My TV screen might be getting smaller, but my calculator screen is definitely getting larger! Wanted a TI-83 Plus Silver Edition for a long time, when this model appeared with a pair of ViewScreens I had to pick it up. Fun to see some of my programs finally running at 15MHz. Now I just need an OHP!

Quote with a fictional band that is not Spın̈al Tap.

Oh, go on then... Now eBay knows I've bought a few Casio devices, I'm in trouble.

Well done to Bulgaria for demonstrating that the winning formula is to put a banging donk on it.

Having replaced all the leaky batteries in my old pocket computers, I do need to make sure they're charged every couple of months or so and it's always good to give the plotter a bit of a workout.

Bought a junk CP-10 to scavenge the printer mechanism but when I opened it up there were signs that someone had tried to repair it before me. Not one to avoid a challenge I got it working and now I guess I need to buy another junk CP-10!

Interested in how the other half lived so picked up my first Casio pocket computer. Bit of a gamble as untested but a good price and came with the manuals. Clues on the back as to how the previous owner used it, and very happy to find the 1KB RAM option inside too (only 544 bytes free otherwise!)

No civic-minded moggies on my trip to the polling station, I'm sorry to report.

Sod the sunshine, come and sit in the dark. Back to my favourite cinema for an Evangelion double bill.

Tried ordering a Casio cable from www.lynks.co.uk/casio.html but as the page was last updated over 20 years ago not expecting a reply soon. In the meantime took a punt on this Packard Bell organiser cable and after a little reverse-engineering it looks like it should be safe to use on Casios too.

Front derailleur cable snapped last night on the way home from the pub and didn't fancy completing today's group ride in the small chainring so airing out the folding bike. Hope the gravel's not too brütal!

This is what yesterday's battery hackery was for: a Casio CP-9 Copy Pen. It's a scanner at one end and a printer at the other, allowing you to copy text and graphics from one page to another. You can also use it as a scanner for the KL-2000 label printer, or a printer for the SF-9000 organiser.

Shrinkflation extends to batteries too! Bought a 170mAh 9V online, when it turned up they've cheekily redesigned the packaging to rate it for 160mAh but make it part of the "170 series".

Nice to see some bluebells out in Selsdon Wood between brunch at Culina and drinks at the Golden Ark.

Another day, another thermal printer with leaky Ni-CDs inside. Arnie must have been working on the production line the day mine was assembled based on how tight the screws were and how much force it took to pop off the battery cover. Seems to work, and nice to see a Z80 running the show inside!

Got this brilliantly detailed Lego Game Boy from my sister and brother in law for my birthday and only got enough time to sit down and enjoy putting it together this weekend.

If you see this, post a concert photo that you took. John Carpenter at the Troxy, 2nd November 2016.

My mum intercepted these on the way to the bin, so I guess I've now joined team RPN.

Nice to read some good news for a change. www.reddit.com/r/london/com...

Picked up an untested CE-122 printer and cassette interface for "spares and repairs". Quite grubby and had the usual leaky Ni-CD problems but after a bit of TLC it's working rather nicely.

It's been a fair few years since I updated my stamp collection but I couldn't pass on this set I spotted in the window of a charity shop.

Birthday fry-up with @gigglefox1.bsky.social

I replaced my second monitor with this bucket back in July and the immediate feedback on just how heavily it's raining outside beats any weather gadget I would have shown there.

Killing time in town yesterday I wandered into the game shop and picked up a game I'd not played before for a fiver. For some reason the previous owner really didn't want you to know the title of the game or system it was for, though...

Boards from JLCPCB, components from Bitsbox, soldering iron from... Aldi. It'll do, there are Dreamcast racing wheel dead-zones to defeat! Normally make these in batches of five, but I've already got eight requests in.

Last tape loading issue resolved on one of these so that's now four (mostly-)working Sharp CE-125s, shown here with a range of compatible pocket computers. The only outstanding issue is two dead elements in one of the print heads, but that's not exactly something I can repair. Love this form factor!

2026 is going to be a year of new and exciting projects, which is why I'm kicking things off by repairing yet another CE-125. In my defence I did buy the replacement Ni-CD cells in October last year and they only turned up yesterday.

It's that time again. Merry Christmas! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugv1...

