0065 Amazing replacement PSUs for retro machines, smokin' T-Shirts and stickers, chips and more

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

Heya everyone, I had a bunch of comments on recycling. Where I live, I cannot recycle any plastic like bags, bubble wrap, etc. This would include paper padded envelopes with plastic or bubble wrap on the inside. All of this must go to the landfill. The Amazon paper mailers like you see in this are made entirely out of paper and can be recycled along with other non plastic coated cardboard and paper. It goes without saying reuse is best, as recycling isn't efficient and can create pollution, etc. I don't generally ship anything, so I don't have a need for packing materials. I do collect all the loose bubble wrap and give that to local people who do use it. They specifically told me don't want things like the padded Amazon bags though, so I have to throw those away. Where I live, I have a large recycling bin picked up weekly, but my land fill garbage bin is small and only picked up every other week. So, I recycle and compost as much as I can. I also make sure what I put in the recycle bin is actually going to be recycled. (And not thrown away at the processing center.) It is debatable how energy efficient paper recycling is (versus creating new paper products) but if paper is going to be made, it is better to come from recycled paper versus new fallen trees.

[@Brooklyn727]

If the paper mailers have foam padding in between the layers, I don’t think those are recycled either. Edit: did some research and the foam liner is a foamed glue similar to what’s used in box construction. While the glue isn’t recyclable, they claim it is removed during the paper recycling process.

[@kaitlyn__L]

It’s refreshing to see this kind of PSA against “aspirational recycling”; everyone should look into what does and doesn’t get recycled in their area. (Eg for me I can recycle polythene but not polystyrene or polypropylene.) Sometimes you can pull the plastic out off of the paper and recycle them then, but it all depends how strong the glue is (if it’s really strong some plastic will be left behind, weaker glue lets you cleanly remove all the plastic).

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

The ones I usually get from them and the one in this video aren't plastic based. They are entirely paper based including the middle layer: helios-i.mashable.com/imagery/articles/07uP7FyD0iAAjOFf2qagWEb/images-1.fill.size_1400x1400.v1611702889.png

[@unmanaged]

whats the story of your shirt ?

[@Brooklyn727]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 I think the middle layer shown is foamed glue, which isn’t recycleable but it is supposed to be removed during recycling just like the print and ink on paper. Based on Amazon’s webpage on the packaging.

[@lerkzor]

Adding my request for the 486 board repair. I LOVE that kind of content.

[@1BitFeverDreams]

Thanks for showing off my letter to you at 36:59 , it wasn't required but it's very appreciated! My channel is experiencing a mini-"slashdot" effect at the moment. I hope to be informative and entertaining to compact Mac nostalgia heads!

[@JayBlueWhisper]

Would love to see the 486 repair, really enjoy learning from your videos especially the hardware fixes and following thought the steps you go through to troubleshoot. Replaced a MOSFET on a 27" monitor today fixing it for a colleague and saving a perfectly good device from the bin (admittedly it was a bit of a hunch and the troubleshooting wasn't sound, but hey it worked) - would never have got this far without your inspiration ! Thank you for the great content, always look forward to a new video :)

[@sleveee]

i really enjoy your repair videos and wouldn't mind seeing the 486 repair.

[@whiskeyjuliet]

That ESS Audiodrive is a fantastic DOS soundcard, my prefered card for dos gaming. Fully hardware compatible with Adlib, SB Pro and SB16 it also has an extended FM synth mode called ESFM with more channels and features than the Sound Blaster. OPL implementation sounds really nice too. 👍

[@iteachtime]

I love this channel!! Thank you Adrian!

[@davidisaacs7024]

Those ULN2003s are Darlington transistor arrays...really useful when you need to have TTL or 5v controlling higher power motors or inductive loads. I'd love to see some more board repair/troubleshooting videos. I don't think you could go too wrong with any type of tech content! Thank you and keep up the great work!

[@frankowalker4662]

Those Z80 expansion chips cost a fortune over here in the U.K (especially the DART chip).. I'm so jealous. I make a lot of Z80 projects. Cool stickers.

