The Worst Commodore 16 I've Seen

good day welcome to great white retro I'm Gord fesick and this is my bench our topic today is a commodore 16 on loan to us from roadkill Incorporated John Bumstead is letting me use this machine in the November collector billia coming up but in the meantime we've got some very yellow Keys a very dirty case some rusted connectors on the back and if at all possible I want to upgrade this thing to 64k so we can run some plus four software on here as well let's get her done good look at this keyboard here it was missing the 7 key when I borrowed it from John but I was able to get this from a reseller over in Hungary almost the same place where I got the spare 128 keyboard the one thing that bothered me on this guy in this guy is not only the disgusting shape of this case but cartridge Port is a bit rusted on the inside that RF Port I'm not even going to bother with if I could get away with removing the RF much later I would but I don't think I'm going to thank you well let's at least give it a quick test I've got a 1571 disk drive hooked up and I was able to write a disk image of an old compute Gazette uh floppy disk here let's see if we can place something that has some sound just to make sure the Ted ship is working properly the only thing I found that worked right was this thing called Saloon [Music] [Music] oh at least we got noise [Music] I'll figure out some way to get joysticks hooked up onto this later in the meantime let's get this case apart you can see that at least two of the three outer case screws are rusted [Music] I am not looking forward to seeing the rest of the case at this point [Music] there we go yeah the corners of the RF Shield are rusted the screws holding the RF shield and board in the in place are rusted [Music] I'm surprised this thing actually worked [Music] okay and with the RF Shield removed let's take a quick look in the center top is the CPU just below that is the Ted chip and to the left were some ROMs and the rest are the RAM and some glue logic underneath we've got that RF Shield that's really rusted and the RF output connector is also rusted fortunately the i o was not rusted and it's working that uh case Shield however yeah we're gonna have some fun with that [Music] now it's time for our new budgeted item for 2023. I ordered a soldering station suitable for vintage computers this includes a soldering iron and a desoldering pump I didn't get the one with the hot air gun as well I figured that might be a bit much for vintage machines but I'm going to read the instructions of this station very carefully among other things I'm supposed to do the initial heat up to 250 Celsius and then I can tip the uh I can tin the tips with a tinning paste that came with the kit I can do this for both the soldering iron and the desoldering pump I'm just going over that leaving that in there there we go so I'll heat it up to 250c and then I'll tin the tip with the supplied tinning compound [Music] while the thing was warming up I've got to to take this thing apart let's get those case screws into a container so that we don't lose them the case screws are rusted and we'll show you one up close in just a bit here it comes yeah look at that well these days I'm going to get my iPhone Focus working right the c-16 comes apart much like a vic-20 there are hinges on the back and then the case screws are all three on the front there keyboard is not compatible with the vic-20 so don't try to use a vic-20 keyboard in here let's get that horrible RF Shield off of there [Music] let's get that side panel off of there so that we can remove the bottom part of the RF Shield we're going to need to de-solder of those clamps on the bottom and on the top of the main board I'm using added flux on my desoldering braid just like I did with the vic-20 and I'm not going to show you the struggle but I did get this board free from the r of Shield the cardboard separator looks like it's in pretty good shape too next comes the cartridge Shield again I got some added flux on there to help Wick up the solder and here I am trying to pry the cartridge Shield off of the main board I got some of it off as you could see here I am getting a third leg out of there in fact there's my screwdriver not cooperating with me I do eventually get this Shield free [Music] a little bit of heat and there it goes next comes the RF modulator I need to desolder an 8-pin connector and three Shield points I get those with the solder the desoldering pump I ended up clogging the desoldering pump so I had to change the tip but then I learned how to clean the tip regularly and I was able to use the desoldering pump much more effectively later on [Music] just a little bit more and off comes the RF modulator [Music] I wipe all of the areas I touched with flux with alcohol make sure I got all the flux off of there now let's take a look inside the RF modulator looks fine at first but you can see that the top is already rusted I don't know what condition the bottom is so I'm removing it as well I can't soak that whole thing in de-rusting Solutions so I need to disconnect that RF output connector from the rest of the RF modulator so here's what we've got we've got a collection of screws and the heads are mostly rusted we've got an RF modulator Shield where the surfaces are rusted got a lid where the surfaces are rusted we've got a cartridge Shield where the surface is mostly rusted we have the underside of the RF Shield which is Rusted wherever