Page 8 of 32

Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2020 11:55 pm
by Lardo Boffin
A nice shiny issue one. How late did the issue one go? This has a 8233 ULA.

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Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2020 11:56 pm
by Lardo Boffin
Forgot to post a picture of the cool manual from the previous zeddy!


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Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 3:34 pm
by Lardo Boffin
The nice shiny ULA is now sat in a socket in preparation of a vLA81 arriving. First time I have been brave enough to remove a working ULA. And it still works!

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Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 4:08 pm
by Moggy
Removing one, that's the easy bit.

Soldering one back in when you have no sockets to hand however...... :lol:

Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 6:28 pm
by Lardo Boffin
Moggy wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 4:08 pm Removing one, that's the easy bit.
Easy? Easy! And, at the risk of sounding like Shirley Crabtree, easy!?!

Actually it was a lot easier than I expected. RAM chips always seem to be hard work but it was pretty straight forward.

Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 7:58 pm
by Moggy
Shirley Crabtree! That's everybody under 55 and the overseas members stumped then. :lol:

I met that bugger once at a local athletic institute (long since gone) and he kindly asked me to shift out of the way in a manner far removed from his ring persona, so from the safety of my car I told him where to get off. 8-)

You're right about certain chips being easier than others. I find the ZX80 very easy as it has bigger pads and seemingly very soft solder and I soldered the CPU direct in that no problem. ZX81's I find a bit harder and Speccies forget it as they seem to be the most fragile track lifting-hole destroying things on the planet.

But then I do use a red hot poker for a fine tip!! :oops:

Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 8:13 pm
by Lardo Boffin
It was either Shirley (who apparently had anger management issues) or Killed By Death lyrics. Maybe the latter would have been more multinational?

And not just over 55s! :o

Rubber key Spectrums have always seemed hard work. Just finished a +2A and that was really nice to work with. Even the tape player was easy to recap! And having just bought a Vectrex I need to do a lot of computers to pay for it. Don’t tell Mrs Boffin... Its just a spare TV dear!

Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 8:19 pm
by Moggy
Hee hee !

Why are you replacing that ULA Lardo? I always liked the look of those later Ferranti jobbies.

The Vectrex now there's a strange beast. I have it on Pi emulation but cannot get to grips with it at all.


Moggy furiously scribbles letter to Mrs Lardo

Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 8:23 pm
by Lardo Boffin
Moggy wrote: Thu Jun 25, 2020 8:19 pm Hee hee !

Why are you replacing that ULA Lardo? I always liked the look of those later Ferranti jobbies.
I managed to buy a couple of vLA81s so it will end up as a 32K zeddy with composite mod the easy way. :oops:

It will then either be a spare for when I can get ZX8-CCBs again or if times are hard I could sell it.

Re: Lardo buys another zeddy

Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 8:32 pm
by Moggy
Sensible thinking.

I hope Karl can make some more of his boards soon because the home made thing is ok but you need the later back porch ULA and I find they never work well on modern LCD TV's.

Just as a side issue. When using those video boards I recently thought I'd try them with a switch wired in for the inverse video thing and was pleasantly surprised to see that it also turns the border inverse too and it makes quite a pleasant display with a hint of mock full screen inverse if you follow me, so might be something you may want to try your self.

It looks a bit crude and no doubt you could fashion something better but I just wanted to try a "proof of concept" on my workshop zeddy,which is fan cooled(thanks to your suggestion) with a X2 EPROM and can run happily all day without going tits up. :lol: