Knobs & Panels...

Trying to maintain the original look as much as possible... Without the strange lumps of rubber...

EPROMs

To get my Z80 board into a functioning state I need to get the code into it... One interesting thing that I had sort of forgotten in the modern world of Electrically Erasable memory is the venerable EPROM. I have memories of cycling through dozens of 2716 EPROM's to debug some Z8 assembler late into the evening for a contract I was doing... My old EPROM programmer needs an ISA bus processor and it hasn't really been used for 20+ years. Even the newer one at work, which uses a parallel port, is non starter for pretty much any hardware from the last 10 or so years. The quickest way out is this thing from e-bay, that seems to work OK... It is still cheaper that the old old EPROM programmer from 1987ish and there has been 30 years inflation since then.

Z80 all over again...

Back to the Z80! It's been a long time but that was the processor of the 80's...

Making a monosynth...

Well for a laugh I am making a early 80's monosynth! This is the donor keyboard from a rather dodgy Japanese Hammond Organ -- the Piper II. The rest of the build is getting there. The Control electronics is done 100% and the front panel PCB (quite large) is at about 98% -- just need to do the filters and output stages on their own PCB.... Hopefully for completion in the very short term!