Welcome!

[deanb01]

Hi Dean, a warm welcome to the forum.

Fascinating to hear that you used an Einstein to develop code for the Amstrad/Spectrum.

I thought 'breakintoprogram' sounded familiar, and I realise I've previously used your website (www.breakintoprogram.co.uk) for Z80 opcode reference and enjoyed reading your posts

I'll get out my Amstrad CPC and have a play with LED Storm, Ghouls n Ghosts, Sly Spy (Secret Agent) and Gauntlet III: The FInal Quest!

Cheers! And thanks for the warm welcome. LED Storm on the Amstrad is terrible, but the rest are okay. And yes, that's me. I get around.

[deanb01]

Welcome Dean!

Great website and info.

Thanks! Hoping to blog a bit about the Einstein, and its place in the NW computer games scene.

[MikeDHalliday]

If you have issues reading the disks on the Einstein, use a grease weezle. They work a treat on old disk formats! I have used one many times to recover 3" discs.

[vanpeebles]

+1 for the greaseweazle, it can help you detect dirty spots on the discs etc, using hxc floppy emulator. I've been imaging stacks of disks over the last few months. You can also recover possibly deleted files or old revision too. It would be amazing to see all the stuff left over from your coding days. If you have other contacts that would be even better Welcome!

[arcadesy]

Hello and welcome!

Hi

Thank you for letting me join your forum.

I do a fair amount on the Internet under the pseudonym 'breakintoprogram'. This includes some computer restorations, software archiving, coding in Z80, and developing new hardware.

I used Tatung Einstein's for a few years as a games developer in the North West back in the late 80s, early 90s, working at a company called Software Creations, using Mike Webb's excellent Z80 Assembler to write the game code on the Tatung, and squirting the assembled binary down to the target machine (Amstrad CPC or Spectrum) to test over the parallel port.

Recently purchased a working TC-01 off eBay to attempt to recover some data from a handful of 3" disks from back then. I could have just used a Greaseweazel and bought a 3" drive, but where's the fun in that! Anyway, owning the Tatung is a win for nostalgia, that's for sure.

Hopefully going to be powering the machine up tomorrow after giving at a superficial check, to ensure nothing shook loose during delivery, then see if it'll read any disks.

[1980s_john]

@vanpeebles I have been compiling a list that has been in the works for about 12 months of all the Einsteins I have seen or heard about across the web (eBay, Facebook, Shpock, Insta etc). I have about 100 machines on it at the moment .. That's how many there are left in the world??

Hello All,
Thanks for letting me join the Tatung forum, I have a TC01 s/n 6014402 to add to Mike's list. I bought this many years ago in a boot fair and it has been in my loft ever since, had a look at it this week and it is a single drive model with no other add-ons. I used to try and buy one of each of many old computers, and this one has been left in peace so my hope is with help from here and the wonderful people who scanned in the manuals it can be brought back to life again.

Regards,
John

[arcadesy]

Hi John!

[vanpeebles]

Welcome John!!

[GillianS]

Hi, I'm new to The Einstein having recently picked one up with Sn 6000482. It was a non-runner but replacing a RAM chip, ADC and the 100uF 400V capacitor in the power supply and it seems to have got it going. I went through all the other caps and they were fine. Mike can add my serial number to the list for resurrected machines... Perhaps the original owner could say "Hi".

As far as I can tell, the PCB was fairly unmolested but the upper nibble of RAM was Mostek and the lower NEC. The Mostek CTC was socketed but all other devices bar the ROMS are soldered. The ADC looked crooked so that may have been played with. The case is clean, the minor cracks have been dealt with and the keyboard moulding came up a treat with a peroxide sun-tan. As the RAM was removed for testing, that's now living in turned pin sockets as is the replacement ADC.

The main thing I've learned so far is to remove the volume knob from the side *before* trying to slide out the motherboard

Gillian

[MikeDHalliday]

Welcome.

Sounds like you have jumped in feet first here

Glad you have your machine working!

There are loads of resources available here for your enjoyment.

Regards

Mike.