0042 A mysterious Z180 single board computer, RGB on my Panasonic Omni TV, and some fancy flux

[@szogun112]

chips and sbc from Poland was from me :D

[@8o86]

what is the sbc?

[@ericwazhung]

Those ceramic chips are beautiful!

[@Rafael-fw1xk]

To napisz od czego ta płyta z tym z80?

[@szogun112]

​@@Rafael-fw1xk od jakiejs starej maszyny cnc co dokladnie to bylo nie wiem

[@Rafael-fw1xk]

@@szogun112 przeczytałem wcześniej w komentarzach że prawdopodobie jest to komp przemysłowy i widzę że jednak to prawda. Ile zapłaciłeś za wysyłkę do USA? Jak to nie tajemnica

[@DIPPY16]

18:49 Greetings from Poland! Yeah the tape on packing says "Do not throw!" :). It's awesome to see that someone have sent you package from Poland and it reached you. Greetings!

[@tw11tube]

I looked into that Z180 ROM with a disassembler. The device seems to be a 3.5" floppy interface, controlled via the serial port. It provides file-level access and supports the standard DOS 720KB and 1440KB FAT formats only.

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

Ah interesting -- so yes, confirms this was 100% used as a floppy interface for industrial machines. Thanks!

[@jjosetheman]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 It can also be connected to a terminal to communicate. It has tx/rx built on the processor. I am sure if you trace the tx/rx you can figure out where it connects on the pins. You can reprogram it for other uses. the GAL20V8 is probably what controls the address, data, and I/O for the board. The X24C44 is a static RAM and its probably interfaced with the tx/rx. I am going based on the parts that I found online.

[@vkristof1]

Yea, I was wondering why the 5pin right angle header looked familiar: 3.5" floppies use them. Regarding the serial port, the old 1488's companion chip is the 1489 (RX)which is right below the 1488 (TX). RS232 levels are bipolar around ground. The floppy power connector could provide the +12V, but you'd still need an -12V rail, maybe produce by that 555 timer chip and the discrete components nearby. The two orange caps near the 1488 are probably bulk caps for the + and -12 V. The use of the Z180 (Z80 with onboard peripherals and an MMU) in the mid1990s is questionable from the standpoint of longevity. I designed the Z180 into equipment in the late 1980s and, in retrospect, should have gone with something from a bigger company than Zilog. SMC was acquired by Microchip about a decade ago. Surprisingly, Mcrochip's SMC continued selling some flavors of the FDC chips into the 2010s. Microchip itself traces it's history back to the General Instrument Semiconductor Division, who made the 1970s vintage UARTs (AY-whatever) that appear in some of the other videos of vintage PCBAs. GI Semiconductor made the awfully-primitive PIC microcontrollers in the '70 & '80s. The current Microchip continues using "PIC" branding for their diverse microcontroller family in the present day.

[@jandjrandr]

That is exactly what I thought it was based on the board contents. Having worked in manufacturing, it is common to get dev kits and "jigs" that were used during development and/or on the assembly lines.

[@douro20]

The Z180 is an enhanced Z80 which is designed more like a system-on-chip as it integrates the functions of many of the available support chips. It also has two built-in UARTs and a 20-bit MMU which allows it to address up to 1MB of memory. It was basically Zilog's answer to the Hitachi HD64180 which is a very similar chip, and it actually has an HD64180 compatibility mode.

[@danaeckel5523]

I remember a circuit cellar in Byte magazine featured a lunchbox CP/M computer with the HD64180 chip.

[@Dr_Mario2007]

Intel 80186 was also made the same way too, I remember seeing the 80186 in Ford's old Econoline van ECU I took apart to see what makes it tick.

[@niyablake]

@@Dr_Mario2007 z180 is but more advanced than intel 186. But the 186 was almost exclusively embed CPU

[@juliedunken1150]

@@niyablake lol , z180 more advanced then the 80186? Lol you are no engineer, the 186 is far more advanced then the 8 bit z180.. lol check yourself before you post😊 Adrian is wrong to call the z180 a 16 bit Version, it is most certainly 8 bit.

[@dale116dot7]

@@Dr_Mario2007 If it was in the ECU, it would have been either an Intel 8061 or 8065. The 8061 was used from the very early 1980s into the early to mid 1990s, with the 8065 replacing it.

[@yeoldestuff]

К565РУ1 (K565RU1) is a Soviet clone of TMS4060. This was the first Soviet DRAM chip using NMOS technology. Clearly an early specimen, because they quickly went from ceramic to plastic for cost-cutting reasons.

[@bjn714]

Angstrem is the name of the actual manufacturer behind it, and considering they were cloning everything Intel released nearly 1:1 at the time, it is probably more accurate to claim it a clone of the Intel C2107A (or just 2107A, but this is ceramic too, so I may as well go ceramic to ceramic). But given that the TMS4060, Intel 2107A, and National Semiconductor's MM5280 are all functionally and pin identical, there was a LOT of cloning going on decades before we ever got Dolly the sheep.

