deepfb

Which RAM ICs do you have? Did you replace any of the original 4116 ICs? If you have those 4116 ICs, check the +5v (pin 9), -5v (pin 1) and +12v (pin . Ground is on pin 16. I suggest testing voltages on RAM ICs since it is easy to find all of them there. If you have all of them in its place, we may discard a problem on the supply side. If you replaced 4116 ICs, I guess you modified the 4164 ICs to match the pinout of the former ones, isn't it?

I had a similar problem with a C64GS. The power supply was OK, but the computer was only working with +5V -the 9V rail was dry. And I discovered that when you have such scenario, shit happens. I had to replace all the RAM ICs, the SID and even the LED. And the problem was the power switch: it was rusty inside, and was only switching on one power rail. Before I noticed the real failure, I replaced just the RAM, and seemingly got the console working -but had no sound. Test cratrdige produced strange reports, with SID often failing. And the LED was still dark. After passing the test, I switched off the console and it didn't turn on again. Then I noticed the problem with the power switch, I guessed which would be the result of lacking the 9V supply. I cleaned the switch and verified it was working properly, and replaced again the RAM ICs & 8580 -and it was all! The system is now working flawlessly. Good luck with it! EDIT: I didn't read your previous message before writing mine. I had to open the power switch and clean it from inside, using a lápiz de fibras (sorry, don't know the name for it in english), since the metal plates where black & corroded. I guess contact cleaner would have been no help with mine.

If it is possible to send to Spain, I would like to buy two. Thanks for your job on it!

I thought the 3DO had the weirdest CD games of the 90s (Zhadnost, The Daedalus Encounter for example), until I bought a Philips CD-i bundle with lots of games. And I am not talking about the in-famous Zelda games (Faces of Evil, Wand of Gamelon et al), but about the titles by Infogrames and those licensed by Children's Computer Workshop. Educative games starred by Jim Henson's creatures (A Visit to Sesame Street series) and bizarre arcade-adventures like Kether (Infogrames, 1993), which mixes logical minigames with action-gameplay similar to that of Tintin on The Moon for 8 bit computers. Seems that Infogrames recycled 8-bit games, or ideas from their 8-bit games, for the Philips console. On the 3DO you had Psygnosis, Interplay, Bullfrog and Electronic Arts, on the CD-i you had Radarsoft and their obscure Zenith. The reply to Novastorm was Burn:Cycle, but fortunately Dragon's Lair or Flashback were available for both. Now I can't decide which one I would choose to keep if I had to part with the other

Precisely last week I had a day off at work, and managed to quickly fix some failures I thought were going to take me a lot more time to repair: I plugged my PAL 2600, and had distorted video. The console was modded by me to output composite video years ago. I replaced the video hack with Longhorn's one, and got the same result! I found that it was a problem with the colour pot, R213. Cleaning it with isopropyl alcohol wasn't enough, I had to replace it with a 470K variable resistor. It took just a few minutes and was a perfect solution. I bought a year ago a Coleco Telstar Combat that I hadn't tested yet. It didn't turn on. Dismantled it, and the battery plates were sulfated. I powered the console with an external power supply and it was working . I took the battery terminals in an ultrasonic cleaner, and while it was working, I moved to the next task... ...I was very excited with the previous successes, so I decided to tackle on a difficult one. I managed to buy a not working C64GS console, and found the cause of the failure: the on/off switch. But it was half working -it was turning on the +5V rail, but not the 9V- and it is a *big* problem. RAM, SID and the power led (!) were blown :-( At this point, it is more difficult for me to address a failure than to replace any component. I soldered new RAM ICs, a SID and a switch from a broken C64C, and installed a new led, and it worked! I couldn't believe it was going to be that easy, but it was Last sunday I took all the things to our monthly Amstrad CPC meeting, along with the MB Flight Commander controller, and both items worked flawlessly all the day

Thank you for the information, @Bonstra and @nippur72 I just attached different Apple II disk drives to the Laser 700 and they worked fine, even better than the FD100 when reading disks -the FD100 is buggy, it doesn't grab the disk properly so it does not spin steady. But yesterday I tried to format and write to a disk, and all the Apple drives failed, they reported the disks were protected, and they weren't -I tested 5.25" and 3" drives. ...And the only difference is pin 9, as you told me before. It is side selection on the Laser, and -12V on Apple II. I will take a further look on it next weekend. Btw, congratulations on your finds on how the Laser works!

