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#syjnx

A random and completely irrelevant collection of projects that kept me busy in the last couple of years.

ID Project Status
2407A Keithley 2000 DMM Repair

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.

ongoing
2406A Inductive Core Memory Reverse-Engineering

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.

ongoing
2405B Zimodem Firmware Extension

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.

completed
2405A Apple IIc Keyboard Gasket Replacement

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.

completed
     
2311B Gauge Clock

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.

ongoing
2311A Mainboard Testbench

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

ongoing
2310A IBM 7533 Industrial Computer Restauration

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

ongoing
2306A Z80 Breadboard Computer

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

ongoing
2305C TheOldNet Wifi Modem on HP 9000/300

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!

completed
2305B Building the Message Display System

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.

completed
2305A HP 9000 RAM and Flash Board

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

completed
2304D Generative Art on HP 9000/300 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.

completed
2304C HP 2225AB ThinkJet Printhead Repair

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.

ongoing
2304B HP 7475A Plotter + Replacement Plotter Pens

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

completed
2304A HP 9000/300 Workstation Restauration

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.

ongoing
2303A Model-Railroad Locomotive Digitization

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

completed
2302A ARC2 - The ARM Railroad Controller Project 2 ongoing
2301B Model Railroad Test Track

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.

completed
2301A Amiga 500 RAM Expansion Battery Replacement

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

completed
     
2210A Building an Apple 1 Replica planned
2209A Philips CM8833-II Monitor RGB Connector Repair completed
2208A XT2AT Keyboard Adapter

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

completed
2206A Shelf

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.

completed
2204A Sorting Microchips

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.

completed
2203B bequiet! ATX PSU Repair

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

completed
2203A Eurorack Case for Modular Synthesizers

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

planned
2201C Building a clothes rack from pipes completed
2201B Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen2 Repair completed
2201A Korad KA3005D PSU Repair

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

ongoing
2200A Book & Magazine Rail

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

completed
     
2110A 386-based "Kippwaagen" System Restauration

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.

completed
2109C Portable 486-based System Restauration

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

ongoing
2109B Video Seven BIOS

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.

completed
2109A Synthesizer "Arcade Operator"

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

ongoing
2107B Intel Pentium 75 System Repair

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

ongoing
2107A Building a HP-97 replacement Battery-Pack completed
2103A Sony PS3 Optical Drive Laser Replacement

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.

completed
     
2010A Ford Fokus MK2 Instrument-Panel Repair

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.

completed
2009B Philips Shaver Repair

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

completed
2009A Building the XT-CF Lite

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

completed
2008B Building a Drawer for Vinyl Records

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

completed
2008A AMD K6 Restauration

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!

completed
2003A Highscreen LeBook Repair

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.

completed
2001B Amiga 2000 Restauration

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.

completed
2001A IBM 5150 Restauration

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.

ongoing
     
1912A Personal Metadata Mining

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.

ongoing
1911A Gotek Floppy Emulator OLED Modification completed
1910A A500 RAM Expansion Battery and Boot-Selector Upgrade completed
1908B Vertical Herb Garden

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

completed
1908A Pentium II System Restauration

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.

completed
1905A Sony PS2 Disassembly and Cleaning completed
1904A TI-57 Repair Attempt

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.

ongoing
1903A Sega Mega Drive II Cleaning

Cleaning a trash-saved Sega Mega Drive II.

completed
1901C Nespresso Coffee Machine Repair completed
1901B HP-35 Battery-Pack Replacement completed
1901A Commodore C64 Repair

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.

completed
     
1809B 486 Mainboard GA-486QS Repair

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

ongoing
1809A PC Card Holder

Wooden card holder to store old ISA and PCI cards.

completed
1807A OPL2LPT Fixing

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

completed
1805A TI Software-Load Adapter

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

completed
1804A Balcony Plant-Watering System

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

completed
1802B Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Repair

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

completed
1802A Apple MacBook A1286 Repair

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.

completed
     
1711B Highscreen 486 SX-25 Laptop Repair

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.

ongoing
1711A Acrylic 386-based System

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

completed
1705A Copper Curtain Rods

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

completed
     
1504A ARC - The ARM Railroad Controller Project completed
1501B New case for Dual 1218 Record Player planned
1501A Dual 1218 Record Player Restauration

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

completed
     
1212A Starcade

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

completed
     
unkn. DIY "Dance Dance Revolution" Sensor Boards

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.

completed

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