Unlike my floppy drive box, only a single goat has pissed on my PCjr box
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The first thing a new PCjr owner is going to want to do is remove the frungus modulator. You don't need this, it was only added for compliance with French law
@gloriouscow
I may be way overthinking things here. But reading between the lines I almost suspect you may not be 100% satisfied with the design decisions and manufacturing execution of this piece of hardware. -
@gloriouscow
I may be way overthinking things here. But reading between the lines I almost suspect you may not be 100% satisfied with the design decisions and manufacturing execution of this piece of hardware.@jannem I don't know what you're talking about. The peanut is the best thing people with MBAs ever forced engineers to make
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Oh wait my bad we do need that, put that back.
@gloriouscow This thread on the Tandy 900 is amazing!
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The most famous orifices on the PCjr though have to be the cartridge slots. They're a pair of dust magnets located directly under the floppy drive.
Inserting a cartridge into one of these will immediately reboot the system without confirmation. Be sure to do that while Daddy is working on a spreadsheet.
@gloriouscow i don't believe i've ever seen a PCjr cartridge in my life, not even online. i think i searched to see what they look like and got no results -
The first thing a new PCjr owner is going to want to do is remove the frungus modulator. You don't need this, it was only added for compliance with French law
@gloriouscow nah, the first thing a PCjr owner is going to end up doing is ordering a replacement keyboard (assuming they got the chiclet style one)
and the second thing they're going to do is order a tandy 1000 -
Here are the two IR Leds and the jack for connecting a keyboard cable. Let us look closer
@gloriouscow ah, that's right, IBM really did think they could pull off a wireless keyboard in the 80's -
Look right in here. Right up in this connector that can make your terrible wireless keyboard a terrible wired keyboard
@gloriouscow or you could plug a phone handset into there to presumably talk to your keyboard! -
@gloriouscow JJ's namesake is not hard to find in good condition, and often still BNIB! #retrocomputing
@timixretroplays @gloriouscow we really did think as a species that this was an acceptable joystick design, huh -
@gloriouscow I tried to make my pcjr keyboard wired, using the cable. But it turns out the protocol is deeply stupid so I never got it working
@foone @gloriouscow i have no idea why IBM thought using what looks like an RJ11 port but probably isn't actually wired like one was a good idea for connecting keyboards. my IBM 3151 terminal is similar, but it uses an RJ45 cable instead. thanks to it, you can buy an IBM model m keyboard with a fucking ethernet cable coming out of it -
@timixretroplays @gloriouscow we really did think as a species that this was an acceptable joystick design, huh
@mjdxp @gloriouscow honestly it's more comfortable and ergonomic than many significantly more modern controllers
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@foone @gloriouscow i have no idea why IBM thought using what looks like an RJ11 port but probably isn't actually wired like one was a good idea for connecting keyboards. my IBM 3151 terminal is similar, but it uses an RJ45 cable instead. thanks to it, you can buy an IBM model m keyboard with a fucking ethernet cable coming out of it
@mjdxp @foone @gloriouscow Keyboardio uses it for the connector between the two halves of their split keyboards. (They come with an adorable little 5 cm cord that you can use if you put them together in a stand)
It's a nice little serial connector for things you don't have to unplug very often.
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@gloriouscow I wish I knew why I was spending so much time and money trying to save my flood victim PCjr
@LeadedSolder because every peanut deserves a second chance
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@gloriouscow i don't believe i've ever seen a PCjr cartridge in my life, not even online. i think i searched to see what they look like and got no results
@mjdxp@labyrinth.zone @gloriouscow@oldbytes.space i wish my family had kept the pc jr we had when i was growing up
i think we had at least 3 cartridges for it: cartridge basic, electric desk (office suite), and a game that might have been crossfire
but we never used them because they were very limited/outdated compared to their disk counterparts. we had a ton of mostly pirated software on disk lol -
@gloriouscow that's the "manicure" slot. You can drop fingernail clippings in there, just like you would put razors in that slot in your medicine cabinet.
@rotopenguin oh so the T port is for toenails
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@gloriouscow i don't believe i've ever seen a PCjr cartridge in my life, not even online. i think i searched to see what they look like and got no results
@mjdxp I can't wait to make PCjr cartridges with my OneROM
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@mjdxp @gloriouscow honestly it's more comfortable and ergonomic than many significantly more modern controllers
@timixretroplays @gloriouscow i feel like that stick wouldn't last too long if you were too rough with one (which many 80's kids were) -
@gloriouscow i don't believe i've ever seen a PCjr cartridge in my life, not even online. i think i searched to see what they look like and got no results
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Oh wait my bad we do need that, put that back.
The worst part of packing up to leave your hotel room is always putting your PCjr back together
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@gloriouscow JJ's namesake is not hard to find in good condition, and often still BNIB! #retrocomputing
@timixretroplays @gloriouscow "I can't believe nobody bought this!" </aussie accent>
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The D port is where you can connect a display. You can use a special cable to attach a normal CGA monitor. You can purchase such a cable for $20 from someone who got it from Computer Reset for $3
This is the PCjr CGA video cable.
