@Noel's Retro Lab - A note on that 3000 watt transformer: most residential circuits in the US are generally set up to deliver no more than 1800 watts before you'll trip the breaker. You'll probably never pull that much, but it's worth knowing. If you have a higher wattage circuit, the plugs should have a T-shaped slot where the right-hand blade of the plug would go in. There's a second kind of north american plug where the right-hand blade is turned 90 degrees, and it's for devices that can pull more than that. I think those allow up to 2400W, not sure. I don't know if your transformer has that kind of plug, but it should, so maybe you already know about this.

You’re back at talking about retro computers again! That’s great. Your lab is also nicely set up. Looking forward to the next episodes!

Welcome back! As someone who moved from the UK to the US, this was very interesting. I brought my PC with me (this was in 2008) and switched it to 115V, everything worked fine...for about 3 months. Then the power supply died. Like you, I think 6 weeks in a container ship hold did a number on the electronics. If anyone else is thinking of shipping any electronic equipment when they move abroad, they should consider this possibility. In the end, I totally sidestepped all of these by getting a MiSTer! Looking forward to more videos from you, Noel! ¡Hola desde California!

Several things about the CTM644, the Color Amstrad monitor: 1) The STK7308 hybrid circuit used in the power supply is normally ment to be universal (according the the very simple datasheets that can be found). 2) As it uses a switching power supply, it would be possible to modify the input circuitry to work as an internal voltage doubler. This involves: a) Replacing the main bulk capacitor by 2 capacitors in series b) Have a switch connecting the one side of the AC of the rectifier bridge to the middle point (between the 2 capacitors) This effectively transforms the diode bridge into a voltage doubler, when the switch is closed. When the switch is in open (in 220v position) everything works as usual. For details see the schematic of a old PC power supplies with voltage switch 3) The issue with your monitor is no horizontal deflection. The main power supply produces all the "external voltages" 5v and 12v + 100v DC used by the horizontal deflection circuit. So, besides cracked solder joints during transportation - Check for 100v DC for the horizontal deflection generated by the main power supply - Check if the base of the horizontal transistor is actually driven (go backwards, from the base of the transistor to the horizontal out of the sync IC) - Check other components around the output transistor hope that helps.

Great answers to lots of questions for those of us who want to branch out to computers across the pond.

great to have you up and running in your new home. You are one of the best retro computer channels, and I always learn something from you. I have no idea how you only have ~40K subs.. you deserve way way more

Here in Europe things are really easy: get a tv, either CRT, LCD or Plasma from roughly 1990-2010, and you're set. The only ones a bit picky are the tiny ones, 14 inch or so, as they often only handle RGB and composite, not S-video, and some don't do 60Hz either. When I go up in size, 20 inch or more, basically every screen I try has 50/60 PAL/SECAM/NTSC compatibility and 2 or 3 SCARTs with both S-video and RGB. Some are really cheap. Especially a Panasonic Viera from 2008, or a Sony Bravia with wide-gamut CCFL and VA panel, are impossible to beat. They can be found in the range free to max 25 bucks. The only no-go is 16:9 100Hz CRT's. Ideally you go after a 20-27 inch Trinitron, but you spend more on those, maybe like 100 bucks. PVM's are not needed, they may look cool, but they easily fetch 200 bucks or more, where a Plasma delivers a much better image for a fraction of the price, and if you want small and cute, those 14 inch Trinitrons that usually do 25 bucks as well are perfectly fine. Maybe not the stellar geometry, but the scanlines and colours are beautiful, and much easier to carry around.

Here's one vote for your doing this full time! One can always do game development on KZfaq anyway ;-)

Happy to see channel back in Action again. You picked a good topic since importing computers is such a big thing. 3000 watts is a beastly step up transformer. Look forward to your future videos.

Brownie points for callin' the first one a wall-wart!

Glad to have you back at it, I've missed your regular videos!

Great to see you back Noel.

So very glad to see a new video from you, Noel! This is useful information for any retro enthusiast - thank you for covering it.

Ayyy, a shoutout for Technology Connections. Love that channel, and this one.

I use a retro tink on my commodore 64 with a 4k monitor. I think the video output looks more or less exactly like I remember it. Really high quality. Lesser quality upscalers might not output as good. So that's my preferred option. And unlike a CRT it's not loud and obnoxious. CRTs gave me headaches even if I couldn't hear them.

