearing "I have a working X68k!" These machines are treasures and it took me two years to get it altogether for the test(mine came with no PSU at all;-/)...all hail the god-machine and thanks Ben for solving several of my questions in one video:-) Also cool cat!
I was born in 94, but I grew up in a countryside home with no cable and just dial up for most of my childhood. so my childhood consisted of 70s 80s movies and TV. and "retro" game consoles that I could find at garage sales etc. I think that's why I enjoy listening to people like Ben talk and make references to things that I remember more clearly than someone should for my age.
This is now officially a cat CHANNEL. Do you really think he'll let the human continue hogging his well-deserved praise? :-p (That look tho... he's gonna be mischievous as HECC and get into EVERYTHING! :-D)
I owned a TV repair shop for a lot of years and fixed everything from computers, mobos, vid cards, basically anything that plugged in or took batteries and to many times I did the same thing, traced it back to something stupid haha... Live and learn. Im happy to see more videos coming out I missed the videos from element or the rate of videos put out. Keep up the good work ben!
I've said this before and I'll proudly say it again; this has to be one of the most gorgeous machine ever produced in my book Ginger cats are always mischievous, mine was awesomely so hehehehe
I never even knew this existed back in the day, but damn - what a way to use a 68000, that machine could handle so much more than the 68k based machines we had.
@@nutz4gunz457 Robotic cat vacuum to suck the cat into a pneumatic tube that auto-routes it to cat jail (or other destinations if so needed). If cat needs to go to vet, it can be routed to an air cannon that fires the cat on a ballistic trajectory to a landing receptacle at the vet.
A DIY RFID cat door would be a great Ben project. A decent one (like Petsafe) can cost nearly $100, so I'd love to see what could be done with an eBay RFID reader, a servo, and an arduino.
@@reptilez13 i took my old Casiotone MT-210 for the first time back in 2018 to do a cleanup, i wasnt expecting to see such a beautifully made and organized board/everything, i think it looks better than my modern 21st century midi controller keyboard
I've never seen one of these. I'm actually surprised how modern this thing looks. You could actually sit it by a line of modern computer hardware and unless you were paying attention, you'd never notice it was 30+ year old tech.
I would have used an eyelet to repair that. However I would have avoided the damage in the first place by using proper through-hole removal techniques. Honestly the capacitor removal in this video made me cringe, I would have expected a bit more care from Ben Heck on such an awesome piece of vintage tech.
Those X68000's were way ahead of their time as far as connectivity, and they were the source of some of the earliest computer generated anime!😁 ^___^ *EDIT:* I'm actually amazed at the graphics quality for as old as that thing is!! All cats are pretty much the same.. it's all about them, and even my 13 y.o. Tigger cat still has to spend some time in the 'kitty jail' once in a while.😸 She insists on being between me and the keyboard and of course when she stretches out, her feet are all over the keyboard, causing much havoc. Very interesting recap/restore job on this classic. New subscriber here.😉
Sharp had some great electronics in the 80s and 90s. I've got a stereo system that was made in the early 90s, and it's got amazing sound for a mid-range line audio system. It was just so well made and everything still works as good as it did when I was a kid.
Aww, baby Bud. Champagne kittens are so adorable. Also, that machine really is a beast of a 16-ish bit computer. I love all the daughter boards and bridging boards. Not really something you see all that often these days in consumer electronics, so it's always fun to see them.
I picked up that exact model of Sharp x68000 a few months ago! It powers on and tries reading from the floppy drive (at least). I need to solder up a VGA adapter for it before testing it further.
When I saw that molex middle pin at the beginning of the video the first thing I thought was how corroded it looked. So it was not a surprise I guess. This happens all the time with old pinball machines. Cold connections!
Hey Ben I got one of those HP LCDs out of a dumpster. I had to take it apart and replace 4 capacitors on the power supply section, put it back together and it worked again.
Good find on that one! I had a similar issue with a Kenwood TS-711A transceiver a couple weeks ago. It was only putting about 3 watts of power out, but it should have been 25 watts. At first I thought it was the Power Amplifier module (which for this radio is getting close to unobtanium), but it was corrosion on the power connector to the PA board. Also, now I'm gonna have Bubble Bobble music stuck in my head all day....
