Tindie

So glad that this product is around. Thanks for creating this. My project looks great...can recommend this.

Peter | Nov. 14, 2019

It gives a nice Retro-Feeling to me, like it is 1994 again.

I`m using the conversion kit with a raspberry pi with the Amibian Emulator on it in an original Amiga 500 plus case. It is a much greater retro-feeling to have an originally looking Amiga Emulator than just using WinUAE. The emulator-window is displayed by pressing "/" on the numpad. That works fine. My original Amiga Joysticks can be used as well. Unfortunately Amiga mouse is not converted.

Markus | Nov. 4, 2019

Great tool to help repairing Commodore VIC 20 (VC20).

For VIC20 Diagnostics Loopback PCB

Easy to build kit (needs soldering skills), really helpful to track down hardware failures on a Commodore VIC 20 (VC 20).

Rosalba S. | Oct. 25, 2019

VIC20 Diagnostics kit

For VIC20 Diagnostics Loopback PCB

Very well packed and sealed, with complete and clear instruction. Item well put together. Recommended.

Francis | Oct. 12, 2019

very satisfied with the transaction

I have not put it together yet but I am looking forward to it. It looks well made, well documented, and I belive I have all parts.

Cliff | Oct. 10, 2019

Prefect Plug-in Board

This is prefect replacement board system to replace nonfunctional PET ROMS/RAMS. Works the first time.

Walter | Oct. 8, 2019

USB conversion kit for Amiga 500 keyboard

Unbelievable! I was delighted to have purchased this article. Perfect item and very easy to use. you can only connect it correctly and turn on the old amiga. I used it with a raspberry and I find it fabulous !! Thanks Tindie!!

Jason | Oct. 8, 2019

Great little board!

For Commodore 64 USB keyboard kit

Installed this and worked perfectly, now I have my Vic 20 back in use and a talking point at trade shows ;-)

John | Sept. 24, 2019

Top notch kit, excellent build and component quality.

Having been one of the few in Canada to have a ZX80, I have a fond memory of the computer. It was a fun one-day project to build, all of the components were there and well packaged. Worked on the first try and the magic of the nostalgia did its' work. Thanks for producing such a high quality kit with as much of the original tech as reasonably possible. If you ever get to doing a ZX81 kit with clone ULA, I might consider it. Thanks again!

Thomas | Sept. 12, 2019

Love the ram rom board

Saved me weeks of logic probe and scope work I can now move onto my next pet rescue project the time this board saves is great

Sjors | Aug. 22, 2019

SD Card activity led

Product works perfectly, it would be nice if a small documentation was included regarding the disk activity led.
I did not see a simple solution to flash the led (numlock) at disk activity.

I manged to fixed this myself, by doing the following:

in Shell enter: sudo crontab -e
on buttom line type:
@reboot echo mmc0 >/sys/class/leds/input0::numlock/trigger

Save and reboot, good luck (tested with retropie 4.5.1)
Regards, Sjors.

Riccardo | Aug. 12, 2019

VIC20 Diagnostic PCB's

For VIC20 Diagnostics Loopback PCB

Received the PCB's with clear instructions in a very good package! Perfect stuff and recommended seller!

Steven | July 27, 2019

Work great

Used in a beyond repairable Amiga 500 with a Raspberry Pi. Great to use with an emulator or any other OS. It's the biggest Raspberry Pi case I have in my collection now, but easily the best looking and most practical.

Michael | July 19, 2019

Works as a charm!

For ZX Spectrum USB keyboard conversion kit

Purchased the kit, got it a few days after. Installed it as seen on the product pictures and thats it - nothing to add/change/install. It simply works as it should.

Mark | June 9, 2019

ZX Spectrum USB keyboard

Bought this to pair with a brand new ZX spectum replacement kit (white keyboard and faceplate). Works great with MacOS (FUSE emulator) out of the box - very simple to set up. Great packaging and product.

Jason | June 1, 2019

mint

Quick delivery...well packed...awesome piece kit...well documented...easy to assemble...very very happy.