[@cambridgemart2075]

Worth mentioning the DART is basically a dual UART

[@frankowalker4662]

@@cambridgemart2075 Yeah, I have a project for them. But I am not paying over £20 for one.

[@yeoldestuff]

The ESS ES1868F is actually better for DOS (more compatible) than SB16, and their OPL3 emulation (ESFM) is superb. The Crystal CX4235 is junk, their later CX4237 was much better. Both cards are supported by the Unisound driver which makes them very easy to get going.

[@ChudDunkly]

It seems the Crystal 4235 can vary from implementation to implementation; PhilsComputerLab had a very negative experience with his, while mine sounds fantastic in the same tests. It at least requires testing before insisting 'its junk', and maybe Adrian has time for that, maybe not, but it's worth mentioning.

[@rpavlik1]

I think what I like about your mail call videos, is it's not just opening things, I also learn stuff.

[@PapasDino]

Adrian - thanks for letting me know you got my letter and the donation is available whenever you'd like to have it. 73 - Dino KLØS

[@mogwaay]

Hi and yes from this part of the UK, I have been very much enjoying yout BBC Master series, thanks!

[@twocvbloke]

The switched socket adaptors remind me of a hilarious find (but never purchased, long gone now sadly) on ebay, and they were a UK-sized pattress (what we call the faceplate) with US sockets built into them, complete with UK-style switches as per our regular 13A sockets, they weren't inserts into a modular thing, but a whole, complete assembly in one unit, presumably they're only used in places where there's a lot of northern merkin folk (say, army bases or maybe hotels), as technically they aren't "to code" as you guys would say, kind of wish I got a couple, just because they were so odd, and looked so out of place... :P

[@microknigh7]

I'm from/in the UK. And when I stayed at my Dad's apartment (he was working in the US Motor industry for quite a few years) in Detroit back in the early 80s. I was impressed that the sockets could be switched from wall switches by the usual light switches. Which seemed to be pretty normal there. Sure we have switches on our sockets, but you have to be able to get to the socket LOL I guess that is less of an issue with automated home stuff these days.

[@davepost7675]

Regarding the power plug with the switch. I used to have a rice cooker that didn't have an on/off switch. My wife used it frequently. So over time, the plugging and unplugging eventually wore out the outlet. I replace the outlet and bought a cable that had the switch on it. The cable was NOT an extension cable, but basically was an extension only for the on/off switch and the remainder looked very much the same as your switched outlets. Very useful especially if the outlet is in a hard to reach location.

[@Klodvig105]

7:27 - Probably not a huge issue with really old batteries but in case you toss some fresh ones in there: It's a good idea to tape off the terminals of old batteries before tossing them in a bin in to prevent any shorts and batteries heating up.

[@AndyHullMcPenguin]

The DE-220 should be NE-2000 compatible. We used tons of them back in the day. It was a very common card, and there may also be native dos DE-220 drivers for them.

[@solarbirdyz]

okay, the bad caps T-shirt is nice, but the stickers are _really_ great. that's the right form factor for this and i love it.

[@Chriva]

The ESS cards are among the better in terms of emulation. You will be surprised :)

[@DerekWitt]

I still have an ESS1869 ISA sound card in a drawer. Probably still works.

[@thewi2kbug]

I miss my ESS cards :-(

[@BEXYSPC]

Yep very good compatibility and a pretty good FM Synth too :)

[@Chriva]

@@BEXYSPC I'd even say i prefer it over the actual part (less hiss and noise) but that does mean it's not identically sounding. Very close tho :)

[@TechieandrewB]

OH my when you said you don't have your Gravis Ultrasound any more, you hit a chord with me. I had one from when they first came out and I sold it around 1998 . I so wish I had held on to it along with my 3DFX Voodoo card just to enjoy them both now. Gravis and ATI great Canadian success stories that are sorely missed today.