[@yeoldestuff]

@@bjn714 I think the story behind this one was that they were building a PDP-11 clone at the time and needed to clone this memory chip because it was used by the PDP-11.

[@fhunter1test]

There are different cases for those chips. And case type is reflected in first two letters in chip marking: К and КР (one is for plastic version, another for ceramics).

[@Vortagh]

The 63607 Wbach is the zip code of Wächtersbach - which is obviously what the Wbach has been shorted to (you'd usually see abreviations lke this as W'bach, W'tal, or D'dorf here (for Wuppertal and Düsseldorf resp.), the city that MSI was located in, here in Germany. The stuff under the connector just says MSI GmbH (a German form of Ltd.) and the rest are probably the initials of the guy who made them. The address is a residence, so this was probably a garage company, common that time for hardware places. Big Book of Amiga Hardware is full of companies like this. Sadly no mention of MSI. Sorry, couldn't find any other info for you. If you find anything else, feel free to just reply here. :-)

[@burretploof]

Searching MSI FSS 3.5 actually nets a result. It seems to be part of a "Floppy Subsystem" made by MSI GmbH. I found a listing for it on eBay.

[@Vortagh]

@GSII Sp64b yup and the fact that it is a five-digit zip code, confirms that it was made in 95. Older stuff from them that I have seen, still used the four digit zip codes that went out of use in 93.

[@Vortagh]

@@burretploof yeah found that too. It has a v.24 serial port, which is much bigger than the usual RS port nowadays, so maybe that'll help with pin mapping that board. But industrial boards are so individual, rare and (at least to us normal users) not-documented, that I fear this will be a very very hard task. For example, what do those jumpers do? What about the dip switch? Has anything there been set wrong, while someone played around with it? Are all the jumpers still where they belong? Are there even all the jumpers that SHOULD be there? Good luck finding that out!

[@kpanic23]

Yup, found them. And their phone number. MSI apparently stands for "Microcomputer Software Interfacebau". I'm pretty sure those folks will get a *lot* of phone calls tomorrow... :D

[@Aeduo]

@@Vortagh Looks like the board is maybe simple enough to find a lot of that out. Might be heavily software driven though and would require disassembly of the ROM?

[@SimonEllwood]

The Z180 has two serial ports built in and many other peripherals. The board will be an industrial single board computer with floppy drives.

[@Charlesb88]

That Japanese RGB connector you showed is officially known as the Digital RGB input connector (D8A2). It supports 8 and 16 colors and was used on the old MSX microcomputer standard that was popular in Japan in the 80s but never caught on here. Fujitsu, General NEC, Pioneer, and Sharp all produced MSX computers that used it.

[@jameshearne891]

If the SBC is using 1488 and 1489 chips for the RS232 buffers then the board is going to need +12V and -12V supplys to power them, without those extra supplys you wont see anything on the serial port. You could look on the inputs to the output buffer chip to see if there is any TTL data there.

[@davidwillmore]

He could trace the 1488 and 1489 lines to whatever connector is nearby. Also note that the Z180 has a bunch of peripheral devices built in including a serial port.

[@Mrshoujo]

*supplies

[@scottlarson1548]

There's a 1488 chip on the board. That's where I would start looking for serial activity.

[@russellhltn1396]

Good point. I'd suggest measuring the voltage on the chip. There's always a possibility that the voltages are generated onboard from the +5, but not likely for that vintage. Plus, it should be easy to ohm out where the outputs are going.

[@MrPongoSapiens]

From wikipedia (for accuracy - I half remembered most of this): "The Zilog Z180 eight-bit processor is a successor of the Z80 CPU. It is compatible with the large base of software written for the Z80.[1] The Z180 family adds higher performance and integrated peripheral functions like clock generator, 16-bit counters/timers, interrupt controller, wait-state generators, serial ports and a DMA controller.[2] It uses separate read and write strobes, sharing similar timings with the Z80 and Intel processors.[3] The on-chip memory management unit (MMU) has the capability of addressing up to 1 MB of memory.” Note that it has built in serial port controllers.

[@douglashornick4388]

You are very welcome Adrian. I’m glad that the cable works well for you. You never know about stuff from back in the 80s. I bought that cable in 1988 from Pony’s Electronics in Fussa City Japan when I was stationed at Yokota Air Base. 😊

[@janmos5178]

CEMI, this is a polish chip. This acronym can be translated as Scientific and Manufacturing Center for Semiconductors. This was in 1970-94 Poland's main manufacturer of integrated circuits. In general, they manufactured: discrete components (diodes and transistors, first germanium and later (from 1971) silicon), bipolar integrated circuits (TTL), unipolar integrated circuits (CMOS), and including microprocessor chips like the Polish version of the Intel 8080 8-bit microprocessor called MCY7880, as well as memory and calculator chips (from wiki). It was a state-owned enterprise. It was part of the state-owned UNITRA corporation. One of the main electronics manufacturers in Poland, also a state-owned company. Both companies no longer exist with UNITRA leftovers. Greetings.