there were vent holes we've got the top of the RF Shield where it's rusted mostly where there was air getting in and then we have this thing which doesn't look very rusted it's the side panel for all of the ports on the side you can get that cleaned up I'm sure it's not rusted fortunately the key screws themselves appear to be rusted so I'm gonna have to remove those as well darn well I gotta take this keyboard apart look at how yellowed those keys are except for the seven key that I got and those badges are in horrible shape I have a cunning plan to deal with the badges though that you'll get to see oh my well we've got our work cut out for us um I will use this opportunity to channel my inner David Murray 8-bit guy please forgive me for what I'm about to do here this restoration project is not really going according to plan I've seen more rusts on here than I have ever seen on a personal computer before it's a good thing I got a whole bunch of vinegar for this I've been reading on how to do the the de-rusting I am hoping to be able to just use a mixture of vinegar and salt to get that I can see why John bumpstead never really had the time to work on this thing himself wow you even see the Retro Retro break you can even see the yellow indifference on these keys well but you know what in spite of all the rust all the rust on the screws all the rust on the keyboard well on the back of the keyboard anyway all the rust on the keyboard screws all of the rust on the RF Shield and on the other modulator casing and so forth I think I'll be able to do well the plan with the vinegar is to leave everything and then I'll have to soak the thing afterward in baking soda solution fortunately I've got plenty of baking soda for that and I'm also going to use some some electrical rust proofer afterwards with everything I could coat after so well then you'll be able to keep this thing rust free for the rest of its lifetime after taking everything apart now at least best as I can I found that some of the keyboard Springs are rusted the spacebar spring isn't as bad but there is still some rust on it the cartridge Shield is Rusted the RF output is Rusted the shield on the RF output is Rusted most of the case screws are rusted the space bar stabilizer is Rusted and of course the RF Shield is Rusted to make things even more interesting half of the keyboard screws are rusted we've got our work cut out for us here let's get the shift lock detached let's get this tape off of here I will replace the clear tape but not the masking tape there's no point in that yep I'm going to have to soak all of those little screws in my vinegar and salt solution and well it's gonna take a little while [Music] okay yeah okay this uh keyboard uh circuit board is much like the one from the vic-20 but they're using carbon covered contacts this time now for the d-rustin let's add some salt to this container here I do have the keyboard spring somewhere else so don't worry I haven't fixed them up let's get our vinegar in there there we are mmm salt and vinegar yum yum I don't expect the Springs to take very long to de-rust is there okay kind of those screw heads are gonna be a problem but we'll keep that sealed don't worry that container is not airtight so any gases are gonna get out and it's not gonna explode on me here comes the big trouble let's get plenty of salt in there look at that all righty I ended up soaking this thing in vinegar for two days we'll see the result after day one I will loosen the lid once I get this thing in place don't worry shortly after the next day I took all of the Springs out of the vinegar and salt solution I put them in a baking soda solution to stop the chemical reaction right that way we don't deteriorate the Springs any Springs are in pretty good shape even if they're darkened a little bit by the solution foreign not bad at all okay um I don't see any change on the RF connector yet I think uh steel brush will take care of that just me scraping here uh gently reveals that most of the surface rust came off of the cartridge Shield just fine okay and we'll put everything else in there to let it uh finish de-rusting next comes the big one oh boy here's the horrible RF Shield there's the keyboard spring we'll get that out of there because it doesn't need to be in there anymore that's the space bar Spring all right so trying to avoid contact as much as I can I take uh steel brush to these horrible horrible spots in an attempt to get the worst of it off there's no way this is coming off on day one I try to work the edges though as well some of the parts of the shield are pretty fragile nor notably in the corners where they've bent some of those screw holes way so it sits flush there's the spacebar stabilizer that's in pretty rough shape but a little bit of wire brushing will help with that [Music] and there we are that's not bad it could be better though so I'll put it back in there for another full day here comes the cartridge Shield it uh came out much better a little bit of wire brush action and the surface rust came off of there unfortunately I lost the label off of there but I'm pretty sure John won't mind the lack of the quality assurance labels there we go and after a bit of scrubbing we were able to get the rust off of vrf modulator connector there pretty good there so after letting them soak in baking soda I am now using this this was suggested by the local hardware store to to coat our rust our de-rusted things so they don't rust right away I'm