Hello everyone, my old friends, and I see we've got 3 newer members too in 2024, a belated welcome to you, hopefully you guys are active, it'd be nice to have a few new regulars around, though I've been absent, except for a couple times stating I was still alive in the CHAT area, I haven't been around in maybe as much as two years now...man time just flies, even when I'm not having fun. My life has been too chaotic, busy, stressful, and with mounting responsibilities for a couple of years. Way too much has occurred to try and catch you guys all up on it. I do believe that I did drop in and inform people of my mother's passing this past February, but I've also many new births and deaths of my beloved dogs. several from puppy diseases that I couldn't afford care for to save their lives, a couple of accidents, and a couple killed by being shot by someone, which I couldn't understand because they never caused trouble and were known around the neighborhood, but we only guessed what happened to one, since one returned and one didn't, but the one that returned, barely, found lying in the front yard and had a gun shot wound and she succumbed to it a couple days later as I didn't have the money for surgery, or to take to the vet at all at the time. I always have enough to give my dogs a good home, but if illness or tragedy strikes, I just can't afford vets who like everything else, have become ultra expensive. The accidental incidences are too heart breaking for me to even talk about, due to the loss of my best friend of 12 years and how it happened. Anyway, that's enough sadness that is making me cry, I've been doing a lot of that the last couple of years, going through a sort of depression, nothing major, but just a loss of interest in pass-times and hobbies I usually enjoy, and didn't have much time for anyway. I continued life as normally as possible, but a sadness below the surface, even though I could still laugh and have happy moments. but I just had no interest in my hobbies or socializing with the people on forums that shared the same interests. But, I am finally, starting to re-organize, dust off and clean up my electronics and start getting back to where I was with it all a couple years ago, with many projects in limbo. Even so, I do have a couple projects I did finish back then, but never had time to share, or continue sharing about projects I started sharing about, but even though they were completed, I wasn't up to sharing them with the community. I will start to do that again in the coming weeks and months. I also have acquired quite a few things for my hobbies just before I disappeared from this forum, and a few I continued to acquire after I stopped everything, but they have all just sat on a shelf until I had the time and motivation to actually use. But the interests have returned, and I've more time now and coming, with it being the slow season for my business approaching soon, much sooner than usual, because we have been going through a drought for several months, with customers needing lawn service half or one third of the usual scheduled mowing. And now it's come to a near halt a month and a half early. I have been doing other type of tree removal and other handyman work during the lawn season to make up for it. Jobs that we normally only have time in our schedules to accept during the late fall and winter months. But since my expenses are very low, owning everything, and maintaining everything myself, basically only utilities and food and clothes to worry about, I'll be ok and I'll have even more time for hobbies and home improvements that had been put off for a lack of time. I also have less responsibilities now that my mother has passed, with only myself and my four remaining dogs (I had ten 2 years ago) to care for and a lot more peace in my life which has certainly helped in getting out of my depression and slump, without the stress of not only my mother, but other family too. I'll leave it at that for now, it may still be a week or two before I start real posting of stuff pertaining to this forum, as I said, it's all in disarray currently, but I'm starting to get it all organized and ready to use again.
Good to see you again Matt, sorry about all the bad shit, like yourself, I'm an animal lover as is Andy, so it pains us to hear bad news. I was also in the money for animals problems, my much loved Felix got stomach cancer and eventually we had to put him down. We all cried our eye's out for days, he was such a part of the family. We had recently got him a kitten as a friend but as he was getting sicker with the kitten wanting to play with him, it became a torment for him. So I know where you are coming from. You ease yourself back in to the groove, we all have been having various restarts, Andy with a belter of a new / old car, Al with more machines and the same here, with new / old consoles added to the stock. What has happened to the weather, especially for you guys, I reckon it's down to Trump Anyway, great to see you on,, you take good care and enjoy the dogs and life my old friend.. Paul..
