Too Broken to Fix? Just Make a New Motherboard! | Trash To Treasure
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- Опубликовано: 20 май 2024
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Do you remember The Commodore PC20-III that arrived covered in poop! That was a year ago! Today we can finally bring it back to life.
#pc #electronic #trashtreasure
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Part 1: • A Disgusting Commodore...
Part 2: • Too Broken to Fix? Jus...
● Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:14 Creating a replica Commodore PCB?
06:36 Building the Commodore PC20
13:00 Turning it on for the first time
16:52 Cleaning an IBM Keyboard
20:15 Showcasing the PC20
24:57 A Surprise Last Minute Arrival
26:00 Supporting The Cave
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Neil doesn't let a completely ruined motherboard stop him. He just makes a new one. 😁
Listen to that Model F click. Absolutely love it.
I personally would keep it as is. I think it completely suits the feel and vibe around the machine. As already clearly shown by the amount of people using it. Less is sometimes more. Plus it puts the focus a bit more on the team effort that went into this.👍👍
The amount of time that went into drawing out that board is immense, a labour of love right there. And it worked first time! This was a mighty feat to bring this back from the dead. Maybe it should be next to an Amstrad 1512 as that was the PC that really gave x86 to the common man here in the UK.
Having it next to a 1512 would be interesting as both computers have special graphics modes which however were sadly rarely or never supported. But the games by The 8-Bit Guy support both the PC-10's Plantronics compatible graphics and the special 1512 graphics. So that would be a nice comparison to see at least..
Get an Atari PC and complete the set!
9mhz turbo speed ... mere mortals were never meant to wield such almighty power ...
you can overclock it to 9.3mhz, but beware of the heat, it runs at a hot 30C :)
I dreamt of such breakneck speeds when I only had a lowly ZX Spectrum back in the ‘80s
Sexy looking motherboard
I'm willing to fund a fully restored video toaster. Your the only one who can help me relive those early days when technology took over master control. I felt like a god once people saw the capabilities I could create....God bless newtek, and RMC....YES IM GOING EASY ON THE COMMENTS. hope your well Neil, looking good
It didn't have any bus frequency dividers, and many ISA cards could not handle 9MHz operation.
the lamp needs a flickering led
LEDs ordered! Great idea
@@RMCRetro Did BigClive review a flame LED module at some point
@@RMCRetro ...Then i look forward to seeing your mine type corner.
I think you mean:
> Order flickering LED
LEDs ordered! Great idea
> Put flickering LED in lamp
You place a flickering LED in the hurricane lamp. It casts a convincing flame-like shadow on the nearby wall.
Avoid brake fluid for sticker residue; it etches ABS plastic, and can also cause embrittlement. No idea why people would recommend it for something as simple as sticker removal.
Just to add to the pile of recommendations, my favorite is charcoal lighter fluid. It's basically just mineral spirits, but barbecue lighter fluid is a readily available and cheap source of it.
I like it because it works quickly, doesn't harm plastics, and doesn't leave any residue of its own.
It (or something similar like kerosene) is likely the component of WD40 that is actually doing the work of removing the residue.
Honestly, there's nothing wrong with sticking with WD40. The spray can makes it easy to apply, and it's likely comparable in performance to the other products anyway.
People must have suggested brake CLEANER, certainly not brake fluid!
@@Nicolasherdwick I think brake cleaner would attack plastics too though, right?
It seems the exact solvent mixture varies, but it looks like a lot of them contain acetone and methyl acetate, both of which dissolve ABS plastic.
@@thepenultimateninja5797 I've never used it on bare plastic myself, so thanks for the warning!
@@Nicolasherdwickbrake cleaner absorbs the oils in plastic. Use an actual electronics cleaner spray. It should be on the same aisle as brake cleaners.