Love the addition of the kitty! I believe the CPS1 arcade board was influenced heavily from the X68000 and Capcom used them to develop the games. Maybe even Street Fighter II.
Yes. Infact the Sharp x68000 SF2 actually had superior quality sound effects than the arcade at a higher sample rate. They are not cut down and sound cleaner. Which means they are the original raw files. This is best heard in the death scream which is longer.
Eff Celsius. Before I step outside, I want to know exactly how hot it is. And when it's blazing here at 113F, I don't want someone telling me it's 45C. 45 degrees is for bundling up, not stripping down to Speedos like you Euros are known to do on Greek beaches.
I was just remembering used to watch you and Sean Kennedy on Winamp television really miss those days wish I would’ve held onto my glass computer it was almost like $700 in LED lights back in the day in it
This thing is bad ass, so many great arcade ports. I think some of those same games were developed on this, but I might be misremembering something. I know they frequently have power supply issues. EDIT: After some light Google-Fu, it does seem like Capcom developed a lot of the CPS stuff on this.
Ben, the X68000 does have hardware scalers. They aren't as powerful as the model 2 board's in some aspects but are definitely leaps and bounds bounds beyond the model 2 dedicated super scaler in others.
Omg your mulder and scully impressions were spot on! "You wear a cross, uh, this is just like, uh, that,uh, I have faith in aliens, uh." "Omg mulders gone so now I have to believe in aliens I guess" 😆 🤣 😂
Hey - I’m enjoying your channel. You do some really interesting stuff. I’m glad you kept this going after the Ben Heck Show. I enjoy the pop culture monologue also. Thanks for this.
I love finding those old monitors that have vga, composite, svideo inputs and also speakers built in. Especially the built in speakers, saves quite a bit of room in the game room having it all in 1. That HP screen really got around too, found several here at Goodwills.
Quick tip: I use Google translate for manuals in different languages, since Google bought out WordLens (I think it used to be called) you can view translations on-the-fly. Also a fun fact: Robert Patrick (who replaced Moulder) is Richard Patrick's (lead singer of Filter) brother.
It's comforting to know that even super-human cyborgs from the future like Ben Heck run into the same kinds of problems with repairs as us lowly mortals :D
Always thought these things looked badass, still do today. I know it was mostly a games machine but it always looked like it meant much more serious business, it's very 90s workstation-like. Would love a similar case for a PC build.
Actually they were really really popular as schools computers for word processor and coding work in Europe (particularly Netherlands area and Germanic countries). If I'm not mistaken the education market ended up outselling the Japanese commercial market.
Ben: *pulls out a via* Ben: Explains why he's NOT using a desoldering iron I consider my Hakko FR-301 worth every cent. It turned desoldering from D: to :D
Yes I agree!!. Too much heat on those vias. The least he could have done was to cut the caps off and just work with the remaining soldered bits. And ofc a desoldering gun or at a very least a pump and some flux for godsakes!
That joystick board isn’t swapping the buttons like it should. A and B are swapped on Sharp joypads so the controls on Castlevania would be as you’d expect. I believe you can swap the controls in Castlevania via a menu option. Also, headphone audio should be the same as the internal sound, but in stereo, so there may be an audio issue if you’re hearing something different.
Such a cool system! I so wished to go back in time and that Sharp and Commodore made a co-op :-) Put the AmigaOS kernel on this and share the OS between them. Would not be impossible I think although the only portability between them would have been OS friendly 68k programs. At least at first then they might join up their strengths. It could at first just be a compatibility board that took some of the Sharps quirks to the Amiga and vice versa... ah well... dreaming! Anyway nice restoration of an awesome system!
wow that river city ransom port is interesting! barfing sound effects, and very unusual that in this version you can use your weapon in town, even if it cant be used to hit people. attack button does nothing in town on the pc engine cd and nes versions. the only way to drop your weapon there is to run head-first into a wall ^-^. I'll have to play through that one sometime. x68k MiSTer core is making a lot of progress lately, so hopefully soon.
was the VGA adapter ever discussed in any detail? Or the Gamepad/Joystick situation? the connector for the gamepad looks like what you would see on a sega genesis controller
Japan for the most part does not have grounded 3 pole outlets, they have 2 pole outlets and then a grounding point. Thus the grounding screw on the computer.