Good to hear from you Matt and look forward to your full return and hearing about all your projects. Glad you are finding your mojo again after everything you have been through. Take care and y'all come back soon you hear
Matt, Our hearts go out to you, fella. EVERYTHING Paul's put so succinctly and heartfelt and Al's supportive words I echo too. We do adore animals here and Bev is Britain's biggest pooch fan (she sends all her love to you and your dear pooches) and we will be getting some doogs (we bloody well hope) just as soon as possible as we know just how much love and loyalty, affection and company they bring to a person's life. We cannot even begin to understand just how much mental anguish you must have been through in the past cpl of years, mate. Your personal losses and the evil that some people inflict on one another - and take out on innocent animals - makes our blood boil and our heads spin with the unnecessary suffering these barmy bastards cause. Matt, please know we are thinking of you, miss you lots, mate, and there's always one of us around for a virtual natter, fella, if only to share your feelings/chew the fat and slowly get back into your retro and home improvement projects once more - which are always looked forward to and greatly appreciated here. We do indeed have a few new faces and those guys are also much appreciated as they always add something new and interesting to our chats and discussions. ALWAYS here for you, buddy - long live this forum, camaraderie and a listening, caring ear. There's always hope - thank god - and this place brings so many smiles, light and happiness to folks - take very good care one and all. Catch you later - sun out, gardening to do (hope you continue to get some tree work etc, Matt), and Uncle Russ to take out for Sun Lunch. The better news on my mam, btw, guys, is they are looking to get her home next week with a better carer package in place and put aides to her balance in the bathroom - ie fit handrails as her trip on the bath mat caused her to smack her head badly against the bath in the 1st place. Also look at her meds to treat her heart palpitations. Many thanks to you lads who asked after her - it is much appreciated, fellas.
You know me Andy, all the best to your mam...You and Bev are doing everything for her..As always.. Happy er dogging for the future..Not a dog person, but all animals are perfect to me (as long as they don't want to eat me). You can't not feel joy when the little beggars curl up on you or nuzzle you. Our not so little now kitty loves to run in to the toilet and sit on our laps while we sit on the bog. Sounds odd, but its mega sweet..
Blimey Paul. With some of the stories you have told us about your 'episodes' that is one brave cat to follow you into the bathroom!!
She's also handy in case we run out of bog paper..But yeah, bit risky on her part. As for me, I think I was brought to life just to experience all the crap in the world. I just seem to be a magnet for it all, and none of it is ever embellished or made up. It happened, for good or worse.
I'm still here, the storms are still raging across my state, lots of towns decimated by tornadoes. Plans to hang out here and do hobbies are postponed for a few more days, but luckily only a bad leak near my front window to repair once the storms pass. We are still expecting more through Monday.
Thinking of you, Matt. Hunker down one and all and as Paul says, here's to calmer peaceful days ahead for you and yours, buddy.
Merry Christmas everyone! I know about a month ago I said I'd be back here regularly, but then things have come up that have kept me away, mostly nothing to do with our hobbies, but I have been regularly delving into my electronics again, just trying to get back to where I was a couple years ago. Both with things suddenly needing repairing once I started using them again, trying to locate things to do with half-finished projects and remembering where I left off on repairs and projects, etc. But my work will eventually lead back to finishing projects and sharing, and eventually starting to use computers and consoles, etc. regularly and will have something to contribute and talk about on the forum. As well as more time to browse and catch up with all that you blokes have been up o while I was away and replying and contributing to posts from all of you. It's been a two steps forward, one step back scenario for me, including getting equipment running fine again, only to come back the next day and it isn't anymore. This just happened the last couple of days working on 3 Panasonic 3DO units I've had, getting my personal one working again as well as the others to sell during my slow business this winter. On my personal unit, I installed a new laser mechanism on it, and it worked fine for official stamped CD's and music CD's, but would no longer read CDR's like it used too. So I spent sometime tweaking the Laser's potentiometer so that it would read CDR's and still properly read factory stamped CD's. I was successful, and I played several original and CDR burned games for several hours and everything was working great. The next day I came back to play another game and when I turned the 3DO on, the power light lit up, but nothing else happened. I'm pretty sure it's an old capacitor issue, so now I am starting the arduous task of replacing all the caps on all three motherboards and CD controller boards, as they are all 30 years old now, so I might as well just replace them all instead of trying to trouble shoot and track down the current failed or failing (wrong voltages due to age) caps. That's just one example of one of several projects I'm multi-tasking right now. I'm involved in my hobbies again, but I still need time to get back up to speed on all fronts of the hobby before I start spending time on the forums. Once I get there over the next few weeks or months, I have tons of updates to projects as well as new things I've done or acquired here and there over the last couple years that I still need to share and some new items that I haven't even gotten around to use, and new games I haven't gotten around to actually open and play, etc. over the time I have been gone. So sometime in this coming year, God willing, I'll be flooding the forums with all kinds of stuff on my end as well as responding to all of you and chatting regularly with all of you again. As to other's who were MIA before I was, like Timothy and Graham, have they returned or made any appearances like me here while I was away? Any new members who have become active and integral parts of the community? I'm getting back to my electronics right now, on this free Christmas Eve, so no time for me to start catching up in the community and finding these things out myself just yet...