Hope this helps you: On to a different matter, I have noticed that Apple II drives work on Laser 700, *but only when reading disks*: they fail when trying to write. I have been looking for the Laser 700 manual you refer on this thread, but I can't find it. I belieive there is a pinout of the floppy connector on it, isn't it? Do you know where can I download it?

¡Enhorabuena! Congratulations!!! I don't deserve too much credit for the disk images. I just dumped the floppies -it was a duty I had, not a job that needs a highly skilled operator ...And thanks for the tips on initilizing a disk. I will try it this weekend, and I will let you know if it works with a 3" FDD.

I was asking since I was planning to use a different disk drive, an Apple II-compatible 3" drive. As an Amstrad CPC user, I have more 3" disks than 5.25" ones Dou you know if there is a command to format/initialize the disk, and to automatically transfer the disk system to it? Or is there a command to backup the system disk? Thank you very much for everything! I am very glad to see it is being useful to you

No, I used a standard disk drive connected to KryoFlux to dump the disks. And the FD-100 has only one head: I planned to connect the FD-100 to the Apple II just to check if it works, but I am going to discard that test: -12V going down the SIDESEL signal is not something I want for it. Thank you for the advice! Btw, @nippur72: I want to make another system disk. I can figure out how to format it, but, what do I need to put on the new disk? Is there any "system header" needed to boot from it? Many thanks!

Although I have replied you by PM, I will try to give further details here. CiderPress is not able to manage the disk images on the FTP (Apple II emulators just report errors). CiderPress is a program to edit Apple disk images, but it is not able to open the Laser images encoded as Apple GCR. Neither is able to open them Apple II Disk Browser. For the fluxes, I produced them with KryoFlux. You can inspect them with the HxC software (just drop one of the files of the flux on it, and then click on "Track Analyzer"). I hope you will be able to extract the VT-DOS from the System Disk -but we keep in touch so I may help you with anything you may need!

Hi! I have been following this thread almost from the beginning (I noticed it since you have linked this post I wrote in Zona de Pruebas some time ago, and also my Flickr pictures), but I had nothing to add to your comments. But I have seven Laser 700 floppies, and I had this comminment to dump them and share it with you, the commintment itching inside my head "I had to dump those disks, I had to dump them before it's to late" xD. Now I have read you need them badly and I have decided to relieve myself from this burden, so I have searched the disks, set up the KryoFlux device and I have produced seven floppy images. Five of them contain errors, but at least one "System Diskette" is (presumably) free of them. First of all, I had to guess which format had the disks. Laser 300 floppies use FM encoding, but according to my Zona de Pruebas' post, Laser 700 controller seems more similar to Apple II. I asked my friend Habi for help, and we have found the following tips: - The controller IC should be the Toshiba TC17G005AP-0010 in this picture, a custom chip that may contain some code ( a "miniROM") to call the OS on the floppy (as in Amstrad PCW): - Laser 700 disks encoding is GCR. HxC software detects the raw fluxes from the disks as GCR*. If I set KF software to Apple DOS 3.3 sector image, it recognizes the format, although Apple II emulators won't find anything interesting on them (they report an error, actually). You can find the disk images in Grupo de Usuarios de Amstrad FTP, here: ftp://amstrad.serveftp.com/ user: amstrad pwd: amstrad folder: /Otros Sistemas/Laser 350-500-700 Image 4_s0.zip is a VT-DOS System Diskette with no errors. Images marked with and exclamation mark and the end of the name contain errors. If you need the fluxes, please let me know your email address by PM and I will send you a download link. Hope this serves you! *As you can see here: