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Please note also - THIS BLOG ENDS HERE WITH THE LAST ENTRY FROM NOVEMBER 9th 2021.

I have prepared a new blog with wordpress at https://vintagecomputing.info !!!

Thank you.

A few days ago I got a working Macintosh IIci, which I want to use for Apple's UNIX (A/UX) experiments. After turning it on, it ran for about 5 minutes, then a creepy sizzle sound occurs and it began to stink like hell.
I immediately switched the Mac off and tried to look what happened.
I located the strongest smell from the power supply, so I tried to remove the power supply cube.
First annoying problem: I didn't know how to remove it, there were no screws.
After I used Google, I found this picture:

There is a kind of a pillar with a tab you have to pull (away from the power suppy), then it will be possible to pull it out.
But this was not the only problem. Getting both sandwich-alike arranged pcbs out of the cage is really hard. There are three screws inside the case, but there is a molex-alike plug also which was tightened like hell. And you have to remove the fan and a small metal box with the AC plug also btw.

The power supply PCB finally showed the bad guy ...

... it was a blown capacitor (0.047 uF):


After replacing it, the NIGHTMARE began.
I tried 2 hours to reassemble it, but the screws didn't hold it again, and the small AC plug metal box didn't fit in the bracket/clips, also because you have to use also one of the screws which hold the lower PCB:

Also, connecting the fan power has to be done in the right order, BEFORE reassembling the AC plug !

I was really pissed off, the designer (ASTEC) of the power supply must be a real idiot.
It is really NOT designed to be fixed.

Last but not least, the Macintosh IIci worked again, see the screen:


The related link points to Al Brower's Mac IIci pages.

A Sega Genesis (aka MegaDrive) console replica, case and controller visually different but similar style, but from gameplay identical. And six games included: Sonic, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Dr. Robotnik's, Flicky and Kid Chameleon. That's almost all you can say about it.
It works smoothly, video output is composite signal with mono (1 audio) port.
It comes in a stylish box, promising retro feeling:

And it's not a secret what's inside the box:

Now take a look at the Sonic Start Screen:

You recognize the small border at the right side ? Not really annoying during playing.

Golden Axe in the 2nd stage (no, I am not an expert for that gameplay....)

At least all things working and the controller can be used without being unsatisfied.
Four AA batteries are used usually, although they will be empty within an hour and a few minutes full gameplay. But there is also a jack for 6 Volts of direct-current. So if you have such a power supply with 6 Volts, endless hours of gameplay will be possible.
And it's really cheap - about 15 Euros on Amazon ...

Today I will show a rare Apple II+ clone. It's rare because of the case and the combination of all parts, and also because of the number which it was sold (only a few hundred in total). It has a metal case, which is unusual for Apple II clones.

The case has also an easy to be opened cover:

The power supply looks very strange compared to the original Apple II+ power supply, also because it's open at least on one side (this is dangerous and would be forbidden nowadays).

My "Pluto" boots after power up with "PLUTO" instead of "APPLE ][", but that's the only difference you can see. It has INTEGER BASIC ROMs build in.
In Slot #0 a 16KB language card is inserted, in Slot #1 a printer card, in Slot #4 a softcard (Z80), in Slot #6 a standard Apple II disk controller, and in Slot #7 a PAL encoder card, which is similar to the original PAL encoder card but has an additional blank space on the card itself for an optional UHF modulator, which is here build in one of the case corners instead.

I will post additional images in >applefritter forum< soon, because I have still problems with getting colors instead of grey levels.

The related link points to the latest archived version of "apple2clones.com" (unfortunately it disappeared in winter 2007). They didn't know the "Pluto".
The "Pluto" was distributed 1983 mainly in germany by "Computerbedarf Werner", located in Kerpen. At least one owner I know is located in the Netherlands, so may be some were sold also there.

Getting correct colors on a monitor seems to be *very* difficult.
This is the best picture I can get from Atari's PacMan using a video capture card:


P.S.: Meanwhile I got also an 80 column card (VIDEX) compatible, which switches automatically between 40 and 80 column mode, very useful.

P.P.S.: The only other hint/picture I found was >here< at the bottom of the page.

As you can see, there was an "expansion" board with a Z80 cpu for the CBM 8032.
Madison Computer build a board named "Z-RAM". But it wasn't only a RAM expansion. It was also a CPU addon board, running CP/M 2.2. The disk format still used GCR coding, means the 6502 was still used for I/O operations, similar to the C64 running CP/M with the Z80 cartridge.
This wonderful but rare expansion was seen at the Classic Computing in Schoenau, Germany, a few days ago. Data Becker sold this as "CP/Maker" in Germany in 1982/1983.
For more information about the expansion board, visit Mike Naberezny's Site, see below "related link"...

The TI Programmer was a real unusual calculator, because it can calculate also with hexadecimal and octal numbers, means not only add and substract, but also bit operations like AND, OR, XOR or SHIFT. This was one of the earliest devices of it's kind, although it was not the first (the SR-22 was the first). But it's still worth to be presented, also because not many was sold since it's debut in 1977. Technically it's very similar to the TI-30.

It's funny to look what the calculator does after a bit idle time. Something is running through the display ...

(it was too much work to animate all 8 possible dots, but all 8 positions are used)
See also the related link for more information.