With most types of sticker residue any kind of oil will work just fine. In a pinch you can even raid the kitchen. At work I use the bottle of sewing machine oil we keep around. We do have a special adhesive remover that claims to be safe on plastics but in my experience it tends to dull formerly glossy surfaces so I'm not 100% convinced. It's also incredibly smelly and probably not particularly healthy, even though there aren't any warnings on the bottle (not sure how that's even possible in 2024 in the EU).
Incredible the amount of work that went into this. Seriously talented people involved !
Cracking job Neil. Another reminder of how great this retro community we're part of is. Nothing stops us restoring. The painstaking work on the PCB alone is testament to our collective resolve to save these treasures and keep them going. And thank you Holly for saving that keyboard from the bin, that would have been a real shame had it gone to the crusher.
17:30 To be annoyingly pedantic, both the Model F and M use buckling springs, but the difference is that the hammer hits a capacitive PCB on the F vs. a membrane on the M. While you could technically call the Model M a membrane keyboard, in common use the term membrane now almost always refers to rubber dome membrane keyboards, and is used an an antonym for mechanical.
I don't think it's pedantic. The Model M is known as a mechanical keyboard by virtually everyone.
Thank you! I have two Model Ms, and I will fight anyone who dares slight them. They are majestic keyboards and definitely buckling spring.
@@philrod1 I loved the old IBM KEYBOARDS.
Keyboards of today are junk with their numeric keypads.
You have failed to be annoying, sorry. I thought it was a delicious bit of information - and I've got a Unicomp PC122 on my desk.
Absolutely wonderful work, the Commodore keyboard looks perfect and it's now the best text adventuring station in the Cave / UK / Entire World!
Well done everyone.
19:00 watching as time ticks by. By watching the shadow move across the keys and the table.
Very cool.
What a massive project! I can barely design a 2x2cm PCB with 4 traces, I can only imagine the efforts and skills behind such a restoration. The machine looks so incredible, particularly considering how it was found - I'd put up some pictures of the "before" on the wall so visitors can appreciate the restoration even more! And maybe the old, corroded motherboard?
And yes, WD40 is perfectly fine for sticker removal! One tip - which you might know already - soak the label and give it time. Most of the labels would completely dissolve and come off with no need for scrubbing within, say, 30 minutes. Plastic labels ones are tough as the WD40 cannot reach the glue.
Thanks for the video!
loves these trash to treasure
So glad the keyboard arrived just in the nick of time! I do love the Model F but that Commodore keyboard looks the absolute business hooked up to this machine 😁
I was just about to comment, but I thought you had a second 5150/5160?
A, Commodore Business Machine? I hope that catches on.
Did I miss something? Thought that the COMMODORE keyboard was still in the wind? Was there a follow-up? Pls advise and give link???
@@jtc1947 did you watch the whole video….?
@@MrLurchsThings Thought that I did but maybe there was something at the very end that I missed. Will have to go back and cee how close the C keyboard resembles IBM??
I waited an entire year for this and it didn’t disappoint. What a fantastic project!
This is some next level trash to treasuring! I never even considered the possibility of something like this. Well done!
That is incredible work restoring that machine. Props to Neil and the team, and pcb way. Having worked in the industry back in the day. I know what a task that is to strip a board down, and remapping all the traces etc is complex and easy to mess up. Awesome, well done all involved.
This is some crazy high-end nerd stuff. I never imagined you could even build something like this by hand. Respect
The love for this project splashes of the screen. So many kudos to you for this gem!❤
I like all your trash to treasure videos. But this one stands out as one of the best. I love that you replicated the motherboard precisely.
I'm super impressed by the effort you all went to preserve that computer. Ya it's awesome to see an old m/b fixed, but seeing someone make modern like for like replacement is awesome. It will help out other people when their old m/b starts to fail/etc.
It was lovely to see this in person over the last 2 days at the cave.
This is the best channel I've found in a long time. I'm so tired of low-rent, mass produced, meaningless "slop" content on the internet. This makes me feel like I could learn to take my hobby further with just a little dedication.
Incredible that you have the people with the skills available to remake a motherboard. I had thought that working units would just dwindle until there's hardly any left.
