DIY : a PC-1500 male connector

Lot of you are looking for the PC-1500 male connector, isn’t it ?
It’s rare, near impossible to find.
A have a few ones but reserved for my PC-1560 project.

But i can explain you how i did as a workaround in the past…

1 – Find the SCSI 68 male connector
Buy a SCSI 68 cable with male connectors for something like $10.
And take some tools !

DIY_Connector_001 DIY_Connector_002

2 – Cut a connector with a part of the cable attached.
Please look carefully on the picture for the connector and the red wire positions and then at the border of next connector. This will help to make some more.

DIY_Connector_003 DIY_Connector_004

3 – Now we have a nice SCSI68 connector with some centimeters of ribbon attached.

DIY_Connector_005

4 – You have to cut some plastic parts of the connector and some pins.

The PC-1500 connector is 60 pins wide. The SCSI is 68… we have to remove 4 at each end.
With your cutter begin by cutting the plastic at the connector’s border, like marked in red in the scheme. Do it slowly, take time to be precise.

Here is the picture of SCSI68 connector before and after, and the scheme indicating where to cut.

DIY_Connector_006 DIY_Connector_011

Is it ok ?
You have to remove the rect part in the center.
Use the picture to see where to cut, position it with the red wire. It’s important for having good signal names on the wires.
Cut by small parts, begining by a little “V”… and a “U”…

And… cut the 4 pins at both borders.

Are you OK ? Does it looks like mine ? Better ??? 😉

DIY_Connector_007 DIY_Connector_008

5 – Test it on your PC-1500
But please, remove batteries before doing that 😉

DIY_Connector_009

6 – Separate unused wires
As we saw previously, we have 8 unused wires, 4 each border.
Cut it a little bit to separate on one centimeter.
These wires will be useful to be sold on your electronic board and prevent your cable to be accidentally ripped.

DIY_Connector_010

7 – Now you have a really nice PC-1500 male connector and enough cable to cut some other ones.
And here is the wire assignment :

DIY_Connector_012

Do you have comments ?

PC-1500, one of the first EU/US version with A01 ROM

If was hard to find it but here is it : one of the first EU/US version with A01 ROM.

This one is in a mint state. Lucky guy, isn’t it ?
On the front side nothing can distinguish it from the successors…

PC-1500_A01_001

On the back no more difference. But if you look closely on the serial number there is a big difference : it begins by “20000…” and ends with 892. This one is in the first 1000 sold items. For the Japan version you will have to find a serial number beginning by “1”

PC-1500_A01_002 PC-1500_A01_003

Inside we see lot of blue wire straps. It happens sometimes in the early A03 versions.

PC-1500_A01_004 PC-1500_A01_007

Let’s look closely on the boards…
The CPU board has lot of errors. On the keyboard/display board you can see the SC613128 ROM IC with A01 on it.

PC-1500_A01_006 PC-1500_A01_005

Now we remove the board from the front side.
The display board revision is F2075

PC-1500_A01_009 PC-1500_A01_010

And we do same with the CPU board and see F2076.

PC-1500_A01_008

I will soon make same with the other versions.
See Sharp Technical Reports for ROM differences :
http://www.pc-1500.info/2014/07/22/sharp-pc-1500-technical-reports/

And same with the printers because they have many revisions and at least 2 ROM versions

Your Sharp CE-150 needs repair ?

The main problem on CE-150 is the battery pack.
This item needs to be kept in charge.
But after years in your attic…

The battery pack leaks and can damage the electronic board.
Sharp did a mistake when designing the CE-150.
Without battery pack the printer is unusable except for tape operations.

Do you want to repair it ?

Look at this video tutorial offered by Kai :
http://www.kaibader.de/sharp-ce-150-printer-pc-1500-vintage-hardware-repair/

And bookmark his very interesting website !

Power adapter replacement for your Sharp PC-1500/CE-150/IWS…

Do you need a power adapter for your PC-1500/CE-150 or IWS adapter ?
The requirements are :
– 9V
– 110v/220V
– plug dimensions 5.5mm x 2.1mm
– Negative inside, positive outside

You can find matching power adapter on eBay for less than $3 shipping included.

PowerAdapter

Use the keywords : DC 9V 1A EU Negative inside

IWS Video adapter for the Sharp PC-1500 (Part 1)

Many of us have dreamed of this device!
But his selling price was 800DM did not make him accessible to all budgets.

It was designed by “Ingenieurbüro Walter Speidel” and sold a few hundred copies. To my knowledge the IWS is the only video interface for Sharp PC-1500.