Great video Noel. Hope to see you again soon.

happy to see you in action! it is always a pleasure to hear you talk about these computers. 👍

Good to see you back Noel. Digging your new Retro Lab. Looking forward to more quality videos from the US.

Welcome back Noel, it’s great to see you back up and running again after the move. The new lab space is looking fantastic, a great set for future videos.

One thing to bear in mind: the AC frequency is very important when there is motors involved, like in your CPC 464 with the tape deck integrated. The tape deck uses a step motor to run the cassettes so be careful to use it with a power source that outputs the correct frecuency or you could damage the step motor. Hope to see more of your videos soon. By the way: your lab is looking awesome! Saludos desde Argentina.

Nice summary of internationally computing! Love your new workspace. Glad to see you're getting settled in your new home.

The mention of potential full time gets me excited. Thanks for all the great videos!

8:20 that gets pretty expensive pretty soon; transformers grow *dramatically* in size, weight and price once you require more power from them; that's why switching power supplies became so popular since the late 80s: they are cheap, small, lightweight and reliable and have full protection (i.e. against shortcircuits) and stabilization under load (or under mains input variations).

Yeah !!! im glad that you are back to YT. Im a great fan of your channel.

Welcome back Noel, I moved from Europe to Australia the wait for my retro toys was agonizing (didn't have the voltage issue though) Really excited over your 3d printing upcoming video!!

Very nice video and I am looking forward to your next videos and to RL becoming a full time adventure! May I add a couple of notes/warnings? 1. Steer away from Aliexpress/Ebay etc when it comes to power supplies. Yes they are cheaper but sometimes they are dangerous! A proper electronic shop will sell products which must adhere to the local/national/international regulations and will give you peace of mind 2. on your transformer, if those Schuko sockets are like the ones I have on a power extension I have, you can plug your device with the plug rotated around 45 degrees, basically plugging into earth and one of the pins (either live or neutral). I guess your RCD will trip if that happens, but just wanted to mention that. Looking forward to your next videos!

For any power source I would never cheap out on Ali, just get some meanwells and us the right step converters. Great to see a video again! Good luck with settling in! :)

When you inserted the multimeter probe into the mains plug, I was expecting an explosion or something similar... too much electroboom I guess. Nice to see you back.

Genial volver a verte con nuevos videos! Y suerte con los otros ordenadores que te quedan por probar... espero que no encuentres mas problemas.

Just a note of caution, if your packages were not hermetically sealed during shipping, they probably got a lot of salt-walter contamination and start to rust soon, so if possible, give them a good clean inside and out to get rid of the salt residue..

Good info, and it brings back some good memories. I used to own the the CPC 464 and later the PCW 8256 back in the day, but the first one was an ORIC-1 which I had a lot of fun with.

I read the title as "How to use retro computers" and I was like Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wat?", then I read it again and it made a lot more sense.

For Spectrum you can buy 9V "music effects" supplies (eg boss) - many of these are centre negative. Fun fact - that 240V plug in your kitchen looks to be the same one Australian houses have in very room at 240V !

Le Sinclair ZX81, j'avais 16 ans. Que de souvenirs, et surtout les magazines de l'époque, l'ordinateur individuel, par exemple, que je regardais pour suivre Dell et la marque, Gateway. Les pubs pour le magasin Surcouf.

Hey, it always makes a day better when a new video is out! I don't really have any foreign systems, unless you count a UK Amiga 1200, but I don't. haha. Very great info here!

Lots of great videos to look forward to. )

The BBC Micro power supply actually has a jumper which allows you to swap between 110 and 220V. It’s a switch mode power supply anyway.

glad to see new video on your channel 😊

You have received lot's of computers I grew up with as a whippersnapper. Looking forward to future video's, where you are showing them all off, in their 8 Bit glory, I'll never grow tired of Retro 👍

welcome back!! best lunch ever!

4:05 Not a bad idea to also specify the new connector arrangement, center +/-. The power brick might end end up is someone else's hands, someone who doesn't knows specifics about it, and still relies on the back label info.

I think I see a collab with Adrian coming! :D

Welcome to the US. Like you I'm also from Europe with a collection of both US and European retro computers. I have a small number of different converters etc. to be able to use all of them. Good fun!

