Many super thanks to one of my steady clients, they sent me an early Xmas gift, a nice brand-new ASUS TUF Gaming A18 Gaming laptop.

This will greatly help me to be more productive throughout the workday, plus help with my on-going retro computer projects for the TI99, Adam, Nabu, MSX systems.

838FDC SMT Prototype testing..
Project Status November Update
1 - FPGA replacement for WD1772/Ajax is working.
2 - In-circuit flashing of the DSR is working.
3 - 838FDC reworked to use SMT to reduce the cost.
4 - Testing underway for 1.44mb HD working at 36 sectors for both physical 3.5" and Gotek.

Happy November!

The first snowstorm in Scarberia...

Winter in Canada is early this year...

Time to put up the Xmas tree...

3D Printing added to GaryOPA's Lab...

Thanks in part to a kind donation from one of our supportive Texas Instruments retro computer clients, plus a great sale by #3dprintingcan on the amazing #BambuLab P1S Combo we have upgraded our OPA workshop.

What should we design/print 1st?

With the cold Canadian winters that are coming soon, it means it will be getting dark early now, and with the number of retro projects increasing, I need to be able to see properly throughout the day and evening in my workshop area, so I cleaned it up and installed some nice bright shop lights.

During the month of August, I took an much needed break from daily "social media" grind to focus on my overall health and well-being, but I have still been busy on my various retro Texas Instruments projects.

Today, I've been busy testing physical read and write floppy operations on 5.25" diskettes and drives for the new 838-FDC card designed for the TI99. Making some great progress in figuring out the remaining bugs in the new DSR coding and the interfacing to the WD1772 replacement.