[@EddieSheffield]

Looks like that video connector may have been used on the MSX computers / monitors. I found a few different designations of it - D8A2, 8-pin EIAJ, Hirose Connector. Apparently used also on a lot of old VTRs. At least that's what I was able to turn up in a few searches, but hopefully that helps if you want more info on it.

[@tekvax01]

From the 1960s, these 8-pin rectangular connectors are called “Honda connectors" Sometimes they are also referred to as an EIAJ 8-pin video monitor connectors. The 1991 Sony catalogue refers to them as Male 8-pin plug VMC cable part 1-506-161-00, the Female 8-pin plug VMC cable part 1-509-113-00, and Premade 8-pin male to 8-pin male cables; VMC-3P (3 metres), or VMC-5P for a 5-metre cable. I use to have an entire box of both the male and female 8-pin EIAJ connectors.

[@mybigfatpolishlife]

I found this info about the 186 on Wikipedia. The 80186 series was generally intended for embedded systems, as microcontrollers with external memory. Therefore, to reduce the number of integrated circuits required, it included features such as clock generator, interrupt controller, timers, wait state generator, DMA channels, and external chip select lines.

[@the_beefy1986]

I was flummoxed by one of those strain relief things while repairing a vacuum cleaner the other day. Replacing the part took 3 minutes. Getting the strain relief part back on took 20 more.

[@Renville80]

One other thing. Some fluxes ARE conductive, so you may want to probe a board with a fresh flux deposit to see how well it conducts. If the ohmmeter even ‘registers’ a reading, make sure it’s ALL cleaned! We just had a warranty return of some power supplies that are potted that all had to go in the bin due to flux contamination causing them to fail hi-pot testing. ☹️

[@adamw.8579]

CEMI was Polish semiconductor manufacturer from Warsaw. UCY was prefix for TTL logic ICs. For curiosity - they produced Intel 8080 clone named MCY7880. Regards from Poland.

[@charlesjmouse]

The Z180 is a pretty cool little SOC - I designed and built an RC2014 compatible computer around one with a superset of the Amstrad PCW expansion bus so I could plug all sorts of stuff in to it including a variant of the MXS2+ expansion board I designed for my Coleco ADAM... ...funnily enough I got distracted just as I finished it and never got round to trying it out. Now where did I put it..? That SBC is probably a complete computer. Pretty sure the Z180 contains the entire Z80 chipset including serial. If not broken I bet there's an FTDI connection on one of those headers. Hook it up to a serial terminal, apply power, and you may well have life. One of those headers might take the DOM that came with it and if you're lucky it might have an OS on it if not in ROM. Hey, you might even be able to run a variant of RC2014 CP?M on it for a seriously quick hobby computer.

[@BG101UK]

The tool for cable strain reliefs we referred to as "Heyco". I have two different sized tools branded as such, for the ones we used in manufacturing. Those strain-reliefs are actually very effective and, as you've discovered, are rather difficult to remove without damaging them (or possibly the cable or back of the case) without the proper tool. I can understand why some people dislike them! It takes a bit of effort to fit them as well, a PITA when you're chasing the clock.

[@davidknoll]

The 80186 is also found in the RM Nimbus (popular in UK schools at the time). The incompatibility between the 80186 and PCs is in the onboard peripherals- there's not much to stop you disregarding the 80186's onboard peripherals and designing a clone around it with a normal PC chipset.

[@herrbonk3635]

The main problem, iirc, was the cascading of two 8059 "interrupt controllers" to one of the 80286 interrupt lines in the IBM AT design.

[@Evhen_Velikiy]

Amtech 559 - is AMAZING flux! My favorite of all I've used over the years. But beware, its better to remove it while its hot, otherwise use lightened benzine to dissolve it.

[@Walczyk]

Why don’t you like the very thin mg chemicals flux? It’s thin like iso

[@InssiAjaton]

The SBC resembles quite a bit the one that I still have. Mine is built with Hitachi version of the Z180 rather than Zilog version. It was done by Micromint, with a Monitor program (sort of BIOS) by Ken Davidson. The operating system in my unit is Richard Conns ZCPR. I have two floppy units and a hard drive. By the way, I don't recall exact details, but the company Micromint was related to Steve Ciarcia and his Circuit Cellar. And Steve of course was the DIY computer and general electronics guru at the McGraw Hill publication Byte, until Byte balked at some or too many large (multi page) Circuit Cellar articles. At some time (a year or so, maybe) I was listed at the masthead of the independent Magazine by same Circuit Cellar name that Steve started after leaving Byte, as a 'Contributing Editor', just because I participated in discussions at their Bulletin Board. I consider that undeserved honor, but let Ken have it his way as long as it continued.

