More Apple /// japes. As predicted the 5V rail was weak. There are 4 caps on that rail but I only had spares for 2. Now I'm up to 4.6v which makes things a bit more stable and I can write disks using ADTPro, an amazing bit of software. Also look at the thick case and understand why it got hot!

Huh. Passes all the diagnostics though. Maybe it’s just my utilities disk is too warm and is being uncooperative.

First power up of the Apple /// in *counts fingers* 8 years. Took a few goes to let the caps reform but it’s now running and lasting for upwards of 3 minutes before failing. I suspect I might have to pick it up and drop it onto the bench to reset the chips. 😁

It’s an amazing machine, particularly the video board. I kind of wish I’d filmed the dance I did when I finally got it to boot 😁 Downside is I have a failed RAM board I need to work on and I have no idea how I’m going to do that. I need to redesign my riser board. This is it last year on show.

Haha it was that one (1) tube of sockets that caused the box to be that big 😆 As usual with digikey stuff I will have trouble recycling the box because it’s A Really Good Box.

UPS rocks up with my digikey order, which comes in the size of box you used to get a dozen 12” records in. I don’t remember ordering that much stuff!

Oh I do that quite a lot. Here's my table at the recent RetroFest briefly taken over by one of my 8" drives and a Greaseweazle used for imaging another exhibitor's disks.

Loading software like it’s 1999, it’s the future! Finding both a working cd writer AND blank CD-Rs was entertaining and hot.

Solar orbit complete! Level up 🍻

Of course, restart the game and it’s fine.

#lynxJapes With RetroFest 2026 done and dusted I’m having one last go on the Lynx 128 before I put it away. This corruption in the CP/M game Ladder makes me ponder if I’ve had VRAM issues all along. I didn’t test the 8x 4164 that make it up. Apologies for shaky camera 😁

As well as all the excellent exhibits I'm pleased to report the Lynx CUB and the Commodore 1084S were VERY well behaved. And I got to hold ZORK on an original 8" floppy, see a Powertran Cortex, some Russian PDP clones and dump some 8" floppies with my Greaseweazle setup. Recommended 😁

All set up ready for the hoardes! Come say hello if you’re here.

WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF 😆 WordStar 3 on the C128D, using FASTCPM as a base OS which is really just CP/M 3 optimised for the 128. I can start packing the car now.

It’s taken some fighting, words to make the vicar blush, reading, testing and IPA (which I’ve now run out of) but this COULD BE the dbc128 file copier transferring a .d71 disk image to a real floppy. I mean, it’s doing SOMETHING instead of giving me errors so it’s a start 😄

Chatting to the very excellent @tynemouthsoftware.co.uk and he inspired me to make a couple of changes to my C64-flavoured SD2IEC. Witness the SD2frankenstIEC(n). Needs more work on the name I think. It can’t work at the mo because both it and the internal 1571 are device 8. That’s for tomorrow.

I’ve held onto a NOS ‘C128 business cable’ for YEARS in the hope I’ll be able to use it one day for 80col mode. The magenta is weird though, so I’ll make a new CP/M disk along with the others. Of course, the crate already had an 80 col cable in it 😆 Software 80col must’ve been clunky?

People who donate things, I salute you. One person in particular is known as Spooky Simon and he gave me the crate of C128 stuff I dug through two hours ago on a ‘fun things’ search. C128 (not browned!) + PSU 1571 drive 1541-II drive 1541 compatible C2N modem Carts Loads of disks GEOS! Oh yes.

Time to put the #lynxJapes to bed, it’s not going to get any more fixed now, and if the Cub fails I have 2 different backup plans. Next up: this beauty. It worked when I got it last year so it should be good. Not so sure about the 1080S screen for it, but I have 5 monitors this will plug into.

#lynxJapes Today's discovery was that the Lynx 128 in CP/M mode uses the Lear-Siegler ADM-3a escape sequences. This suddenly made setting up CP/M favourites Catchum (aka 'not-pacman'), Ladder and Wordstar easy. One of my disks also has a game called 'PM' which is more Pacman than Catchum isn't.

It’s coming! Saturday has sold out, few remaining tickets for Sunday so book now and come see my Camputers Lynx 128k in cooler climes than it’s dealt with this weekend 😎

#lynxJapes Yes, it’s the slowest Zork1 ever! I found a diskdef for lynx CP/M so with cpmtools I’ve been able to make a disk containing the same ZORK binary I used for the Epson QX10. Somehow I don’t think Catchum and Ladder are going to work unless I find out what terminal is emulated.

#lynxJapes Well here we are again 🤬 The Microvitec Cub suffered frame collapse again while I was testing RS232 now that I’ve made up a proper cable. There’s only 4 components that usually cause this, and I replaced 3 of them last month. R235 and D201 are 2 of them. Let’s see if they’re well.

#lynxJapes Encouraging news for followers of the Lynx-locking-up saga - found a CMOS Z80 so stuck it in and…

#lynxJapes Serial is go! I can send keypresses from my Mac to the Lynx 128. I suspect even at 2400 baud (default) I’ll struggle to get CP/M games down though, so I need to sort hardware handshaking. How you set the configs though… 🧐 Manual says use the EXT SERIAL command, but 🤷🏻‍♂️

#lynxJapes Is YOUR Lynx 128 running a bit toasty in the power department? Get the big guns out. 😁

#lynxJapes Original PSU may be all well and good, but when it’s capable of burning your fingers that’s not so much fun. Meanwell T60B to the rescue? You don’t need -5v unless you’re using serial, so +5/+12 from this one also seems to work ok for now. More extended testing later.

#lynxJapes Today’s lesson, and indeed last week’s too, would seem to be ‘if your original PSU is melting the plastic of its case, don’t rely on a Meanwell switcher to power your classic Lynx.’ Here’s the 128k working nicely off the PSU from my 96k machine. 🙄 Why didn’t I try that first, etc.

#lynxJapes Sigh, 3 weeks to showtime and I get issues with booting the 128K from disk, or even loading the DOS ROM. Time to get down and dirty, and one thing I spot is that up in the &5500 region of code my machine is 6 bytes adrift address wise from ROM dumps. I'll dump my own ROMs later...

#lynxJapes To sanity check my disk setup I grabbed the 96k Lynx off the shelf and it works flawlessly using the same PSU so clearly the issues with the 128k are within the machine. Shame there’s no capacitors of note to blame. This is what the Union Jack demo should do.