When buying a transformer make sure you do not use ebay/amazon but online websites like digikey - my 110v Japanese MSX2+ works perfectly on the 122v here in Cali. My European Philips NMS8220 (MSX2) works great with a high quality transformer (used by a game studio to develop on PAL Playstations) I never experienced problems with 50/60hz but I never ran a monitor so I can't talk if they are finicky about the frequency - Great video as usual :)

Welcome to the US and good to see you getting settled in!

Loads of great info here. Few memories whilst I'm at it. I remember importing Japanese Playstation games as a teenager and having to source a SCART cable to get a colour image. At around the same time, I got a VGA adapter for my A1200 so I could run 640x576 without the eye piercing interlaced picture. I had to use "dual monitors" which had a PAL TV connected via RF for games and a VGA monitor for Workbench and productivity programs. This one is a little earlier and I was in middle school at this point, but I had to source a SNES power supply after the one that come with it developed the "it will only work with the cable at a certain angle" issue, and the replacement caused the noise demonstrated here. Never knew what the issue was, now I do. On displays, I find OLED is much better than LCD. It's not perfect by any means, but I got a cheap one here in the UK that has every input imaginable, except composite, though it can accept it through the SCART socket with a passive adapter. Cost a little over £200. I have my A1200 connected to it and it's great being able to be in Workbench and play games on the same screen.

We’re getting our house rewired next year, and I’m looking forward to the look on the electrician’s face when I ask to have 220 run to my office.

Good to see you again! Some PSU are also multi voltage. You just need to switch it somewhere in a back. Speaking of screen - I loved Sony Multisystem TVs is Europe - worked with everything, NTSC incl, even Japan standard and also had an RGB input through SCART :)

I'd always thought that PAL/ NTSC CRTs were tied to the 50/ 60Hz frequency of the supply voltage in some way, so I was pleasantly surprised that they work just fine with just only the voltage stepped up; your video has cleared up a long standing assumption for me! A quick googling shows that this choice had far more to do with coping with line noise in early TV sets to get the most acceptable picture with least disturbance.

Our Intertec Superbrain machines at college had "wobbly" screen before they booted because they were expecting 60 Hz. Once they booted, there was a flag in the CP/M BIOS that said "your in a 50 Hz country" and the screen stopped "wobbling".

Here in Brazil we had PAL-M, a mix of system M and PAL color. It was a pain with imports.

Nice to see you are back online 😃 I check your Channel at least as often as i check in on adrian black, and the 8bit guy, since you make good videos. Welcome back 🫡 Regarding 50/60 hz, you are right about the computers themself. However, I do have a faint memory about something about an old Floppy there would run only on 60 or 50 hz. But i Could remember wrong. Correct me Here?

Our Spanish retro guru is back! ❤

Hey Noel, great to see you back. Was wondering if everything was ok. Looking forward to watching the video with a warm cup of tea later!

Good to see you back in the saddle. Brilliant, making a video about this as you are struggling with this very situation. I want to comment on the issue of polarity of the input jacks. Back in the glory days, center-positive was not a standard, and almost all of what I had used center-negative DC inputs. I had a "universal" AC adapter with selectable output voltage, polarity and plug style. It used a multi-tap transformer with outputs up to 12V in 1.5V increments. This was unregulated, as was customary at the time. It came with about a dozen different connector styles that could be attached for either polarity. This is how I came to understand that center-negative was typical for handheld games, calculators and toys. About 15% of the time I would find center-positive. I believe this originated from the use of 2.5-3.5mm headphone-style DC input plugs that predated the barrel connectors. On those, your "center" conductor was on the *tip* of the plug. The term used with my universal adapter was in fact not "center" but "tip". This tip would easily contact any external parts of the device and would be first to make contact as it was plugged in. I imagine it was often made negative polarity as a protective measure of sorts, much as the outer conductor of barrel plugs are most often negative today. It seems to be an accident of history that when many designers started using barrel connectors, they made the inner conductor correspond to the "tip"; ergo, center-negative. Considering the certainty of shorts happening, it is almost unbelievable that headphone-style plugs were once used for power, but indeed they were. I guess that's what they had in the '70s and earlier. The barrel connectors seemed to appear right around 1980, based on the chronology of my stuff. Sadly I no longer have any if it. To get to my point, I never made assumptions about polarity, nor do I now. I'm checking the voltage and I'm checking polarity. I want to dispel any notion that polarity on DC inputs is a standard, any more than voltage is. Center-positive is common, but absolutely not guaranteed.