I forgot for minute that people don't run their irons at max temp all of the time! When I do reworks on modern motherboards, the internal ground planes are so massive that I basically run the iron at max no matter what. I've had a 70W iron on one side of a through-hole on a multilayer board, and a hakko 472D desoldering gun on the other, and it still sucked out more heat than I could give it.
I know right, the ps5 looks like a space heater from Walmart. About as big too. I mean the new xbox is by no means small either but at least it's just a nice stealthy box.
Well. How else is Sony going to inspire hardware hacking and shell mods? Kinda like Harley making exclusively butt ugly air cleaners and tail pipes, get the user to void the warranty and get more attached to the machine in one fell swoop
The cat interruption - the bane of home worker productivity everywhere.
OMG dude these impressions. I love your oceanic knowledge of movie lines and characters
Since discovering you're still on TH-cam I have been watching these videos for hours, i fell asleep at 3am last night and woke up late for work.
Feel free to forward anything japanese to me that you can't read if you have questions. I'm a comp engineer and from japan. Love your videos
This video is extremely helpful! It came days after I cranked my own X68k up for the first time. My wife is still tired of hearing "I have a working X68k!" These machines are treasures and it took me two years to get it altogether for the test(mine came with no PSU at all;-/)...all hail the god-machine and thanks Ben for solving several of my questions in one video:-) Also cool cat!
Helpful?? Did you see that shit job this idiot did on that RGB board??
@6:01 this unit is a SCSI to SD controller. It is replacing the Hard drive with a SD card.
I was born in 94, but I grew up in a countryside home with no cable and just dial up for most of my childhood. so my childhood consisted of 70s 80s movies and TV. and "retro" game consoles that I could find at garage sales etc. I think that's why I enjoy listening to people like Ben talk and make references to things that I remember more clearly than someone should for my age.
"I need to make snarky videos on TH-cam.. for some reason.." lol🤣
This channel is quickly becoming all the good things about TBHS, good on ya!
Sure 100%, maybe sometime when he reach 1 Mil. Subs he can hire his old stuff.
Coworkers
It's all the excitement of the show, but with a relaxed edit
This is now officially a Cat Video.
Cats just make videos better.
This is now officially a cat CHANNEL. Do you really think he'll let the human continue hogging his well-deserved praise? :-p (That look tho... he's gonna be mischievous as HECC and get into EVERYTHING! :-D)
cat channel
Love having you on in the background. Thanks for this, Ben!
Greatest American Hero !!!!! loved that show !!!!! ends up being Perry Masons strong arm
I owned a TV repair shop for a lot of years and fixed everything from computers, mobos, vid cards, basically anything that plugged in or took batteries and to many times I did the same thing, traced it back to something stupid haha... Live and learn. Im happy to see more videos coming out I missed the videos from element or the rate of videos put out. Keep up the good work ben!
Watching your challenges changing caps out, takes me back to my youth working on factory production problems as a young electrical engineer.
I've said this before and I'll proudly say it again; this has to be one of the most gorgeous machine ever produced in my book
Ginger cats are always mischievous, mine was awesomely so hehehehe
If those weren't so rare I'd love to see a modern build in that case, it's just BEAUTIFUL.
I never even knew this existed back in the day, but damn - what a way to use a 68000, that machine could handle so much more than the 68k based machines we had.
I've never seen what an X68k looked like until now. Pretty awesome stuff, Ben. That thing is a beast.
That industrial design looks fantastic even by modern standards! I would LOVE to have a PC case that looked like this.
Oh for sure. I just didn't like how flimsy thr plastic base was without anything installed. Was worried it was gonna crack.
I see kitten hacks coming!!! Auto cat door, auto treat feeder, auto litter box, auto mouse toy
Cat hacking -- replace cat brain with arduino.
Auto cat-apult to launch the cat from the basement back upstairs.
@@nutz4gunz457 Robotic cat vacuum to suck the cat into a pneumatic tube that auto-routes it to cat jail (or other destinations if so needed). If cat needs to go to vet, it can be routed to an air cannon that fires the cat on a ballistic trajectory to a landing receptacle at the vet.
A DIY RFID cat door would be a great Ben project. A decent one (like Petsafe) can cost nearly $100, so I'd love to see what could be done with an eBay RFID reader, a servo, and an arduino.
