@janbeta@chaos.social
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

janbeta

@janbeta@chaos.social

I repair/hack/make/destroy stuff on YouTube. Retrocomputing, VintageAudio, Tinkering. As unprofessional as it gets. Toots in English, underständs Germän. Chaotic good. C64 rules.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

ipaschke, to retrocomputing
@ipaschke@mastodon.social avatar

Interesting fault: After playing around with my childhood C64 breadbin from 1983, the screen suddenly lost all contrast and went very dark. 1/3

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@ipaschke Interesting fault indeed. I’ve seen a couple of VIC-IIs fail in weird ways (mostly losing sprites or flickering or gradually starting to display random characters on screen) but this is a new (to me) way. Thanks for sharing!

janbeta, to random
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

Thanks for all that beautiful noise, Steve.😢 https://pitchfork.com/news/steve-albini-storied-producer-and-icon-of-the-rock-underground-dies-at-61/

janbeta, (edited ) to apple
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

New video! In the second part of the series, I'm trying to resurrect the Apple Macintosh Performa 630 Power Supply I found to have lots of leaky capacitors in the previous episode.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/95m79bzZ69A
PeerTube: https://makertube.net/w/7KstbRzmvGwEa8UfeuoMMA

janbeta, to random
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

New video is up ad-free for my monthly supporters on Patreon, Ko-fi and the YouTube community tab! https://www.patreon.com/posts/apple-mac-630-2-103869379

nicole, to random
@nicole@bitbang.social avatar

New blog post: trying out the DecentXE keyboard kit on my Atari XE130 to fix the computer's biggest flaw. Thanks to @janbeta ! https://nicole.express/2024/have-you-typed-atari-today.html

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@nicole Excellent post! Thanks for the shout out. Would it be okay to link to this article in the video description for my DecentXE video? :)

janbeta, to random
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

A bunch of power supply capacitor shaped capacitors arrived on the workbench.

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@kylew01 You should definitely (have somebody) take a look at the psu. I read that the high pitched noise is usually the final symptom before the capacitors go bust in a violent way.

NanoRaptor, to random
@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar

Commodore 128DD

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@NanoRaptor I vaguely remember there were plans for a 128CD version with an Amiga CD32 card at one point but unfortunately Commodore went bankrupt before they could release it.

janbeta, to VHS
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

Non-Special Edition, obviously. ✊

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@thomasfuchs I do have the despecialized edition and it’s absolutely magnificent. VHS on a CRT is purely for nostalgia (and I love it). 😊

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@gisiger Nice! I don’t have a player for that and to be honest getting a VHS recorder (and kind of involuntarily starting a VHS tape collection) already was a bad idea regarding space… 😅

LinuxJedi, to random
@LinuxJedi@fosstodon.org avatar

How I modified a PC floppy drive to work in an Amiga 500, both for physical fit and drive logic.
https://linuxjedi.co.uk/2024/05/04/modifying-a-pc-floppy-drive-to-work-inside-an-amiga-500/

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@LinuxJedi Nice work! I have yet to tackle the "physical fit" side of things myself so this is going to be a very good reference. Thanks for sharing! :)

janbeta, to random
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

In other news, I just successfully (so far) repaired my toaster. Well, it seems the insides just needed a good cleaning and some contact cleaner on the switch & potentiometer. 😅 Hooray!

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@yesterzine Nice! Not sure what actually caused mine to stop working, but there were a lot of larger crumbs and dust in there. Maybe one of those bits shorted something or maybe the "stop" tactile switch was a bit flaky. Works again so far thankfully. :D

janbeta, to random
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

Whoops! I missed my Fediversary! Two years on Mastodon on April 25th. I left that other site a couple of months later in November (if I remember correctly). Rightly so, it seems, as it turned into an even stinkier pile of garbage in the meantime. Haven't looked back. I love it here. Thanks for being great company, lovely retro (and not so retro) Fedizens! <3

gamesthatwerent, to commodore64
@gamesthatwerent@mastodon.world avatar

Our fourth #GTW64 #Commodore64 update of the year has been published today, where we've hit a magic 2,500 entries in our C64 archive since starting in 1999. Including a number of recent games that seem to have been abandoned and 24 other entries updated:

https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2024/04/gtw64-april-2024-update/

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@retrowelle @gamesthatwerent I backed that game, too. The predecessor is awesome. I just hope Jason is alright, didn’t hear anything at all since back then. :/

janbeta, (edited ) to apple
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

New video! I'm starting to restore a very interesting Apple Macintosh Performa 630 in the DOS Compatible variant. It has both a 68040 Mac and an IBM compatible 486 PC in one machine. In the first episode of this series, I try to make it safe to run by replacing capacitors on the main board and in the power supply. More to come!

