In case it’s of interest to any of my followers, I have been invited to take part in a live discussion and Q&A session with Elektor Magazine as part of their Engineering Insights series, in which Elektor’s editors and engineers discuss real engineering challenges and solutions with electronics industry experts.
The interview is scheduled for 14:00 UTC tomorrow, Wednesday 22nd October 2025.
Edit 22/10/2025: this interview has now been rescheduled for 15:00 GMT on Wednesday 29th October 2025 due to illness.
Elektor reached out to me primarily because of my main hobby, collecting and restoring vintage electronics (including computers, consoles, test gear, audio gear, calculators, watches, and musical instruments), which I document quite extensively here on my website – and also the volunteering I do in my spare time for our local repair cafe, a charity which helps repair household items instead of scrapping and replacing them.
The focus of this episode will primarily be vintage computing, including the application of modern engineering tools to the challenges of ageing hardware, how working with legacy systems can sharpen an engineer’s understanding of hardware fundamentals, and how thoughtful engineering can preserve computing history and reveal the design logic behind early machines such as the Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Apple Macintosh, and Commodore Amiga.
It should be great fun, and I would love it if you could join me!
You can register for it for free here.
Edit 30/10/2025: thank you very much to everyone who was able to join the stream yesterday, I had a great time and the amount of audience participation was fantastic, so thank you all very much indeed and I hope you had fun too!
Edit 26/11/2025: the full interview and also a short version are now available to watch on YouTube, for anyone who couldn’t make the livestream.
Hello Adam! I was re-watching, for the third time, the recording of Elektor Magazine’s session on vintage computers restoration, and every time find something useful and eye-opening! Using white vinegar to clean leaked batteries is a lifesaving! Thank you very much!
I have a request: do you have an email or other mean of direct communication, as I may need some advises from you on the below (I’ll be sure not to bother you with any unrelated issues): more than a year ago I’ve bought for less than $5 from a junkyard seller on the street of Nairobi a Commodore VIC20 computer – only a body, without power supply or any cartridges/peripherals. It looks very clean, outside as well as inside, but without the power I didn’t even know how to approach it. After watching your talk, I now have some courage to try to revive it. But how do you advise to start? The big power capacitor definitely needs to be replaced, but what else I need to take care of before even give it a power? May I give it 5V from an external power source, just to see if it’ll power-up? Where should I connect the 5V, and what should I disconnect to isolate its own power supply system?
These are just some initial questions I have in mind, and probably direct communication with you would be more appropriate than spamming your blog?
Your advise is very much appreciated. Thank you and kind regards.
Mac Ha, Nguyen