iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 27/09/2026

New toy! This is a 1981-ish Fluke 9010A troubleshooter that I’ve borrowed; since it has a 6809/6809E pod you might be able to guess what the next machine on the bench is. Yep, the Positron 9000 that I’ve had for years but still not managed to fix because this is the only one left*

The Fluke 9010A with its single line VFD and function keys grouped into handy clumps of tests like ROM and RAM tests, troubleshooting like writing to RAM, learning I/O addresses and generally entering hex codes.

Fortunately I remembered it’s a 120v system 😁

This isn’t a cassette recorder, it’s a 6809/6809E ‘pod’ which replaces the primary CPU and can drive the machine. It’s currently sitting on the Positron 9000 multi-user machine.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 27/09/2026

@snuggsy187.bsky.social @0xc0de.bsky.social Managed my own bit of Stag on the way back from Orkney yesterday, but since it was over 500 miles to drive AND I needed a pee this was the only pic I could take. Since the weather was splendid the place was rammed.

Stag Rock on St Aiden's beach in Bamburgh, Northumberland. Note to self: get a better phone with more than 3x optical zoom.

Stag FACT: it gets repainted regularly and nobody knows why it's there in the first place.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 14/09/2026

Me: hm, this Executel PSU is dead, let’s investigate. *sucks air in through teeth* yer big end’s gone, mate. Flame on indeed. It actually blew the lid of that choke coil off and embedded some of itself in the plastic.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 12/09/2026

Got an odd one today. A 74LS08 AND gate connected to a 74LS92 decade counter. Gate 3 of the AND outputs to pin 14 of the counter. One of the inputs to gate 3 is a clock signal, the other is low. Therefore the output MUST be a clock. But it isn't. I've swapped both chips to no avail. Trace time!

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 09/09/2026

I only know of two of these, and only 1 worker - this one. Awesome stuff!

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 06/09/2026

#executelJapes Well. I’m severely chuffed with this, I absolutely thought Executels with missing RGB sync were a lost cause, but now they’re not and that’s splendid. This one is running off a copied database tape too.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 05/09/2026

I’ve had a dead Executel 3910 in for repair for months, attacking it on and off. It’s the reason I bought my monster Agilent 16702A logic analyser and learned how to use it. I fixed the initial issue and the Executel worked, then it didn’t. This was a crash I’d not seen before. 1/7

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 27/08/2026

Lawks. My venerable RasPi 2B+ that's been my faithful PiHole for years seems to be failing, so I thought 'let's get to grips with Docker and get PiHole running on my Terramaster NAS' Bloody thing doesn't stay up for longer than 10 mins 🤨

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 23/08/2026

Good fun at the @computinghistory.org.uk meet up today. I took some of last year’s RetroFest exhibits to show - Sinclair QL with Schön keyboard and my CST Thor - along with something I’ve never seen at any retro event, the Mancomp replacement keyboard for the ZX Spectrum. Should do a feature on it.

My show and tell exhibits today, the Mancomp spectrum board replacement where you take the dead flesh off the top of your machine and rest it in the provided space on the lower moulding. Interface 1 space is provided and there’s a hole on the right for the PSU to poke out of.

Underneath is the QL with very excellent Schön keyboard and QL Medic disk interface WITH CASE (not many of those escaped) and the CST Thor which is a QL with a custom expansion board containing ram, serial io, floppy and hard disk (scsi) and an IBM XT keyboard.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 21/08/2026

Love this. This is some post-production rework on the CPU board of my Agilent 16702A mainframe. The wires are TINY.

Some tiny tiny 0603 sized resistors getting decoupled with capacitors along with some tiny jump wires. This whole repair area is smaller than an old UK postage stamp and it really could do with a clean but I ain’t going near that with a toothbrush.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 16/08/2026

Now that pictures seem to be back I can share the final thing Simon gave me last weekend - this rather splendid acoustic coupler that HP used to use to restock their warehouse in Reading. I've always wanted an excuse to get a GPO700 series phone and now I have one! Cheers 😁

An acoustic coupler, earlier. This was an early modem before the times that the post office (as it was back then) could give you a device that connected your computer directly to the phone lines. To make a connection you picked up your phone and manually dialled the number for the remote end. When the remote end screamed at you you jammed the handset into this coupler and hopefully the two ends would connect.

