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

Obvs Bamburgh Castle is my favourite 😍

Bamburgh Castle in the sun yesterday, sat atop its rocky outcrop being an imposing thing. What a sight with the sun beaming down on it from a blue sky, dozens of people on the big beach below it. My favourite view.

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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 · 06/09/2026

Add a Schön keyboard and it goes up a level…

Recent exhibits at a retro weekend - Mancomp MO180 replacement keyboard for a ZX Spectrum (and half your desk space), CST Thor and a Sinclair QL with replacement Schön keyboard, a thing of beauty and how it should have been originally.

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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

Eventually I discover the 74LS32 that controls the /RAMSEL and /RAMWR signals is half dead, so those signals never get to the video chip. Today I swapped it (11B, fact fans), and the CACKLE I just did... FIN

The wiring mess a logic analyser creates - you have a probe on every signal you want to trace, so that's the address bus, data bus, video and 11B, the chip that controls whether video memory is written to or not. In this case not, because the chip was half dead.

This is the waveform display showing a working 74LS32 which is an OR gate, so if either input is high the output is high. With the previous chip that was in the machine two of the outputs were dead so video write enable was never established.

This is the source listing that shows the video chip initialisation. You'll just have to take my word for this 😁

IT WORKS! <cackle>

This means I can fix every single Executel I have with the 'missing video sync' issue. Right up until I run out of MR9735-002 video chips.

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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 · 19/08/2026

Any museum with a PDP12 is very much worth a visit, IMO.

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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

Digital audio out, SP/DIF, FireWire 400, gigabit Ethernet and 4 USB2. It even has, get this, a Floppy drive header that supports 360k 5.25” drives!

Some rear ports, earlier. Parallel printer, ps2 keyboard and mouse, digital audio out, SP/DIF out, FireWire 400, 4 USB and gigabit Ethernet.

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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 · 06/08/2026

Here you go. Pin 1 on the 27512 EPROM is A15, so you lift it and connect it to the expansion connector, see where the green wire is going on the right? The ROM was socketed because this is a really early machine so it was an easy job.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 06/08/2026

Bamburgh is my happy place, I spend as much time there as possible. Mrs Dinosaurs loves it too and my favourite FAVOURITE spot is Stag Rock which is just behind St Aiden's Lighthouse in your pic. Fun stag FACT - it gets repainted often and nobody knows why it's there.

Pic of the little sheltered bay known as Stag Rock because of the white stag painted onto the rocks. It's very sheltered and perfect for young kids (me) to be allowed to play in the sea without fear of getting swept away. The rocks form a wall and it can get eerily silent down on the sand even when the wind is howling up at road level. St Aiden's lighthouse is just out of shot on the left.

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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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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 · 22/07/2026

During RetroFest this year I was given, to hold, the original 8" version of Zork, a splendid moment indeed!

An 8 inch disk in a fancy retail pack of ZORK 1 which is THE adventure game to play on your CP/M machine. It's a version of the original 'Colossal Cave' adventure from the early 70s.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 19/07/2026

Same 3 bad blocks. I’ve also got the actual Apple service floppies for the ProFile but they need a dedicated EPROM that I don’t have. Bah.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 19/07/2026

Thought I’d change the text in the C128D while the ProFile was verifying its most recent format.

A screenshot of WordStar running on CP/M on the Commodore 128D. I’ve written’Z80 at 50’ in large text.

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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 19/07/2026

W00t! It’s taken me several hours with unhelpful manuals, but I’ve finally got Business Basic to do a catalog of my 10Mb ProFile. Ten. TEN. We’ll never need more than that.

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

This is the Softcard ///, bringing things nicely back on topic. It’s actually a clone by @museumjoe.bsky.social and hopefully I can get it running next week. I was a week behind building it thanks to the heatwave and it being 35 degrees in my workshop even with aircon 😥

The Microsoft Softcard /// clone by Joe’s Computer Museum. Hopefully next week I can get it running - the ROM adapter board is still in Heathrow Airport but clear of customs.

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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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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

Huh. Passes all the diagnostics though. Maybe it’s just my utilities disk is too warm and is being uncooperative.

Video test of the Apple /// which shows a picture of Churchill (not the dog) with the words ‘if you can read this, and the test patterns above are clear, press space bar. Otherwise, press return.

*presses space bar*

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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 · 09/07/2026

It’s an amazing machine, particularly the video board. I kind of wish I’d filmed the dance I did when I finally got it to boot 😁 Downside is I have a failed RAM board I need to work on and I have no idea how I’m going to do that. I need to redesign my riser board. This is it last year on show.

Monster CPT8520 along with a CST Thor, Sinclair QL with Schön keyboard, Apple Lisa and Commodore P500 on show at RetroFest 2025 in Swindon UK.

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

Haha it was that one (1) tube of sockets that caused the box to be that big 😆 As usual with digikey stuff I will have trouble recycling the box because it’s A Really Good Box.

Two bags of fresh components in anti-static bags. The reason for the box being as big as it is was the long tube of sockets which I hope are at least two orders smashed together.

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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 · 22/06/2026

Oh I do that quite a lot. Here's my table at the recent RetroFest briefly taken over by one of my 8" drives and a Greaseweazle used for imaging another exhibitor's disks.

A Tandon TM848-2 double sided 8" floppy drive imaging some DEC RX02 disks onto a laptop using a Greaseweazle flux reader.

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

Solar orbit complete! Level up 🍻

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

Of course, restart the game and it’s fine.

The CP/M game Ladder running on the Camputers Lynx 128. It’s not Donkey Kong. Honest.

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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 · 31/05/2026

As well as all the excellent exhibits I'm pleased to report the Lynx CUB and the Commodore 1084S were VERY well behaved. And I got to hold ZORK on an original 8" floppy, see a Powertran Cortex, some Russian PDP clones and dump some 8" floppies with my Greaseweazle setup. Recommended 😁

Photo of my table, Camputers Lynx 128 plus original Camputers Cub monitor, Commodore 128D with 1084S monitor, H||H Tiger with no screen because when I took this picture I didn't directly know anyone who had one. That changed during the day!

Elektronika PDP-11 clones from the USSR. The one on the right runs RT11!

Classic Adventure ZORK 1, but on an 8" floppy disk. I had no idea this was originally a thing!

'Live' Greaseweazling some 8" disks straight onto my laptop. Had to be done carefully because the power supplies are stingy if you touch them in the wrong places so I kept guard 😄

3 good reads, excellent result.

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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

I’ve held onto a NOS ‘C128 business cable’ for YEARS in the hope I’ll be able to use it one day for 80col mode. The magenta is weird though, so I’ll make a new CP/M disk along with the others. Of course, the crate already had an 80 col cable in it 😆 Software 80col must’ve been clunky?

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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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Binary Dinosaurs @binarydinosaurs.co.uk · 23/05/2026

#lynxJapes Well here we are again 🤬 The Microvitec Cub suffered frame collapse again while I was testing RS232 now that I’ve made up a proper cable. There’s only 4 components that usually cause this, and I replaced 3 of them last month. R235 and D201 are 2 of them. Let’s see if they’re well.

PCB of the Microvitec Cub back on the bench for remedial work after frame collapse for the second time. The tall blue cap almost in the centre forms part of the power supply for the TDA1170S vertical timing chip, and it’s usually the first thing you replace.

D201 and R235 are passive components in the power circuit for the TDA1170S vertical timing chip, and R235 is looking a little toasted. It’s a 10ohm fusible resistor - if it goes pop so does your picture.

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