VirusVox
Member
Good afternoon everyone!
Over the weekend I acquired a VIC-20 minus the power brick from a flea market and after acquiring a few cable pieces I've got all of the necessary items to test the system. Powering on the system turns on the power LED, but I'm getting no signal from my RF modulator. I can see the static patterns in the TV change, but no signal ever comes in. My cable setup is the RF modulator into a single yellow RCA cable, running into an RCA to Coax adapter, screwed into the coax jack of my tv.
After doing some troubleshooting I've determined the actual system appears to be working fine - Pressing Run + Shift will start the Datassette drive spinning and reading a cassette, so the system is able to accept and interpret commands.
As another troubleshooting step I inspected the RF modulator and as far as I can tell all wires and whatnot are connected correctly, and nothing appears broken or burnt.
I have partially opened the system (clips are unbroken but extremely brittle) and the internals looked almost spotless, less some minor dust which I carefully blew out.
For a power brick I am using the power supply I had used on my Commodore 64 (after I had learned they were backwards compatible with this type of VIC-20) when I got it a few years back - though it doesn't look standard. It is an official Commodore power supply and was given to me as a PSU for the main system, but it only has 4 pins and not in the same orientation as the floppy power supply. It bears a part number I couldn't find an exact match for - 251053-10. I do know this brick fully powers a Commodore 64. I intend to replace it with a modern one as soon as I can confirm the system fully works.
Where should I go next?
Thank you!
Over the weekend I acquired a VIC-20 minus the power brick from a flea market and after acquiring a few cable pieces I've got all of the necessary items to test the system. Powering on the system turns on the power LED, but I'm getting no signal from my RF modulator. I can see the static patterns in the TV change, but no signal ever comes in. My cable setup is the RF modulator into a single yellow RCA cable, running into an RCA to Coax adapter, screwed into the coax jack of my tv.
After doing some troubleshooting I've determined the actual system appears to be working fine - Pressing Run + Shift will start the Datassette drive spinning and reading a cassette, so the system is able to accept and interpret commands.
As another troubleshooting step I inspected the RF modulator and as far as I can tell all wires and whatnot are connected correctly, and nothing appears broken or burnt.
I have partially opened the system (clips are unbroken but extremely brittle) and the internals looked almost spotless, less some minor dust which I carefully blew out.
For a power brick I am using the power supply I had used on my Commodore 64 (after I had learned they were backwards compatible with this type of VIC-20) when I got it a few years back - though it doesn't look standard. It is an official Commodore power supply and was given to me as a PSU for the main system, but it only has 4 pins and not in the same orientation as the floppy power supply. It bears a part number I couldn't find an exact match for - 251053-10. I do know this brick fully powers a Commodore 64. I intend to replace it with a modern one as soon as I can confirm the system fully works.
Where should I go next?
Thank you!