The other side of the modem where you can see the DCE (Data Communications Equipment) socket, the 25 pin we all know and love*. I'm not sure what the 5 pin DIN underneath the power cable is for.

(*or hate, depending)

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 16/08/2026

Along with the ZORK disk, Simon also gave me his excellent Lynx 128 and floppy drives, plus boxes of floppies and his original printer. After some PSU fettling, it all works so well I HAVE to take it to RetroFest next year. I’ve imaged all the disks too. 🍻

A Camputers Lynx 123 with a pair of floppy drives. Drive 0 (bottom) has the disk controller in it while drive 1 (top) just has the 34 pin cable for connecting to the expander port on drive 0.

The Lynx 128 in all its glory, with the floppy disk interface attached. The interface only has the boot ROM and a 74LS245 bus driver in it, it’s not a complex thing at all. The smarts are in the bottom floppy. What this means in practice is that if your floppy enclosure has any sort of issue the machine won’t start.

The available interfaces that we know of. L-R disk, joystick, printer.

The Lynx 128 motherboard with unexpanded video ram (bottom right). It’s this extra ram that takes the 128k Lynx up to 192k which could be regarded as cheating 😆

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 16/08/2026

Remember the original ZORK 8” floppy I held at RetroFest in May? Last weekend I was given it and it’s a glorious thing 😁 cheers Simon!

Retail packaged 8” CP/M copy of ZORK which is always something I must run on every CP/M machine I fix. Awesome.

Back of the retail pack. Far too much text to repeat here!

A pair of ZORK booklets to guide you in your quest of not being eaten by a grue.

The disk itself, still in good condition. I did ponder imaging it at RetroFest since I had my imaging Greaseweazle with me, but we decided it would be no different to the 5.25” version which I have plenty of.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 16/08/2026

Here’s a thing I’ve had for yonks, and it was in the warehouse at $DAYJOB for even yonkser before that as it was bought new for a customer who never needed it. It’s an ASUS P5GD2 Premium ‘wireless’ edition, even has a dinky little aerial, aw. But look at the caps! They’ve never been powered…

A pretty coloured ASUS LGA775 motherboard for all things Pentium 4 up to 3.4ghz single core. It has WiFi, SATA RAID, FireWire 1394, eSATA connections, and it’s never been used.

Bulging capacitors very reminiscent of the ‘capacitor plague’of the early noughties when this board was manufactured. Question is, can I be bothered to swap them for new ones AND buy a CPU for it?

More capacitor plague. The one at the back next to the inductor has leaked all over the board which is not a good look.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 04/08/2026

Sigh. After MUCH checking and adding individual traces to see why AD4 was being stomped on (see yesterday’s post) I looked at my diagram for cabling up the LS240 and it seemed wrong. Put it in a spreadsheet and sorted it and discovered I’d swapped pin 13 and pin 4 😬 The LS240 is not the issue then.

Pic of a nest of wiring which is sending signals back to the HP1660a logic analyser. The biggest jumble is on the 8085 CPU and the 74LS240 buffering signals to the video subsystem. Then there are extra probes sampling AD4 in multiple other locations to try and see where it changed.

Naturally it didn’t change because I’d cocked up the probes for the LS240.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 03/08/2026

Week’s holiday, yay! It’s 30 degrees outside, boo. I know, let’s inhabit a wooden building with portable aircon and work on dead Executels again 🥵 This could also be captioned ‘when logic analysers attack’, in this case on a 74LS240 buffer that may be toast. Not enough space for a test clip, see.

A mess of logic analyser wiring covering the 8085a cpu and data bus buffer that feeds the video chain of an STC Executel 3910 executive telephone from 1983. This machine doesn’t produce video any more so let’s see why not.

Because of the tightness of the MR9735-002 videotext display chip, a resistor network and a 74LS240 buffer right next to each other there isn’t space to have an analyser test clip fitted, so I’ve had to use 16 grabbers instead which was NOT tedious and cuss-producing.

