Back from the Grave: Sega Saturn (losing power, flashing LED)

Sega's Saturn holds the unfortunate fate of being the beginning of the end of Sega as a hardware manufacturer.  Launched in 1994, Sega mistakenly believed their competition would come in the form of the (unsuccessful) Atari Jaguar and designed their console primarily as such, essentially pairing two Mega 32X consoles together for a 2D graphics monster with some 3D capability.

Sadly, between developers being unable to fully utilise a twin-CPU, twin-GPU system, and the extremely successful launch of Sony's fully-3D PlayStation, the Saturn would prove to be a financial disaster from which Sega would never fully recover.  It was discontinued in 1998 with just 9.26 million units sold.

Back from the Grave: Sega Game Gear (dull screen)

The Sega Game Gear.  Released in 1990 to compete with Nintendo's Game Boy, on paper it was a no-contest winner: colour graphics on a backlit display, a more common-place processor, twice the VRAM, compatibility (via an accessory) with the entire existing library of Master System titles (including an adaptor for 2-player games), and even an analogue TV tuner accessory made it seem all but certain Nintendo would have to react or fall by the wayside.

Sadly, something went wrong for Sega.  Nintendo didn't add colour (or a backlight in the global market) until 1998, by which time the Game Gear had already been dead for a year.  While the Game Gear had comparatively short battery life (especially considering it took more batteries) and some questionable titles, it was ultimately Sega's lack of focus on the mobile market which sealed its fate.

Back from the Grave: Atari 2600 (Skewed, garbled screen; buzzing)

The console that effectively created, dominated and then almost destroyed the videogame industry, all on its own: The Atari 2600.  Originally launched in 1977 as the VCS (Video Computer System) before being renamed upon the 1982 release of the Atari 5200, it was originally released to play upon the name and reputation of the Fairchild VES (Video Entertainment System) released a year earlier; itself renamed to the Channel F upon the release of the VCS.

The 2600 itself was, even by the day's standards, an unimpressive machine.  While it featured a 1MHz 6507 (similar to the 6502 found in the Apple II and VIC-20, just with fewer addressing pins), it had just 128 bytes (yes, bytes) of RAM, only allowed for 4 kilobyte cartridges (which was later expanded to 32kB by way of bank switching) and had almost zero graphical capability.  But developers managed to use this meager offering to exceptional effect, resulting in games that weren't Pong and securing its place at the top of the proverbial food chain (right up until ET, anyway).

Back from the Grave: Commodore VIC-20 (Part 3: blank, dark screen)

The Commodore VIC-20 - the "Friendly Computer".  Friendly perhaps to everyone except those who wanted to make it do anything significant.  The default RAM configuration meant it only had enough free RAM to hold a single page of 11-point text, making it perfectly adequate for documents which would fit but utterly dreadful for those that wouldn't.  Its 16 colour palette completely lacked any greys, and only 2 of the 4 colours in multicolour mode could even access the second 8.  Even its sound was limited by virtue of each of the three melody channels only having minor overlap in their range.

Yet, despite all this, it was a hit.  Even to this day people are still forcing it to do things never even dreamed of at the time of its creation.  In 2013, even Doom was ported to it - it didn't have all the levels, all the enemies, all the guns or all the music, and ran in a reduced size while requiring 32KB of RAM (all bar 1 expansion), but it is still there, playable, and relatively faithful to the original.  As yet the same cannot be said of the C64, which currently uses a co-processor to do the same (a 65c816, similar to that of a Super Nintendo/Famicom, running at 20MHz with 16MB of its own RAM) and still isn't nearly as complete (eg It has no sound).

Back from the Grave: Commodore VIC-20 (Part 1: blank, dark screen)

(This is unchanged from the original post, aside from this message.  Blogger simply decided it wanted to revert the post to a draft and change its posting date, and I'm unable to figure out why)

Launched in 1980, the VIC-20 (sold as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) was the first computer of any kind to sell in excess of one million units.  Pairing the already established MOS 6502 (used in the PET as well as Apple's II), a custom graphics chip (VIC) originally intended for game consoles, and an introductory price of just $299 it effectively created the entry-level computer market and filled it in spite of its shortcomings (such as only 5KB of RAM, though expandable to 32KB).

Eventually it would finally give way to the juggernaut that was the Commodore 64 which, while incompatible with most VIC-20 software and twice the price, was simply too much better to ignore.  Commodore would eventually retire the VIC-20 in 1985 after superseding it with the similarly low-cost (and much less successful) 264 series; specifically the Commodore 16.

