@rubber_jonnie my money would be on either a PLA or MMU. I had a C64 with a bad PLA and that would boot to the prompt but with multi coloured text Yeah, I have ordered a 8721, so we'll see, but the cold spray results seem like they are point at that as the issue. Just in case I also ordered an MMU,...

And it is running diags again, and interestingly the C64 dead test is passing every time.

PLA is on order, and I've popped heatsinks on the critical ICs so I can run tests for longer.

Well, soaking the stepper motor bearings in oil seems to have done the trick and the "Drive B" TM100-2A drive is working fine still. Had an issue with booting up where the machine would crash oddly. Reseated the Z80 and it was happy again. I'm really not happy with the single-wipe sockets...

@rubber_jonnie thats for a function rom and is empty as standard. Cool, thanks. I tried the diag cart first thing in C128 mode, but there are definitely some issues, as it's telling me that most of the RAM is bad (I don't believe that for a minute) and can find different banks dead on different ite...

Nice to see you’ve got it running @rubber_jonnie, what are your plans so far for it? First off a cleanup, then I'll fit some heatsinks and run through the diag tests see what's what. Not thought any further than that. BTW what is the empty socket for at top left?> I think you said but I can't remem...

And the electrons flowed:


So it's booting to 128 mode and the PSU works.

stephen_usher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 3:00 pm Lovely display that. Very colourful, oh and a green desktop behind the coloured snow too.

Snow in February, how very British...

stephen_usher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:59 pm
With working ULAs?

I believe so, yes.

stephen_usher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:59 pm From little Acorns mighty Commodores grow.

Indeed they do

stephen_usher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 1:27 pm

Very much looking forward to feeding it some electrons.

stephen_usher wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 2:13 pm It looks like there's no post delivery at work today so no Z80 SIO chips.