Repair of a trash-picked Keithley 2000 Digital Desk-Multimeter. This absolutely-worth-saving DMM suffers from a severe power supply failure, caused by a leaking and burnt electrolytic capacitor. Lots of electrolytic corrosion all over the board, but some of the power rails seem to be still intact, which gives hope, that the logic board and analog frontend might have survived.

Scored a fascinating inductive core memory board on eBay that formed the main program ROM of a Computertechnik Müller CTM 70 from the early 70's. Besides being a beautiful museum piece, the callenge would be to read out the wired program code.

Played around with an ESP32 board, running the awesome Zimodem firmware (a great alternative to the TheOldNet Wifi modem firmware). Added 16x2 character LCD support to the code to output current Wifi info, dialed carrier, baudrate and connection time.

The keyboard of my new Apple IIc suffered from washed out and non-functioning keys. Turned out that my Apple IIc suffered from the well know issue, that the protective gasket against dust and liquids degraded over time and enlarged and buckled a lot. This project is about the creation of a replacement gasket, available as DXF-file for laser-cutting.

Using an old instrument's gauge to indicate time or various stats, like followers, Strava kilometers etc. To be run from an ESP32 WiFi-board.

The plan is to modify a mainboard testbench so that it supports AT and ATX generation mainboards and gets some more features.

Scored at the Classic Computing 2023 event, this baby requires its power supply fixed before it can be brought back to live.

My first attempt to build a Z80-based single-board computer from scratch.

This will be the attempt to get one of the HP9000/300 workstations online, running HP-UX 5.1 and using the "TheOldNet" Wifi Modem on a serial port. Next-Level goal: have it run ChatGPT!

This awesome little MOS 6504-based text display was originally designed by Paul White of the "Minimalist Computing" Facebook-group in 1983 and its PCB got reissued by mister freeze of the VzEkC e.V. in 2023. It features 16 beautiful alphanumeric LED digits and gets programmed by a 2732 EPROM.

PCB-assembly of Scott Bakers awesome RAM & Flash board project for HP 9000 workstations.

Using my new workstations and plotters/printers for creating some generative art algorithms in the old HP/Basic 5.13 language and doing an exhibition on the Vintage Computer Festival Europe 2023 (VCFe) in Munich. Got second place in the festivals audience award.

Repair of the printhead's flex-PCBs that suffered heavy corrosion from old ink with silver conductive paint. A very tedious but necessary step to get those old beauties printing again. 2 out of 4 printers fixed so far.

Experimenting with re-charging old plotter pens with new ink and building 3D-printed adapters for using "Stabilo point 88" and "Staedtler Lumocolor" pens.

In the probably biggest trash-pick so far, I was able to save four HP 9000 Series 300 Workstations from E-waste, including their screens, their HP-IL keyboards, 4 drive units, 4 ThinkJet printers and two iconic Pen plotters - all of them having spent their life in a physics laboratory. Starting with zero knowledge about those machines, a wonderful (restauration) journey began.

Digitizing two of my analog model-railroad locomotives with Doeheler & Haass DH10C-3 DCC decoders.

Lacking a proper model railroad at my apartment, building this small 2-circuit test track will help a lot in doing tests for ARC2 development and having a little bit of fun.

Yet another RAM Extension to be saved from the Varta "Battery of Death". This time of my new flea-market picked Amiga 500.

Building a small PIC-based XT2AT keyboard adapter to use XT keyboards on my IBM 5150 computer.

This slim, self-made shelf was inspired by the famous furniture of Nils Holger Moormann and serves as a display for my collection of scientific calculators.

Sorting a giantic lot of trash-picked logic and RAM ICs by type. Lots of 70s and 80s date-codes. Felt like doing a very nerdy jigsaw.

Re-capping an instable ATX power supply that I picked from E-waste.

Plan to build a Eurorack case to enter the fascinating world of modular synthesizers.

Attempt to repair a KA3005D lab power supply that suffered from severe reverse polarity damages at work. Logic PCB repaired, power PCB still ongoing.

Wooden rail built from two glued and glazed timber beams to showcase book and magazine covers behind the sofa.

Restauration of this 386 retro system that suffered a lot of dirt and a corroded case. Grinded and spray-painted all metal parts to make it look like new again.

Yet another trash-picked retro system that requires some love. Unfortunately missing the specialized Cirrus Logics graphics adapter to drive the LCD display.

