Part of the fun is making the parts. I had to make brass extensions for the variable capacitors so the knobs would fit. I have a lathe and a milling machine, so that was not much of a problem.
For a long while I wanted to build an Emtech ZM-2 Antenna Tuner. The kit itself always seemed way overpriced for what it is, so I decided to build one myself from parts I either already had or could order. The only things I really had to order were the T130-2 and the FT37-43 toroid cores. Most of the rest of the parts I already had. I might have had to order the two 266pF poly variable caps, but they were not that expensive either. All in all, this cost less than half the price of buying the kit. Part of the fun is making the parts. I had to make brass extensions for the variable capacitors so the knobs would fit. I have a lathe and a milling machine, so that was not much of a problem.
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Finished my vintage video game wall with vintage mini arcade games and various Atari cartridges from my late friend's collection. This is dedicated to my friend Chris Burger who passed away in 2011. Chris was an avid collector of vintage video games and coin op machines. The games on this rack are mainly his that his sister let me have when I visited last summer.
My favourites are the mini-arcades. When I was a kid I always wanted a mini-Pacman, but they were too expensive. I eventually found one at a fleamarket, and then, I ended up with the rest of these from Chris. These are loads of fun to play. I am nearly ready to try out my JAIR S-100 computer. All that remains is to solder in the terminating resistors on the backplane, and make up a suitable power supply. The trouble is that this baby need a +/-16 and +8 V power, which is a bit unusual. I have lots of options for +/-12, +/-5V etc. I may have to hack something together.
Today, I have populated a SSM OB-1 board I bought recently. It is for setting the start address upon boot up. This board would have been used in an Altair or IMSAI type computer. I will be using it for a S-100 computer that I am building.
There is one crazy bugger on eBay who wants $500 US for one of these. I have a hard time believing it is worth that much. I picked up this started from a friend last year. It was pretty rusty looking, but it works great. I used to to get my new engine started because it seems to have more torque than the ordinary one I use. Now that the engine is looser, I put the original one back.
Before putting this one away, I decided to clean up the rust and repaint it. I also replaced the mounting plate, as one of the mounting holes was broken. The pictures below show the cleaned up starter. Received the following S-100 boards from the brother of the person, I bought the lot of boards off of in March. The boards consist of:
The Solid State Music (SSM) OB-1 board is a vector jump and prototyping board that is plug compatible with all S -100 bus mainframes. The board has a full 16 bits of vector jump address and can jump to any individual addressable location. Additional features of the OB -1 include prototyping areas on the board for ten 16 pin integrated circuits, three 24 or 28 pin integrated circuits, plus two spare regulator patterns. The SSM IO-2 Input/Output, PROM and Universal Board. S-100 bus compatible. Two I/O ports committed, pads provided for three additional ports, including one serial. Other pads to facilitate wiring for a UART, EPROMs etc. Instructions include information on several wiring options. Gold contacts for edge connector. Kit includes parts necessary for two I/O ports. There are some pretty cool things you can build with this card according to the manual. Also there is a lot of neat projects for it on http://www.glitchwrks.com/s100.htm After spending the last few evenings re-connecting the engine, I discovered to my dismay that my trusty old 6V battery finally had enough. Hard to believe I had it since 2011. I bought one from Canadian Tire but because the engine is so tight, I was unsuccessful at first in starting it up. After a good recharge, I was finally able to get it to start. I let her run for a good 20 minutes to break it in. After that, I was able to start it easily enough.
Today I put 25 miles on it today, just test driving it. Did a drive by of some of my friends' places who I could not see because of the COVID-19 social distancing protocols in place, and beeped my horn. They appreciated that. Have to replace the muffler because there is a large piece missing where it joins onto the manifold. This results in some backfiring when coming to a stop. Will fix that tomorrow. |
AuthorCharles Baetsen holds a Bachelor and a Master's degree in Engineering Physics from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. Archives
February 2024
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