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Sharp PC-1600 forum
If you are PC-1600 fans i recommend you to register in Harald’s forum !
Here is it’s address : http://sharpforum.sharp-pc-1600.de/index.php
The Swiss adventure continue…
We started the story with the Swiss company TRAMsoft.
Now we continue with other names: Lukas Zeller, Stephan Paschedag Urs Ribi, Marco Feusi …
By sorting a stack of papers I found a very interesting magazine written in German by Lukas Zeller and Stephan Paschedag. On the first volume there was a sticker with the name Urs Ribi.
Oh, do you remember the generous gift from Xavier Fojug?
There were two magazines (one blue and one orange) named ClubZeitung from Marco Feusi.
And there were tapes … one of which was made by Urs Ribi.
After some internet research I was able to get more information.
We will see very soon that I could find.
Stay tuned …
Magazine : Sharp PC-1500 Zeitung (Part 2)
Here is the last part of the PC-1500 Zeitung magazines.
Do you see the title change ? It’s lighter.
My german friend will remember lot of the 80,s.
And for the other, and me, we will use some online translator 🙂
In the last magazine you’ll find the advert of an english company : Minimicro. I’ll tell you more about it next.
Thanks again to Xavier Fojud for these magazines !
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DIY : a PC-1500 male connector
Lot of you are looking for the PC-1500 male connector, isn’t it ?
It’s rare, near impossible to find.
A have a few ones but reserved for my PC-1560 project.
But i can explain you how i did as a workaround in the past…
1 – Find the SCSI 68 male connector
Buy a SCSI 68 cable with male connectors for something like $10.
And take some tools !
2 – Cut a connector with a part of the cable attached.
Please look carefully on the picture for the connector and the red wire positions and then at the border of next connector. This will help to make some more.
3 – Now we have a nice SCSI68 connector with some centimeters of ribbon attached.
4 – You have to cut some plastic parts of the connector and some pins.
The PC-1500 connector is 60 pins wide. The SCSI is 68… we have to remove 4 at each end.
With your cutter begin by cutting the plastic at the connector’s border, like marked in red in the scheme. Do it slowly, take time to be precise.
Here is the picture of SCSI68 connector before and after, and the scheme indicating where to cut.
Is it ok ?
You have to remove the rect part in the center.
Use the picture to see where to cut, position it with the red wire. It’s important for having good signal names on the wires.
Cut by small parts, begining by a little “V”… and a “U”…
And… cut the 4 pins at both borders.
Are you OK ? Does it looks like mine ? Better ??? 😉
5 – Test it on your PC-1500
But please, remove batteries before doing that 😉
6 – Separate unused wires
As we saw previously, we have 8 unused wires, 4 each border.
Cut it a little bit to separate on one centimeter.
These wires will be useful to be sold on your electronic board and prevent your cable to be accidentally ripped.
7 – Now you have a really nice PC-1500 male connector and enough cable to cut some other ones.
And here is the wire assignment :
Do you have comments ?
Your Sharp CE-150 needs repair ?
The main problem on CE-150 is the battery pack.
This item needs to be kept in charge.
But after years in your attic…
The battery pack leaks and can damage the electronic board.
Sharp did a mistake when designing the CE-150.
Without battery pack the printer is unusable except for tape operations.
Do you want to repair it ?
Look at this video tutorial offered by Kai :
http://www.kaibader.de/sharp-ce-150-printer-pc-1500-vintage-hardware-repair/
And bookmark his very interesting website !
Power adapter replacement for your Sharp PC-1500/CE-150/IWS…
Do you need a power adapter for your PC-1500/CE-150 or IWS adapter ?
The requirements are :
– 9V
– 110v/220V
– plug dimensions 5.5mm x 2.1mm
– Negative inside, positive outside
You can find matching power adapter on eBay for less than $3 shipping included.
Use the keywords : DC 9V 1A EU Negative inside
IWS Video adapter for the Sharp PC-1500 (Part 1)
Many of us have dreamed of this device!
But his selling price was 800DM did not make him accessible to all budgets.
It was designed by “Ingenieurbüro Walter Speidel” and sold a few hundred copies. To my knowledge the IWS is the only video interface for Sharp PC-1500.
So the mysterious listing we had:
This peripheral offers the following features:
– Playback on TV with the resolution of 25×40 or 25×80 characters.
– Input / Output cassette
– Speaker Output
The save/load with the tape are faster than Sharp instructions.
It is accompanied by a user manual in A5 size.
All is correctly described, the new Basic instructions, the memory organization, except the schematics.
And there exist a 3 page correction to it :
It can connect directly to the PC-1500 but needs it’s only power adapter.
And to the printer :
Next time we will talk about hardware considerations…
The PC-2 and the Radio Shack catalogs
The Tandy PC-2 was exclusively sold by Radio Shack, in shops or catalogs.
A big thanks to Mike from www.RadioShackCatalogs.com for allowing me to publish here some pages with the PC-2 !
First we have the General catalogs for 1983 and 1984.
It’s strange but there wasn’t any PC-2 in the 1982 one.
The start price was $279.95 for the pocket and $239.95 for the printer.
The printer’s carrying case was sold apart at $29.95
1983 : | 1984 : |
And we have the Computer catalogs for 1983 and 1984 too.
Nothing after 1984… definitely replaced by the PC-3 !
Uh, do you see the PC-2 color page 39 ? It’s light brown, like PC-1500…
Printing problem or does it really exist a non grey version ?
1983 RSC 08 page 38: | 1983 RSC 08 page 39: |
1983 RSC 09 page 116: | 1983 RSC 09 page 117: |
1984 RSC 10 page 57: | 1984 RSC 11 page 61: |
And here are the Additional catalogs from 1982 to 1984.
Yes ! 1982, this the first time on catalog for the PC-2.
But at the last catalog its price was $99.95 only !
Sale 1982 n°358: | Sale 1983 n°369: |
Sale 1983 n°370: | Sale 1983 n°371: |
Sale 1984 n°376: | Sale 1984 n°379: |
You can visit Mike’s website for more informations of Radio Shack’s story and to see these pictures in high resolution.
PC-1600 : industrial housing
You all know the standard PC-1500/1600 “leather” pouch.
It’s ok for common use.
But it’s unusable in industrial environment !
A company (don’t know which) has developed the perfect housing.
It can protect a PC-1600 and let the keyboard use.
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You have two kinds of closing :
– One who definetly close the housing
– One who let access to I/O ports after removing a small trap door.
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See the access for the power adapter
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This housing is perfect for the PC-1500 too, excepting for the power adapter plug position.