gonna have to find a more permanent solution I'm experimenting with nickel plating we'll see if we can do that but this will do for now I am using my wire brush on these screw heads one at a time it is helping as I scrub them off I'll put them in the baking soda there we go one by one they all get done including all the tiny little keyboard screws [Music] my goodness and finally after rinsing them we'll put them in some oil as well [Music] get the keyboard Springs also get some oil on them I will wipe them down before I reinstall them okay so we're not there yet but we've got lots of progress here the spacebar stabilizer is in pretty good shape but um it still needs a bit of work yet the corners have got some corrosion still on them here the top half of the RF Shield looks pretty good where it's mostly stuck whereas where I couldn't get at it with the brush in these Corners here there's some corrosion here but where there used to be corrosion there's now these dark spots it looks awful but I can feel that there's no bumps so that tells me that the rust is gone top side you can even see a color change here right this is I haven't soaked this in baking soda yet because I'm going to put this back in the Acid Bath and that's because the other half of the RF Shield is still in terrible shape the edges yeah I can still feel corrosion here and here and here but of course the underside is awful yet look at this and this is after some significant scrubbing so I'm going to attempt some mechanical removal on here with a scraper and then I'm going to put this back into the Acid Bath and we'll see what happens so day two I think it's ready so I get my baking soda solution ready to go that container ended up being too small to put the RF Shield pieces in [Music] but yeah let's get those out of there I want to get the hand out of there next time I'll use gloves I promise so we'll give it a quick soak in baking soda I emptied out the Acid Bath and I just used that there let's get that in there there we go there that will stop the acid reaction and hopefully stop it from flash rusting on me I'm able to get into the corners with my wire brush and so the top half of the RF Shield was now virtually rust free I'll take that a little bit of scraping here to get the worst of the rust off of here followed by a wire brush and well this looks much better I might revisit this with some electrolysis kit that I prepared we'll see in the meantime I'm getting most of the rust off of there and we'll go over the spacebar stabilizer one more time okay so you know what I'll take that for right now yeah this will have to do for right now and then I'll coat these in liquid wrench again to act as a rust proofer for now [Music] now coming back to the RF modulator I cleaned it up as well and I reattached the RF modulators board to its Shield case you can see that RF connector is a much better shape I also had to use some deoxid on the toggle switch there we are so not bad it could have been a whole lot worse well let's get it reinstalled into the board the composite and S video are not going to work without the RF modulator installed because it has pass-through circuits so we'll have to reinstall it if I had my way I would remove this dumb thing but we'll just have to live with it for right now it's not my property to destroy like that so I'll restore the RF connector in the RF modulator right but it is not needed [Music] okay not bad [Music] [Applause] [Music] let's do a quick test before we put the cartridge shield on there all right there's one of our LCA or S video cables and let's see what happens oh look at that we got a picture thank goodness for that I was a little worried there that's the S video output but I'm happy with that and we got our 16k it was shaky but it kind of cleared up over time let's see if we can get it to work on any of these helps well it works kinda let's try Channel 4 instead yeah this old TV is just not the greatest but I care so little for RF modulation I really don't give a damn okay well yeah definitely want my composite video over this and my s video well let's get the cartridge Shield back on there that was a lot less of a headache than the in the RF modulator was [Music] [Music] next is dealing with this keyboard [Music] some good old soap and water first I want to let these Keys soak before I scrub them so I set them aside here and while they're cooking let's try to clean up the the keyboard framing that just needed some soap and water to deal with nothing crazy here now if it's time for the case well the condition of this computer is no longer unknown so that goes away [Music] let's get these badges off the power badge came off with just a toothpick just fine the main Commodore 16 batch was a little more difficult I had to get in there with a screwdriver but once I got underneath it I tried using my floss pick the black ones are much more effective this one came apart but I was able to get underneath the badge and remove it without damaging it anymore [Music] wow good scrub and good old soap and water for this case there are little white spots all over as though a paint gun caught it so after I get these with some soap and water I'll take some baking soda to it to clean up those little white spots next comes the serial number badge on the back I will remove that and I'll tape it back on there once it's all done and I'll clean all that up [Music] so yeah you can see some of the little white spots here usually I'm worried about black