Back from the Grave: Commodore 64 (phantom characters, low BASIC RAM, no sound)

The Commodore 64.  Arguably the best known home PC ever made, and certainly the most popular single model ever produced having shipped an estimated 10 to 17 million units in its 12 year lifespan.  As far as completely 8-bit units were concerned, there simply wasn't anything better: 64KB of RAM, 16 colours (up to 4 usable at the same time), 8 hardware sprites, 3-channel fully synthesised sound, a generous 320x200 display (160x200 in multi-colour) and plenty of inputs and outputs.  Other vendors needed to use 16-bit components just to keep up, and it still wasn't enough.

Eventually the C64 would ultimately be defeated by itself.  The vast majority of its software became gaming related and the 8-bit system simply couldn't compete against the emerging 16-bit console market.  With no direct successor to keep its design legacy alive, the rise of the x86 ecosystem, now moving to 32-bit, was simply the final nail in the coffin.

Back from the Grave: Commodore VIC-20 (Part 2: blank, dark screen)

Contrary to popular (at the time) belief, the "20" in "VIC-20" wasn't actually a reference to any part of the system.  Speculation varied, from it being a reference to its horizontal text resolution (which was actually 22 columns), the total size of the system memory (16KB of ROM and 5KB of RAM, for 21KB total), revision numbers, IC count (the original version had 32 chips, the "CR" or D version had 26; both had 7 proprietary chips), speed references or all manner of other potential origins.

As it turns out, however, it was much less meaningful.  According to Michael Tomczyk (responsible for leading development on the VIC-20), in an interview in 1996, 20 was simply chosen as it was "a friendly number" to offset that VIC "sounded like a truck driver".  It was, after all, "the friendly computer".

Back from the Grave: Commodore 1571 (light stays on and the system locks)

To go along with the 128, Commodore also released a new floppy drive in the form of the 1571.  Much like the 128 itself, this drive was designed to replace and build upon its predecessor - the 1541 - while retaining near 100% backwards compatibility.  A second read head was added, enabling both sides of a disc to be accessed simultaneously (though the second side would be effectively backwards, making it incompatible with a 1541), and a new burst transmission mode doubled transfer speeds.  It even supported reading IBM-compatible MFM format discs and CP/M discs, among others.

Released as both a stand-alone drive and integrated into the C128D and C128DCR, the 1571 was all but retired with the C128 in 1989, and discontinued entirely with the C64 in 1994.

Back from the Grave: Commodore 128D (incorrect character and colour display)

Commodore's attempt to supersede the infamous Commodore 64, the C128 was designed to take the C64 and give it a significant boost in its general computing and business credentials.  The MOS 6510 was replaced with an MOS 8502 able to run at twice the speed (2MHz), the RAM was doubled to 128KB (expandable to 1MB), the BASIC interpreter was upgraded and a second, high resolution VDC was added - complete with its own video RAM - and even a numeric keypad was now standard on the keyboard.  Not only that, but a Zilog Z80 (running at 4MHz, though only really 2MHz effectively) was included to enable what is generally considered the best implementation of 8-bit CP/M.

Unfortunately, the juggernaut that was the Commodore 64 would ultimately prove its undoing.  As the C128 boasted near 100% backwards compatibility with its predecessor, most software was still developed for the older, cheaper system to ensure a broader user install base.  Between that and the rising popularity of x86-based systems in businesses, in 1989 the C128 was discontinued.

Back from the Grave: Apple //e (vertical white lines)

The penultimate version of the 8-bit Apple II - the Apple IIe (stylised //e) - was originally released in 1983.  In essence, it was little more than a standard Apple II with some of the optional extras built in, and many off-the-shelf chips replaced by fewer custom ASICs.  Powered by an MOS 6502 running at 1MHz and featuring 64KB of RAM, expandable to a staggering 1MB, along with expansion card facilities it was very much a home computer - but its lack of graphical acceleration, single channel "beeper" sound and limited input options heavily restricted its gaming capabilities (especially compared to the recently-released Commodore 64).

Including its later revisions (Enhanced and Platinum), the //e ultimately became the longest-lived version of the Apple II before finally being discontinued in 1993.

New series: Back from the Grave!

It's been a while between proverbial drinks, 'eh?  While I make no promises that this will signal some kind of massive influx of posts, I do know for certain that I've got some source material to go on this time which may take a while to get through.  As always I don't know the frequency with which I'll be posting, but this is hardly a super-popular blog - mostly just an outlet for myself, and perhaps some info for others.

So what do I mean by "Back from the Grave"?  My brothers are big on retro computers - gaming consoles and PCs alike.  As is to be expected from things which are sometimes pushing 30 years old or more, they don't always work as they once did so things need to be repaired, or even outright modified.  Since we've had a few successes recently, I feel this might be a good time to start documenting them online for reference.  And since I can't find anywhere better I'll be using this blog.

Hopefully there will be some useful information here for others.  But, as always, text only - so I'll try to be descriptive.