Cyril | May 30, 2019

Very good

For TI-99/4A USB keyboard conversion kit

Simple to build, high quality PCB, good documentation. Works like a charm on my Atari 400. I'll order Video composite mod to finish to upgrade my Atari 400!

Steven | May 22, 2019

Adapter that works very well.

Used this on one of my TI-99 Keyboards with a PC and then a Raspbery Pi3 and both worked fine.
Well made and easy plug together setup.
Power LED works nicely too.

Laurence | May 10, 2019

Super easy upgrade if you're handy with a soldering iron.

My beloved Atari 400 now has 48K RAM, Always wanted to upgrade the old boy to bring up to the spec of my 800, very well packaged and easy to assemble and install. All 16K Atari 400 owners should pounce on this upgrade, and thanks to Tynemouth Software for creating it.

Regards

Laurence.

Dirk | April 23, 2019

Great. Works almost perfect

For Z80 CPU, Clock and Reset Module for RC2014

Plug and play. To set the Competition Pro in Amiberry was a little tricky, but works fine. The only thing to find out is how to set the keyboard as german amiga keybord in my retropie.

David | April 21, 2019

Great little board, easy to assemble

Does exactly what it says on the tin. Provides a better reset implementation and allows you replace the original processor and clock modules with a single card

James | April 2, 2019

Was not fully functional, but better than nothing.

For Atari ST USB keyboard kit

I was looking to switch control from my TT030 keyboard & mouse, between my ATARI and PC. This give me half of that functionality since it only works for the keyboard. I was under the impression that he had a mouse working with it at some point, but he informed me that he didn't and it would take far too much time. Because I knew this coming into the purchase, so I can't blame Tynemouth.

Juergen | March 29, 2019

Good Product vor Vintage Computing :-)

For PET Diagnostics Module

Very good tool to test old CBM Computers. Only the documentation is a bit weak
(some charakters to fill the review to 100 chars: hata buba)

Panagiotis | March 9, 2019

Works as intended

For Commodore 64 USB keyboard kit

Put mine in an empty C64 shell. Got it working with a C64 mini inside as well. Very happy with the results. Cheers!

Michael | Feb. 14, 2019

Brilliant product!

Bought a pre-built kit as I'm never too confident with my soldering skills.

Installation was fine. I just took my time and read the excellent provided documentation thoroughly several times before starting.

Tested first with just the board and got 32K then after soldering the 4 wires got the full 48K. The 400 motherboard is quite spacious and the soldering was pretty easy even for an amateur such as myself.

The Atari 400 was my first Atari 8 bit as a kid. I love it and it's so iconic but very limited with just 16K. This kit takes care of that perfectly!

I had a couple of questions after the installation and received pretty much instant helpful support.

Alex | Feb. 7, 2019

Cracking little kit

For Keyboard overlays for TS1000/ZX80/ZX81

I spent a happy couple of hours putting this together.
The kit is well packed and neat. The board is laid out to make it clear what goes where. My only gripe with that is that components should never be laid out to look neat but should be placed for best routing of tracks on the board to minimise length and complexity. That said, given how the tracks on this board criss-cross, it is amazing this is a 2-layer board with no jumper wires (other than for selections).
The chips are laid out on a piece of anti-static foam exactly as they would be placed on the board, which is a considerate touch.
My kit does not have a diode for the position D201, which doesn't seem to matter, but this is where things could do with a little improvement. The schematic does not have D201 in it (even as a DNP component) so I can't see what it does. The schematic matches the component reference designators for the most part, but not all, which seems a little careless. Notes in the documentation would help map the reference designators and explain the missing component.
The video circuit is a neat solution to avoid the need for an RF box, but the layout means the track to select between NTSC or PAL (well, the number of field lines and the refresh rate) has to cross the entire board. A bit messy, but it works, and is a great way of making this kit international (as well as the oversized ROM with multiple images.
The plastic base is sturdy and the standoffs fit well, but the board does not line up squarely with the base. It's not far off, but it does look a bit odd. Also, the standoffs are only 10mm tall, which keeps the kit low-profile, but the flex for the included key matrix won't bend under it properly. It is too narrow a gap and the flex would be compressed against the solder joints, which can have sharp edges. I have gone to DigiKey to get some 20mm spacers and will use some tape to smooth the solder joints and protect the flex.
This review is being a bit more critical than I intended. I am something of a purist and electronics is my work as well as play. The kit is fantastic and rewarding and educational. Buy it, build it, enjoy it.