Such great custodians of history, you're all doing super work!
I must say, i follow your channel a lot but i don't coment much but i have to say, what a lovely piece of hardware history and the love you and all your friends put on this restorations, it blews my mind... Well done... you are all great people that spend your free time to a passion that made me be an it professional. I just love the era back then, it was so much more exciting than this days... at least for me it was :D... The kids nowadays will never experience the thrills we had back in the days... Well done and keep doing this because what you do and the quality is top notch...
Lovely restoration, I think you should keep the PC as is and use another machine for upgrades. Its the closest thing (to my knowledge at least) that the cave has to an original IBM PC and its capabilities so to be able to showcase what the early days of what IBM PC and compatibles could do in terms of games is a fantastic thing. I'm sure some less aware of those early days and who are modern PC game players will be able to appreciate just how far its come.
That Commodore keyboard has so many familiarities to the Amigas' keyboards - the key fonts, the caps lock light on the num lock key - so you've got to love it Neil! I know the Amiga keyboards ain't nothing on a good IBM, but still! Wow, incredible effort by everyone involved!
I say leave it as it is Neil. It has a certain charm the visitors are obviously loving. Love to see the amount of effort that goes it to restoring these machines. Great content as always!
Unbelievable restoration. I agree with those that say keep this machine as it is now. Back in those days it's not like this system would have gotten an upgrade. It would have been more likely that the owner would've moved onto a newer PC and probably sold or gifted this to a family member. At least that was my path. Amstrad XT then got a clone 286 with SVGA. :-) I also remember checking out Commodore PC's at Kmart. I never knew anyone that owned one.
Had that PC when I was at university. Bought through a Barclays student computer loan. Funny thing was that after a month it wouldn’t boot. Commodore sent a field engineer who told me the there was a known issue with processor popping out of its socket when it cooled down. So for the rest of it’s life before I eventually upgraded to a new motherboard it sat on my desk with no screws in the case so I could push the processor back in every day. Good times.
Change nothing. That machine, right there, doing that thing. It's not even a hair short of perfect.
This PC would have been launched after the Amiga 500, but clearly not designed to be a games machine. That's why I think it is important to get a word processor, spreadsheet and database package on there - something that would be suitable for that machine at that time. Maybe some desktop publishing software as well to show off graphical capabilities.
@6:30 “Who would that even be these days?”
Nobody knows! 😂😂
The brand was acquired by Luigi Simonetti, so Commodore is now headquartered in the north of Italy.
Oh, so many of those, earlier versions then, I assembled during my internship at Commodore Scandinavia. They must have sold quite a few of them but strangely enough I've never seen one in the wild since.
I had a PC10-III for a while, found it on the street somewhere, with the original keyboard. It had no hard drive but two DD floppy drives. If I remember correctly I eventually gave it to a collector because XTs without hard drives didn't float my boat and I was running out of space. The fun part about old, abandoned hardware for me was always digging through someone else's hard drive, checking all the exciting software they'd installed. So no hard drive pretty much equalled no fun.
Agree with many here; Keep the PC-20 as it is, with all the effort put into replicating the board, it already has a history now… 😊
Recreating that PCB is some undertaking. Kudos.
I want to see a lot more of this. Schematics and PCB design files for all the classics. :-) I've gotten more willing to replace PCBs that have suffered damage, or to just RE simple things like ISA cards and PSUs. I would imagine lots of others have, too. I like the idea of this becoming a thing, in order to preserve and recreate lots of retro gear. Just need a good repo somewhere to catalog it.
An amazing transformation, looking forward to seeing it when the family and I visit next weekend 🙂
As a fan of the Commodore PC line, this is a great recreation. I've got a similar looking PC40-III, and finding a matching Commodore VGA monitor took a few years, but you've already got the full kit for it -- fantastic!
Since you are wondering, Commodore these days is in Italy, since the brand was acquired by an Italian entrepreneur.
The Commodore PC 20-III came with a 102 keys keyboard, not the 83 one. They were shipped with the PC-10 series.