Adrian black is your friend when it comes to monitors

I enjoyed this video very much! The topic is interesting, it is well presented as I am used to from your other videos and then there is another aspect I can't describe fully. Feels a bit like an old friend is back home on a visit. ;-)

Not sure if you follow Steve from RetroTechUSA but he has a lot of good info on CRTs. If you're going to be bouncing between NTSC and PAL/SECAM computers and want to use a CRT you might want to look for a PVM. Good tips on transformers! Go big is the right idea, as transformers are not 100% efficient and extra devices add extra load. Love your videos and look forward to all the fun stuff on the way!

So, I always thought that the reason that the AC frequency was important (thus the PAL C64 running at about 900Khz instead of just over a Mhz in NTSC models) was actually for that critical PAL sync over RF. Its interesting that running a C64 at 60hz upsets the clock a bit, but the real deal is the compatibility with standard televisions on the region the computer occupied. I can't imagine this only impacts C64s as they catered for the lowest common denominator, which was television displays.

Great video! Some MSX are complicated, like those Sony with weird 3 or more pin connectors you mentioned, and luckily others are the contrary. I have an NMS 800 whose power supply is 12 V AC, and it's broken. The good news is that after looking at the motherboard I saw that it had a full 4-diode rectifier and a regular which admits from 10 to 30 V. So, it can be powered with a standard 12 V DC connector with a standard jack, and it works nicely. And you don't even need to care if it's center positive or negative. By the way, I find pretty scary those models with the transformer inside :S

In the mid 80s, I moved from the US to France. I had to get my Atari 400 to work so I had a transformer that had to change the frequency. It was a big mess.

Good to see another video from you. It's been a while but quite understandable. Do you plan on doing any more to your Amstrad PPC that you upgraded with a colour screen etc? Would love to see some more Oric, QL, and Dragon stuff too.

That’s nuts!

Now you have a mission. Teach the Americans what the Amstrad is. Jokes aside, glad you rebuilt your lair.

I actually bought a combination of a transformer and a frequency rectifier from a guy in Spain. It's probably not beefy enough, but I'll give it a go with my American Tandy+Monitor. He offers bigger version as well...

I wanted to thank you for your style of video. You are very easy to understand and well spoken. Makes it much easier to follow along and learn. I appreciate your videos a lot as I don't understand a great many things when it comes to upgrades, modding, restoring, etc. I have a ZX Spectrum coming to me from the UK to the USA and this will be great info for me. My friend in the UK has already composite modded it for me, and recapped it. I'm just looking for a USA power solution and an SD card solution. Any thoughts?

6:55 watch out, its a Decepticon

Your CPC will probably be fine on 120V. At one UK company I worked for in the 80s, we used to gut 6128s to embed them. They used to run down to about 80V but needed 90V to start. Tested on a variac

Really looking forward to the video about US Amstrad CPC ! I've always wondered what would happen if i connected the jumper, but never dared to try it.

On the CEE 7/5 that is used also in eastern europe, but the live wire is on the left not on the right. Moreover older home installations are using just 2 wires so that earth and zero are using the same wire. With that broken Amstrad monitor you could maybe ask Adrian Black (Adrian Digital Basement) for help. That would be nice colab. 🙂

Looking forward to the Amstrad Monitor Learning Experience video. It should be fun. :)

If you feel like it, I would find it interesting if you could explain the herculean task of packing up so much to ship on a container ship and the process of getting it imported and cleared through customs.

great to have you back Noel!.. missed ya vids! ...if the RTC runs fast on the c64..does that effect the running speed of the system aswell? ...games would feel off woudlnt they...altho...c64 was a US based system to begin with..did it actually run slower in countries with 50hz power?

Great video Noel! What kind of video connectors does the ZX Spectrum use? I think it’s RF, but I’m not sure.

