A Disgusting Commodore PC20 Restoration | Can it be Saved? Trash to Treasure Pt1
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- Опубликовано: 13 июн 2024
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This Commodore PC20-III is all covered in poop! But how did it get like this, what is it, and can it be restored?
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Part 1: • A Disgusting Commodore...
Part 2: • Too Broken to Fix? Jus...
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The real reason I watch RMC is to see a man living his best life.
I try! Thanks for peeking in at me
I agree 100%, even if it means a man's best life implies washing away pigeon poop from an old PC!
@@RMCRetro I honestly admire your approach to this badly damaged board. I wish you and your people who are working on this the best of luck and success for this project!
@@pablorai769 Sounds like an episode of "Dirty Jobs".
Hate that phrase, but you're right! Stumbled on this channel after watching Alex's for ages. What they do between them is fantastic! Wish I lived closer to the Cave - I'm based up north unfortunately. Bonus though, I'm close to Arcade Club, so I can't complain too much 👍
"We don't have a time machine yet - when we do, this channel's really gonna go places". I love the idea of Neil solving the conundrum of time travel just to bring back some non-yellowed Amiga parts.
Man, think of all the insanely rare hardware he could pick up at bargin-bin prices in clearance racks.
I audibly chuckled when you revealed the case after the wash. What an insane improvement!
Rather than a "wrap", I suspect that was a vinyl layer bonded to the raw sheet metal before it was punched out and bent into shape.
I believe you are correct. At the manufacturer where I work, in the past we used to fabricate aircraft interior parts using a variety of the same material.
@@davidvaughan9547 The material for the case is just vinyl coated sheet steel. It usually has a rust resistant electroplating property too, it would only likely rust at edges and holes.
I'm sure I have a working one in my garage somewhere, I think I replaced the battery too.
I was thinking the same. In the 1970s and 80s Electronics shops sold numerous project boxes made out of the same kind of steel. You could even get woodgrain ones for LGRs ancestors.
edit I was trying to remember what I used such a woodgrain box for. It was for a RTTY (radio teletype) interface for my MSX computer so they were obviously still around in the 1980s. Aluminium boxes were nicer but about three times the price.
Reverse engineering that board is a perfect solution which the whole community will benefit from. Excellent idea! And I can't believe how great that case came out, think I need to get some of that UBIK 2000 for my next shower.
Well, Tech Tangents actually reverse-engineered a CD drive controller a while ago.
so if TT can do it, maybe he and RMC could work together to make it work for the Commodore PC10/20
@@LondenTower There's been a large number of those RE jobs recently, some a lot more complex. The think thank over at the 68k MLA forums managed to reverse engineer several Macintosh logic boards from the late 80s and those are four-layer boards, so considerably more complex. They're also working on modern replacements for as many of the custom chips as possible. Absolutely amazing!
I was gonna offer to slog through the board level repairs because I'm a sucker for punishment, but I think the board RE and recreation work is a much better option! Looking forward to seeing the results.
In the state it is, it is probably the most sensible use for the original board. In the end, despite maybe never having been used for its originally intended purpose, it will still serve a higher purpose.
After the RE it can still be a nice static display (especially since it only has two layers, no destructive disassembly is needed).
I spent many hours repairing a Casio CZ101 synthesizer where the D cell batteries had leaked onto the PCBs. The problem was it never stayed working. Every time I thought I had fixed it a new problem would occur a couple of months later.
I love the solutions you come up with Neil in the face of adversity. Love retro, love this channel. And so interesting. Great work!
Hey thanks so much! Where there’s a will there’s a way 👍
Its great that no matter the challenge or the obstacles in the way, you always remain positive and optimistic. Can't wait to see where this project leads.
Back in 1990 when I started my university course, Barclays bank had a student deal to purchase a PC via a low interest loan. This was therefore my first PC and over the next four years I added a Soundblaster, 3.5 inch floppy and replaced the hard drive with a whopping 170mb model. There was one major downside which was that when the main board cooled down when powered off, the CPU chip popped out if its socket. The repair guy for Commodore told me this was a common fault and showed me how to fix it by simply clicking it back in place. So for several years the Commodore PC lived without any screws in the case as the lid was popped off on a regular basis. However it got me through four years of an international IT degree which led me to a successful career so flaws or not, there is a special place in my retro heart for this PC. Thanks for featuring it Neil.