(There may have been swears)

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The National Museum of Computing @tnmoc.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Happy Anniversary month to the Dragon 32, released in August 1982! Welsh computing history was made when Dragon Data brought this 32KB Motorola-powered machine to high street stores. Raise a glass to 8-bit nostalgia! #Dragon32 #RetroGaming #RetroComputing #OnThisDay #80sTech

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 25/07/2026

Frustrating day. Seems that CP/M 2.2 on the Apple /// doesn’t use any of the many standards for cursor control - ADM-3, Hazeltine 1500, Televideo 950 etc. One techref says ‘here are the codes’ and they don’t work, the second says ‘yeah, upgrade to 2.21’ which is unobtanium. Still, ZORK 😁

Apple 3 running the classic ZORK by Infocom. Even ZORK needs control codes for the screen but it’s usable in its current form.

Control codes at the beginning of each line in ZORK - it’s supposed to show your score at the bottom of the screen but it’s not capable of that.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 23/07/2026

Bah. It’s amazing what you find when you’re not looking for it. I WAS looking for the second floppy drive for the Apple ///, but I also found the Box of Books containing user guide, driver guide plus all the system floppies including the fabled demo disk 🙄 @lockfarm.bsky.social

The complete manual and disk set for the Apple 3 as described in the main post. The floppies are in lovely stout printed folders and don’t look like they’ve ever been used. In fact the only thing that DOES look like it’s been used is the user manual.

Apple 3 is now complete. Main system, Monitor 3 plus an external floppy drive known to the system as .D2/ and the box of books, user manuals etc. Lovely.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 18/07/2026

Apple3 hacking at the ‘Z80 at 50’ exhibition at @computinghistory.org.uk. Why Apple /// I hear you all think? Well, Microsoft designed the Softcard /// for this beast, and it shipped with a pretty good CP/M. Hopefully the ROM adapter board it needs will be at home later so I can run it tomorrow.

My Z80 at 50 table, containing an STM Pied Piper prototype, H||H Tiger (Z80/6809/D7220/TMS9916), C128D (Z80/6510) and Apple /// (6502/Z80). Behind is a Tandy Trs80 Model 4P (Z80) and just out of sight is a Multitech Microprofessor.

Disk image selection screen of ADTPro, the images live on my laptop and are sent serially to the ///.

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Geoff Wearmouth @warmtoffee.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

This is the Z80 source code for the ZX Spectrum 16K ROM 1982. The code was written by Steven Vickers and John Grant of Nine Tiles on the Zilog Development System. Hit the red button and enjoy a good read for a computer that is still being made today. www.timexsinclair.com/document/zx-...

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 15/07/2026

Spent AGES trying to get some Atmega328P chips to program. Arduino IDE said no. Polulu AVR programmer said no. Eventually I spotted an error - 'wrong signature for 328p' (paraphrased) which is odd because I'd bought 328p chips. Take pic of chip...ENHANCE...ENHANCE...bloody 328U innit 🤨

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 13/07/2026

More Apple /// japes. As predicted the 5V rail was weak. There are 4 caps on that rail but I only had spares for 2. Now I'm up to 4.6v which makes things a bit more stable and I can write disks using ADTPro, an amazing bit of software. Also look at the thick case and understand why it got hot!

Apple /// PSU showing the 2 caps I replaced with slightly higher equivalents from Rubycon. This makes the machine a bit more stable at 4.6V.

ADTPro showing a directory listing of some disk images that are on my iMac. The two machines are linked over serial at 115200 baud, amazingly enough, and bringing a disk image down to be written on the Apple /// takes around 3 minutes. Awesome.

Look at the thickness of that case! Only a quarter of the motherboard is visible, the rest is under the thick case and has nowhere to vent heat to which is why a lot of these machines failed. Steve Jobs would't allow a fan to be installed so the machine would be silent. Oops.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 12/07/2026

First power up of the Apple /// in *counts fingers* 8 years. Took a few goes to let the caps reform but it’s now running and lasting for upwards of 3 minutes before failing. I suspect I might have to pick it up and drop it onto the bench to reset the chips. 😁

An Apple /// with Monitor /// (yes, they really did that) running the SOS Utilities. Nice to see it running again after so long! Now where did I put the demo disk.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 08/07/2026

UPS rocks up with my digikey order, which comes in the size of box you used to get a dozen 12” records in. I don’t remember ordering that much stuff!

A large square box on the floor containing lots of packets and digikey’s famous packing which is all recyclable. Not sure about the packets but I hope they are.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 02/07/2026

@museumjoe.bsky.social hey Joe, ages and ages ago I bought one of your Softcard /// for the Apple /// as a future project. Bare board. Do you have a BOM for it please? I can get everything off the silkscreen, but if you have a handy CSV I can drop on digikey that would be awesome. Cheers!

