What have you bought recently?


Recently I bought a Soviet microcomputer. It has been probably made in Moscow plant, designed in 1980s, but made until 1990s, my unit is from 1991, when it was sold either as a TV game, or as some kind of hobbyists tool. The computer is 8080-based, has some amount of 8255 for I/O and a 8253 timer. 2kB ROM consists of a monitor with rudimentary tape input routines to bootstrap the proper loader from tape. There is also a DMA controller, display generator (also some Intel clone) and 32kB of RAM in sixteen 4116-like chips. I'm not sure yet are these negative-voltage versions or not, but if they are and PSU was bad or someone tried to run it with 5V only, I'm deeply in the bottom.
I have visually inspected the mainboard. The laminate has a poor quality, much worse than Polish or even Ukrainian computers made these times. If something will be bad, I'll just borrow hot-air and try with it training on some old boards before, as using a typical soldering iron will destroy tracks quickly.
The keyboard looks and feels nice, but there should be definitely one more spring in space key. They installed one instead of two in the factory.

I have also looked into power supply unit and there was a thing which surprised me: There is a linear regulator in TO220 package fastened to the large, aluminum heatsink (mounted on holes for TO3 case which was probably not accessible). This heatsink is a typical extrusion, it has a flat part to mount components and a few fins protruding about 1.5cm, there's about 1.5cm between them. Fins end with smaller fins parallel to the flat part, leaving a few mm between.
According to all rules of power supply design the space between these fins should be kept clear of components to allow convection cooling. But in the factory they designed a PCB a bit different and decided to go a different way.
Let's put electrolytic capacitors in there! What can go wrong?
Yes, they put electrolytic caps inside the heatsink windows. I desoldered two and tested them. And after an hour of pumping their maximum voltage, measuring loss current and periodically checking ESR, another surprise: These things are NOT broken.
 
got myself an unicomp ultra classic keyboard. i loved the model m keyboard that came with the late original 'ibm at' i had access to back in the day, so yeah got one again and it's superawesome! :)

here is a video (not mine, i have iso-de layout with large enter key)



now i have to find a source where i can get the tux windows replacement keys here in germany...
 
You should have ordered the tux keys at the same time. I love my Unicomp Linux keyboard.

You can get tux stickers if you can't find the keys.
 
  • Love
Reactions: rSl
A new pen since one of mine decided to go walkabout last Thursday, it's a BiC multi ballpoint pen (3 inks + 1 mechanical pencil).

tmp-cam-1737153887.jpgtmp-cam-1450966379.jpg

The top 4 lines are the BiC pen, the bottom 2 lines are my Uni Ball Vision Elite + Vision Elite Micro rollerball pens which I added for comparative purposes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rSl
You should have ordered the tux keys at the same time. I love my Unicomp Linux keyboard.
You can get tux stickers if you can't find the keys.

cool that you have one too! <3
my supplier did not have the tux caps, maybe i can convince them to add these to the shop.
i allready have spare tux and amiga stickers, but i need the real thing. :D
 
If those new stock Model M things have cherry tops this'll do:


thanks!
but unfortunately mx caps are not compatible with model m's buckling spring switches.

mx caps
12152Tasten_22b.jpg

vs.

model m caps

320px-IBM_Model_M_--_4G_numpad_stabiliser.jpg



i would like to get these cute unicomp ones...
LinuxKeySet_270x270.jpg


but there is a reason they don't sell them here, the 'ultra classic' model, one can get in germany, has a small left win-key and these fine linux-caps are both for large keys.

see
11850Buckling_Spring_Keyboard_Ultra_Classic_DE1.jpg

mine came with ugly metro tile-look win8 logo keys, so it's my last resort to use stickers i guess.
oh well, anything is better than having shitty ms logos around! :D
 
Last edited:
Just bought a second had Pine Rock64 with 4Gb and 64GB MMC for about 450 DKK or ~56 GBP (with powersupply) and a case from Amazon for about 7 GBP. I also bought a external USB 3.0 Icy Box NAS enclosure and 4TB Iron wolf drive (another to follow). It's either going to be an OpenMV NAS or just a simple server based on Debian Buster for rsync backups.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rSl
HIFI System

A Tiny HIFI System from SONY whit DAB + and Bluetooth, works pretty good, only the Speaker Cables are only 1 Metric Meter, but i just got a place for them..
A Cinch to Headphone Jack Adapter
a LED Lamp for my Bed Table
 
Ryzen 2600X , B450 Aorus Pro WiFi motherboard. Ripjaw 16GB DDR4 3200 ram all second hand i.e. cheap..lol
but i got a 1TB Nvme M.2 SSD new on a great deal. need to wait till the AM4 adaptor mount for my H100 AIO water cooler.
 
dont under rate comfort! wrong time of year for slippers in my neck of the woods.. most of the next 7 days are going to be over 30C..lol
 
Cleaning is not my favorite hobby, I want to make some progress as I get my Winter Vacations,
It was more important that the Technic Works, dusting can wait..
 
Forgot the Picture , the Silver Thing and the 2 Black Things are new
3889617c7c274aa89b67ab58e36aadac.jpg

Nice all-around mini-HIFI, the turntable is a family heirloom right? Anything interesting apart from Morricone's Hits regarding the LP collection?
 
A bit Udo Lindenberg, a Bit Reinhard May, mostly Old German Stuff,
Nothing more interesting than „Whish you Were Hear“ from Pink Floyd and the Blue Album from the Beatles ..
This is already a Collection of the Vinyl from my Family I want to hear,
There is also a big Cardboard Box whit Vinyl I don’t want to hear at all :
Old German „Schlager“ , like Heino, or a others , also a Poob Speech from 1979 or something..

The Turntable is a more modern Device I bought in the 2000tes, not the best but it’s works..
 
I think heirloom is overstating it. I don't think anyone's made turntables that are technically too small to hole a 12" record before the late 80s at the earliest. His father could have bought it and lent it him, but it's not something that's been in the family for generations, which to me the term heirloom kind of implies.

But yeah, I also noticed the Morricone record and wanted to congratulate Matzesu on his good taste. But I settled with just liking the post in the end.
 
Like I said, I bought the Turntable myself in the 2000tes, because it’s small enough for the predecessor of this Hi-Fi, only this Hi-Fi is now not wide enough to support the turntable on his full length
 
Back
Top