Local meetup for fans of vintage computers
If you want to join in the fun activities, we welcome friendly new faces to our laid-back environment. Our next meeting is scheduled for October 23rd. Please check for details on our schedule page.
ご興味のある方はお気軽くご連絡ください。次のミートアップは10月23日予定です。最新の情報をスケジュールページで詳しくご確認ください。
This was one of our busiest meetups for sure. We numbered 9, including new (distant) member Vicky. 9 is not a record in terms of attendance, but the sense of busyness was magnified because nearly everyone had their own distinct project going on.
Sean arrived first with his FM-7 and various expansion cards in tow. Although it had worked the night before, the sound board was not cooperating and he spent a substantial amount of time poking around with different options, trying to make it work. In the end, he was not successful and gave up, playing games instead with the internal speaker. He looks pretty frustrated toward the end there!
Sven spent some time working on his RAM chip tester. Something like this is a great contribution for the group as it assists in troubleshooting should anyone have RAM troubles in the future.
Edoardo brought in a spare Amiga A600 for Victoria to borrow while she stays in Japan. As expected, Edoardo did a masterful job at bringing the machine back into working order. For her part, Victoria impressed us all with her pixel-art skills.
Not so much a project as “lunch”, but Edoardo supplied the group with authentic Italian cooking again, this time in the form of pizza. Yum! Thanks for the delicious and plentiful food
Justin tried his hand at repairing Curt’s micro tape recorder, which previously was able to play but not rewind or fast forward. While he was able to successfully diagnose the problem, some additional repair is necessary to find a long-term fix for it.
Tom brought in his MSX2 to perform a belt replacement, a venture that was ultimately successful. The MSX2 was then used to display some impressive gaming capabilities.
Curt brought in his NEC PC-8801SR, which took an unexpected tumble down a half-flight of stairs on the way to the meetup, but it still worked like a champ. He and Michelle set it up and used it to establish communications between the PC-8801SR and Curt’s laptop for remote file transfers. They also tested various modes of the system and loaded the PC-8801FR demonstration disk, followed by questionable disk copy activities.
Michelle brought her Apple II again, this time with both floppy drives and no sweet monochrome monitor.
Things that didn’t quite work out as expected: Saburo brought an Oric Atmos 48K, but forgot the proprietary display cable, so he just settled for playing FM-7 games. Curt brought Lode Runner for the FM-7, but it didn’t ultimately get played. Michelle brought some NES games, but we only ended up watching the lackluster (on that system) Last Armageddon intro. But we all had a good time!
Our 21st meetup was hardware-heavy as Sean brought in a couple of computers for repair and Michelle brought in an entire Apple II setup, including floppy drive and full-size monitor, plus a couple of more compact setups courtesy of Curt and Saburo.
Sean’s hardware included something familiar, the MZ-2500, though most of the time was spent in MZ-2000 mode (for Logo) or MZ-80B mode (for Pac-Man).
His other computer was a newcomer, the SMC-777, which unfortunately has a memory error so most software doesn’t work. It could load a couple of the included games, but heavier-hitting apps and games would crash. It was put away after a quick inspection by Edoardo. But it will visit again someday soon when it’s feeling better.
Michelle takes the cake for hardware-lugging, though. Look at this crazy setup, this is not a portable workstation, it’s a full-sized Apple IIe (with Platinum motherboard) setup, just as if someone had swiped it from the junior high school computer lab. She brought an external floppy drive and a couple of add-on cards for serious computing and a game of Karateka.
The Apple II was not alone, as Curt also brought his much more compact setup – the Apple IIc and a tiny little black and white CRT monitor. They were able to successfully establish connections between the Apple IIs and Curt’s laptop PC.
Saburo brought along his Einstein 256, a UK-market computer that, like the X1 D, uses those funny 3″ floppy disks. The computer is in tip-top shape and curiously (for us Japan-based and North American-based folks) can get its power directly from the monitor (if you have a monitor that supports it, which is probably only available in the UK).
Sven and Edoardo spent substantial time trying to troubleshoot an EEPROM burning setup. In the end, one highly troublesome EEPROM was successfully fed a kernal ROM created to restore the Japanese Commodore 64 halfway to its intended state!
It was a little smaller crowd than usual, as our regular members couldn’t line up their schedules on a single day. Hopefully everyone can make it next time!
Sean brought his PC-8001 for some game-playing, and a Pasopia7 for minor repair. The PC-8001 has an interesting assortment of games available for it, including Asteroid Belt and Wild SWAT. The PC-8001 by default has no volume control and the internal speaker is much too loud for a shared-space meetup, but fortunately Edoardo had installed a potentiometer to control the speaker a few months ago. Rather than bringing a cassette deck and individual tapes, Sean brought his old smartphone with a couple dozen games pre-loaded on it, and an adapter to interface it with the PC-8001.
Edoardo fixed the Pasopia7 lightning fast and Sean’s phone contained a couple of games for that system, as well. Most notably, there was Door Door. This is a Japanese classic but from level 1 it is already very difficult.
Greg brought in his Amiga 600, which has a Vampire installed for an extra speed boost. He showed off a new game called Retro Wars, which contains cute renditions of Star Wars characters and tackles the hard-hitting theme of retro computing. We also got in a game of Marble Madness.
Sean had just picked up a set of PCG-leveraging games for the PC-8001, but woe is him, he doesn’t have a PCG. Saburo to the rescue! He brought his PC-8001mkIIsr, which has a PCG built in. The games certainly looked better with the PCG, but they were still very hard!
