A few months ago, I bought a bundle of a few very nice vintage calculators on eBay, including a 1974 Texas Instruments TI-2500 “Datamath” – this was in good physical condition but was untested and sold-as-seen. The Texas Instruments TI-2500 Datamath was a professional pocket calculator from 1972 with an early LED display and aContinue reading “1974 Texas Instruments TI-2500 Datamath Calculator Repair & Lithium Battery Upgrade”
Author Archives: themightymadman
1992 Acorn Archimedes 3010 Repair & Restoration
Earlier in 2024, I bought a large lot of very interesting vintage electronics – including test gear, computers, and audio equipment – which belonged to a local electronics engineer, who had sadly passed away quite recently, and whose family wanted it to go to a good home. Among this was a very nice Acorn ArchimedesContinue reading “1992 Acorn Archimedes 3010 Repair & Restoration”
1955 Radio City Products “Model 314” Vacuum Tube Tester Repair & Restoration
Earlier in 2024, I bought a large lot of very interesting vintage electronics – including test gear, computers, and audio equipment – which belonged to a local electronics engineer, who had sadly passed away quite recently, and whose family wanted it to go to a good home. Among this was a very cool 1950s RadioContinue reading “1955 Radio City Products “Model 314” Vacuum Tube Tester Repair & Restoration”
1992 Acorn A4 Laptop Repair, Restoration, & Modifications
A friend of mine who I’ve done several repairs for in the past recently trusted me with a rather rare, and very poorly, Acorn A4 laptop. The A4 was an early laptop and the only one that Acorn ever made – it was effectively an Archimedes 5000 squashed into a portable case, including an 1800mAhContinue reading “1992 Acorn A4 Laptop Repair, Restoration, & Modifications”
2001 Sony PlayStation 2 Upgrades – Free MCBoot, Network Adapter, 1TB HDD
A couple of years ago I repaired my wife’s childhood Sony PlayStation 2, which had stopped reading discs (as discussed in another blog post). This was a temporary fix for the worn out laser, so I wanted to do some modifications to bypass the need to use the optical drive for the most part, including:Continue reading “2001 Sony PlayStation 2 Upgrades – Free MCBoot, Network Adapter, 1TB HDD”
2003 Microsoft Xbox (Original) Upgrades – OpenXenium, 1TB SSD, 128MB RAM, and XboxHD+
I bought a non-working 2003 Microsoft Xbox a couple of years ago, which I fixed at the time (as discussed in another blog post). After a while of using it stock, I wanted to do some modifications to bring it a bit further into the 21st century, including: I also wanted to perform some preventativeContinue reading “2003 Microsoft Xbox (Original) Upgrades – OpenXenium, 1TB SSD, 128MB RAM, and XboxHD+”
1995 SEGA Saturn Repair & Restoration
My lovely wife kindly bought me six vintage games consoles for Christmas 2023, all in unknown or non-working condition, including my first SEGA Saturn. The Saturn is a fifth-generation home video game console developed by SEGA, the successor to the Mega Drive. The Saturn has a dual-CPU architecture and eight processors. Its games are inContinue reading “1995 SEGA Saturn Repair & Restoration”
1991 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Repair, Restoration, & Modification
My lovely wife kindly bought me my first Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for my birthday back in 2023. The NES is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console, first released in Japan in 1983 as the Famicom, then to the rest of the world in 1985 as a redesigned version: the NES. After developing aContinue reading “1991 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) Repair, Restoration, & Modification”
1996 Nintendo 64 Repair, Restoration, & Modification
My lovely wife kindly bought me six vintage games consoles for Christmas 2023, all in unknown or non-working condition, including my first Nintendo 64. The Nintendo 64 is a home video game console developed by Nintendo – the successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), it was the last major home console to useContinue reading “1996 Nintendo 64 Repair, Restoration, & Modification”
1992 SEGA Master System II Restoration & Modification
My lovely wife kindly bought me six vintage games consoles for Christmas 2023, all in unknown or non-working condition, including my first SEGA Master System II. The SEGA Master System II is as a cost-reduced version of the original Master System, with several components removed to reduce cost: the Sega Card slot (used for flatContinue reading “1992 SEGA Master System II Restoration & Modification”