Your an idiot, is your name Karen? If not you should try it out Karen cuz it fits.
I love seeing little Bud! Make On my Friend
that motherboard is almost as beautiful as the NeXT Cube's board
you sound like Steve Jobs!
I'd argue more personally. It's my dream retro computer tho so I'm biased lol. Japanese engineering is fascinating and beautiful
@@reptilez13 i took my old Casiotone MT-210 for the first time back in 2018 to do a cleanup, i wasnt expecting to see such a beautifully made and organized board/everything, i think it looks better than my modern 21st century midi controller keyboard
These and the MSX systems were my 80s and 90s dream machines!
I've never seen one of these. I'm actually surprised how modern this thing looks. You could actually sit it by a line of modern computer hardware and unless you were paying attention, you'd never notice it was 30+ year old tech.
My dream retro computer. Too bad they are even pricey before import fees and taxes and whatever lol. Coolest music, graphics and everything.
So glad you're around man, love your videos.
26:04 - Oh, my. That poor, poor X68K.. Pulling plated through-holes on a museum piece such as the Sharp X68K should be avoided at all cost.
I would have used an eyelet to repair that. However I would have avoided the damage in the first place by using proper through-hole removal techniques. Honestly the capacitor removal in this video made me cringe, I would have expected a bit more care from Ben Heck on such an awesome piece of vintage tech.
Vo(u)ltar!
Old computers, retro games and cute kittens, my life is complete. 😊
What a futuristic design, very radical for the time! It's the kind of case I'd love to have even till this day on my modern machine!
I was listening to a podcast the other day about the Castlevania on Sharp, but never before have I seen the system nor the game! Thanks Ben!
the fox maulder impression was so spot on
Now this channel has 2 of my favourite things. Electronics AND Kittens. I hope he's out of kitty jail now.
Those X68000's were way ahead of their time as far as connectivity, and they were the source of some of the earliest computer generated anime!😁 ^___^ *EDIT:* I'm actually amazed at the graphics quality for as old as that thing is!! All cats are pretty much the same.. it's all about them, and even my 13 y.o. Tigger cat still has to spend some time in the 'kitty jail' once in a while.😸 She insists on being between me and the keyboard and of course when she stretches out, her feet are all over the keyboard, causing much havoc. Very interesting recap/restore job on this classic. New subscriber here.😉
Sharp had some great electronics in the 80s and 90s. I've got a stereo system that was made in the early 90s, and it's got amazing sound for a mid-range line audio system. It was just so well made and everything still works as good as it did when I was a kid.
Aww, baby Bud. Champagne kittens are so adorable. Also, that machine really is a beast of a 16-ish bit computer. I love all the daughter boards and bridging boards. Not really something you see all that often these days in consumer electronics, so it's always fun to see them.
Just use hot air underneath the board to remove tough capacitor legs that are connected to the ground plane.
Thank you for helping your homeless, furry friend.
Edit to say: The genuine spit take at the mario port. Agreed.
That was a freakin' fantabulouso repair. I have always wondered what those machines could do. Looks great for its generation. Now I want one.
I love that computer, the most beautiful i've ever seen. I love the cat too, but man, that computer !
I picked up that exact model of Sharp x68000 a few months ago! It powers on and tries reading from the floppy drive (at least). I need to solder up a VGA adapter for it before testing it further.
When I saw that molex middle pin at the beginning of the video the first thing I thought was how corroded it looked. So it was not a surprise I guess. This happens all the time with old pinball machines. Cold connections!
Hey Ben I got one of those HP LCDs out of a dumpster. I had to take it apart and replace 4 capacitors on the power supply section, put it back together and it worked again.
Good find on that one!
I had a similar issue with a Kenwood TS-711A transceiver a couple weeks ago. It was only putting about 3 watts of power out, but it should have been 25 watts. At first I thought it was the Power Amplifier module (which for this radio is getting close to unobtanium), but it was corrosion on the power connector to the PA board.
Also, now I'm gonna have Bubble Bobble music stuck in my head all day....
Love the addition of the kitty!
I believe the CPS1 arcade board was influenced heavily from the X68000 and Capcom used them to develop the games. Maybe even Street Fighter II.
Yes. Infact the Sharp x68000 SF2 actually had superior quality sound effects than the arcade at a higher sample rate. They are not cut down and sound cleaner. Which means they are the original raw files. This is best heard in the death scream which is longer.
