Welcome to Vintage computers. This board is for the home computers of the 1980s and early 1990s: Commodore 64 and VIC-20, Amiga, ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Acorn machines, Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit and ST, MSX and many more. Using them, fixing them, expanding them and the demoscene and homebrew that keep them alive all belong here.
What belongs here
• Hardware repairs, recapping and keeping machines alive
• Storage: floppy drives, floppy emulators, SD card interfaces and hard drive upgrades
• Expansions, accelerators and memory upgrades
• Software, programming in BASIC or assembly, demos and new releases
• Video output, monitors and cables for these machines
What doesn't
• IBM-compatible PCs and DOS: Retro PCs & DOS
• Apple II and classic Macs: Vintage Apple
• Atari's games consoles: Atari & 80s consoles
• Retrobrite and deep cleaning: Restoration & retrobrite
• Emulating these machines on a modern computer: PC emulation
How to ask so people can help
1. The machine, model and board revision
2. Any expansions, upgrades or modern interfaces fitted
3. The power supply you are using, original or replacement
4. What happens on power-up, including screen colours and sounds
5. Photos of the board, especially around capacitors and batteries
6. What you have already tried
Safety and preservation
• Rechargeable barrel batteries, found on some Amiga expansions and other machines of the era, leak with age and can corrode the board badly. If yours still has one, remove it as soon as possible.
• Surface-mount electrolytic capacitors on some later machines, including certain Amiga models, are known to leak. Recapping is a common first job.
• Original Commodore 64 power supplies are known to fail in a way that can send too much voltage to the computer and damage it. Many owners use a protected or modern replacement.
• Never open a power supply unless you know how to work safely with mains voltage.
• Keep floppy disks away from magnets and heat, and image your own disks while they still read.
The rules
KZE is homebrew-friendly but never piracy-friendly. Do not link, share or request copyrighted software, disk images, ROMs or Kickstart files, and do not ask where to find them. Dump your own disks and ROMs. Software that the rights holders have released freely is fine to discuss. No malware, no selling and no paid services.
The usual house rules apply: be kind, English only (other languages are translated automatically), no spam, no keyboard mashing and no self-promotion spam. Use Report on anything that breaks the rules. This thread is locked, so start your own thread here to ask a question or share a restoration.
Dexter
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