Note that it's NOT a 3000 watt transformer, the rating is 3000 *VA* - transformer ratings are based on when the magnetic core sature and that's based on the VA rather than watt - once the core satures internal heat output start to rise and at some point beyond this it can enter a heat feedback loop (the heat increase wire resistance which increase heat which...). So the powerfactor (PF) of what you connect matters a lot, modern large PSUs are all powerfactor corrected to 0.95+ so it doesn't matter much for those, but small wall-warts won't be PF corrected, I'd guess their PF is probably around 0.5 which means it can "only" provide 1500W based on the transformer rating. If you tried to use it for an inductive motor it would hit the VA limit way earlier than that, unless it includes "PF correction" circuit. Not sure how the PF for say the monitors looks, they probably draw more power than the wall-warts anyway!, but most watt monitors will give you an approximate PF number - but it needs to be measured on the converted (230V) side so you need an EU/UK compatible one. Most US wall outlets are NEMA 5-15+5-20 hybrids on a (shared) 20A fuse, though older outlets or ones on a 15A fuse will be 5-15 only (5-20 plugs has the second blade rotated so on hybrid outlets on side is T-shaped). IIRC the US electric code limits the "long-term" power draw to 80% of that (both on outlet and the fuse), IE 12A and 16A respectively (most 230V system has similar "de-rating" requirements), so depending on what you've plugged in it probably can't provide much more than the 0.5 PF number anyway! But that should be fine because you did go with a oversized transformer, the numbers kind of converge a bit! if you end up needing actual 230V 50Hz the easiest way for lower power requirements is to go the AC->DC->AC route, IE something that generates 12/24/48V DC, then a "pure sine wave" (if possible) 230V/50Hz converter (may need to get it from a 230V country). 12V equipment tends to be easier to get, but 24V DC is used in many trucks and 48V DC is used in "telecom" so sometimes you can get good deals on those - obviously the DC wiring can be thinner with 48V but for this kind of setup that doesn't matter (the DC side will be very short distance). Also, some double-conversion (more expensive) 230V UPS will be able to run on 110V 60Hz, while most? double-conversion 230V UPS will generate 230V 60Hz from 208V (industrial) or 240V (residential) US power - you even had an 240V outlet so you could plug it in there and then set up 230V 50Hz outlets at the work bench! Note that many US double-conversion UPS are actually 208/230/240 and 50/60Hz but you have to check the spec-sheet carefully. But that's really only if you use it a LOT because the AC->DC->AC route is much cheaper. Also, if you have solar panels AND low-voltage (12-48V) batteries for storage you may be able to instead plug the converter into the DC side of that and skip the AC->DC converter.

Mucho ánimo con esos equipos que pueden estar tocados por el viaje!!!!

I was hoping you knew of a way and could show it in action a French secam based 8bit being able to work properly (video wise with OK colors) anyplace like where I am, USA. I want a Philips VG5000 and a Matra Alice 90 but want them to work in USA. I am fine for power as I run many 210-220v euro 8but here in USA and even some for video a SCART to HDMI works OK too but this whole SECAM things confuses me and I don't want to spend $500 on a French based 8bit if I can't use it here in USA. Any ideas? Is there a SCART to HDMI that can handle SECAM signal too?

He's back! Yeeeehaaa.... :D

strictly speaking, US household voltage is (mostly) 3𝚽230V±10, 1𝚽230V±10, and split phase is 115V±5. That's on a delta transformer. It could also be 200V±8 phase-to-phase, and 115v±5 phase-to-neutral if you're connected to a wye transformer.

There is another solution for Center Negative Plugs in older Hardware: Identify the traces and look where there is an interruption (Resistor, Fuse), then you can install a FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER. That solves the Problem with the Polarity.

On any barrel jack devices but _especially_ center positive ones you should put in some kind of diode or other reverse flow protection. It's a crucial mod because you never know what the next owner will do.

Interesting. The hardest computer to convert to USA is the Acorn Electron in my opinion, as for the Spectrum, just use a US Atari Jaguar or Sega Genesis PSU.

Good to have you back. Don't quit the day-job to soon. KZfaq is fun maybe, but it might not be such a stable income source. Also it seems that quite a few people who do it full-time get burned out chasing the algorithm, running out of ideas. Question: all your retro computers are nicely put away in a closet. How do you use them? Take them out at random, plug them in for an hour and put them back? Keep a single one on the bench and swap it every few months? I have only a few myself, in storage because I don't know where to put them or which one to take out. And what do you do on them? Just random games or do they see actual use?