The Sharp CZ-6BMI board is for MIDI and should be Roland MT-32 compatible.
I gave a like just for the cat and then you had it purr for the camera, Ben Heck doesn't dissapoint.
"I'm raising my iron to 720...."
The entirety of european viewers : o_O
"...F"
The entirety of non-american* viewers
382.222°C
Hey, me too! I was listening from my bed while patting my dog, and thought "HOLY FUKKK WUT!"
+- 380 ° celsius
Eff Celsius. Before I step outside, I want to know exactly how hot it is. And when it's blazing here at 113F, I don't want someone telling me it's 45C. 45 degrees is for bundling up, not stripping down to Speedos like you Euros are known to do on Greek beaches.
Very interesting video! I have never heard of the Sharp X68000 and i am impressed how much technology is in there.
This is one of my main learnings from repair vids - molex connectors in old machines are shiz. Vectrex in particular seem prone to this. Nice.
awww Ben I'm so proud of you. I adopted a 1yr old in April she is so much fun =) you will love his company. mischief will abound!
The next step after "dont turn it on take it apart" should have been "thou shalt check voltages "
I was just remembering used to watch you and Sean Kennedy on Winamp television really miss those days wish I would’ve held onto my glass computer it was almost like $700 in LED lights back in the day in it
This thing is bad ass, so many great arcade ports. I think some of those same games were developed on this, but I might be misremembering something. I know they frequently have power supply issues.
EDIT: After some light Google-Fu, it does seem like Capcom developed a lot of the CPS stuff on this.
It was a nice little computer, too. Pity it never made much of a splash.
Hahahaha that Moulder impression really made me laugh. Spot on! Kudos!!
Nice job on the restoration. I really like the catamaran design of the machine. The insides remind me of the Atari TT030.
Wow, it took about 8 mins to get Ben singing. He truly is a Greatest American Hero
Great Vid Ben. You are a craftsman.
What a machine! I always thought the best computer that used the 68000 was the Amiga 500, but now i'm not so sure!
I so want an X68000 someday.
Ben, the X68000 does have hardware scalers. They aren't as powerful as the model 2 board's in some aspects but are definitely leaps and bounds bounds beyond the model 2 dedicated super scaler in others.
Do you ever test the capacitors you've removed when doing a recap? I find it very informative to test the old caps on my LCR meter.
43:52 HUMAN.SYS file, creepy glimpse into the future.
"I'm going to kitten jail, gonna eat a lot of peaches..."
YOU TAKE BACK WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT FRINGE! I loved that show! 😁
Me too! There are dozens of us! Dozens I tell you!
That was a great Mulder/Duchovny impression.
Omg your mulder and scully impressions were spot on!
"You wear a cross, uh, this is just like, uh, that,uh, I have faith in aliens, uh."
"Omg mulders gone so now I have to believe in aliens I guess"
😆 🤣 😂
Hey - I’m enjoying your channel. You do some really interesting stuff. I’m glad you kept this going after the Ben Heck Show. I enjoy the pop culture monologue also. Thanks for this.
I love finding those old monitors that have vga, composite, svideo inputs and also speakers built in. Especially the built in speakers, saves quite a bit of room in the game room having it all in 1. That HP screen really got around too, found several here at Goodwills.
Quick tip: I use Google translate for manuals in different languages, since Google bought out WordLens (I think it used to be called) you can view translations on-the-fly. Also a fun fact: Robert Patrick (who replaced Moulder) is Richard Patrick's (lead singer of Filter) brother.
Hey man nice shot.
Awww... your new orange haired assistant is so cuuuuute!
It's comforting to know that even super-human cyborgs from the future like Ben Heck run into the same kinds of problems with repairs as us lowly mortals :D
Always thought these things looked badass, still do today. I know it was mostly a games machine but it always looked like it meant much more serious business, it's very 90s workstation-like. Would love a similar case for a PC build.
Actually they were really really popular as schools computers for word processor and coding work in Europe (particularly Netherlands area and Germanic countries). If I'm not mistaken the education market ended up outselling the Japanese commercial market.