[@cjh0751]

KZbinr Northridge fix recommends the Amtech 559 flux. He says you can never apply too much of this great flux. His videos are great. Such a pro.

[@IanSlothieRolfe]

An interesting thing about the 4kx1 DRAM chips I read in a newsletter in the late 1970's was that someone discovered that if you de-lidded a ceramic chip, it could be used as a 64x64 image sensor! I think the technique was to focus the image onto the DRAM array, write ones to every location, and read the device at time intervals, the photoelectric effect causing the cells to discharge to zero. later, larger chips like the 16k ones had several arrays of cells so couldn't produce an image without missing parts. If you read the data on several occasions you could get a grayscale image, and if you shone a light wash onto the array you could adjust the sensitivity and contrast, giving you robot eyes that glowed in the dark, as the excited writer of the article pointed out! I read this in an enthusiast newsletter that was collated, printed and sent out by a local company from articles submitted by electronics clubs (I suppose it was the UK equivalent to Dr Dobbs Journal of the time) and came monthly as 20ish pages of photocopies stapled together... The same newsletter also showed once a 3 chip computer based on the 8085 and the support chips that Intel designed for it, which at the time was revolutionary. Unfortunately it only lasted for a short while before it became a subscription service and me being a schoolboy couldn''t afford subscribing to it.

[@markevans2294]

IIRC a Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) is effectively a DRAM with a transparent cover optimised to work as an image sensor. Complications with using a 4116 or 4164 this way include the address multiplexing as well as the memory array being divided into two rectangular blocks.

[@JohnDlugosz]

Yes, when memory was larger I read an article about repurposing check-failed memory chips as camera chips, where a single (or a few) bad cells may fall in the margin or be tolerable. Many years later, Canon decided to use a CMOS chip fort their new dSLR camera, which was controversial at the time.

[@michaelmichalski4588]

I've had the same experience ordering parts, not just for electronics but for appliances, automobiles, and portable generators.

[@chrisrichard298]

At the supply house I used to work at we called those "Strain reliefs" Heyco bushings. They make a whole load of different products, but those are probably their most common.

[@InssiAjaton]

Another brand I recall was Richco.

[@TzOk]

Don't know the card, but UCY74H40 is not a CMOS, but a high-speed TTL logic chip, and it was made by CEMI (a subdivision of UNTIRA), not GEMI ;)

[@enzofitzhume7320]

You will LOVE the Amtech flux. Keep in mind they make many different types of flux.

[@adamw.8579]

This one is resin based no clean type, perfect for reworking and repairing.

[@saf271828]

The 80186 incompatibility with PCs comes from the fact that some of the I/O ports are pre-assigned inside the chip, and they conflict with some ports used on the PC. Also, the DMA engine on the 186 is different from the DMA chip used on the PC. In terms of instruction set, IIRC, the "POP CS" opcode (which is useless, if you think about it) was repurposed to be a prefix for extending the instruction set. If you ever see instructions that start with 0F, that's the old POP CS instruction of the 8088/8086.

[@JohnDlugosz]

Yes, it is interesting that DOS/BIOS uses interrupt vectors in conflict with Intel's /reserved/ status. Upward compatibility wasn't really a thing yet. BTW, that explains one interesting effect, how a crashed system might start spewing stuff out of the printer in an infinite loop. One of the new instructions was to do a range check, and if derailed PC happened to hit that byte for this opcode, and the random arguments failed the bounds check, it would issue an IRQ 5 (IIRC) which had been reserved for that purpose. But Microsoft used it for the Print Screen feature. So, the randomly executing code would get stuck hammering on the PrtScr key.

[@michaelmichalski4588]

I believe those ports are relocatable and the peripherals can be disabled. So you COULD make a 100% PC compatible with a 80188/186. But I can't imagine anyone would do that because the whole point of using one is the onboard peripherals like DNA controllers and timers.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I have such a soft spot for the 186. IIRC Amstrad used them for a while because they were cheaper. I know it’s “a microcontroller” but still. (To that end, even today, an Arduino computer hits my heart in a similar way.) I’m also very fond of those pink ceramic Soviet chips. Where lots of western ceramic ICs used a deep purple after moving-on from white, the USSR went pale pink.

[@yukisaitou5004]

For any viewers in the UK looking for a cheaper/more easily obtainable alternative to the Amtech Flux, I've had good results with Warton Metals' SMT Rework Jelly. They also have the Nexus line specifically for Lead Free solder.

[@pcwrangler09]

I can vouch for the Amtech flux. My micro-soldering skills improved drastically when I changed brands. Expensive but worth it.

[@adamw.8579]

I used Amtech RMA223 (equivalent for Alpha RMA7) flux to BGA reworking, perfect for tin-lead based soldering/balls. For Adrian is also best because old equipment is soldered with tin-lead aloys.

[@steelplasma256]

My college soldering class always used Isopropyl Alcohol to clean Flux. Safe on the PCB, safe on the skin. But you probably already knew that. Edit: we would put the soldered board in Tupperware filled with IPA and used soft bristled Toothbrushes to gently clean.

[@juliedunken1150]

IPA is my favorite beer. Thumbs up to you school for picking the IPA! Did they provide a few for each student to drink as well? I HOPE SO ! Woot!

[@poofygoof]

"safe" is relative and dependent on the concentration. I've had 99% IPA temporarily remove fingerprints from my fingers.

[@juliedunken1150]

@@poofygoof IPA’s is some of the best beers out there

[@fhunter1test]

@@poofygoof I washed my share of PCBs and well, 99% IPA degreases skin and everything where it goes, to the point of getting white-ish fingernails and skin problems. It goes away with time, but just pointing out.

[@TheRattlebunny]

Nice video, my curiosity is piqued. Mystery computers are something I love myself. Thanks for taking us along for the adventure. 👍👍

[@crazyedo9979]

My guess for the "sbc" is that it is used to make a standard 3,5" floppy drive usable to interface an industrial machine or a cnc computer. This may be the reason why there is so little to find out about this.😁

[@RetroJack]

7:50 Love the registration info! 🤣🤣

[@rafaelgruber6133]

The SBC seems to have something to do with a company named MSI in Germany in 63607 Wächtersbach "Computer MSI GmbH Mikrocomputer Software Interfacebau"...

[@MonochromeWench]

I have found those part websites useful to get the official part numbers for things that can then be used to find the part used from somewhere else or for findng details from service manuals and if another part might be compatible because an equivalent part from another device is listed as compatible and the compatible part is still easy to find. It really seems like those websites just scan parts catalogs and list everything

[@markpitts5194]

I had some board like that 30 years ago. Check the hole spacing to see if it matches drive screw spacing. I suspect it is a SCSI to serial converter for a mini or main frame.

[@ShadowTronBlog]

It's not uncommon for small SBCs like the Z180 board you have to listen for a character to help it auto set the baud rate then will output a welcome message.

[@kevincozens6837]

That Z180 based CPU board looks like the type of board that was designed to sit on the top of a 5.25" floppy drive. I think that format was the PC/104 but the PC/104 format might have been for similar sized single board computers that were popular back in the day. The serial interface chips are the 1488 and 1489. The 1488 is the driver (the output to an external serial port device) and the 1489 is the receiver chip (that handles the incoming serial port signals). Another thing to keep in mind is that type of SBC board typically was designed to auto-baud. After power-up you needed to send either a space, carriage return, or asterisk in order for the board to determine the baud rate of the external serial device. Once it was able to determine the baud rate in use it would send its welcome message(s).

[@KacproPL132]

22:20 Most of hardware those days have a lot of security and safety features. The Camera stopping charging is one of the safety features, as the battery heats up from usage and charging at the same time, to prevent overheating and potential danger, camera disconnects itself from the USB charger to cooldown the battery :D

[@fhunter1test]

It may be for another reason - charge current gets low enough for power bank to shut off, and then there is not enough current to trigger power bank to turn back on. This issue is VERY common in power banks, especially cheaper ones.

[@KacproPL132]

@@fhunter1test That could also be the issue :D

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

It could be -- but this camera is quite good at thermal management and it will just happily record forever on USB normally.... just occasionally it has this issues, Usually just unplugging it and power cycling the camera makes it work normally again.

[@twocvbloke]

SBCs are fun things, I have an SBC for a Staubli floppy disk drive that is supposed to hook up to some robotic thing from the 80s, and much like a Commodore 15xx series floppy drive, it's basically an entire computer minus the video output, except it's Zed80 based... :D

[@AndyPearo]

Many moons ago I used to repair those monitors. They were used for video production. They hooked up to some specialised video mixing console

[@JoeRetroWorld]

I always learn something new from your videos. Thank you for awesome content.

[@andrewlittleboy8532]

The real time clock with battery is a replacement for the DALLAS RTC's.

[@Skidd2]

Yay Minnesota, haha. It's good to finally see a Minnesota mail in

[@thesillyhatday]

North ridge fix uses that flux too. It looks really good at its job and cleans up easy too.

[@edgeeffect]

I used to have loads of intel 186s in those lovely gold and ceramic CLCC packages.... I got them out of the dumpster at work. :)

[@dank1837]

Same connection as on my CM-1 for Tandy 2000. That monitor and cable is a unicorn. Took me 3 years to find.

[@JohnDlugosz]

In my recollection, the '186 has a few extra instructions compared to the 8086, and these are also available in real mode on the '286. In writing assembly language, choosing the .186 dialect offered instructions that were available on the 386 and higher, when writing in real mode. At a time when ore-AT systems using the 8088 or 8086 were very rare, it was a normal dialect to use.