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Catbus @catbus.phd · 26/06/2026

ok this one got me

reflecting pool full of green slime and barrels and you're carrying a crowbar in the style of Half Life

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 21/06/2026

Loading software like it’s 1999, it’s the future! Finding both a working cd writer AND blank CD-Rs was entertaining and hot.

An external SCSI CDrom drive containing a boot disk to reload my new toy. I had to find a working cd writer and actual blank CDs like some sort of peasant.

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Lewis Packwood @lewispackwood.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Is your dad a mega-nerd? Does he want to know how barcodes work? Or learn about VHS-based consoles? What about open-source computers from the former republic of Yugoslavia? If the answer is YES to the above, then boy have I got the Father's Day present for you. Curious Video Game Machines!

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 07/06/2026

Solar orbit complete! Level up 🍻

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Tube🍂Time @tubetime.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

i got this weird little beast working today. the HP 125 is a dual processor CP/M machine (one main Z80 CPU, another Z80 to run the built-in terminal).

beige computer with a built-in monitor featuring a brown bezel. in front of it is a brown keyboard with tan function keys. on the right is a brown-bezel dual 5 1/4" floppy drive and below it is a beige drive containing a hard disk (5 megabytes!) and a 3 1/2" floppy drive.

CP/M showing me assembling, loading, and running a hello world program, then running ED to display the contents of the assembly file.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 04/06/2026

#lynxJapes With RetroFest 2026 done and dusted I’m having one last go on the Lynx 128 before I put it away. This corruption in the CP/M game Ladder makes me ponder if I’ve had VRAM issues all along. I didn’t test the 8x 4164 that make it up. Apologies for shaky camera 😁

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 03/06/2026

Finally put my RetroFest 2026 pictures up. This was a quick run round just after the doors had opened on Sunday so I didn't catch everyone. binarydinosaurs.co.uk/Museum/rf2026/

binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Binary Dinosaurs - RetroFest 2026

Possibly the UK's biggest private collection of home computers from 1972 onwards

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Andy Toone @lockfarm.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

I was hoping to demonstrate this last weekend at RetroFest 2026. A true 8-bit Pocket Computer running CP/M on an 8Mhz Z80. On board storage, USB-C or battery powered, internal module bay and full RC2014 expansion bus. It runs Microsoft BASIC and Zork. So it's called the Zorkulator. Please share.

A Pocket Computer on a desk. It is the footprint of the first Pocket Computer - the Sharp PC-1211 (or Radio Shack PC-1)

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 31/05/2026

That's RetroFest done for another year and I got back to survey the chaos I'd left in my workshop on Friday. That's a job for future me. Awesome to meet and greet so many people, and finally meet two folks I've known for *years* but never met face to face. Cheers Tony, Pete and all the helpers!

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Nanoraptor @nanoraptor.danamania.com · 15/08/2023

Word, Ms Word

A picture of two Word icons in a Windows 3.1 window. One of the icons is named "Word", the other is "Ms Word" and has a little red bow.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 30/05/2026

All set up ready for the hoardes! Come say hello if you’re here.

My table at RetroFest 26 containing a Camputers Lynx 128k, commodore 128D and the almost mythical H||H Tiger.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 28/05/2026

WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF 😆 WordStar 3 on the C128D, using FASTCPM as a base OS which is really just CP/M 3 optimised for the 128. I can start packing the car now.

WordStar running on the C128D, with a nice white-text-on-blue-background thing going on. I’ve typed ‘RETROFEST 2026’ in big letters because why not.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 28/05/2026

It’s taken some fighting, words to make the vicar blush, reading, testing and IPA (which I’ve now run out of) but this COULD BE the dbc128 file copier transferring a .d71 disk image to a real floppy. I mean, it’s doing SOMETHING instead of giving me errors so it’s a start 😄

Dbc128 file copier progressing an image write to disk very progressively.

The tower of power! C128D with its internal drive 8, an SD2IEC on the back as drive 9 plus an external 1571 as drive 10.