Ben: *pulls out a via*
Ben: Explains why he's NOT using a desoldering iron
I consider my Hakko FR-301 worth every cent. It turned desoldering from D: to :D
yeah, same thing man. i do professional board repair and wouldnt do it without my fr-301
I use a spring loaded pump - works faster and more reliable for me. I'm sorry but this is quite a how not to video.
Yes I agree!!. Too much heat on those vias. The least he could have done was to cut the caps off and just work with the remaining soldered bits. And ofc a desoldering gun or at a very least a pump and some flux for godsakes!
@@deathcube2006 One thing I learned from watching Louis Rossman's videos: There's no such thing as too much flux. Magical soldering goo.
@@jaysonl a paul of flux.
Yes! More Ben Heck videos! I can't be happier :)
Just looking at that case reminds me of AndroidArts amazing retro-concepts.
Man, will we ever see any one of those being actually built?
I mean, most likely not, but it would be hella cool.
God I wish I could afford one of these systems.
Those traces tho!
I dunno about using that computer, but I'd definitely hang that mobo on the wall!
Like looking at an old VME board!
Amazing video but so huge I got lost, what was the problem for real? It wasn't anything about the capacitors right?
12:00 Hudson also made a BASIC interpreter for Sharp's earlier MZ series.
I *love* his Scully/Mulder impression...!
I've always loved the look of that system.
That kitty earned you a free Like. Well played Ben. 😻
ah ha...once you mentioned this a few days ago, I was looking fwd to this video/repair....thank you!
What a wonderfully designed system. Didn’t they have one with a pc engine built in?
That joystick board isn’t swapping the buttons like it should. A and B are swapped on Sharp joypads so the controls on Castlevania would be as you’d expect. I believe you can swap the controls in Castlevania via a menu option.
Also, headphone audio should be the same as the internal sound, but in stereo, so there may be an audio issue if you’re hearing something different.
Kittens always steals the show 🤣 So darn cute!
After all that...it's a connector. Guess it happens to the best of us. Anyway I could only dream of owning an X68K. What a glorious machine.
And with a wave of his static wand kapow the x68000 entered the after life... Have you considered using some ESD precautions?
Such a cool system! I so wished to go back in time and that Sharp and Commodore made a co-op :-) Put the AmigaOS kernel on this and share the OS between them. Would not be impossible I think although the only portability between them would have been OS friendly 68k programs. At least at first then they might join up their strengths. It could at first just be a compatibility board that took some of the Sharps quirks to the Amiga and vice versa... ah well... dreaming!
Anyway nice restoration of an awesome system!
The Lone Gunmen is the best x-files spinoff. Looks like all the episodes are on TH-cam.
Bud was so cute back then! 😊
RALPH: I'M GONNA WRECK IT!!!
BEN: I CAN FIX IT!
wow that river city ransom port is interesting! barfing sound effects, and very unusual that in this version you can use your weapon in town, even if it cant be used to hit people. attack button does nothing in town on the pc engine cd and nes versions. the only way to drop your weapon there is to run head-first into a wall ^-^. I'll have to play through that one sometime. x68k MiSTer core is making a lot of progress lately, so hopefully soon.
was the VGA adapter ever discussed in any detail? Or the Gamepad/Joystick situation? the connector for the gamepad looks like what you would see on a sega genesis controller
Japan for the most part does not have grounded 3 pole outlets, they have 2 pole outlets and then a grounding point. Thus the grounding screw on the computer.
Appreciate the Dave Jones impression at 4:28.
I forgot for minute that people don't run their irons at max temp all of the time!
When I do reworks on modern motherboards, the internal ground planes are so massive that I basically run the iron at max no matter what.
I've had a 70W iron on one side of a through-hole on a multilayer board, and a hakko 472D desoldering gun on the other, and it still sucked out more heat than I could give it.
Would love to hear direct audio for the gameplay parts in your videos. The mic doesn't really do it justice.
Great video! Always found the Sharp 68000 interesting
What a sexy system. Why can't the PS5 look like that?!
Seriously tho this thing looks relatively modern
I know right, the ps5 looks like a space heater from Walmart. About as big too. I mean the new xbox is by no means small either but at least it's just a nice stealthy box.
Well.
How else is Sony going to inspire hardware hacking and shell mods?
Kinda like Harley making exclusively butt ugly air cleaners and tail pipes, get the user to void the warranty and get more attached to the machine in one fell swoop