Showing posts with label Tindie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tindie. Show all posts

Sunday, 19 July 2026

PET ROM/RAM Board Updates

Update

International shipping from the UK is now even more complicated. If you want to order from outside of the UK, please use the contact button above and tell me what you want to order (including any options) and your address, and I will get a price for you. This price will now include duties that used to be collected by customs, so should work out overall faster and cheaper.

Some updates to the PET ROM/RAM board, and more importantly, how and where I sell them.

Overview

Just a quick overview for anyone not familiar. This is a board which plugs into the 6502 socket of a PET 2001/2001N/30xx/40xx or CBM 40xx/8032. The 6502 then plugs into this board.

It bypasses onboard the ROM and/or RAM and replaces them with 32K of RAM and selectable ROM with BASIC 1, 2 or the most preferable and latest BASIC 4.0.

Once fitted, you can remove the onboard main ROM and RAM chips, it saves power and preserves any that are still working. Only the video RAM and character ROM need to remain (although I have replacements for both of those).

For most applications, the 5 switch version is the best option. The 9 switch version has additional control of which ROMs and RAMs are replaced, and an LED that flashes for writes. Those can be useful for troubleshooting problems.

In most cases, go for the 5 switch version.

Board Changes

There isn't much to spot between the old and new versions.

The changes to the boards are mostly aesthetics.

The square corners are now rounded.

I have also moved the resistor arrays as they used to stick out to the side of the DIP switches.

I have moved them to be level with the DIP switches.

Makes no difference in practical terms, but makes me happier.

That is the 9 switch version, which has been similarly updated. The 9 switch has also been modified to support the 39SF020A EEPROM chips (the 5 switch already did). This was about a week before they announced they were discontinuing the 39SF020A. Oh well.

Purchasing Options

My sales are down significantly in recent months, I am sure a lot of that is due to the state of the world right now, but just in case it is, in some way, down to Tindie changes, I have been looking at other options.

Pricing is slightly different between these sites, due to currency conversions, some have the base price set in USD, others in GBP. The price has gone up slightly as one of the parts has been discontinued, one now costs five times what it used to, and one seems to be permanently out of stock everywhere.

Tindie

I sell on Tindie

Tindie is now under new ownership. It has been, shall we say, a rather turbulent transition.

Things are starting to get back together, but I can understand some people now can't (or don't want to) use Tindie.

The new owners have not been able to come to an agreement with PayPal, and so that is no longer available for buyers or sellers. They have moved to Stripe payments. I hadn't used that before, and had to set that up (and ended up having to buy a new tablet as I didn't have anything new enough to run the app required)

It is less than ideal for me as there is now several weeks delay between shipping orders and getting paid, which does not help with the cash flow situation (which is pretty dire at the moment).

Lectronz

I did look at this a while ago, but I wasn't able to complete the setup as I couldn't setup Stripe payments at the time.

Since I now have had to setup Stripe anyway, I have also setup a Lectronz store.

I have only listed the PET ROM/RAM to start with, I will see how that goes and will add more products over time.

Lectronz has a much more sophisticated and configurable postage system. That seems very good.

There is a handy method to import Tindie listings directly. They clearly know that is where most of their sellers are migrating from.

With new or updated listings, the photo upload is a little clunky with one at a time file selection, rather than selecting multiple files. They also have the same limit of 12 pictures and recommended ratio of 3:2 like Tindie.

Their BluSky post notifications seem better.

The Tindie one is pretty pointless. No picture, the link is hidden, no link to seller.

Did you know I released a special reissue of the Penultimate Cartridge? I haven't sold any, so maybe you didn't

SmallRun

Find Tynemouth on SmallRun

This is a relatively new site, so I am interested to see how it works out. It has a some nice features like being able to tie photos to options, so that when you select the 9 switch version, the main picture changes to the 9 switch board.

There is also a very different way of doing postage, the buyer get shown a range of shipping options from various couriers, calculated based on weight and size of the order from a site called Shippo. It seems to be a US equivalent of sites like ParcelMonkey and Parcel2Go etc.

The buyer picks the one they want and pays for that and the seller gets a shipping label ready to attach to the parcel. That's quite a neat idea. Not sure it works for me, as they don't include Royal Mail, which is my preferred option, but I understand they are working to add that.

For the moment, I have gone for the plain flat price shipping as I have on the other sites.

This is actively being developed, and I have been feeding back a few issues and suggestions and they seem very responsive. It will be interesting to follow their progress.

SellMyRetro

I have reactivated the PET ROM/RAM board listings on SellMyRetro.