Hi Matt, Tim was on the other day posting a C64 article, not seen Graham for a while. Have fun with the 3DO's, careful of the pot trim on the laser, as you know, it's stepping up the power of the laser, which eventually can cut the life of the laser unit. Was one of the PITA jobs when I chipped PSX's. People would go out and get cheap CDR's and the lasers were already tweaked down to only read real media, so muggins here had to tweak the PSX laser as 'of course it was the mod chip that caused the issue' I tweaked it once and warned them about the use of cheap media...No more free tweaks.. You have a happy holidays over there, hope things swing more in the right direction for you.
Thanks for your cautionary advice Paul, it's always prudent to make sure a person understands how the laser eye and it's trim pot work. I am of course already aware of the inherent dangers of a modification like this. But in this case, I'm not pushing the laser's voltage beyond the original 3DO specs. This is a brand new old stock laser eye I purchased, but this one's factory setting was too low to begin with, as it was meant to be a drop in replacement for a car stereo cd unit that still used the same model of laser eye as the 3DO, but since it was intended for only audio CD playback, it's voltage was set too low for the 3DO player. You see, an audio CD requires the laser eye to be set for ~4.3 volts, but 3DO game discs requires ~4.5 volts to be properly read, and CDR's require ~4.7 volts. So it had to be raised to ~4.5 volts to work with 3DO game CD's. The laser eyes stated spec limit is 5 volts. But it is possible to set the pot over 5 volts which is above it's rating, and will burn it out. So you are taking a real chance if you are just adjusting it without checking voltage levels as you adjust. There is a test point on the bottom of the laser's circuit board marked "RF" with an arrow pointing to the test point that you connect a multimeter between it and ground to watch the voltage level while adjusting. It seems that some of the early FZ-1 3DO models had the lasers factory set to a level where CDR's could be read, later manufacture of the FZ-1 seem to be lowered and only read stamped CD's, as well as the FZ-10 line. So some people are adjusting the lasers to make CDR's work or just to get the old laser to read games discs again, which is really a last ditch effort anyway before having to replace it, get a few more hours of life out of it. But if they aren't careful or don't realize it's a temporary fix (like jolting someone's heart back to life, but without proper treatment, surgery or a new heart it is very temporary), they can destroy the laser, and yes, any laser has a shorter lifespan the more power is applied, and often 30 year old 3DO lasers are weak from years of use. My new old stock one, even set for CDR level, if set correctly (which it is), will still last me years, but maybe only 10-15 instead of 20-30, which also depends on hours used, which is low for me these days since I have a dozen consoles and computers that split my gaming time, which itself is very little these days. IIRC, these particular laser eyes used in the 3DO are rated for up to ~10,000 hours, so that's a 1000 days, or just under 3 years, running 10 hours a day. I'd be surprised if this 3DO is used by me more than 5-10 hours a month. So I'm not worried.
I finished recapping the 3DO this evening, and everything is working great again! So that leaves my 7800 and 8-bit computers left to get up and running again, I know my custom 800 just needs a Pokey or alternative like Pokeymax to get it working. As I recall I bricked my Pokeymax, not hardware wise, but the firmware was erased and I need to send it away to get it reprogrammed if I can, hopefully by the guys I bought it from. I need to get in touch and make arrangements to ship it for the repairs. Though I could install the original Pokey to get it working without stereo and all the other frills of the Pokeymax, in the meantime. I believe my 1200XL just needs new 5v regulators installed in it, then it would be back to my Bally Arcade computer and my TSR-80 which are both in the middle of unfinished upgrades. Of course that is only my computer/console hobby. I still have some work to do on some of my vintage stereo equipment.
