A workbench, a soldering iron, and machines older than me.
I fix 1980s home computers in the evenings and write down what
went wrong, mostly so I stop making the same mistake twice. Everything here is a
hobby. Nothing here is for sale.
Currently on the bench
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2026-08-19
ZX Spectrum 48K, issue 3
Black screen on power-up. The lower RAM bank is the
usual suspect, but the 5V rail sags under load, so the regulator goes first.
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2026-08-04
Commodore 1541 drive
Alignment is off by enough that it reads its own
disks and nothing else. Waiting on a replacement belt before touching the
stepper.
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2026-07-22
Bench PSU, recap finished
All electrolytics replaced. Ripple down from 180 mV
to under 20 mV. Should have done it two years ago.
Rules I keep relearning
- Measure the rails before blaming the chips.
- Photograph the cable routing before unplugging anything.
- A part that is cheap now is expensive once the board is closed.
- If the fault is intermittent, it is a connector until proven otherwise.