My Olivetti M21 project was slightly curtailed - in that I'm between jobs, so it was sitting on eBay, and it found a new home before the PicoMEM arrived (but after I found the bad RAM was in the socketed bank, and upgraded it to 640KB on main board).
This left me with a dilemma, a shiny looking PicoMEM with AdLib board from FlameLlilly, and nowhere to put it. Of course I could just sell it on and get on with my life, but... where's the fun?
So I started looking for a suitable home. Nearly made the mistake of buying a Sanyo MBC-555 before googling reminded me why we took the mickey out of a friend who had one at school.
First though was Toshiba T3200-type. No chance, they're all bricks or very expensive. Sometimes both, as one seller tried to send offers on a machine that was clearly rusting so much it had made the plastics rusty too.
Spotted a Victor Vicki, but it looks well past it. Bid anyway, and assumed I would be less brave than a proper Victor enthusiast would be (I like Victors, when we did work experience at an electronics factory in Kelso I encountered one with the speech option and was fascinated - have never owned a Sirius or other Victor though).
eBay likes to show you things related, and I spotted this lonely 8086. It might say Victor but it has as much in common with the Victor Sirius/Vicki as a modern MG has with an Abingdon original.
Looks promising!
Now the downside - while an HD option was offered, I don't think it's easily expandable so the PicoMEM would need to use that expansion connector header. Though, if these OEM machines were more common it would be fun to make a PicoMEM PCB bespoke for the HD adaptor connector if it were a full ISA port...
Interesting power connector...
It could have been a contender!
As it is, this one looks barely used.
The listing mentioned error messages, but I don't think they tried pressing Ctrl-Alt-Esc...
No errors!
So I got to play a quick game of Tetris...
Quick, partly because what isn't quick is the refresh rate of the non-backlit LCD. It's like planning where to land a ghost.
Who is paying attention?
It was also quick because I got a warning beep...
I haven't checked the battery pack, but had decided to see if the machine shut down immediately if I unplugged the PSU. It managed a boot cycle (including reading from floppy) and a round of Tetris before low battery, and that warning had plenty of time for me to reconnect power. This is maybe only 20 minutes after deciding it was long enough in the warm to power it up after unpacking.
I've no idea if anyone has tried charging it up in the preceding 34-35 years or so... so I've left it (watching the PSU like a hawk) charging for a while and not running while I look for any relevant disc images or docs to make it do more than play Tetris...
Meanwhile, I only went and won the auction for that Victor Vicki. I seriously doubt it will plug in and power up straight out of the box, if it survives post. I have some doubt it'll even be recognisable as a computer, since it looks like a barn find, but I may have some cleaned up Vicki parts to sell soon
This left me with a dilemma, a shiny looking PicoMEM with AdLib board from FlameLlilly, and nowhere to put it. Of course I could just sell it on and get on with my life, but... where's the fun?
So I started looking for a suitable home. Nearly made the mistake of buying a Sanyo MBC-555 before googling reminded me why we took the mickey out of a friend who had one at school.
First though was Toshiba T3200-type. No chance, they're all bricks or very expensive. Sometimes both, as one seller tried to send offers on a machine that was clearly rusting so much it had made the plastics rusty too.
Spotted a Victor Vicki, but it looks well past it. Bid anyway, and assumed I would be less brave than a proper Victor enthusiast would be (I like Victors, when we did work experience at an electronics factory in Kelso I encountered one with the speech option and was fascinated - have never owned a Sirius or other Victor though).
eBay likes to show you things related, and I spotted this lonely 8086. It might say Victor but it has as much in common with the Victor Sirius/Vicki as a modern MG has with an Abingdon original.
Looks promising!
Now the downside - while an HD option was offered, I don't think it's easily expandable so the PicoMEM would need to use that expansion connector header. Though, if these OEM machines were more common it would be fun to make a PicoMEM PCB bespoke for the HD adaptor connector if it were a full ISA port...
Interesting power connector...
It could have been a contender!
As it is, this one looks barely used.
The listing mentioned error messages, but I don't think they tried pressing Ctrl-Alt-Esc...
No errors!
So I got to play a quick game of Tetris...
Quick, partly because what isn't quick is the refresh rate of the non-backlit LCD. It's like planning where to land a ghost.
Who is paying attention?
It was also quick because I got a warning beep...
I haven't checked the battery pack, but had decided to see if the machine shut down immediately if I unplugged the PSU. It managed a boot cycle (including reading from floppy) and a round of Tetris before low battery, and that warning had plenty of time for me to reconnect power. This is maybe only 20 minutes after deciding it was long enough in the warm to power it up after unpacking.
I've no idea if anyone has tried charging it up in the preceding 34-35 years or so... so I've left it (watching the PSU like a hawk) charging for a while and not running while I look for any relevant disc images or docs to make it do more than play Tetris...
Meanwhile, I only went and won the auction for that Victor Vicki. I seriously doubt it will plug in and power up straight out of the box, if it survives post. I have some doubt it'll even be recognisable as a computer, since it looks like a barn find, but I may have some cleaned up Vicki parts to sell soon
)
