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Apricot PC finished at last

R

roadrash

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2011
Messages
128
Location
Huntingdon, U.K
I recently got my Apricot PC finished and and here are a few details and some pictures of it working. It was a disaster when I got it and it was dead. I had to repair the PSU and replace some caps and tantalum's and fix up the floppy drives. Eventually after months & months of messing about I got it working. Luckily I had 2 of them so I had a donor in case I needed any parts. Once al this was done I had to replace all the keyboard keypads as they were made from foam with a semi conductive backing and all had dissolved. I notice someone was selling something similar one ebay but they were a bit too pricey for me so I made my own. Then finally I used a combination of 12% peroxide cream and ultra violet lights to remove all the yellowing of the plastic to restore them to a as new state.
What do you think?

Here was it originally
original-condition.jpg

And Finished

20170914_203805.jpg20170914_203930.jpg
 
roadrash said:
I recently got my Apricot PC finished and and here are a few details and some pictures of it working. It was a disaster when I got it and it was dead. I had to repair the PSU and replace some caps and tantalum's and fix up the floppy drives. Eventually after months & months of messing about I got it working. Luckily I had 2 of them so I had a donor in case I needed any parts. Once al this was done I had to replace all the keyboard keypads as they were made from foam with a semi conductive backing and all had dissolved. I notice someone was selling something similar one ebay but they were a bit too pricey for me so I made my own. Then finally I used a combination of 12% peroxide cream and ultra violet lights to remove all the yellowing of the plastic to restore them to a as new state.
What do you think?

Here was it originally
View attachment 43550

And Finished

View attachment 43548View attachment 43549
Click to expand...

I'm not familiiar with this device. Is that some sort of membrane keypad on the top-right corner of the keyboard?
 
rittwage said:
Very nice restoration. I've never seen one of those before... So it's an early non-PC compatible system?
Click to expand...

Virtually unknown in the Colonies, but quite popular in the UK. IBM PC-ish (there was a PC emulator). One of the few x86 PC products to use the 8089 DMA controller.
 
Great job! Retrobrite did that? Is this the model with the handle?

I have one just as yellow but no keyboard. I have not powered it up because I was waiting to find the keyboard for it. At least now I know what it looks like.
 
keenerb said:
I'm not familiiar with this device. Is that some sort of membrane keypad on the top-right corner of the keyboard?
Click to expand...

It's called the MicroScreen -- six membrane keys, with a two-line LCD above them, which programs can use to display what the keys do (each key also has an LED to show if it's active).
 
JohnElliott said:
It's called the MicroScreen -- six membrane keys, with a two-line LCD above them, which programs can use to display what the keys do (each key also has an LED to show if it's active).
Click to expand...

The little LCD display and buttons underneath are used for information and access to in application menu's.
 
roadrash said:
The little LCD display and buttons underneath are used for information and access to in application menu's.
Click to expand...

Found a picture of this LCD (microscreen). Sorry quality not great but you can see it working and a menu for the Superwriter program being displayed in it.

20170411_150721.jpg20170411_150757.jpg

And a couple more from a demo disk. Amazing graphics for its era dont you think? This system will only work with its owb dedicated monitor.

20170411_211204.jpg20170914_203717.jpg20170914_204152.jpg
 
roadrash said:
The little LCD display and buttons underneath are used for information and access to in application menu's.
Click to expand...

I seem to recall the PC, PC XI and the Xen all used that nifty design. The F1 and Portable's keyboards were both battery powered and would of been too taxing on the batteries.

Also yes the graphics modes on the early Apricots was fantastic, just not PC compatible. The floppy drive is also very early. I can see the solenoid mechanism that raised and lowered the head.
 
Resurecting this old thread to see if roadrash is still around.

Picking up my Apricot PC tonight (looks like it is a monitor, keyboard, and 2 systems) listed as not working. Would like to know if you have schematics, literature, and perhaps point my to how I can get/write some boot disks.
 
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