So I get home this evening and sitting in my workbench chair out in the garage, is this box that looks small and looks like someone punched it, great vibes. Adding on to those good feelings I open it up and see a bunch of shredded up junk mail as packing material.

Luckily the ebay seller was not a complete moron and the machine itself was encased in fairly thick styrofoam. At this point I am filled with half optimism and half dread, did I just buy a money pit? or did I just stake a pretty darn good deal?




Once retriving the machine form its packaging I am greeted with this, yep that's a dirty 65XE with a chip on its top case right corner




but hm wait a second, there's something interesting on the back



and the motherboard is different from the one I previously had



and the crystal is not 3.57 blah blah mhz



yes sir, this is a pal 65XE using a 130XE motherboard, I added some life support jumpers since I have no power supply and I know my tv wont sync to PAL RF, but it will sync to PAL AV




fired her up and ....




WIN!

all of a sudden I am feeling quite good for my 27$ dirty but working perfectly fine European 65XE, now its time to mod!