Glad you are cracking on with the gear Matt, glad you got the laser sorted, PSX lasers were set low to avoid them playing CDR's as Sony knew someone would try copies and maybe circumvent the anti-piracy settings. A lot of folk were just getting a metal screwdriver and just moving the pot without check via a meter. The first NO was a metal screwdriver, as it needs to be a plastic tweak tool to not affect the reading. Also, as you have shown, you just don't just move the wiper willy nilly, it needs to be calibrated. It's good to hear that there are people like yourself who know their stuff and do it properly. If you ever need a POKEY, just say, I have a spare on the PCB that PAL enabled my 1200, it's just sat in the cupboard and another in my 800 that needs new keys. I fear my 8 bit days are almost over. Now need an injection of cash, the only stuff of mild value is my old computer gear. But that at the moment is for another day, just about to take the car in for its MOT (mandatory test of road worthiness) and I know it will fail, depending on the cost, I'll either have a car or not. All sounds a bit bleak, but I'm still wandering this planet, got a place to live and food and family, even tho my new cat seems to want to eat me at times. So not all bad You crack on, it keeps the old brain ticking over.. Have a great new year..
I can only echo Paul's wise and worthy sentiments, Matt. You are both doing a grand job making the most of your days productively whilst life does its best to gradually grind us (and our treasured families and retro equipment) down due to our inevitable wear and tear. Keep enjoying all the great things you do and know that we enjoy reading about the care, attention and dedication that keeps your metronomes ticking... may they continue to tick for decades to come and if you need your voltages tweaking - a double whisky hot toddy seems to be conducive/conductive when applied on cold dark winter evenings
Both Matt and Richie are miles above me in knowledge, I just know enough to be reasonably competent. But that is the joy of this place, we can swap idea's and fixes knowing that there's great advice to be had. I had to learn a little bit of theory at Maplin, although I was hired as tech computer sales, being a component place first and foremost, I had to know a bare minimum. I'm more practical than theory, so soldering, building kits, knowing polarities etc are par for the course. I wing the rest.
I forgot to mention that this 3DO has a chance of outlasting me now, as I over-engineered the recapping, replacing all the caps with identical Ohm's, but that are twice the voltage tolerance of the originals in each case, so if the originals lasted 30 years, these, working in the 3DO at half their voltage tolerance...well, you get the picture. Of course the new caps also being better made to start with than back in the day (as long as you don't trust Chinese components). The capacitors I used and have more of, are German made. None of that give or take within 5% or 10% of the given specs, these are within 1-2% tolerance to the given specs as well, so that guarantees a more stable flow or power closer to perfect specifications, which will further protect the custom RISC IC's that aren't made anymore, unlike most of the common IC support chips, though they also will benefit.
Ohm's? Microfarad? With the other changes, it should be good for many a year. High spec components, always a good move. Nicely done Matt.
A professional repair and refurb job. You can't better this. Marvellous, Matt - raising a toast to you and your 3DO system and longer-lasting laser "eye". It will no doubt see all of us out.
Duh! Thanks for the correction Paul, I've know idea why I was thinking in terms of ohms when I made that reply. Of course I meant using exact Microfarad replacements with higher voltage capacity. Edit: Probably because I had just been moving and reconnecting my stereo speakers before making that post, now that I ponder a bit more. I had to make sure my mix of 4 and 8 ohm speakers were correctly hooked up and amplifier connection's switches were still set for 4 or 8 ohm speakers to match. I made some additional modifications to the speakers I rebuilt, and then repositioning all my speakers for better equal distancing I couldn't do before because the way my room was arranged and furnished Since my mother died last winter and my brother moved into her room, I have been remodeling again to remove the room built for my brother when he moved in several years ago. Re-extending the size of the living room, adding a second bathroom back in and shortening the hallway to my room, expanding my room from basically an L shape into an open, uniform room. At some point I'll share it all.
It was just a bit of fun there, when you are talking tech it's so easy to make a slip I do it all the time. Well done on the home improvements, I'm terrible at stuff like that, it's never nice and neat when I do stuff, I only do it because it's the cheapest option. The things we do to improve our homes and man caves