[@ad5mq]

the z180 is a successor to the Z80, mostly lots of included peripherals, works much like the Hitachi 64180. Includes an UARTS, Timers, DMA controllers and MMU for up to 1MB of memory. Still an 8 bit CPU. I have used the 64180 for projects that didn't need huge performance but did need a lot of memory in the late 80s and early 90s.

[@projectartichoke]

That 8 pin jack is known as EIAJ D8A2 on the input connector.

[@Robertkopp84]

I think the wavetable card is for a early pc98 or sharp68k. It must have been a expandable system that supports fm and midi.

[@jk180]

Looks like some kind of control module for manufacturing equipment

[@horusfalcon]

I have an SC126! It is a real joy to run CP/M on it - much faster than any of the CP/M systems I ran back in the day, and tons more storage in much less space. I think you would get a real kick out of building one.

[@johnbandhauer9224]

Me too. Great kit. I imagine that's why it was a top Google hit.

[@DJStKittz]

Adrian is 2000% right. I run a repair shop and there's no magic way of getting old parts.Even new parts... EBay, that's about it.....really 3D print is the better option sadly.

[@absalomdraconis]

For those control doors especially, I'd say that a 3d printed version with some brass rod where appropriate will be better than NOS anyways.

[@john_ace]

MSI GmbH FSS 3.5 S FLOPPY-SUBSYSTEM Seems to be an automation/industrial device. V24 interface.

[@iteachtime]

I learn so much from the SMMC channel. Building my knowledge with Adrian's help!!!

[@deathventure]

The MG Chemicals 8341 solder paste comes in syringes and works very well. I use it for work and I get it down to 64pad VQFN packages with no issues.

[@AndrewFremantle]

@25:30 - I think that's one of those MIDI synth daughterboards for sound cards in the Wave Blaster era. That pin header on the main board should socket onto the sound card, and the smaller board with the ROM is probably a sample bank.

[@iXenox]

When trying to open a ziplock bag it helps a lot if you twist the ziplock part of it horizontally (assuming opening on the top) until it opens up enough.

[@lexxinlexxin1054]

found it on ebay - its MSI GmbH fss 3,5 S floppy-subsystem fss3.5 S

[@bozosplayhouse]

At 19:45 you mention the Zilog Z180 chip, they are not a 16bit CPU, still 8. These were a Zilog offering for the Hitachi HD64180 Z80 replacement... that board you have was a later variant of Byte Magazine's "Circuit Cellar" SB180 project. It has holes in it that will line up with early 5-1/4" drives. This multi-part article went on to run CP/M-80 and Basic after building this incredibly versatile board.. it was the "Raspberry PI" of its time and instead of Linux, it was CP/M or Basic. Everyone in was making them! Steve Ciarcia the writer whom is/was an embedded systems engineer at the time became my mentor, this was back in the early 80's. All of the ROMs that are packed up with the board are most likely someone's saved programs. The boards usually had a 32pin ZIF socket for this and to erase the older windowed EPROMS you needed a UV Eraser and up to a half hour for each erase cycle. This really sucked, especially when you just needed to change a few bits in your code.. then you had to have a board capable of providing VPP voltages, some were as high as 25v! Zilog had to make this MPU because they were getting trampled by the Japanese. Some of the biggest drawbacks being Zilog having to have separated peripheral chips, like the CTC, SIO and PIA devices, not to mention having to fashion memory refresh controllers to use dynamic memory devices. Hitachi put the 180 together with everything needed on a CMOS chip, it was great for the early experimenters. The SMC should be a NEC uPd765 compatible FDC controller, there are parallel bus and the RS232 console ports too. Steve later went on to build more sophisticated versions that ran CP/M85 as an embedded system. I followed his articles up into the late 80's.. never a bore.. I even had letters from him, as he would reply to his fans comments.

[@allanturner8340]

I used to have, many many years ago a SBC from MSI. Not Identical to the one you have. The Z180 has a built in UART. The MC1488 is the RS232 converter. The white plug at the top probably supplies +12v and - 12v to the MC1488 as well as 5v to the rest. The FDC connector is fairly standard a IDC connector with a ribbon cable to a floppy drive just like early PC's will probably work. The other connector looks like a 26 pin header. If the same as mine then a IDC with ribbon cable to a DB25 serial plug will do the job. Mine wanted plugged into VT100 terminal. Note the computer may not spit out anything useful until RTC, RTS and CD are sane. Mine ran 9600 8bit 1 stop no parity. Can't remember but some of my SBC's required a CR from the terminal to start and figured out (guessed!) the Baud Rate from that. My board had a version of CP/M on the floppy. Have fun!

[@markjames8664]

So if there’s no 12 volt supplies then no serial activity on interface pins, even if the processor is trying to do something serial.