spots on a beige case but it's kind of backwards here now with the keys we let these Keys soak in soapy water for a while now we can wipe them all off one at a time we'll set the seven key aside because it does not need retro brighting the others however do so we'll use the 7 key as a control for this [Music] okay we'll scrub it all off and we'll give everything there a good rinse off here here we go shake shake shake and using the strainer here there we go so what I got here is some black uh car touch-up paint here it comes with an abrasive tip for cleaning and it's basically a nail polish supplier except for cars I'm just going to douse the power button with it and I'm going to try to get the edges of the Commodore logo a batch we'll see how well that goes I ended up covering all of the silver or at least exposed metal I tried to use the abrasive part of the of the carp of the what am I talking about the abrasive part of the touch up paint container which is designed to scrape up these surfaces in preparation for repainting I end up painting over all of the metal I try to avoid the the color bars there but I was able to get everything else covered up [Music] it has two parts there's a kind of a a fountain pen part and then there is a brush part there we go just cover the power button there we are [Music] next it's time to get ready for the Retro bright uh just using tap water here the temperature got up to 46 or almost 47c which is well here you go 150 and 117 f let's add our hydrogen peroxide and then we'll wrap the thing up we're gonna leave it out in the sun for a little while again we're going full David Murray here it's a nice sunny day out so hey let's give this a try here's the the southeast corner of the house it gets the most sunshine and we'll just leave those out there to cook for a while all right we are getting the two RAM chips this uh this bus multiplexer and this bus multiplexer we're going to attempt the 64k modification while the Retro brights going on here after learning how to use the desoldering pump I had a much easier time getting those uh those joints cleaned up [Music] it did take a couple tries though again though but hey I had to go back and try it again pretty much gonna see it well it's like now you see it now you don't because I ended up hanging the board over the edge there and there we go there goes u8 all right out come the RAM chips and U7 [Music] the ram came out a lot easier than that first part did [Music] my understanding is I need to cut two lines I need to cut this Trace here on pin 2 of U7 that is what's tying that address line to to 5 volts so we want to disconnect that and connect it to this pin over here on the other side of u8 here we need to disconnect pin 14. from the 5 volt plane as well it's also being tied High and we need to tie it to this line over here these are the two pins that Jan beta used in his 64k modification so I added some sockets these are double wipe sockets so they're good quality here soldered them into place and yes I did the trace modifications before putting the sockets in place I'm not that crazy [Music] I am making sure I don't rejoin those to the five volt plane there we go we test those make sure we're not shorting them out no connection good good good all right now we do our bodge wires out to a couple of solder pads out near the CPU these are the same solder points that Jan beta used although I got them backwards at first can you see the problem there don't worry you'll see my escapades of troubleshooting this very shortly I was rather proud of this until it came out wrong here we go put our 4464 Rams in there [Music] give this a try [Music] oh it's taking longer uh oh uh oh that can't be good okay all right I just undid the modification and I tied those two pins on the on the ls logic back to high that got me back to my 16k of ram I don't know what happened yet I think next thing I'm going to try to do is I'm going to put in the 64k and see if that works at least to get me to 16k just to make sure the ram is good it's possible the ram isn't good I wouldn't be surprised even though I ordered from a North American reseller who knows where they got the chips from also I'll have the opportunity to test out the spare ls257 chips that I bought so this is interesting uh the original parts are ls257s these ones are ls257n I don't know what the n stands for but I'm going to go look that up what I found out is if I use the end part in u7's position it doesn't work if I put an original part in there and these are actually these two swapped then it works I'm going to have to ask the eBay vendor in question if these are valid chips or maybe I just picked the wrong part but at the same time I've got 4464 Rams in here so at least I know that the lower 16k is working it looks like the plan worked but not in the way I expected what I've got is I've got a couple I got my jumpers here instead of going to these two pins over here on these Vias I've got them plugged directly into the CPU socket um I don't know how this works I thought maybe the Ted ship needed to access parts of that Ram it says 60k free for basic well that's encouraging at least now I just gotta find a better way to run these lines okay after determining how cheesy that fix was I went and reconnected the bottom pieces and it turned out I did get the two Vias reversed yeah I'm sorry about that so Jan's beta's original modification works and it was with the other person's uh checks that I was able to figure