[@Renville80]

Yes those CDM 6116 are SRAM… 2K x 8. We had a couple customers at my work that had that IC on the processor cards we built for them, and when refurbishing older boards returned for servicing, we would often pull the old coin battery and the SRAM and put a shiny new Dallas chip in its place.

[@joysticksnjukeboxes]

I love those on/off switches. I have a flat panel tv that has issues powering on because of other things plugged into its USB/HDMI etc. playing havoc. With those switches I can truly cut things off and keep them from making mischief.

[@exidy-yt]

I miss my GUS too, Adrian. I even shelled out for the RAM expansion to 1mb to fit all those lovely wavetables on it. And for most games SBOS was a surprisingly capable software emulation for Sound Blaster. What a great soundcard it was, and Advanced Gravis's HQ was only about 10km away from me in Burnaby, B.C. as well, at the time.

[@tim1724]

Yes, the IIGS power supply is interchangeable with the 8-bit Apple II power supplies. However, the motherboard has a different power connector. So the only difference is the connector used to plug the power supply into the motherboard. The ROM 00/ROM 01 motherboard has a space to solder in an older-style power connector. Some early boards came with it pre-populated at the factory (including all the boards that were sold for Apple IIe -> IIGS upgrades, as you'd re-use your Apple IIe power supply in that case) but later ROM 01 boards left it unpopulated and the connector was eliminated entirely from the ROM 3 motherboard. (The ROM 00/01 motherboard also had a place to mount the IIe keyboard connector, which was also similarly eliminated from the ROM 3 motherboard.) And no, I have no idea why they changed the connector on the IIGS power supply. Especially when they went and put both connectors on the early boards anyway. 🤷🏻‍♂

[@Renville80]

The ULN2003A are transistor arrays, useful for level shifting. Again, a couple customers at my work used these in their I/O cards… enabled driving 12 volt loads from 5V. They have become a bit scarce (as well as the 8 transistor version, the 2803A), so hang onto those.

[@communalnoodle1356]

Definately keen for a 486 board repair video

[@tomjackson2068]

Yes! a rpair vid on that mb is a must! :) As is the testing of those cards! Tysvm

[@GeekmanCA]

I'm glad you love the shirts Adrian! An amber Mac Classic? Sounds like a "Golden Delicious" Apple to me. 😁 The stickers are unfortunately not generally available yet because I don't have a print-to-sale solution for them yet (Though I've given some away for free on Mastodon). If there's enough interest I could look into options for selling them.

[@rager-69]

Awesome stickers!

[@RonLauzon]

I'm interested in getting some stickers.

[@Dukefazon]

Yes please, fix that motherboard on video! Sure, do some card testing! I go to my local fleamarket and get some cards if I can, various graphics cards of older types and sound cards, I'm especially fond of ISA sound cards for some reason. I usually test video cards with Duke3D, because I started testing with Doom and it wasn't pushing the cards, I missed a RAM issue on one of the cards with Doom that Duke3D made apparent. Testing soundcards is a bit more tricky with the drivers, right now I have one of those cards that has a Crystal chip on it and I tested a couple with ESS chips, the ESS chips worked fine, I'm having issues with the one that has the Crystal chip, no matter what driver I use, it recognizes the card but can't start it up. I replaced 3 capacitors that looked squished, maybe that will help but I haven't tested the card since the cap replacement.

[@fuentescgabriel]

There are two jumpers on that multi IO floppy connector... 13:50

[@kdrum90]

ESS AudioDrive cards were notable for catching static discharges in their input/output signal lines. Usually this caused an intermittent fault that distorted the sound not only in the affected line, but also in others. A “fix” was to discharge a capacitor charged to 15 V by applying it to the affected lines. In other words, some ESS-based cards had no proper ESD protection, and the one in the video seems to be affected.

[@michaelalvey1065]

it would be nice to see an in-depth trace repair video. That 486 board would be a good candidate.

[@NickCharles]

On off switches are super useful. I actually have a few smart plugs I keep around strictly for remote on/off function. Some even track power consumption which has come in handy a few times to track down some misbehaving devices.