I have a perfectly working Commodore PC30-III (a 286 machine) that my father bought it in 1989. It still looks like it's brand new and I even have the original receipt from Dixons! I do not remember the casing having some sort of vinyl layer on top of the metal, so it might be just a PC20-III thing I guess?
Thank you for the nostalgia! I'll fire up the old beast tonight :)
Better check the battery!
@@rosstee Luckily it has a Dallas DS1287 RTC chip that houses the battery inside, so it cannot leak. But since it was dead after 34 years, I bought a replacement with a coin cell holder on top of the chip :)
@@virtualworlds8081 The employee at Dixons asked my father if he was a banker or a scientist when he bought the computer and was surprised when he said that he bought it for me (when I was 3 years old). That's why I'm never selling it :D
What a cool restoration, love the concept of a new board and salvaged parts.
This turned out to be much more interesting than I would have guessed. Thanks for all the effort!
A collab with Rob and the A500++ team would be amazing. I've designed boards in KiCad for my own projects but nothing near as complicated as a motherboard. And seeing the entire process of recreating a retro motherboard from old scrap would be a real treat.
This is going to be AWESOME! I can’t wait to be able to buy one of those boards off those chaps, once they’ve gone though the process of reverse engineering the board. I might even have some advice for some really simple, but very interesting modifications:
- floppy controller disable jumper
- the obvious CR2032 mod
- mine has a very bad quality composite out. I don’t know if it’s just my board, but that schematic could be improved a bit.
- and while we’re at it, perhaps just replace the horribly obscure XTA interface with the now common XT-IDE interface.
Great job on that mint case Neil!
I'm in the states, wishing I was living down the street of the 'cave'. I just love your efforts and videos. Thank you for all the effort and letting us live vicariously through vids like this.
My pleasure, thank you for making the effort to follow!
"Met Jackson Pollock" - Love it 😂
I'm impressed and appreciative of sacrificing the board to create a replica from it.
When I worked in a school, I used to "borrow" a cleaning chemical called MP9, that the cleaners would normally have used diluted for cleaning the floors. I used it neat on computer cases - the best result was a badly-yellowed early-style BBC Model B with permanent marker writing and stickers on it, which came out looking like brand new.
Highly enjoyable episode! The anticipation for seeing the condition of that Commodore, and your solution to the restoration is a 10/10 Neil. Get your new old stock new again, and put that ability into the hands of others in the community. HELL YES!
Technically speaking it is not 'vinyl wrap' but it was 'vinyl coated sheet steel' which was stamped and folded to make the case. I would carefully glue it back on wherever it has come loose!
This was not the worst thing i found from the barn that we found.
Shame its dead but good idea about making a board for everyone elce to use that really makes me smile
Love all the reverse engineered motherboards being done in the retro gaming community. I do a lot of Game Boy builds with community motherboards. Feels good saving components and giving something new life for many years to come. Can’t wait to see how this all turns out! Cheers!
I do believe that he is indead a good technician,if only he will tell that this video is part 1 of the rest of it,damnit.
Wow, the prospect of a brand new PC10/20 board is amazing! Thanks to all the guys involved! The Commodore PC clones never got much attention, so this is much needed and a great initiative! Cheers! Looking forward to that!
9:02 I'm always amazed how it is possible that so little acid / base from battery can spread that far, because as far as I'm aware there is not so much of that stuff inside battery.
It's got a million little feet to crawl into the tightest spaces. On a board like this it's even inside the chips.
You should see what mercury will do to aluminium. There's a reason it's so thoroughly banned on aircraft.
The salts (green crusty) are often themselves corrosive, so corrosion can spread like a fire where it only needs a little starter incident to spread across an entire area
So many potential innuendos. Must be good. This barn find looks like the Computer Reset trove from a few years ago, but even more of a mess. What a find!
If it makes you feel any better, that's not a dead spider. That's what's left over from when a spider shed its skin. (Which means that somewhere in this computer there is a naked spider.)
“Ubik ... Safe when taken as directed.”
Stopped in because I recognize that case. In Australia it was used for the Commodore COLT which was an 8088 with monochrome only down here.
I learned what a DIR command was on that machine when I was about 8!
When I saw the board in the middle of the video, my first thought was that designing a replacement board would be faster/easier than fixing it. Guess I wasn't the only one with that idea :)
The case looks brand new! Shame about the traces, but I'm intrigued to see what happens with the "modern" board.
It looks really smart doesn't it, I think he is probably right in suggesting it is new-old stock rather than a used machine.
It feels like and age since I've seen one of these videos but I'm always glad to see one.
