… but a step forward. A couple of years ago – must have been more than ten – I bought an Sinclair QL from ebay. The guy I got it from marked it as defect and still it was quite expensive for me that time. The good thing was burried down in the basement and me tinkering with a lot of old computers lately dug it out and took it to the last HomeCon. Hessi brought his one along with the missing PSU. A quick hookup showed that nothing was working, not even the power LED. Mhhh.. dead on arrival? On Hessis QL the power LED went on, at least. We opened up both computers. My was missing the voltage regulator which was replaced by some strange wire construction that was connected to… mhh… well… nothing. Hessis missed out the video chip – so there was little luck his might send out a signal. We changed parts to and fro and found out that despsite the missing parts and the broken keyboard membrane both our systems seem to work. A short search on the web revealed that RWAP Software had all we needed to get our babies running again.

Today I finally had some time to open up the case and replace the membrane and put a plug to the PSU. Tatataa… QL is alive, in almost all its glory. Mine is missing the lefthand micro drive. I hope Rich from RWAP can help me out once more with this.

Here are some pictures of the membrane swap.

So, Sir Clive… what’s next? I think I will have to figure out how to actually load some software…;)

Well, well, well… where to start off? A lot of things have happened this year. First and foremost: I got married. After almost eleven years Nadine and me took the next step and are really happy.

As planning a party for 100 people is not an everyday task – especially when doing all things by yourself – a lot of time went into this “project”. We had big weeding, along with most of our friends and it really was a beautiful day and everything fell into place. In the end it turned out just perfect and as we wanted it to be.

The next big thing is that Hessi from HomeCon started to work on a concept for a computermuseum…. exactly what I was dreaming off. Reiner from FAO, Rami from CCM jumped in – two clubs, dealing with the same subject. Right before and after our wedding we put together a presentation for some people in the upper reaches of citiy management, to pitch our ideas and hopefully get some room and support. This was really a hard task with its peak at the last weekend, where we had a midsize booth at a local market in Hanau (city where we are trying to actualize our plans). You can find some impressions here. It looks like we providede much fun for the kids and most of the elder generation liked our idea. The timeframe was more than short, though and I did some promotional stuff, like flyer, posters and banners that you can find in the resource section soon.

Today, I finally touched ground and relaxed a little – off course not without pottering about some old computer stuff. I recently got some of my long sought after 8 bit computers from the UK, hence an Oric Atmos and an Acorn Electron. For the latter I found the original joysticks and tape recorder for a bargain price (p&p still is too much). The sticks are in good condition and seem to be very rare. One was missing the label and so I made a replica today. Here are some pics, showing the process.

Sticker Acorn Joystick (set of 3 on an A4 sheet)

This weekend it was retro time. The last month had been something of a no-time-for-anytging-fun period… even our game experienced no update at all. Recent happenings over in Japan are the biggest reason for us not to cary on at the moment…. we are not quite sure how things will be in the future an how and when we release the game.

So I was more than happy to dip m head into the past, took two of my best colectibles from the basement and went to visit the old school brigade. I paid a short visit to the previous HomeCon to find out that there are a lot of people collecting old hardware, building new add-ons, living up to the old times. I felt instantly at home (hence the name) so I was really looking forward to see the guys again.

The event was set to start at 10am. When I got there at 11 a.m. the room was full and if it wasn’t for Mug, who piled up his Amigas and provided me some space, I would have to set up my stuff on the toilet.

After setting up my Atari Video Music, I took a first look around. Noticeable things where a FM Towns II and a carMarty, two Vectrexes, some tabletops and tons of modified Amigas, Ataris and C64s. Foremost I have to mention Ankabantas C64 with imtegrated headphone amp, reset- and hardreset button, multirom switchboard, multicolor LED (pulsing through all spectrum colors) and a milliom things more I can’t recall. The other “object” was SailorSats Mother of all Amigas, as he called it. I didn’t notice for half the party It took me almost the whole party to notice that in his Amiga 500 was an PC running windows. He created some small routines that made windows look and feel like the real thing; he even vonverted the two topaz fonts….. Absolutly insane. Hopefully we will see a release as themepack, along with all essential scripts the scripts.

Some impressions…

After a long and uncomfotable night on the ground, most of the visitors were gone. I enjoyed the silence and started setting up my soldering gun. Two hours later I had hacked a wiimote to hook up a real joystick and arcade buttons. Since I first saw the iCade at thinkgeek.com and got frustrated by trying to order one right away, just to find out that it was an aprils fool, I had the idea of building one myself. Meanwhile you can order the real iCade and Atari is on the line with license some hits from their backcatalog, but I was kinda scared off. So hacking this wiimote was the first step and two hours, because I really had no sleep at all and had to things over and over again. After all you can see a little proof of concept, that it basically works, although the directions are rotated the wrong way. If it wasn’t for Muggy helping me with the voltmeter and stuff, this would probably would have all gone up in smoke. Thanks, man!