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  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 12:49 PM

    Sometimes I know what I’m doing.

    This is the main CPU board and video board from a Macrosystem Casablanca. This thing is so cursed - if it doesn’t see a 50hz signal from the mains, it doesn’t fire up.

    So one 555 timer, and poking around to find the power button signal, and adding a transistor to switch the main PSU on - and it seems to work!

    A video of a large PCB with a secondary daughter board on it. The board is on a large wooden plate, with a floppy drive to the right hand side of the board, there’s a post it note on the floppy drive as well. In the video I press a small push button that is stuck to the front of the board. An LED on some veroboard lights up, and after a second, the floppy drive seeks.
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Replies

  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 12:51 PM

    The system is such a weird thing. It’s basically a cut down macrosystem Draco, which in of itself was a clone of the Amiga A3000.

    They took the RTC out, and it appears they use a PIC instead (counting from the line frequency?). Also for saying this is a video editor, they took the *entire video card out*

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  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 4:29 PM

    The Macrosystem Scrapablanca lives!

    An image of a black and white CRT, showing the Casablanca start up boot screen. Basically the text “Casablanca” and a weird blobby polygon that they used as a logo. The text (that is fairly illegible) states “insert Casablanca diskette 1” and “not a Casablanca disk”. I have a floppy disk inserted into the PC drive, and it’s successfully detecting that it exists and it’s not a real disk!
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  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 4:31 PM

    Also this is undoubtedly a hangover from the Amiga - the floppy disk clicks away unless a disk is inserted!

    Quite literally just a video of the floppy drive hooked up to the Casablanca- the activity light flashes and the drive clicks as it seeks for a non-existent disk
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  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 4:33 PM

    The first step is going to be to write some new install disks for it, just to make sure the entire thing does work as expected. Thankfully the hackspace has a greaseweazle I can use.

    Step after that is going to be to try and figure out how to add a clockport to this thing, before finally adding an A314 for some RTG graphics

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  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 8:06 PM

    Orrrrr I could just load the disk image that Adrian (from Adrian’s Digital Basement) uploaded to the internet archive.

    Lobbed onto a bluescsi, and it booted right away!

    A rather 90s tastic looking graphical interface, with several large buttons. There’s also a very cryptic error message of “Ion auf eine Kugel”
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  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 8:07 PM

    What does “Ion auf eine Kugel” even mean??

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  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 8:10 PM

    Interestingly enough, the Casablanca ROM still has the retina drivers in it for an actual graphics card!

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  • hkzhkz@chinwag.org
    Nov 9, 2026, 1:27 PM

    @DosFox eeeeh. Actually the 50/60hz tick is Amiga inherited. The 2000 had a jumper to get a replacement from vsync. Otherwise you need to inject it yourself from the psu connection.

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  • hkzhkz@chinwag.org
    Nov 9, 2026, 1:42 PM

    @DosFox yup, had to add a tick gen in my old atx adapter. Annoying.
    Guess they wanted it for video synchronization in case you wanted to do video overlaying or whatever.

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  • DosFoxDosFox@tech.lgbt
    Nov 9, 2026, 1:52 PM

    @hkz now that makes a lot more sense. I was wondering how they would have handled differences in line frequency, as I was assuming it was for the time.

    However, it makes perfect sense if it’s for video sync!

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