I loved to see the new old stock item
Now I have the lab I can do lots more!
@@RMCRetro I look forward to it
You got to get back into your retro shop I have been waiting months for a part 2
Oh ok! I can do that
I had one of these on my desk at work in the early 1990s. I was left on my own for many days at a time and there was often nothing to do... For entire days one summer, I did nothing but make cups of tea and play "Crystal Caverns" by Todd Replogle... Happy memories!
I think the final decision with the MB was the best one, good call Neil.
Stunning restoration Neil!
Nice to see a Commodore PC getting some love. I use a PC40-III that fortunately doesn't use a dreaded barrel battery, but instead uses a Dallas chip (which is bad for its own reasons, but at least it won't likely burst)
I would be willing to bet that the vinyl wrap of the case actually happened before it turned into a case. Straight onto the sheet metal, before the parts were stamped.
That case looks stunning after removing the... you know what. I think it's a great idea to replace the board rather than fixing all those traces :) Looking forward to see how this goes.
I painted roger deans barn & his mums flat😂 my claim to fame! Was a Long time ago though maybe 20 years, he was a nice bloke 👊
I think with this wonderfully satisfying episode, the new lab fully up and running, the connections with teams of helpers, not to mention new batteries in the multimeter, you have finally supplanted The 8-Bit Guy as my favourite RUclips channel!
Great video Neil . Amazed how great the case looked after u cleaned it
Roll on part 2
It takes me back to when a pigeon broke through the roof of our printer room. The printers were covered in poop. Fun times.
Shame about the board Neil, great that a new replacement PCB is on the cards, that will be awesome! Amazed how clean that case came out. I'll be ordering some of that cleaner!
Lovely! I can't get over how well that case turned out! Also, so looking forward to seeing Chrissy and Rob's work in a future video ! Let me know if I can help in some way too.
Good GOD man you have excellent taste in music, the track at the beginning was a BOP!
That's a lovely looking thing (without the bird poop).
The Acorn A3000 clone PCB looks fantastic - it would be great to see more of it at some point.
The repair service sounds like a retro-lover's dream come true - I have a poorly Acorn A3010 that needs a bit of love.
Wow, that brings back some memories, my parents had one of these for thier business! I think they still have it in thier loft with matching mono monitor.
I have a number of pc10/pc20 with battery damage like that, i will happily buy some replacement pcb boards to get them working again.
Yes! I was hoping someone would eventually make a PC10/20 repro board :)
Sounds like a great project. Look forward to future videos.
🎵Are you keeping up with Commodore? Becouse the Commodore is keeping up with you...🎵
Send it to m...
Sorry couldnt resist that 😅
You're absolutely doing the right thing. Given the extent of damage, that boards too far gone but using it as a means to create new replacement boards is a great idea. I just hope your custom chips are good.
Loved the commodore naming of their custom mos chip, felt like a little influence from the Amiga world.
"The Pigeon Poop PC", now THAT is a name fot a thematic pop-music album.
What a most excellent idea to get new PCBs to save these PC10/20 commodores!!! My hat is off to you good sir!!!
I absolutely love these sorts of videos!
That's fantastic news to hear that Rob and Chrissy have agreed to reverse engineer the PC-10/20 board! If I were taking on that task, I would change one thing for modernity: Replace the Paradise PCV4 chip with a VGA chip and the associated port on the back of the system. Externally, it would blend right in.
Normally, I'd agree but I believe the PCV4 support the Plantronics video mode which while really rare is just a cool thing.
Are the DB9 and VGA connectors the same physical size? Otherwise you'd have to enlarge the hole in the case. They might be though.
@Ragnar8504 They are the same physical external size. I have used a card slot bracket with a hole for a DB9 port on a few VGA cards that were missing that part.
I think the PCB is destroyed. But making a new PCB from it seems the only conceivable solution.
I agree with the board approach a brand new board is much more viable and a permanent fix will aslo give opportunity to improve ground plain battery socket and other minor quality of life improvement can even silk screen some cool stuff on board and mark it replica motherboard for serial number specific to the original polish up the original board and coat it for use as the mouse pad. So many ideas come to mind.
What a wonderful idea. How fortunate to have some dedicated enthusiasts, who are obviously very knowledgable, to rescue this lovely PC and others like it. I enjoy your videos so much. 😊👍
Neil, the harder it is, the more people will watch and be interested. I'm sure we all have lost causes that we would love to bring back but you are showing us is it possible, good luck!