[@fattomandeibu]

Even here in England, those plugs with the on/off switches would be pretty useful(well, if they were British plugs, but you get what I mean) as 4 and 6 way power strips typically don't have power switches for each plug.

[@j.f.christ8421]

Reminds me of the recent-ish Technology Connections video where he was dumbfounded as to why anyone would want switched outlets. You'd think all nerds understand the reason why, guess there's always an exception. Here in Australia switched powerboards are pretty common.

[@jaycee1980]

It took me a bit of doing to find a 6 way with switches for my workbench, indeed! I almost gave up and was ready to abuse some standard 13A double outlets...

[@fattomandeibu]

@@j.f.christ8421 After a quick look at Argos they seem common(at least for 4 ways) here, too, but all mine are like 30 or 40 years old.

[@j.f.christ8421]

@@fattomandeibu Aldi often have switched powerboards (usually with USB as well). They had a 6-way version here in Oz recently.

[@panopolis8051]

hope you do a trace repair video for that 486 motherboard

[@EnvAdam]

26:30 I need these stickers!

[@more.power.]

Thanks Adrian for a great video. Cheers

[@chuckthetekkie]

When testing the IDE/Floppy controller don't forget to remove those 2 white jumpers inside the floppy connector in case they shouldn't be left there. I don't know the pin out so I don't know if that would cause something to go poof. Just figured I'd mention it in case you didn't see them. Also I emailed you a while back about these IC socket pin headers I bought for a project but I can't use them as they are a bit too tall for what I was going to use them for. They are yours if you want them. They are the round pin type. Yes show us the repair of that motherboard and card testing.

[@CoreyDeWalt]

I was wondering why those jumpers were even in the floppy connector...hmm

[@jjock3239]

I love the T-shirts and the bad caps!

[@AntonyTCurtis]

The ESS Audiodrive was one of the early SB clones which did not have thumps/clicks when turning on/off the DAC

[@mikehaas543]

Sorry to let you know but the 27c010 is a One Time Programable(OTP) EPROM

[@makskk6spm275]

Would be great to see this video about recovery of 486 motherboard. Thank you!

[@Dinnye01]

Matt's a chill dude 😂

[@lightmagick]

I definitely would like to see a repair video on that 486 motherboard, I don't know why but those are very satisfying.

[@markevans2294]

IIRC the Z80 DART (Dual uART) is version of the Z80 SIO (Serial I/O) that only supports asynchronous serial. Whilst having the same pin out and programming interface. Zilog omitted the synchronous serial parts of the die to make a cheaper device.

[@PaulMiller-mn3me]

You should label that dead battery container as “BADDERIES”

[@tubeutubeuful]

boom tish

[@mikehaas543]

6116 is a 2k x 8 static ram like the ones used in some vic 20 and the radio shack mc-10 pluse many other machines created before the use of 4116 dynamic ram

[@infamousacidrain]

Yes, repair video for the 486. And test out those isa sound cards.

[@jpnc2319]

ESS Sound Card would be fully compatible with IBM OS/2 2.1 and 3.0 WARP. With that card you can make work an IDE cdrom that only works through Sound cards like creative, mitsumi or funai electric cdrom drives.

[@anotheruser9876]

Why not add the date to the note on items to be repaired like you did at 16:19 so you can always look back at your own footage?

[@JapanPop]

Fix, fix, fix the 486! I had that board back in the day!

[@AlienFrog648]

Please, make that 486 board repair video. Looks like some traces are completely gone, good that they still can be tracked.

[@infamousacidrain]

I’ve heard those ESS isa cards are solid cards. It might depend on which chip. I’ve also heard good things about the Crystal card. They’re definitely a cheaper option than a real sound blaster.

[@Estaran]

I still own a Macintosh Classic II that was gifted to me as a child in the early 90s. Tried firing it up some years ago, but it had a problem with the PSU. I guess the PicoPSU for the Mac SE/30 is the right one to choose for the Classic II as well?