[@allanturner8340]

Might be activity on the Cpu pin inverted 0 to 5v. Pin 45 is TXA0 for the DIP package. Might not have the flow control signals right for sending though.

[@allanturner8340]

Can't tell for sure on the video. But I suspect there is a MC1489 to do the input conversion, as well as the MC1488 to do output conversion. Ie 0 to 5v signal to a +12v to -12v (RS232) signal.

[@liviu-dantimar9492]

About the flux, I also commented with the NC559 recommending it on that video. This is the V2 version I see, could be the reason why it is not clear. I only used the original clear one until now, might try the V2 next...

[@senilyDeluxe]

I have an ESDI card (that's some kind of intermediate step between MFM and SCSI) that uses an 80188 as a CPU.

[@KGE64]

The extra pins on the power connector probably need and additional + and - 12 Volts feeding the 1488/1489 RS232 drivers. You can then check the output pins of those drivers for activity. One of the pin headers likely corresponds to a DB25 serial connector.

[@steve6375]

The 5V power connector may use the other 2 pins for +/-12V which go to the 1488/1489 RS232 drivers.

[@ray73864]

I wouldn't necessarily worry too much about the expiry date. I have the Amtech NC-559-V5-TF with an expiry date of May-2020, it still works just fine, have never had any issues with it.

[@BroadbandBrat]

Hey cousin, that connector is an EIA-J that is used for video connections on older equipment. The best cleaner for rosin flux is denatured alcohol.

[@jamesdye4603]

We called those pliers Heyco pliers, because that is the company that made the strain reliefs we used at the computer company I worked at.

[@andydelle4509]

Acetone is a great rosin flux remover. You can get it at most Home Depot's or Lowes. Acetone is also safe because it evaporates so quickly is doesn't penetrate the skin, that's why they use it in nail polish remover. Anytime I work on a PC board I clean with Acetone and a q-tip, been doing this for 40 years now!

[@michaelmichalski4588]

The best place to get acetone is in the cosmetics section of Walmart. They sell small bottles for a few bucks, and it's cheaper per volume than the hardware store.

[@fhunter1test]

The К176ЛА(something) chip (K176LA... ) - the brown one, is CMOS logic family, CD40[something] equivalent, old one - this one was 12v powered. If it is ЛА - it is some kind of AND gate. The series was pretty popular in USSR in electronic clocks and so on (because 12v power allowed to drive VFDs directly from output). K561 is the newer series, which has wider power input range (from 3 to 15 volts). К176ЛП1 (К176LP1 in latin) - this one should be equivalent to CD4007E

[@SonicBoone56]

I love SBCs and it's nice to see vintage ones!

[@philiphoeffer7442]

the Z180 has 2 UARTS built in.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

That connector is almost certainly for ground, -12V, +12V and +5V, with the plus and minus 12V connections being for the RS-232 interface part of the board. You'd have to trace the tracks to see which is which, but it's probably in the order I gave.

[@tramadol42]

This looks like a circuit board from our floppy disk powered car key cutting machine from the 90's. The innards of the cutting machine were all from MSI and had the same form factor as this board.

[@michaelcarey]

Back in the late 80's early 90's I used a LOT of those EIAJ-8 (and other pin numbers) connectors, they were used on much of the JRC (Japan Radio Company) marine electronics equipment of the era. It seems like a lifetime ago. NWU-52A plotter & JLE-3850 SatNav are two pieces of equipment that come to mind...back in the days when a JRC JLR-4000 GPS navigator was an AUD$18K purchase! We've come a long way!

[@michaelcloutier2225]

The Tandy 2000, witch had a lot of incompatibility issues had a 80186. I got my hands on for a while back in that day for free because it just didn't run much PC software besides some text only programs. I gave it aways like the original owner pretty quick. IT was a boat anchor.

[@Rorschach1024]

They are actually making interest on your money for the 10-15 days that they have it.

[@PeetHobby]

z180 is a 8bit z80 cpu with some extra features, and can address more ram out of the box, has 18 or 19 address pins so can address 512KB-1MB of ram. Edit/ 29:59 That Z180 board look like floppy driver board. It's an 8bit cpu(full compatible with Z80), has two 16bit timer/counter, but that is only 16bit parts. ;) Most(almost all) professional board with Z80 of the 80s aren't SBC, most were found on driver boards as co-processor to do other things in the system. SBC where mostly made, they didn't had excess to PCB manufacturers like we have, so all of those you find on breadboards, paper development pcb's with holes, kits boards, etc, but almost never on professional made boards. So look for diy project of the 80s if you want find SBC of the 80s.

[@winstonsmith478]

That's a 10g tube of NC-559-V2-TF no-clean tacky flux for hand-soldering tin/lead.