Hi Neil .I've a spare motherboard for the commodore PC . Ive spoken with Rob and ill send it to him for you ;).. love the video looking forward to seeing it boot .. ill get down at some point to see you all too . Regard Steve
Fascinating video. I never had much interest in Commodore PC (as opposed to their wonderful Amigas, even if they did “mess it up” (sanitised version) in the eyes of the original Amiga developers), but I’m glad I clicked on this one.
I love this project! Keep it going!
You could also potentially send it to the youtuber Epictronics. He's managed to strip down a Commodore PC10 motherboard that was pretty badly corroded and fix all the traces. However there's still some kind of issue with the board that he's trying to diagnose.
I did come across his series and it's a monumental effort, recommended viewing. Hopefully the recreated PCB can help people who don't have the skills and patience to pull that off.
Wonderful idea. Would love to see the PC40-III reproduced also. I'd gladly solder one up. Wonderful clean-job.
Wonderful place you got here. I enjoy watching your work. It makes me feel good. Cause I've never been technical myself. I can watch you 😅 thank you.
I notice the unit was made in West Germany! Those were the times having a Commodore computer!
That's mine! But seriously, I owned a PC20-III with associated color monitor which I bought for $300 as a brand new open box special at the RAF Lakenheath USAF BX. I don't know what I eventually did with it, but I did leave the UK with it.
You always find the way to keep us longing for more. XD
I’m getting flashbacks to my Amiga 500+
18:10 I was just thinking that this would be a good candidate for somebody making a new revision board, shipping it to PCBWay to make, and stripping the parts to swap over.
Man, that SOTB2 box and shirt brings back memories to when I bought that. As for the damaged board repair... that was my fulltime job for 15 years. I would get entire boards from the electronics I repaired that were covered in waterdamage. I needed to remove most of the main surface mounted components and would spend hours repairing 100's of traces and feedthrough holes, etc before even turning it on to know if it would ever work. These were older automotive computer control units that were no longer available... so if I didnt repair them... then anyone with that car was out of luck.
I had a 10-III in the late 90s when I knew next to nothing about using PCs and ended up giving it away. I bought it pretty cheap from a fellow who had it since at least 1992. Later on, looking up photos of the 10-III confused me as I assumed the 10 referred to the series rather than the standard equipment. In my high school chemistry lab--which I was in maybe once because I didn't take chemistry--there was a 40-III which likely belonged to the chemistry teacher as I heard there was a teacher who collected Commodore PCs. Incidentally I saw another Commodore PC perched atop a file cabinet in another lab I had no classes in. This was also in the late 90s, while I was asking around for Apple IIe software because I wasn't yet acquainted with the internet. I had finally gotten my mitts on a platinum IIe with twin drives and a monochrome monitor that had been sitting unused in my grade 10 English Workshop classroom for a long time. It wasn't easy; teacher didn't want me touching it and my VP brushed off my request, but I persisted until the principal agreed to sell it to me for peanuts. Years later I would run into him at a Starbucks where he recognized me instantly for that very reason. Actually I went through him for three retired IIe systems total, the other two earlier models with DuoDisk drives and colour monitors.
Surely not new old stock Neil. The fan in the powersupply has obviously moved its fair share of that beautiful nicotininduced brown dust, that we all love seing in retro electronics.
Great Project! 👍🏻
Oh, you must be referring to the bespoke sustainable organic vegan case finish. Commodore was so progressive!
Back then the case colors were regulated by law eg black wasn't allowed...
5:59 I noticed a spider? Moving very fast towards Neil's hand. The dangers of restoring old computers are real...😂
At two minutes in the shop there's a glimpse of 'Chronos' for the ZX Spectrum - my favourite game when I was about ten! I managed to complete it but only by using a cheat code I saw in magazine which involved typing 'Jing it baby' into the high score table.
I can't remember ever seeing cardboard backed games. My peak for buying cassettes from WH Smiths was around 1983 ish. Then I ended up at more smaller shops who I don't think stocked these. Even so, in the 90's I remember lurking around possibly hmv or similar and can't remember them there either. Guess I've just forget.
Oh, I prepared quite a few Commodore PC's to customers specs when I did my internship at Commodore Scandinavia back in 1985.
I was just going to say "get a new pcb made and populate it with salvaged and new parts"...
Excellent final choice here, Neil et al. :)
I was in a place (circa 1990) that had a Commodore PC-1 and an Amstrad PC1640.