[@erickvond6825]

As a note towards safety, you should only quick charge your devices if it's critical that they be charged quickly. Otherwise you can cause damage to the battery which may or may not be fixable. Since many devices don't have a way to replace the LiPo cell this can cause major problems when it swells up inside the device. It will at very least shorten the lifespan of the cell.

[@cappaculla]

Adrian, Anker sent those cables !!!🤣

[@francoisbeaulieu179]

What makes you say that?

[@cappaculla]

​@@francoisbeaulieu179 Oh boy , I'm guessing you don't do sarcasm/dark humour ? OR you might be French ​

[@francoisbeaulieu179]

@@cappaculla well, sarcasm IS tough to read sometimes. But if you think that was dark humour, then I have some bad news for you sunshine…

[@dennisbartello7682]

The D-Link has a puffy cap near the barcode. I thought I might point it out for troubleshooting purposes.

[@JasonHalversonjaydog]

watching your video not expecting to get shopping ideas but instead added two items to my amazon cart! the phone cord and those ouitlet switches. I had a phone cord that came with my phone that did fast charging but all my other ones do slow charging. i didn't know i couuld buy a higher wattage cord to to use as my spare cord. now i can fast charge no mattter what room i'm in

[@Renville80]

And I didn’t realize that HC series don’t really play nice with TTL designs… I have a project that I ended up abandoning because I simply could never get it working. I will have to revisit my notes on the boards I reverse engineered and my project BOM. Thank you for that tip Adrian.

[@johnharmer394]

I bought some of these for my Mac Plus Computers, Will be interested to see how you fare with them. Haven't Assembled them yet.

[@DerekWilsonProgrammer]

ESS Audiodrive was one of the better sound blaster clones. It emulated a sound blaster very well, and I used to run one in my system, never had any issue with any games.

[@stanguay169]

A card test video would be fun to watch! 😉

[@davidholloway1042]

Please do a repair on that 486 motherboard you showed on today's SMMC

[@CartoonMonkeyStudio]

I so want a PicoPSU for my Amiga 1200! I might have to build one in a 3d printed enclosure. (With a fan)

[@stevencamp6824]

The switched plugs are cool

[@cambridgemart2075]

74HC4xxx devices are CMOS 4xxx series, so the 74HC4067 is a 4067 analogue mux chip

[@gilbert1975nf]

20:50 - you bet! I wanna see a video about repair

[@horusfalcon]

Looks like fodder for some upcoming videos of high instructional quality! I want to see that 486 board come to life.

[@GigAHerZ64]

Crystal's FM is hit-and-miss, but ESS' ESFM is a superset of OPL - a bit different sounding, yet perfectly fine and games that support ESFM specifically (like Warcraft 2) can give you superior music quality over classic OPL. I've come to love ESS cards - no SB bugs, fully compatible and even has some "additional special features", like ESFM.

[@Arcadenut1]

6116 = SRAM (2K x8). Used in a lot of Arcade Games.

[@HuntersMoon78]

Those stickers are great.

[@TheThomasites]

Those bags are recyclable along with the grocery plastic bags.

[@FitzkeeLab]

Do the switches on the wall adapters cut the hot or the neutral line? It'd be good to check.

[@BestSpatula]

So the Mac SE/30 PSU adapter is cool. However, I have yet to find a PicoPSU that can supply -12V at the 0.5A that the original PSU does. Does anyone know if this machine actually needs 0.5A for this rail? The PicoRC page for the SE/30 adapter shows photos of one working, so that makes me wonder if the 0.1A is enough. I want to make an SE/30 battery powered with an internal battery bank and pass-through-charging.

[@scotttait2197]

My ocd is kicking in, wish you'd put the velcro straps back on lol

[@asanjuas]

I'd like more videos on testing and repair of a pc mainboards :)

[@patprop74]

uln2003 often used as Unipolar stepper motor drivers

[@idahofur]

I'm pretty sure I have said this before. I'm not sure of the exact 3com model number anymore. People would purchase the 3com cards to install into windows 95. They would purchase them since the driver was included. If you got the special card. You had to put the card in after installing windows 95. If not the install would get stuck trying to load a driver for it. I dubbed the techs that did that lazy back then. Now I'm not arguing anything about the quality of the card. But, on most of those cards. If you loaded the card driver and not use the built in Windows driver or ne2000 driver. Not all but some would almost double the speed for file transfers. Worth it when running at only 10mbits.

