The late 1980s saw the explosive rise of the desktop microcomputer. From the Apple II to the IBM PC. And everyone wanted a piece of the action. Both Acer and Franklin built IBM PC clones, but had radically different approaches. Find out who thrived and who withered as I explore the Acer 500+ II and …

News headline like: Test Trauma: Tantalum Terror Taunts Tech Lol, wouldn't be the first time. I fixed a Compaq Portable 386 by replacing a single tantalum. Btw, this Acer was last used by a property appraisers office in Georgia in July of 1995. Still had all it's documents, forms and spreadsheets. …

does the old controller work with the new cables ? better try it after you backed up the data on the drive :) Technically the cable that work are the originals that came with the machine. When I was testing the different controller card I was using the IBM cables it had come with. The original …

SUCCESS! I moved the eprom into it's correct position...no go. I found a replacement WD1002A controller on ebay...no go. I tried different cables...and success! The drive works perfectly and has a ton of productivity software on it! I'll make sure to image it immediately just in case. Thanks for …

kinetix wrote on 2024-03-03, 03:59: ups. sorry here it is All resistors are 5% R3 - 47k R5 - 20M R6 - 10k R17 - 220 R24 - 47k R25 - 10k R34 - 68 R35 - 330 C41 - 0.01 uF 100V ceramic C50 - 270 pF 50V ceramic C54 & c75 - 10 uF25V tantalum

Ah yes...I think you're right...leave the _index_ side four pins open. Good eye.

No, the HD68P01V07 to which the eprom is mounted. https://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/download/122455/HITACHI/HD68P01.html Looking at your first photo, the eprom should be shifted completely to the right, if i'm reading the datasheet correctly. The way it is connected now is guaranteed to …

As I mentioned, the error was while trying to low level format it. Ya, the rom is prolly fine. It had its original protective label and was facing against the bottom of the drive. Would just be nice to have something to compare it to. FYI, There's no reason the rom from a hard drive would contain …

I have some good news and some bad news. The good news it I plugged the card into my DTK Data-1000 XT clone and it appeared to work, albeit with an incorrect color palette . The bad news is I have a TL866II and it doesn't support PAL chips...only GAL/CLD/PCLD. I do have a MEGA 2560 arduino, but …

this is my card. I´ve seen 3 slightly different versions, mainly in the stencil markings, and some resistors , capacitors and inductors missing or not. one have a 20V8 instead 20L8, so is a lot harder to reverse ing. please, can you tell me the values of the components (missing in my card) …

As I mentioned, the error was while trying to low level format it. Ya, the rom is prolly fine. It had its original protective label and was facing against the bottom of the drive. Would just be nice to have something to compare it to. FYI, There's no reason the rom from a hard drive would contain …

I'm working on trying to get a 20Mb CM-3426 MFM drive from an Acer PC-500+ II working. The original MFM controller card (WD1002A-WX1) in the Acer is fried, so I replaced it with a WDXT-GEN2. It spins up fine but attempting to low level format it results in an "Error 80" immediately upon starting the …

And the jumper settings...

I recently acquired a complete Acer PC-500+. I'm currently preparing a write up comparing it to it's cousin the Franklin PC-8000. For a "clone", the differences between the two are striking. The Acer has two main cards...a CPU card and an I/O card. Here are some additional photos of the cards from …