Response from Tynemouth Software | Feb. 7, 2019

Can you let me know where you found discrepancies in the component designators. As far as I am aware, all are correct, other than the 1xx and 2xx parts as noted in the datasheet which replace obsolete parts in the original (the ROM and the RAM chips). The kit should have included 10 diodes, the 9 from the original design and D201 the additional one in the video circuit, between pins 9 and 11 of IC201.

The layout choices were partly aesthetic, I like the board to look cleanly laid out, but also a question of trying to fit everything into the smaller form factor. One side of the PAL / NTSC jumper is connected to the 74LS00 and 74LS32 that are directly adjacent to it, the other goes to D9 which is further away. As with many of the parts on the board, wherever they are placed, there are going to be longer tracks on one way or another. This could have been reduced by changing the design, but I was trying to keep as close as I could to the original schematic.

I find mounting the keyboard connectors at 45 degrees under the board works well, as shown in the photographs in the listing.

There should be enough adjustment in the pillars to square it up if you loosen the screws top and bottom and hold it level whilst tightening them up.

Thanks,

Dave

Alex | Feb. 7, 2019

Perfect fit and function

I found an old TS1000 in a cupboard at work after a series of layoffs. Despite efforts to try to reunite it with its owner, no-one was found. I adopted it.
The only issue seemed to be that the keyboard wasn't working: the usual story of the flex becoming brittle and cracked. However, that has an easy fix with a pair of scissors to cut away the long perished flex and leave a short section of "good" flex. Well, that worked for a while, but I couldn't resist fiddling and disassembled the computer once more to replace the electrolytic caps with ceramic, re-pot the 5V regulator and fit some small heatsinks to some of the chips. When putting it back together, the flex crumpled and the tracks cracked. I used wires and conductive glue to fix it which worked except for one row of five keys. I think the conductors within the matrix had perished as everything else buzzed-out correctly.
I turned to the internet for help and found this site. Tip top!
The flex is made of modern materials, so will last much longer and it bends neatly past the small heatsinks I installed.
To be clear, I'm not marking "Documentation" and "Communication" down. There was no documentation (it being hardly necessary) and there was no need for communication. I can hardly award five stars for what isn't needed.

Richard | Feb. 5, 2019

The best USB joystick adapter

For 9 way D USB joystick adapter

There are several adapters on the market to chose from and I selected this one for its superior engineering and its designer’s commitment to 8-bit engineering.

USB overdrive on Mac OS X sees both ports of the dual adapter as gaming ports and let’s me map the keys in my emulators to each joystick.

The cool form factor of the dual adapter is ingenious.

David | Feb. 3, 2019

Brought my PET back to life!

Not only did this product bring my 1978 PET 2001 back to life, it also showed me that the fault which led to it being completely unresponsive and only showing a static screen of random characters was NOT due to faulty ROMS as I had incorrectly assumed, but RAM - or perhaps the multiplexer for the RAM. This saved me an from what would have been a time-consuming and expensive and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to source replacement ROMS that would have made no difference at all.

Possible improvement for future deluxe edition:
An SD or even USB memory slot to allow software to be developed and / or sourced externally and then ported in all ready to go.
Although I have fond memories of using the PET many years ago and it gave me my first introduction to computing, it's still a nightmare to use that quirky keyboard and cassette interface.

Many thanks!

Adam | Jan. 20, 2019

An new oldie

I wanted to play around with a ZX80 without the ZX80 pricetag. Yes, I could have used an emulator but where is the fun in that?
I purchased this in kit form making it more of an enjoyable experience as I actually had to solder each component into place. I chose the blue PCB and really like the colour. The fun didn't stop when the building stopped, I connected the computer to the TV and it worked first time.

Simon | Dec. 29, 2018

Excellent product and excellent seller