This PC was a very trustworthy computer, was my first PC and loved it to death.
It should be a Commodore KPQ-E99YC. US-ANSI version part number 312702-02, ISO version part number 312473-XX.
I still have my PC 30-III that my dad bought for me when I was 3 years old and it's still going strong. Love it :D
I love the idea of having that PC with that beautiful monitor dedicated to text adventures.
Definitely keep this setup as is. It feels inviting, period correct and provides a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
Recently i've been thinking about building my own Amiga 2000 from scratch, but after seeing how much the commonly available parts would cost, how much the scarce chips cost (if you can even find them at all!) and how rare even the empty cases are... i quickly decided to stick to emulation until those FPGA chips finally replace Fat Angus, Gary, Denise, etc.
The good news is that for an A2000 you can use a chipset from an A500, which are much more common. A replacement exists for the one A2000 specific custom chip ("Bluster")
you could go for the E-ATX version of the new boards. would save you some money being able to use ATX case and PSU.
but you should be able to solder SMD's before going that route... because the EATX variant have loads of it.
@@brrebrresen1367 Oh its not the PSU and case thats the issue, its those custom chips nobody makes. Everything else you can find modern equivalents for but the custom chips Commodore made have a dwindling supply...
need a donor A500 and you get most chips except the Buster chip.
now there is modern replacements for the Buster chip problem is that they are mostly "make it yourself" with just a bare PCB.
i managed to score an original A2500 from Germany for "reasonable" price (around 350€ with international shipping and VAT)
needed a new fan in the PSU and a adapter for using PS2 keyboard and was working.
was planing to build an A2000 EATX but with an original the PCB is just being on the shelf until i find time and a A500 not worth saving.
for my part is the price for the stuff that you can add to an A2000 that you can not to an A500 that makes it damn expensive.
like a Picasso II board and internal scan-doubler. even the reproductions are over 200€ a piece.... and then add a accelerator and you have dumped 800-1000€ just in upgrades, and a Vampire would smoke all of it.
As more of these replacement boards get designed, changes could be made for drop-in FPGA replacements, with the goal being 90% authentic, but augmented with modern VLSI to make them sustainable.
9:17 I like Goo Gone as well but it's not really a thing sold here in Taipei. I brought mine from overseas. My other sticker residue cleaner is WD 40 Specialist contact cleaner as it seems to be safe on most materials and it does a really good job.
That is some serious dedication, remaking the PCB of the machine!
Great work, hats off to everyone involved!
I would be in favour of a project to create open-source replicas of old PC hardware. Chip-for-chip, trace by trace. I might even download the results and put them together.
Reading my mind on the cup of coffee! What an inviting setup. Absolutely perfect. Monochrome was an awesome choice. Beautiful!!
Keep the machine as it is Neil, it's fab.... 🙂
Don’t change anything on it, it’s perfect as it is, especially with all the work that went into recreating the motherboard!
My opinion on your question: get that IBM PC for your 286 experience, if you can find one!
My first x86 PC, the Commodore PC20-III, which I bought as an open box special in mint condition with its Commodore color monitor for a mere $300 at the RAF Lakenheath BX (base exchange) while stationed at nearby RAF Mildenhall. I already owned and used concurrently my 1040STf with associated color monitor. I went back to the states with it and gave my 1040STf system (with 115V step-down transformer) to my next door neighbor (mainly for their kids) in beautiful Bury St. Edmunds.
Spent hours on Alley Cat. Brilliant game, very unusual ; doesn't use any operating system, and if I remember well (I very well may not), it was used or even commissioned by IBM to demo the PC before there was any OS available for it.
I had no idea that was a selfboooter! I have only ever seen it as a DOS game.
But it was also the only good original/XT CGA game that I remember. Do you have other recommendations?
Neil - visiting The Cave is official a bucklet list item! I *will* make it happen LOL So cool how this all played out! As for the future - any chance of making another functioning board and upgraiding it to run, say, the original Civilization? Some of the very early Microprose flight simulators? That might be interesting!