This is limited to UK only as I can't get on with the way they deal with international shipping.

Order Direct

Finally, you can always order directly from me.

Contact Me and answer these two questions:

  1. What items do you want? including the options, see the listings and blog posts for details
  2. Where do you want the items shipped to? I need the country to work out the postage

Almost everyone who does this misses both of these questions, and I just get "I want to buy a Minstrel" or "How much is a Mini PET" etc.

Buy Tynemouth Products

To avoid having to put all of that at the end of each post, I have setup a sort of store page.

There will be a page linked to that for each product group, I have only done the first one so far

The rest will follow as I add more things, if you want to buy a specific item from a specific place, I am sure I can make that happen.

Too Much?

Is this too much, too complicated, too much choice, I don't know, maybe, I am just trying to give as many options as possible to try to make sales happen.

Adverts

See pretty much the entirety of the above post.

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You also get progress updates on new projects and other behind the scenes updates, as well as access to my Patreon only Discord server for even more regular updates, and to discuss your own projects.

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Sunday, 3 November 2024

Minstrel 2 Update

I recently reopened my Tindie store, see http://blog.tynemouthsoftware.co.uk/2024/10/a-change-of-plan.html

Before I did that, I was running low on stock on most things, so I needed to order more boards.

Since I was doing that, I thought it would be a good opportunity to make a few changes.

This is the new Minstrel 2, a Z80 based self assembly computer kit which is compatible with the Sinclair ZX80.

This is now a single PCB "Minstrel 2 + Keyboard" version.

Although it is still available without the keyboard to fit a ZX81 case.

And I suppose I should keep the "dual detachable keyboard" version as well.

I will offer built version, but most people want to build their own kits.

I forget how many single resistors there are in the ZX80 design.

It doesn't look too bad when they are all in little bags.

Assembly is straightforward, start with the smaller parts, the resistors, capacitors and diodes.

These should all be neatly in line.

I have used a different brand for some of the capacitors, these have a much clearer marking, see the 104 and 473. They do not currently have all the values, so those are still the older style (e.g. K16 470J).

The ICs should all line up nicely as well. I love the way the Texas Instruments 14 and 16 pin ICs are the same width, so you can mix them and they all look the same (can you spot where it changes?).

Next all the taller parts, the connectors and pin headers.

I added two footprints for the 5V regulator on the V2.9 version of the main PCB. The switching regulator is recommended, and is set back a little to fit better in a ZX81 case.

The 7805 linear regulator can be used, but will require a small heatsink (I should have removed it from the "+Keyboard" version as there isn't space to fit one where it would be in the "for ZX81 case" version.)

Finally, the three big chips in sockets, including one of the last Z80s ever made (while stocks last).

To protect them in transit (and so I don't need to count to 40 lots of times), the switches are supplied inserted into the PCB.

If you think they will get in the way, you might want to remove those until you have finished the rest of the soldering.

If you fit the screws and spacers to the overlay PCB, it is useful to make sure all the switches are sitting flat and correctly aligned.

You can then screw on the pillars and solder the switches in place.

(N.B. you don't actually have to solder the switches in place, they will work just on the mechanical connection, certainly for testing. However, long term the legs can tarnish over time and you might start to get an intermittent connection. It is also more difficult to solder later if they have tarnished)

Time for some testing.

The traditional 10 PRINT.

And also in 4K BASIC mode (note the different font with no slash in the zero).

Also time to try some games.

Paul Farrow's ZX81 Kong is a good test as this runs on the ZX80 style hardware of the Minstrel 2, and shows off the changes in the last Minstrel 2 update to clean up the glitches around adjacent inverted and non-inverted characters, which showed up on the Kong in the title screen.

All nice and clean and evenly sized pixels.

The cost of some parts have increased dramatically, but I have tried to keep the pricing as it was before.

And there are an awful lot of them to add up.

And of course the Z80's, they must be worth $1M each by now.

I am in the process of revisiting the documentation for the Minstrel 2 and 3. With the Minstrel 2 in particular being expanded quite a bit with a new "theory of operation" section along the lines of the one in the Minstrel 3.

I also want to have a go at redrawing the schematic as a single large page in the style of the original, although I am not sure how that will go. I might end up selling that as a poster instead.

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Minstrel 2 and 3 kits are available from my Tindie store, with worldwide shipping. Versions avaiable for ZX81 case or standalone with keyboard, and also Misntrel 3 with ZXpand microSD card interface.

I will slowly be moving things over there from my SellMyRetro store, so if there is anything that you want, let me know and I'll add it.

More info can be found here:

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