[@czeci7]

~28:10 - it's "CEMI", Polish electronic parts manufacturer that operated between 1970-1994

[@pete3897]

I worked at an AASP right through the 90's and yes it was common for Apple's parts to be refurbished. When a model first came out the parts would be brand new at first but after a few months we'd start to see refurbished parts coming through more often (and sometimes still new ones too). It was a lottery and in general the refurbished parts would often re-fail again later, especially the logic boards, so you really wanted a new one but it was luck.of the draw.

[@maltnz]

That cable looks the same as the one that was for my old Taxan monitor - ah memories.

[@jameslewis2635]

I think the board with 'Music' written on it is a MIDI wavetable card. They were fairly popular in the MS DOS era and often plugged into sound cards like the Soundblaster line in order to give MIDI music capabilities. Lucasfilm games often had much better music when run with these, good examples are the Monkey Island games. Plenty of other titles used these such as Doom. These devices kind of died out once Microsoft released the virtualised 'Roland GS' soundsystem into Windows 95 and later sound cards often had them integrated into their design such as the Soundblaster Awe 32. The wavetable here is probably based around the Yamaha XG soundfonts.

[@dennisbartello7682]

The chip itself only had 8 channels polyphony, but was more of a sample player (think Amiga). If this is a daughterboard, this must have added sampled instruments to the SB16 and other cards like it. I would have given my right leg for one of those way back when!

[@Brooklyn727]

The Amtek VS-213-A-TF is a universal alloy flux, and I think it recommended over the flux you have FYI.

[@freednighthawk]

The MSI GME HJW is giving me serious Arcade mainboard vibes. Especially since you got the arcade audio synth with it. Maybe ask Clint if he recognizes it.

[@johnjoyce]

Cannot even find CRT TVs or monitors much here in Japan at all.

[@crabdonkey6381]

The shut down may be the power bank. I have a 38000 mV-Hr that has a button to turn it on. It will stay on with load, but shuts down when too little power is drawn. The camera may get fully charged and the power bank shuts down. You would be drawing down the battery after that. But the camera may also be to blame if it has an auto shut down mode.

[@KAPTKipper]

I had a Sanyo Spectra tecH TV that looks so much like the Panasonic. I used it with my C64 and later Atari 520STm - nice picture on it.

[@MatroxMillennium]

If you actually want a new old stock CRT, Lexel Imaging is the place to contact. They took their inventory sheet offline so you'll just have to send them an email for them to check their cross reference, but I've ordered two from them over the years (one color tube for a CGA monitor and one mono tube for a terminal).

[@VK2FVAX]

This thing strongly reminds me of some of the unauthorised German P112 derivatives that were floating about in the mid to late 90's you could mail order.

[@VK2FVAX]

..also the 180's have two UART's built in and DMA on the chip.

[@nullmoment]

The Z180 board is likely a control board for the floppy subsystem of a PLC.

[@mnoxman]

Denatured alcohol works well as a solvent for rosin activated flux.

[@sandmanxo]

It looks like that Yamaha sound chip was used in a few Japanese arcade or tabletop games in the late 90s. I've used similar style daughterboards for arcade upgrades but that one doesn't look familiar.

[@Renville80]

What I do when I need to clean off flux is use a piece of lint free cloth, lay it on top of the board area I need to clean, spray isopropyl alcohol on it until it’s damp, then use a nylon bristle brush to agitate the cloth against the leads being cleaned. Lift off the cloth, and you have a flux soaked spot on the cloth and a clean board.

[@tigheklory]

I bought one of those RGB cables from IEC and it has been processing since September 6th. I called them and said the got a bunch of orders at once and they are now looking to manufacture the connector as they ran out. I don't know if I will ever get the cable.

[@adriansdigitalbasement2]

Ha wow, how funny!

[@tigheklory]

@@adriansdigitalbasement2 I have a 3D printer now, I could just print my own.

[@8bitwiz_]

There were a lot of those kind of boards in the 90s. I have two different ones myself, one with a Z180 by "Z-World", and another with a Z80 and a big PLCC "Z80KIO", by Micromonit. The Micromonit board even has eight 14-segment LED displays. I'm sure there were dozens of these kinds of boards, but any documentation is long gone from the web, if it ever got there. Oddly, both of mine have similar EPROM contents, referring to a "Dukeware" in Croydon, PA. And it's interesting that yours had a floppy drive controller! The Z180 was not 16 bits. It was a regular Z80, but with a whole bunch of I/O ports built into it, and primitive memory mapping. The only new opcodes are related to using I/O ports in a different way. Also, Zilog licensed the 64180 from Hitachi before making their own Z180. I'm guessing that the difference is all in the I/O devices. And you couldn't find a serial chip on the board because it's built into the Z180. As for those Russian chips, look at them closely. Russia used metric pin spacing, 2.5mm rather than 2.54mm between pins. There isn't much difference with fewer pins, but it becomes an issue at 40 pins. I've also heard that the TMS9900 CPU does this, unusual for a chip from the west.