Wonder how much this lot would’ve been back in the day. I can find out of course, just look at ads in the back of PCN or PCW.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 27/05/2026

Chatting to the very excellent @tynemouthsoftware.co.uk and he inspired me to make a couple of changes to my C64-flavoured SD2IEC. Witness the SD2frankenstIEC(n). Needs more work on the name I think. It can’t work at the mo because both it and the internal 1571 are device 8. That’s for tomorrow.

Pic of a formerly C64-only SD2IEC Frankenstein’d into working with the C128. I’ve cunningly desoldered the cassette plug which is only used for 5v, and added flying wires to allow it to still work for 5v.

Now I just need to change its device number from 8 to 9.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 27/05/2026

Lovely Mr @futurewas8bit.bsky.social Hull, how fast can I obtain from your good self a C128 sd2iec please and thank you?

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 27/05/2026

People who donate things, I salute you. One person in particular is known as Spooky Simon and he gave me the crate of C128 stuff I dug through two hours ago on a ‘fun things’ search. C128 (not browned!) + PSU 1571 drive 1541-II drive 1541 compatible C2N modem Carts Loads of disks GEOS! Oh yes.

An external 1571 sat atop the internal 1571 of the C128D, next to a long box of floppies. I wondered why they were so chonky next to 1541-II drives and found out yesterday - not only are they double sided, but there’s also a WD1770 floppy controller in there too for MS-DOS compatibility.

Yep, these things can read/write DOS disks.

The GEOS boot disk. This is perhaps what windows should’ve been, and formed the basis of the Gem desktop on Atari STs.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 26/05/2026

Time to put the #lynxJapes to bed, it’s not going to get any more fixed now, and if the Cub fails I have 2 different backup plans. Next up: this beauty. It worked when I got it last year so it should be good. Not so sure about the 1080S screen for it, but I have 5 monitors this will plug into.

A new-looking Commodore 128D ready to get set up for the weekend. Fingers crossed it still works!

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 25/05/2026

#lynxJapes Today's discovery was that the Lynx 128 in CP/M mode uses the Lear-Siegler ADM-3a escape sequences. This suddenly made setting up CP/M favourites Catchum (aka 'not-pacman'), Ladder and Wordstar easy. One of my disks also has a game called 'PM' which is more Pacman than Catchum isn't.

Title screen for Catchum, the game that definitely isn't Pacman. Definitely. It's not quick, and strangely the 'level of difficulty' button does nothing.

Catchum, aka Not Pacman, maze and gameplay. You are a not-pacman style character which alternates from 'C' to 'c' when moving and not-eating-dots. The not-ghosts are 'A' characters that become 'm' characters when not-eaten during a not-power pill frenzy.

PM, on another disk, is also not-Pacman but your character changes shape to resemble the direction it's pointing in - <>^V. Stylish, eh?

Ladder, in action. You are the 'g' and you have to collect all the blinking characters and avoid the rampaging 'o' characters that definitely aren't oil drums. Total game mashup but actually plays quite well.

If a machine is running CP/M then for exhibition purposes it HAS to run Wordstar. And here we go, wordstar having just opened the supplied 'EXAMPLE.TXT' file. As per usual I couldn't remember how to get back to the menu to exit.

Fun fact - the linux text editor 'nano' uses a lot of Wordstar key sequences.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 25/05/2026

It’s coming! Saturday has sold out, few remaining tickets for Sunday so book now and come see my Camputers Lynx 128k in cooler climes than it’s dealt with this weekend 😎

A screenshot of the Lynx 128 in CP/M mode, big text saying RETROFEST 2026
May 30/31 @STEAM IN Swindon UK

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 24/05/2026

#lynxJapes Yes, it’s the slowest Zork1 ever! I found a diskdef for lynx CP/M so with cpmtools I’ve been able to make a disk containing the same ZORK binary I used for the Epson QX10. Somehow I don’t think Catchum and Ladder are going to work unless I find out what terminal is emulated.

Screenshot of the opening words of ZORK.

West of house
You are standing in an open field west of a White House, with a door.
There is a small mailbox here.

I’ve typed WOO! But obvs that isn’t a recognised command.

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Short Circuit @shortcircuit.org.uk · 23/05/2026

IT'S ONE WEEK TO RETROFEST! Saturday is sold out and Sunday is going fast. Run to your computer and buy tickets now to avoid disappointment! See you next week! www.retrofest.uk/tickets.php

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