[@pupaepedorra]

I am up for the motherboard repair video.

[@SomeMorganSomewhere]

Yeah, I had several ESS audiodrive cards back in the day, they were a nightmare to get the right drivers for :/

[@cacheman]

13:00 There's a place on-line trying to sell that DE-220e for 544euros, so better put it in your safe!

[@davidknoll]

I think the smoking RIFA capacitors in the stickers should be holding a joint.

[@michaelwood9866]

hey adrian! i was wondering if you have some room for some hardcards 1 and 2? i have 6 total and don't have the hardware to test them.

[@oldguy9051]

18:42 The AT27C010 is NOT an EEPROM! The 27 always signals an EPROM and this particular variant is a "one-time programmable" (OTP) EPROM. Without a window it can't be erased with UV light but there are electrical differences, too. This variant usually can be electrically erased and programmed ONCE, though, so you may have luck with BBC computer. If you need a true EEPROM you should look at 28 or 29 series chips.

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

How annoying Atmel called it a "one-time programmable, read-only memory (OTP EPROM)" -- when in all other instances, the term EPROM means erasable programmable read only memory. So the Atmel chip should be called a OTP PROM...... anyway no point in keeping those around then as they are surely already programmed once. I have a bunch of UV erasable EPROMs of the 27C010 variants luckily.

[@oldguy9051]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 You can always try to OTP them! I got some from tearing down old stuff myself and experimented with them, using the ubiquituous 866 programmer. I could indeed program some of them once, but never twice. Others were already "ROMs"... In the end I discarded them as I have lots of EPROMs and EEPROMs but no need of PROMs.

[@domramsey]

How about doing a PC build video using all donated parts? Either build a really nice DOS machine that has a use for yourself, or maybe a machine that could be auctioned for charity? Have you ever done a build video before?

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

Haven't ever done a build video like that. Could definitely be fun!

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

That is nuts!

[@niiabukweayi1073]

Yes please can you do something with the 486 board Thank you....

[@tstahlfsu]

Where did that shirt come from??? Hahahaha awesome

[@PrinsessePeach]

I always treat my cables well, but some cables (especially from Apple….) just either stop working correctly or disintegrates.

[@Arcadenut1]

The ULN2003xxx chips look like they are Power Relay chips. (Seven Darlington Arrays)

[@Hiraghm]

Cascadia appears to be undergoing cascade failure... :D

[@UpLateGeek]

LOL I think someone has shares in Anker! 😆

[@danielpetrov9179]

ESS ES1868F is more Soundblaster compatible than Soundblaster itself.

[@1234rtyoip]

love the shirt! i knew you had a dark side....

[@EShirako]

Super-mini mail call, huh? Oh look, only 40 minutes long! This is a short one! :D

[@idio-syncrasy]

I freakin love it💚

[@wearwolf2500]

It depends where you live but at least here the plastic bubble wrap mailers are recyclable. The paper bubble wrap mailers aren't recyclable because they have plastic and paper that can't be separated by the recycling system.

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

The plastic stuff isn't recyclable here. The amazon paper bags you see here aren't the yellow type with paper + plastic bubble wrap inside. They are entirely made out of paper and are recyclable like cardboard.

[@wearwolf2500]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 huh, it's surprising that Portland would be so limited in their plastic recycling

[@TheBeardedDog]

I would also love to see the 486 board repair. It is surprising about the plastic bags. Here in Texas, you can recycle plastic bags at the grocery store, but not with curbside recycling nor at the city recycle center.. They have a bin out front where you can drop them off on your way in to shop.

[@I_am_Allan]

Even with the Anker/Eufy spying ... you still like the brand?

[@omidlara4838]

si por favor!, do a 486 repair video!