Brilliant work Neil and the team, thanks for rescuing classic computers, so many more can enjoy them in the future.
I played with this at the weekend and really I loved just playing out as an old text adventures old dos PC.
So I'd leave it un-upgraded for now.
There's plenty in the cave already that can get me a newer experience so it's nice to play on things that are as close to they were originally.
Never cared for PC until I could afford a P75 system to upgrade to from A1200 and even then I never developed a taste for DOS, DOS games though I did play a few etc. I hated the PC experience with a passion until W2K or XP arrived.
But man what an amount of effort went into recreating the mainboard PCB! And the result is stunning! I've done the ReAmiga 1200 a few months back, which also was quite an undertaking and I also design PCBs myself though not quite as big so I can appreciate what's involved.
I'd keep it as stock as possible, and put upgrades into a second or bit more modern machine like you said, perhaps a 286.
Best part of the video was the overwhelming wave of nostalgia when you started playing Hitchhiker.
"Just!" That's a monumental undertaking!
Nostalgic memories of green monochrome screen, rattly keyboards - and people busily researching and writing books mid-1980s. It was a darkened room, long table, and two of these IBM XT computers sitting centre stage.
Shortly afterwards 300 bauds modems arrived, and then bulletin boards with shareware repositories.
The 'net came quite a bit later. 😊
I had this particular Commodore computer back in the day! It's nostalgic and nice to see one running again.
Wow, the full rebuild for the motherboard is impressive!
I wish it was me soldering all of those components on the mainboard 😁 hours and hours of pure fun.
simply amazing! whole new level of trash to treasure and documenting the retro the past! great work!
Loved this build. I initially thought "Throw a 486DX in it" but I like what you've done with it and the use case. I assume Leather Goddesses of Phobos can be loaded on special request? Asking for a friend.
That motherboard is gorgeous! Well done all.
The 'JUST' in the title... it's a crazy good project. Thanks for the constantly inspiring videos 🤩
I'm extremely impressed with all the work you all did to get the Commodore PC20-III running, and what a great video to
The WS40 gives back some moisture and shine into the otherwise old doll plastic too
Well done on saving that Model F Holly, came up a treat!
Amazing achievement by the whole team. Well done!
09:48 now that's how you peel off the protective film 9/10
You should frame and mount the original Motherboard on the wall above this PC.
Absolutely. I see the before and after as key to that display.
yeah I thought that too, nice to give people an insight into how wrecked the old board was
Wow, such skill creating a new mobo, I would not know where to start!
Can I just say that aside from the awesome preservation and restoration work you're doing, the production values in these videos is just going from strength to strength? The shots where (I assume) the system is under the skylight as the sun moves across the sky look fantastic.
It's obvious that a lot of thought and effort is being put in to all this! You've come a long way from filming A500's for sale in your spare room!
Thanks! Very much appreciated
20:20 - nah, you should definitely put that old rusty one, it would be a much much greater reminder of what has happened. Either way, AWESOME JOB! 😎
My dad used to have the same case, only his had a 720kb disk drive. That particular pc was the reason I got into IT.
Fantastic work and great idea for the display!
Started with a ZX Spectrum than jumped to an amazing 286 IBM PS/1..... So great to watch this video
Congratiulations for bringing this system back to life. Great job. By the way, don't reduce the PC20 to 4 Color CGA. Actually, the Paradise chip should support Plantronics mode with 320x200 in 16 colors. Okay, Plantronics is quite uncommon but at least Planet X3 and drivers for Sierra SCI Generation 1 support it.