For running 110 VAC @ 60 Hz devices here in Australia (230 VAC @ 50 Hz), I use a car power inverter from the US paired with a 12 VDC PSU. That way, I get both the correct voltage and frequency. I never see anybody else recommend this approach, though.

Usually are autotransformers, not transformers, are the same but using less copper, less weigth but loosing the insolation, but this is not a problem; the mains power has no insolation too.

I recently got my Amstrad CPC 6128+ out of storage, and I found out that you need a Scart->HDMI converter that supports RGB CVBS. A lot of the converters I found on Amazon don't support that :) Great video as always!

Generally you can just replace the power supply, unlike with consoles where most of them use generic barrel jacks and take 9v they usually use their own connectors, but this has to be said because I see way too many people using the old PSUs that can explode at any moment through stepdown/stepup converters.

When I got my PC-88, I just built a scart cable. On the PC-98, about 1 in 15 or so old lcd monitors support its 21 or so Khz. But it must be from a Japanese company. I have a Fujitsu LCD and Mitsubishi CRT.

I did not know you went to the US! I don't know if you remember me, but I'm also from Spain!

family moved in 2015 to America and everything they took with them worked on 230v 50HZ I was there to help and had installed a 230 volt system in addition to the 120 volt system. The energy source was an heavy combi inverter that worked on 2 large truck batteries. all the heavy equipment work on 120v The combi was two in one, a battery charger and inverter. That system still works. In recent years they bought more and more equipment that works on 120.

speaking of 3d printing. I had to rescue my printer 3 times during this video. Remind me to never print multiple colors of sunlu simultaniously ever again. I just did a 4 day bulbasaur print. It was mostly esun. It didn't fail even once.

Big old 8" disk drives have AC motors (and there may be other types of drives/devices with AC motors), so any from outside the USA won't run properly in the USA. But that's probably a minor thing as 8" drives are not that common!

SECAM is not really a big deal as there are nearly no systems to consider. Plus: you will run into another problem. I recently bought every french games console and some french home computers for a really interesting project I'm working on and you can divide these systems into 4 categories 1. Systems with RGB output (real or converted) - as there is no SECAM in RGB, these are no problem 2. Systems with PAL over composite (most france exclusive) - They're just PAL 3. Systems with SECAM over composite - I only found the Atari 8bits doing this 4. Systems with SECAM over RF - as france has a different channel structure you would either need a compatible tuner anyway or you would have to mod them and as these systems are quite special and an RGB mod is easier to do on these systems then a composite mod. Leaves you with the Atari 800 line including the XEGS. These work fine with the RetroTINK-5X and if I want to use these on a CRT I feed them into the AV port of my DVD recorder which outputs RGB to the TV. P.S.: I find it funny you said that Amstrad shipped every CPC with an RGB capable monitor and then showed a GT65 which ignores RGB and displays the LUMA signal found on pin 6 :D Glad to see you're back!

Hi Noel, nice video. Had you changed the camera or something? There is something different now from the videos you did in Asturias...

Welcome to this side of the pond! I may have to send some US goodies your way to fill in the gaps in your Collection. ;)

One thing also to consider is that CRT monitors / TVs from the Northern Hemisphere wont work without modification in the Southern, and vice versa.

yar, 240V!!11!1!one!!1!. But more seriously, one thing you did forget is that the transformer you get is still limited by the wall power supply. You got a 3kW transformer, but it'll never be able to deliver that in North America because most house circuits are on a 15A breaker. That gives a maximum of 1800W peak, but it's really not designed to provide more than about 1600W continuous. If you're on a 20A breaker, which is really rare in North American houses, that's still only 2400W peak. You'd need a 30A breaker to be able to handle 3kW continuous draw, and for safety reasons they have a different plug shape than the standard 120V outlet.

Rather than take apart a PSU i use the universal voltage ones that come with lots of plugs you can put the "plug" round the otherway, then i glue the plug together and having set the right voltage glue that in too.

If you haven't already done the 6128 USA video and if you have a UK 6128 a side by side comparison would be great

Let's not forget before we get too excited, a US 120V outlet standard in most homes is 15A RMS and some 20A RMS which could produce 2400 VA max or 1800 VA max for 15A. Not sure where the power supply manufacturer went to school.