Brought my old Speccy in one day and hooked it up to an Amber (Cub) Monitor 😊
Oh... that board is what I call a "challenge" :D
Love the Channel, But this is the Most interesting Story/Idea for me, currently having a working Commodore PC20-III (no keyboard, Dead HDD) i'd love to see new boards to keeps this baby alive.
There was something about that mouse port. At some point in the late 80s, early 90s, my father had bought a PC-10. I remember that there was a problem connecting a mouse, because by default it wouldn't accept a serial mouse. At least, I think so; this is 30 to 35 years ago. I checked the manual, found what needed to be done, and wrote a little piece of assembler code using `debug.exe`. This solved the mouse problem.
Later, in a Dutch-language personal computer magazine (that was actually its name: PCM, Personal Computer Magazine) that we read, one reader asked a question about this very problem. So I wrote them a letter (!) with my solution. Of the people that answered, my answer was the most detailed, and so I was given a book voucher.
I work in sorting centre here in Finland, we disassemble old electronics mainly computers. It is 2023 and still every week there is TENS of old 286/386, Macintosh, 80's servers, Nintendos, Segas, even one Commodore 64 (no Amiga/Ataris yet... thanks God) I have seen waiting to scrapped. It is not allowed to save those machines because they are assets of some global company. IT IS HEARTBREAKING! And then people complaining there is no anything interesting on thrift stores or 2nd hand market stuff is expensive, it is because there goes old tech to scrap metal every hour in the world. If that is situation in small country of Finland, imagine the bigger countries. I understand scrapping the nowadays PC's, digiboxes, DVD players, it doesnt move me, but the antique machines... every kind :( those are very well made machines too, "Made in USA", "Made in Ireland", "Made in Germany", "Made in Finland" .. instead of "Made in China" of today's crap. Most people doesn't care, they care about their "smart phones" much more. One guy even said "so what, who wants these old pieces of crap?". That is the way to make the remaining antique machines rare and valuable. Those who understand, understand. I think this same system goes for every old item the last 3 decades, they are just throwing away / recycled as they say. Not available for common people ... for fun and hobby.
I really enjoy this idea, almost like a Retro-mod instead of refurbishment. At least the board can still be used to learn. Case looks fantastic.
I'm digging the resurrected lab
That cleaned up nicely!
This is a great story, Wonderful :)
Great idea neil i know that problem is very common with those line of commadore pcs
Makes me so glad my IBM PS/2 didn't leak before I removed the battery a couple of years back (Didn't work anyway). This is a horror show with a happy ending I hope, looking forward to what comes next.
This is where you reproduce the motherboard, swap all the components over, and then discover one of the custom MOS chips has died...
Finally RMC has something in common with another RUclips channel I follow (Rebuild Rescue) in that you both work on machines covered in bird and mouse droppings. Otherwise I have to question whether that chemical could be an alternative to retro-brighting? It certainly seems a lot more effective than the normal car soap treatment. Maybe it would be worth trying with some of those cases that came out a bit yellow despite being through a retro-brighting process.
Given that the yellowing in certain plastics is the result of UV light exposure, I doubt any industrial cleaner would work as a substitute for hydrogen peroxide (retro-brighting) Hydrogen peroxide works on different mechanism then industrial cleaners.
As soon as I saw all the pits and was told it was on every trace, I straight away would've gone to laying out a new PCB. It's bigger than I've done before, but at least it would be a permanent fix, ie, no returning corrosion hiding under components.
Hope to see it up and working. I love trying to get back boards from the brink. Did a Panasonic CF-270 laptop on my channel. Smothered it in vinegar annd had great fun fixing traces and components to finally get a post screen was joyous.
really enjoyed that neil cant wait for the next installment
I've seen MUCH worse damage where the battery acid ate away even the board, delaminating it. However, the traces were so thick, no damage at all! Just looks scary and I kept it. A 386sx from an oem machine. I only had to wire in a new AT Power connector on wires because some of the traces are too loose to attach power on the board itself.
I got the same Beast II Box but without the T-Shirt and without the pin. Lucky you!
Recreating the PCB is a fantastic idea.
Another great video, that case looked amazing after the wash. @RMC what sort of desk are you using in the lab and does that funky attached power supply come with it?
Asking for a pigeon friend who was working in a barn setup until recently.
Hey thanks! The desk is a Flexispot branded one from Amazon with duel motors. The plugs are sold separately and just clamp on to any desk, that's Hannelore branded.