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#zx81 — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #zx81, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Next step replace the ancient 7405 voltage regulator with a modern decent one.
    But I'm on the fence whether to do anything else to this. I think I'd prefer to keep it pristine(ish).
    It feels like these initial mods are in keeping/acceptable to the age of the zx:
    * connecting to an analogue TV is impractical now, so a composite upgrade feels ok
    * the keyboard membrane was toast (cracked and disintegrating) - the replacement looks identical
    * and the power regulator can be updated on the same footprint to solve the power/heat issues.
    I *could* upgrade the internal ram to remove the need for the external ram cartridge and fit a modern FPGA ULA to fix the video quality and add features like 32k support and high res graphics..... but that feels wrong somehow wrong and too much. 🤔
    #retrocomputing #zx81

  2. Next step replace the ancient 7405 voltage regulator with a modern decent one.
    But I'm on the fence whether to do anything else to this. I think I'd prefer to keep it pristine(ish).
    It feels like these initial mods are in keeping/acceptable to the age of the zx:
    * connecting to an analogue TV is impractical now, so a composite upgrade feels ok
    * the keyboard membrane was toast (cracked and disintegrating) - the replacement looks identical
    * and the power regulator can be updated on the same footprint to solve the power/heat issues.
    I *could* upgrade the internal ram to remove the need for the external ram cartridge and fit a modern FPGA ULA to fix the video quality and add features like 32k support and high res graphics..... but that feels wrong somehow wrong and too much. 🤔
    #retrocomputing #zx81

  3. Next step replace the ancient 7405 voltage regulator with a modern decent one.
    But I'm on the fence whether to do anything else to this. I think I'd prefer to keep it pristine(ish).
    It feels like these initial mods are in keeping/acceptable to the age of the zx:
    * connecting to an analogue TV is impractical now, so a composite upgrade feels ok
    * the keyboard membrane was toast (cracked and disintegrating) - the replacement looks identical
    * and the power regulator can be updated on the same footprint to solve the power/heat issues.
    I *could* upgrade the internal ram to remove the need for the external ram cartridge and fit a modern FPGA ULA to fix the video quality and add features like 32k support and high res graphics..... but that feels wrong somehow wrong and too much. 🤔
    #retrocomputing #zx81

  4. Next step replace the ancient 7405 voltage regulator with a modern decent one.
    But I'm on the fence whether to do anything else to this. I think I'd prefer to keep it pristine(ish).
    It feels like these initial mods are in keeping/acceptable to the age of the zx:
    * connecting to an analogue TV is impractical now, so a composite upgrade feels ok
    * the keyboard membrane was toast (cracked and disintegrating) - the replacement looks identical
    * and the power regulator can be updated on the same footprint to solve the power/heat issues.
    I *could* upgrade the internal ram to remove the need for the external ram cartridge and fit a modern FPGA ULA to fix the video quality and add features like 32k support and high res graphics..... but that feels wrong somehow wrong and too much. 🤔
    #retrocomputing #zx81

  5. Next step replace the ancient 7405 voltage regulator with a modern decent one.
    But I'm on the fence whether to do anything else to this. I think I'd prefer to keep it pristine(ish).
    It feels like these initial mods are in keeping/acceptable to the age of the zx:
    * connecting to an analogue TV is impractical now, so a composite upgrade feels ok
    * the keyboard membrane was toast (cracked and disintegrating) - the replacement looks identical
    * and the power regulator can be updated on the same footprint to solve the power/heat issues.
    I *could* upgrade the internal ram to remove the need for the external ram cartridge and fit a modern FPGA ULA to fix the video quality and add features like 32k support and high res graphics..... but that feels wrong somehow wrong and too much. 🤔
    #retrocomputing #zx81

  6. Ok... back porch composite mod fitted, still no joy with desktop LCD... But YAY the 4k with video processor can show it! Ooooh.
    #zx81