Putting together a PSION Organiser II pak reader/writer seemed like a good project for a wet and windy Sunday afternoon, following Martin's plans on hackaday.io/project/1766... A cheap boost converters seems to provide a suitable 21Vpp instead of 2x 9V PP3s (the datapak contains an EPROM).

When I am king, it shall be unlawful to sell RS-232 adaptors without including a full wiring diagram so you can be certain as to whether it does what you want rather than guessing based on the gender of the connectors.

Two sets of lights front and back (flashing and static), high-vis jacket with reflective stripes, reflective sidewalls on the tyres, reflective stripes on trunk bag. Motorist still fails to see me and drives into me. "I looked, but didn't see you, there must be something deficient in your lighting".

Superb gig from @espritdair.com last night, really good to hear the new album and some older favourites nice and loud.

I bid on a Psion Organiser II on eBay earlier this week. I paid about the going rate, as something about the ending time called out to me, and rather more than I was expecting just turned up...

What perfect album came out the year you turned 16? I need a saga. What's the saga? You can't even hear it...

I picked up a couple of Sharp ZQ-770 organisers this week. Both had succumbed to very severe battery leaks (hence the discoloured paintwork) but I was able to get both powering up after a thorough clean. Both have the usual LCD failure issue, this one being the worst.

Really enjoying the new album Aeons from @espritdair.com and very much looking forwards to seeing them live soon! Thank you, Kai. :)

I couldn't find any replacement ink rollers for this printing calculator but a few drops of endorsing ink seems to have got the old roller working again and the violet seems to be a good match. Now I just need to find a source of 37mm-wide plain paper rolls, else I'll have to get the scissors out!

Richard Russell's "Z88 BASIC Patch" adds graphics support to BBC BASIC. It can also print out the graphics area, but this requires an Epson-compatible printer which the Serial 8056 isn't. I've developed a patch for a patch, in other words. benryves.com/bin/z88/8056...

Of all the components I'd expect to go bad, a quartz resonator is pretty far down the list. I bought this very cute printing calculator as faulty, expecting leaking Ni-Cd cells inside. A previous owner had removed them (hooray!) but the seller couldn't get the calculator to run on external power.

I was told to avoid smoking the RIFA, so not sure if I should pre-emptively remove these - at least they're on a separate board and have a plastic shield over them to contain any explosions!

I've been hearing an unnerving creaking when putting force into the pedals for the past 2-3 weeks. I guess that would explain it! Only had solid axles before where a snapped axle failure is rather more obvious and catastrophic, the quick release skewer has put up a good fight...

Another weekend, another CE-125 on the workbench... I don't intentionally buy them, but it seems most of the time you buy another Sharp pocket computer or accessory it comes attached to a CE-125 full of leaking Ni-CD batteries and gooey disintegrating belts.

I should have bought a decent solder sucker years ago. I suspected a bad RAM(1) in this PC-1211 and had replacements (and built a RAM tester) but couldn't get the old chip out with my regular solder sucker. The Engineer SS-03 made it an absolute doddle to remove, and another PC-1211 lives again.

I did pick a couple of new Sharp devices in the month of #sharptember - a programmable scientific calculator, the surprisingly small EL-512, and a "faulty" PC-1251 for parts to replace the front cover on the one I damaged when replacing the LCD. Amazingly, the original LCD on the 1251 fully works!

Spent a lovely few days on the Isle of Wight last week.

A 1983-vintage Ni-CD battery pack strikes again!

I had been putting a little preferred resistor value program on the PC-1211. DEF S sets the series (e.g. E12), DEF L prints a list of values in the series, DEF F finds the closest match (here I asked for 500Ω resistor in the E12 series). benryves.com/bin/sharp-pc...

Two Sharp PC-1211 pocket computers that were increasingly hard to read due to failing LCDs back in service after installing modern LCD replacements. The new ones are green instead of that classic yellow but at least they're not going black around the edges.

I feel the English translation they've gone for here lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.

Wondering if it's worth the hassle of keeping old (and unvisited) forums online these days. I'd been doing it for archival reasons but over the past few months the amount of bot scraping has gone through the roof and brings the DB server to its knees (my guess is training data for AI LLM)? PITA!