The PC20-III should be a great machine for the ultimate Turbo-XT with dropping a V20 in it instead of the 8088. Considering the turbo/double speed, this should be the fastest you can get out of the XT architecture. The Commodore BIOS runs quite well with the V20, I didn't see any significant improvements with the c't V20 BIOS. My PC20-II (unfortunately limited to 4.77MHz) has also a Tandy-compatible soundcard in it and I hacked the BIOS to mute the Tandy sound generator before booting. I did some videos on my channel on how this looks and feels with a Plantronics compatible card (in the PC20-II, it's an ATI, but the Paradise in the -III, to my knowledge, does the job, too) and how I hacked the BIOS to mute the sound chip. But while I think, a V20 would be a great add-on, the Tandy soundcard is something like a "everyone would have bought this if it existet back then" nerd thing, but nothing original, so a question of taste.
I'd love to see the Plantronics mode, too.
This is great, I do have a Commodore PC 10-III with a green phosphor monochrome Commore Monitor and the original Keyboard, and while it did still work last time the board is indeed suffering from a lot of rot under the solder mask (the battery has long been removed) ... sooner or later it might give up the ghost, so it's reassuring to know I could revive it with a new board. Thanks to all involved!
Definitely leave it as is, and text adventures is the best choice for sure. Nice machine, great work!
Amazing work, you're really setting the bar high in regards to preservation and restoration work.
I've wanted to do the same thing with the Schneider Euro PC II for a long time.
I once rescued a keyboard which was going to be thrown out due to continually repeating a particular letter even when nobody was touching the key. After I got it home, I pulled it apart and found that the metal used as the key return spring had been warped very slightly, and there was just enough of a bulge for it to press against the membrane keyboard. Once I flattened out the tiny kink, the keyboard worked like new. So I scored a free keyboard since it had been given to me to keep.
I have got a working Amstrad PCW 8512, a PCW 9712 with an additional 3.5" drive, also working and a working PCW 16. I love to donate them to the cave.
Brilliant work, well done to everyone involved ❤
Stunning work, and a fantastic restoration. And definitely leave it as is, it's absolutely perfect as an Infocom station!
I learnt another trick for removing sticker residue without chemicals and its just rubbing over the residue with a pencil eraser! Of course there's the bits of rubber to sweep up but its not a liquid and they can just be hoovered up if they get inside something. Its worked very well for me on hard flat surfaces, not so good on textured surfaces but worth a try and cheap!
Loved the lamp idea.
I can speed run through hitchhikers guide from waking up to winning the game without any mistakes and any help. Even the babel fish… I have it all memorized from playing it over and over as a teenager on a vintage Mac plus.
the great thing about this is, now that you have a blueprint, anyone that has an old dead Commodore PC motherboard can easily replace those without all this extra hard work of mapping out all the traces and sockets on that specific revision.
An amazing effort and the sound of that keyboard was enough to turn a bad day into a good one!
The restored PC looks so good I thought it was a CG render at first
I use a combo of bicarb soda, dish soap and cooking oil, it removes labels and residue with barely any effort.
Around 20 years ago I was sent on a call out to an engineering factory to clean about 15 of those keyboards. They called me back about a week later saying as half of them had failed :). I wasn't very popular on my return.
Leather goddess of Phobos was one of my first PC games for my Amstrad PC3086
I made a major mistake back in the late 90s. I had an original IBM 5150 with IBM monochrome monitor and keyboard plus some serious cards inside. I had started my IT business years earlier with that PC so it had a lot of nostalgia for me. When we relocated my company to England I forgot to take the PC but always intended to pick it up when I went back which I never did.
Now that I am obsessed with owning every kind of computer I really regret the oversight.
Wow. that's taking to a whole new level, about the only step up from here is re creating IC's, maybe one day....
CGA era - yes! A dedicated PC would be wonderful, this was were my PC journey started
- Alleycat (that you played)
- Sopwith (that you almost played)
- Digger (ditto)
EGA era - a short lived period, but an important one
- id software early days: Hovertank, Catacomb Abyss, Wolfenstein, Commander Keen...
- Apogee era: Monster Bash, Duke Nukem 1, 2
I would love to see some dedicated machines in the museum for these early periods of the PC. Each one has such a iconic look and brings back a lot of good memories for me
Fantastic Job Neil, great to see another piece of history repaired. I think the PC should be left as is.