Finding and programming the Video BIOS image for an old trash-picked 8-bit Video Seven grpahics card that was missing it's EPROM chip.

This is my attempt to build a MIDI-based synthesizer around the famous Yamaha YM2151 arcade soundchip using an STM32F446 MCU.

Yet another trash-picked retro system that requires some love.

This trash-saved Playstation 3 just needed a replacement of the optical drive laser due to lens haze. I'm wondering if this was the reason why it was put to E-waste. Can read disks just fine again and found its place in the living room.

Repair of my car's instrument panel PCB, which suffered from some cold solder joints that became a common problem for year 2005 Ford Fokus MK2.

Installation of a new rechargeable battery and repair of the corroded charger PCB.

PCB assembly of the "XT-CF Lite" board to give CF-card support to my IBM 5150.

Modifying a 1x1 IKEA Kallax shelf to serve as a drawer for my vinyl records.

Trash-saved AMD K6 system that came in a beautiful old Highscreen Bigtower. After disassembly, cleaning and some upgrades, this is the perfect DOS 6.22 retro gaming machine now!

This Pentium I notebook was a flea-market leftover given away for free, but suffered heavy battery corrosion. Only a full disassembly, cleaning and a bath in vinegar was able to help. Works like a charm now, but some cosmetic damages remained.

My friend's Amiga 2000 suffered from severe battery leakage and corrosion during years of storage and had an unstable Power Supply. The 68000's CPU socket and several traces on the mainboard were completely destroyed. Continuity-checking each and every trace based on the schematics, fixing traces using jumper wires, replacing the battery, CPU and ROM sockets and recapping the PSU helped this beauty to finally come alive again.

This trash-saved IBM 5150 was in a pretty rough shape. Tried to repair the broken original PSU but eventually gave up on that. Created a Frankenstein PSU with a new ATX power-board while maintaining the old case, harness and main switch. Renewed all Tantalum capacitors on the mainboard. Repair of the floppy drives and cosmetic repairs of the 5150's case are still pending.

Being a digital horder of old emails and backups of various generations of chat programs (ICQ, MSN, Skype, SMS, Whatsapp etc.), this project tries to create statistics and a visual timeline of my chat behaviour and communication partners through data-mining. Python-based.

Setting up a tiny herb garden for the balcony using an old Euro palett.

After saving that old Pentium II system from E-waste, it got a proper clean, several upgrades and was installed into a shiny new Fractal Design case. The FDD bezel got spray-painted black to match the case. Besides being a perfect Retro Gaming system running Win98 SE, it now also serves as GPIB-host for my HP 9000 workstations.

I scored this Texas Instruments TI-57 at VCFe 2019, but unfortunately it was heavily corroded from battery leakage and the key matrix didn't work. After a short sign of life, it seems to be dead now.

Cleaning a trash-saved Sega Mega Drive II.

Picked this baby from the local flea-market. Needed replacement of some fried voltage suppressor diodes on the joystick ports, a good clean and a new logo badge.

Trash-saved i486 mainboard that was missing its BIOS EEPROM and 50MHz crystal. Still not functional.

Wooden card holder to store old ISA and PCI cards.

Adding some pull-up resistors to the awesome OPL2LPT project to increase its compatibility.

Build a serial-port based software load adapter for transfering programs to Texas Instruments calculators, such as the TI-83 and TI-89.

Solar-powered watering system that uses a rainwater reservoir, a pump, a timer and a check valve to keep my balcony plants alive.

Replacing the battery and the charger port flex-PCB on this Samsung Tablet that I saved from E-waste.

My first Apple computer saved from E-waste. Functional but in a beaten-up shape. New battery, new feet, optical drive repair, fan cleaning, cosmetics.

When I got this disused laptop as a child, it was one of my holy pieces of technology until it eventually suffered a fatal short-circuit. Even after its death, it helped me to get my first student-job and served as a parts donor. More than 15 years later, I decided to start a component-level repair of the mainboard and to reunite all cannibalized parts.

A tiny system built around a mini i386 mainboard in a custom designed "Day of the tentacle" acrylic case.

Custom steampunk curtain rods made from copper piping for my apartment.

Full disassembly, cleaning and relubrication of my dads old mechanic Dual 1218 vinyl record player.

Homebuilt tabletop arcade machine running MAME on an old AMD Athlon XP system.

Home-built wooden / acrylic sensor boards with a gamepad USB-controller to serve as dance mats for the "Dance Dance Revolution" arcade video game series.