out which pin belonged to which address line off the CPU so we should have it this time while that was going on the keys were getting brightened up looks like we're making some progress out here the outside water hit 51c or 124 F in the bright Sun [Music] with the 64k modification complete let's make sure that those bodge wires fit within the RF shield and it looks okay not bad I'll solder that in place here and after doing that before I do any more work I'm going to test yep there we go fortunately it's all still working let's make sure it fits in the case again [Music] okay everything's lining up [Music] I'll add some heatsink compound to the Ted chip so that the upper RF Shield can also act as a heatsink some folks have taken to adding heatsinks to a lot of the various parts but I don't know if that's necessary for this all right let's get that all fastened into place and it looks like the upper RF Shield is fitting just fine [Music] all right let's turn our attention to the keyboard next now that the keyboard itself is all cleaned up we can put all these plungers back [Music] these aren't the same plungers these have a different coating and now it's time to put the rest of the keyboard back together with each screw I'm just using a paper towel to absorb any excess oil before putting those screws back into place I'm hoping that this will help them last a little longer I don't know if it's possible to even plate these screws that's going to be interesting if that's possible [Music] thank you so while I was waiting for the Retro bright I decided to take the Eraser tip of this of this detailing of the touch-up paint this is what I've gotten so far badge came out pretty good except for the P which I think was a little bit too much maybe bits of the r can be done a little bit better but even more interesting was how the 16 turned out 16 turned out really well I just have a bit of a dip there I could probably scratch off of there with a sharp blade or something now I've just got the whole rest of commodore's logo to rub off [Music] of you are you see me [Music] so the badges turned out pretty good let's get these uh retrobrited Keys sorted out now there's our control there's the a key it's almost a perfect match there's the up Arrow key that's also a good match introducing my revolutionary key layout the gwr WTF layout okay that's enough of that let's get the spacebar stabilizer prepared for reinstallation finally we can put this thing back together anyway we'll start with the space bar I had to use a kitchen utensil to snap the stabilizer into place and after that it worked out rather well it seemed like the keys brightened up a little bit in addition like so like they match the control but then they got a little brighter but hey that's okay they should be fine from here [Music] [Music] I'm also wiping off the Springs before I install them making sure they're separated out and making sure that they have their excess oil removed so there shouldn't be any oil dripping into the keyboard and the Commodore key finally [Music] and with that out of the way let's get this thing reassembled starting of course with the keyboard [Music] and all of those formerly horrible screws that are now if they're not they're at least not rusted anymore they're still little rough but I don't know how to fix that I don't know how to re-galvanize or replay these screws that might be a challenge okay we'll see anyway let's put some fresh clear tape on there I'm not I don't know what the masking tape was for my goodness but at least the clear tape makes a little sense [Applause] next let's get these two halves made out of here we'll put some contact cement on here because I'm not going to use double-sided tape on these not like I did on the vic-20 the Vic ended up coming apart again and I had to use contact cement so I'm just going to use it here but I will use double-sided tape on the bottom blade that was still successful [Music] here we go series 264 model 16. there we are I guess it is a 264 Now isn't it anyway Let's uh get those two let's get the badges on there to get the two badges on there the power one went on there without any hitches once the contact cement had enough time to air out it fastened without any problems good luck getting those badges off now I did finally receive my nylon replacement badges but it was just the day after I finished this and I felt proud of this so I kept these badges on there [Music] now he's got that power LED I learned from the vic-20 last time where you put the black ring in there first you push the LED up from the bottom and it's little pressure thing afterward and there we go there's the power LED back in place and now we can close these two halves up [Music] my goodness [Music] [Applause] hopefully we won't have to open this thing ever again [Music] let's get some before and after shots now [Music] thank you from unknown [Music] The Proud To Own John I hope you appreciate the work put into this thing and if you ever let this deteriorate into the state I found it I will find you in all seriousness on the next episode we'll put this Commodore 264 basically now through its Paces we'll get some 64k software running on here and we'll see what we can do with this on the next episode until then good day

Channel: Great White Retro

Views: 1,984

Keywords: Commodore 16, Rust Removal, 8-bit, vintage computing, plus/4

Id: 9U3zD3PFSeM

Length: 42min 5sec (2525 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 06 2023