So the mysterious listing we had:

IWS interface and PC-1500 connected to the TV IWS interface in it's original box

This peripheral offers the following features:
– Playback on TV with the resolution of 25×40 or 25×80 characters.
– Input / Output cassette
– Speaker Output

Opening the IWS video interface box Inputs and outputs of the IWS video interface for the PC-1500

The save/load with the tape are faster than Sharp instructions.

It is accompanied by a user manual in A5 size.
All is correctly described, the new Basic instructions, the memory organization, except the schematics.

IWS user manual
DOWNLOAD the user manual

And there exist a 3 page correction to it :

IWS user manual correction
DOWNLOAD the correction

It can connect directly to the PC-1500 but needs it’s only power adapter.

IWS video interface connected to the Sharp PC-1500 front view IWS video interface connected to the Sharp PC-1500 rear view

And to the printer :

IWS video interface connected to the Sharp CE-150 front view IWS video interface connected to the Sharp Sharp CE-150 rear view

Next time we will talk about hardware considerations…

The PC-2 and the Radio Shack catalogs

The Tandy PC-2 was exclusively sold by Radio Shack, in shops or catalogs.
A big thanks to Mike from www.RadioShackCatalogs.com for allowing me to publish here some pages with the PC-2 !

First we have the General catalogs for 1983 and 1984.
It’s strange but there wasn’t any PC-2 in the 1982 one.
The start price was $279.95 for the pocket and $239.95 for the printer.
The printer’s carrying case was sold apart at $29.95

1983 :
1984 :

And we have the Computer catalogs for 1983 and 1984 too.
Nothing after 1984… definitely replaced by the PC-3 !

Uh, do you see the PC-2 color page 39 ? It’s light brown, like PC-1500…
Printing problem or does it really exist a non grey version ?

1983 RSC 08 page 38:
1983 RSC 08 page 39:
1983 RSC 09 page 116:
1983 RSC 09 page 117:
1984 RSC 10 page 57:
1984 RSC 11 page 61:

And here are the Additional catalogs from 1982 to 1984.
Yes ! 1982, this the first time on catalog for the PC-2.
But at the last catalog its price was $99.95 only !

Sale 1982 n°358:
Sale 1983 n°369:
Sale 1983 n°370:
Sale 1983 n°371:
Sale 1984 n°376:
Sale 1984 n°379:

You can visit Mike’s website for more informations of Radio Shack’s story and to see these pictures in high resolution.

PC-1600 : industrial housing

You all know the standard PC-1500/1600 “leather” pouch.
It’s ok for common use.
But it’s unusable in industrial environment !

A company (don’t know which) has developed the perfect housing.
It can protect a PC-1600 and let the keyboard use.

You have two kinds of closing :
– One who definetly close the housing
– One who let access to I/O ports after removing a small trap door.

See the access for the power adapter

This housing is perfect for the PC-1500 too, excepting for the power adapter plug position.

Magazine : Sharp PC-1500 Zeitung (Part 1)

In Mai 1983 the german user clubs started a very nice magazine : Sharp PC-1500 Zeitung.
This magazine was published from may 1983 to december 1984 (19 publications).

It was a good way to discover the PC-1500 world.
There were lot of adverts and informations.
You’ll find some exchanges with the french club “Sharpentiers”.
And sure, you’ll find some of Xavier Fojud’s publications !

In the future i will give you more informations about the names present in these magazines 😉

Please, be patient when reading because in 1983 it was made with the use of copies, part of copies, listings… and text is in all directions ! lol


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PC-1500, the family portrait

With the advent of small 8th and 9th so I have to redo the family photo.
So this is a total of 9 different versions of our favorite pocket computer.

PC-1500D_006

Come on, I made ​​you presentations!
From left to right and from top to bottom:

– Sharp PC-1500 Europe and North America.
– Sharp PC-1500A Europe and North America.
– Sharp PC-1500 Japan.
– Sharp PC-1501 Japan.
– Sharp PC-1500 Japan blue.
– Sharp PC-1500 RP2 Brazil
– Hiradastechnika PTA-4000 Hungary
– Hiradastechnika PTA-4000 + 16 Hungary
– Tandy / Radio Shack PC-2

What makes us 4 beautiful colors!

PC-1500D_010

Few more pictures :

PC-1500D_009PC-1500D_008PC-1500D_007

Before you go on your Internet browser to try to find those missing in your collection here is the order of rarity (the rarest to most common)
– Sharp PC-1500 Japan blue.
– Sharp PC-1500 RP2 Brazil
– Hiradastechnika PTA-4000 Hungary
– Hiradastechnika PTA-4000 + 16 Hungary
– Sharp PC-1501 Japan.
– Sharp PC-1500 Japan.
– Tandy / Radio Shack PC-2
– Sharp PC-1500A Europe and North America.
– Sharp PC-1500 Europe and North America.

I wish you good looking …