YouTube: https://youtu.be/86CrkFDuNWY
PeerTube: https://makertube.net/w/jrXDtMmCv5MPxHfkvmsbyW

#Apple #Macintosh #Performa #Performa630 #DOSCompatible #VintageComputing #RetroComputing #Recapping

janbeta, to random
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

New video is up ad-free for all monthly supporters on Patreon, Ko-fi and the YouTube community tab! Thank you so much for your donations! <3 https://www.patreon.com/posts/apple-mac-630-1-103162898

janbeta, to apple
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

Some 630 capacitor shenanigans going on in the Beta lab today. Main board got recapped although none of the caps had leaked. The power supply is not so fortunate, found 2 severely leaky smaller caps and some traces beginning to dissolve in the electrolyte. I think I caught it in time though, should totally be salvageable.

The removed old SMD electrolytic capacitors in a pile on my workbench.
Closeup of the power supply from the Mac. A pretty standard switch mode power supply by the looks of it. Nicely built with large heat sinks on the components that tend to get warm.
Fluoride of the power supply PCB after some cleaning. The solder mask is missing from some parts around where one of the capacitors has leaked. Some corrosion is visible on the through-hole plating it was connected to.

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@iiidiy It's just one screw, unplugging a connector and then removing a bezel on the back of the case. The whole machine is super serviceable and modular thankfully. Getting to the power supply pcb to work on it is a bit trickier, I had to desolder the mains input cables to get it out. The rest was just a couple more screws that were clearly visible after inspecting it for a bit.

NanoRaptor, to random
@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar

They just don't put thought into design like they used to.

The longer you look, the calmer you feel.

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@NanoRaptor Screams

janbeta, to apple
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

Something "new" to explore on the workbench today: a 1995 630 in the "DOS Compatible" variant. It’s a bit of an oddball machine from Apple‘s otherwise quite bland (in my opinion) beige era. It has both a regular 68040 Mac and a full 486/DX2-66 PC inside. Should even be capable of running Windows 95 alongside MacOS 8! Thanks to a very generous donation from @markuspooch I’m going to get to play with it. Thank you!

Closeup of the same Mac with the "DOS Compatible" logo showing. The floppy disk drive slot is also visible.

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@modulusshift I think that’s what mine probably came with originally, too (minus the TV thingy). I read that there was a variant with a TV tuner and a remote control. I think the TV tuner wouldn’t even fit in my variant because the PC stuff takes up most of the expansion slots. 😅

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@modulusshift Oh, neat! Would be great to have a TV tuner to play with (although absolutely obsolete these days, of course). I saw the network card in some video, too. Both probably very rare these days but we’ll see. Definitely lots of fun things to try with the machine. The DOS part was available separately at some point, too, it seems. At least for the predecessor Mac models. It’s a deep deep rabbit hole for sure… 😅

janbeta,
@janbeta@chaos.social avatar

@pitrh I read about those! Probably super impressive at the time (honestly, still impressive to me these days). Can’t wait to tinker with it but I’m definitely going to take my time with the capacitors etc before I try it proper.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • anitta
  • thenastyranch
  • magazineikmin
  • tacticalgear
  • InstantRegret
  • ngwrru68w68
  • Durango
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • mdbf
  • rosin
  • PowerRangers
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • normalnudes
  • vwfavf
  • hgfsjryuu7
  • cisconetworking
  • osvaldo12
  • everett
  • ethstaker
  • GTA5RPClips
  • khanakhh
  • tester
  • modclub
  • cubers
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • All magazines
    •