Acorn Electron | Pre-Flight Checks - Trash to Treasure

 
In this episode we check the safety and suitability of our donated Acorn Electron to ensure we don't damage it by powering it on or create an unnecessary risk to ourselves or our home.

● Series

●Purchasing Links to support RMC

● Corrections
Mode 4 is shown as 4 colours in the table of display modes. It should be 2 colours.

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● Music
Noble Dub - Silent Partner
Alright - Silent Partner
Bark - John Deley and the 41 Players
Come on In - Silent Partner

[CRodenbarger]

I really want to work with non-emulated BBC BASIC and have been thinking hard on the Acorn Electron. This video has helped answer a lot of the questions behind my hesitation. I’ll likely start looking in the spring when the flea markets start back up. I don’t know what I’ll find in Germany without going to eBay, but I’d like to try anyway. Thanks for the thorough runthrough. It’s very useful information.

[stsurvivor]

Great video as always mate, love these restoration vids that don't skimp on the details.

[musiclabmn]

Absolutely fantastic! Thanks for going so in-depth, I always learn something new from your videos and I can't wait for the next. Two thumbs up!!

[aljr]

Awesome video. I love these obscure (to me) British computers from the 80s they are so much neater than most of the ones that were available to me in my part of Canada at the time. I wanted a Commodore 64 when they came out and then the 128 and Amiga but didn’t get a computer until I was 17 when I finally convinced my grandma that I needed to learn to use a computer for school and that I would need to know at least some computer skills for the work place. Sadly all I really ever learned was how to play video games and go on to message boards. I still am not very good with computers but it’s never too late to learn and hopefully now that I’m disabled I can get the odsp ( where my pension comes from) to send me to school to learn computers so I might be productive again and actually get to have a living wage.

[StonyRC]

Good Job Caveman - so good to see an old ship fly once again!

[jtsiomb]

The power supply is fine. Someone just changed the cable at some point. It's just a transformer anyway, it's not likely to fail. The actual power supply is inside the machine.

[electronash]

If you had a proper bench PSU, what you'd normally do is to set it for 5 Volts anyway, then increase the current limit in steps instead. ;)

With too low a voltage (or too slow a ramp-up time), the chips aren't so likely to start properly, and it could even feasibly cause bus contention, or latch-up.

Loved the vid btw.

I have fond memories of playing on an Electron in the 90s, and messing with weird Telex / Prestel machines.

[nekomasteryoutube]

I would definatly agree on checking out any electronic that has been stored in an outside shed or in damp/moist environments (like a basement or garage). Also be very wary of old electronics coming from humid places like Beaches and Tropical area's. Humidity can accelerate damage and corrosion to metal and electronics.

[TheRetroShed]

Great video! I am wary of cheap “modern” power supplies from EBay or Amazon. Had more than one break or go pop! The original was probably made better quality and to better tolerances than some of the new stuff!

[reggiep]

Seeing that power up screen brings back old memories and 99% of the time it was CTRL + K and SHIFT + 2 twice for - CHAIN "" - and RETURN, the click of the relay switch and PLAY on the cassette deck.

I did always wonder why the Electron cassette load command was different to the more common LOAD "" of other 8-bits. It did have a LOAD command but you needed to type RUN after the software was loaded afterwards.

I probably looked it up years ago but my early 40's epilepsy thrashed brain has forgot hahaha.

[Sloposse]

The acorn electron has the strongest and toughest endurance of any keyboard ever made, mine took some right punishment and lasted years lol i've acquired a few of them in recent years and a few of the addons too that I hope you are going to feature

[Dorelaxen]

Wonderful stuff, man. Being from the US, it's always highly interesting to me to see you restore these UK machines. Someday I intend to have a full collection of classic US, UK, and Japanese pre-1990 computers. Got a pretty good one going on the US side of things. Only missing the CoCo 3, and that's just because I haven't found one in the wild yet.

[fortnitegod]

Good vid there. I have one with blocks on screen at boot I don't think ula has gone it's more like a ram fault. Love your explanations and product knowledge as well as the safety aspect of restoring old technology. RMC 😁 great...kim

[RDJ]

I can watch this for hours and hours :)

[ikilby]

I love these. You made me dig out my old Amiga. Next is my Atari ST :) Brilliant cant get enough of your vids.

[TheDigitalAura]

I'd only replace the electrolytics and tantalums on the main board and the electrolytics on the power board but leave the big smoothing cap unless it's absolutely necessary. What scope software/hardware are you using? Second psu looks perfectly fine and unnecessary to change.

[MartinKidd]

I don't recall my dad ever cracking open the power supply and he certainly wouldn't have done such a crappy job on soldering those points. I'm guessing that one must have come with the second electron we bought used and the other one was our original one.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it anyway...

[pwnt]

word of warning about using the CE label to see if it's a good power supply some Chinese ripoffs use the CE when it isn't truly certified generally they use a very slightly different image to dodge copyright(or something like that) issues

[IDPhotoMan]

Love all of your videos, Subscribed a week or so ago. Best voice of any Retro-type channels on Youtube.

[thedysk]

Nice Vid. Great work. What is the converter you are using to connect the Electron to the VGA Monitor?